African Americans - Gilded Age

What does it mean when the GA is references to as the 'nadir' of AA experience?

the 'nadir' references the lowest point; and interpretation used by many historians

1883

Three states passed laws outlawing discrimination in public accommodations.

Indiana

1. Reconstruction-era laws, forbidding local schools from excluding black children.

2. Passed an anti-lynching law in 1899

3. By the end of the century, one of only two northern states that prohibited interracial marriage

South AA population

Went from 4.4 million to 7.9 million 1870-1900.

Many found employment in farming, building railroads, mining, and turpentine.

North AA population

460,000 to 910,000 in 1870-1900, with migration accounting for over half of the increase.

Pull factors of migration

economic opportunities of better jobs and developing an attractive black urban culture.

Push factors of migration

Anti-AA collective violence, even in the north.

Evidence to support economic factors of migration

Both black and white migrants moved to the same cities, towns etc.

- towns such as Cairo and Evansville

Washington Court House, Ohio

In 1900, 48% of black heads of household owned their homes, almost equal to the white home ownership.

Smaller towns saw more AA home ownership.

The Church - positive

'the church is a centre of social life and intercourse... the world in which the Negro moves and acts' - Du Bois.

Allowed AA out of slavery to learn how to organise, handle meetings, resolve conflict and protect their/the communities rights.

Education - positive

From 1870 to 1890s, the illiteracy rated dropped from 81% to 64%.

Higher education institutes such as Howard and Fisk.

Segregated schools slowly disappearing in the north.

Booker T Washington

First AA to receive an honorary degree from Harvard, and the first AA to be invited for a meal with the President at the White House.

Accepted by 'white America' due to his accommodationist policy (Atlanta Speech, 1895)

Cast down your bucket where you are idea...

Prosperity in the North

Robert Purvis, William Still and the Ruffin Family were examples of leading AA

Prosperity in the South

1. Major cities such as Baltimore had AA aristocracy

2. The 'Elite 100' including Blanche K Bruce and James Worley.

Ida B Wells

Red Record, raised awareness about AA violence and campaigned for more aggressive demands by women and church groups

Madam C J Walker

African American leader and businesswoman in the early 1900s; she spoke out against lynching and reputed to be the first female AA millionaire (donated money to Tuskegee, anti-lynching campaigns and NAACP

End of Reconstruction

1877 - Hayes Compromise saw the withdrawal of military control in the south - rise in AA violence.

Acts like Us v Cruikshank and the Slaughterhouse case showed that the FG had abandoned AA before reconstruction began.

Economic - negative

AA sharecroppers kept in a cycle of poverty and dependent on whites - slavery without the chains.

Voting Restrictions

1896 saw only 11% of AA vote, due to voting restrictions such as the literacy test (1890), poll tax and grandfather clause (1898)

Mississippi v Williams

1898, Voting qualifications were upheld.

In Louisiana, there weer 130,000 qualified voters in 1896, which dropped to 5,300 in four years.

Segregation

Jim Crowe Laws such as:

Separate bus waiting rooms in Alabama,

Separate schools in Florida

Intermarriage was banned in Mississippi

Plessy v Ferguson

1896 Supreme Court decision which legalised state ordered segregation, so long as the facilities for blacks and whites were equal

Cumming v Board of Education

1899, law for separate schools valid even if no comparable school for blacks existed.

Lynching

1882 - 1899, over 2,500 AA were lynched

1890s, 1,875 in the country as a whole.

AA children in school

The numbers of black students in school had doubled between 1877 and 1887 but still only two-fifths of eligible black children were enrolled.

White schools had longer terms (AA kids worked on cotton farms) and better financing

Redeemers/Bourbouns

used the black vote against poor white farmers, but the rise of populism saw a reversal of fortune, which saw a rise in white voters for racially extreme policies