Civil Rights 1890-1914

14th Amendment

• 1868

• All people in the USA are citizens

• No state is allowed to undertake actions reducing any citizens’ civil rights

• All citizens have the right to due process of jurisdiction

15th Amendment

• 1870

• Prohibits anyone from denying or blocking a citizen from the right to vote

1877

• Reconstruction ends after a limited civil rights bill in 1875

Mississippi Poll Tax

• Introduced 1890

• Poll tax and literary test

• beginning widespread disenfranchisement

• 700,000 African Americans registered to vote virtually disappeared by 1910

• Proportion of African Americans that could vote in Southern States after it spread = 2%

Why Reconstruction legislation was repealed so easily

• congress more worried about:

  • Tariffs

  • taxes

  • trusts

  • silver

Importance of Supreme Court power

• In a constitutional republic

• rulings are final

• ensures the President/Congress don’t abuse the constitution

• if it rules a law as unconstitutional then it cannot be passed → biggest achievement in limiting legislated segregation

Plessy vs. Ferguson

• 1896

• separate but equal doctrine enforced

• endorsed by the highest court

Cummings vs. Board of Education

• 1899

• extending the ruling to education

• causing segregation to take a hold in all life in the South

Series of ‘Jim Crow’ segregation laws

• beginning 1887

• Plessy vs. Ferguson giving the legal enforcement

• beginning targeted efforts to disenfranchise and segregate

• encouraging widespread violence and increased membership in the KKK

Peak Racial Violence

• 1890s

• Peaked in 1892 with 235 African Americans lynched

Lynching victims 1882-1930

• 2805

• often colluded by law officials

• First prosecution not until 1918

Changes post-emancipation

• 85% of African Americans living in the Southern States living with a per capita income at ½ the National Average

• African American living standards increasing slightly - more businesses

• 1910 → 20% of African American farmers own their land

• 1900 → 1.5 million African Americans in schools often funded by religious missionaries

Entrenching segregation - declining Republican support

• the previous main supporters of freedmen rights

• support beginning to wane 1890s

• African American vote becoming less important due to disenfranchisement; therefore, less attempts to cater to them

Entrenching segregation - 1898 Spanish-American War

• wave of nationalistic fervour as victory was attributed to all white units

• subjugation of the Puerto Rican/Filipino people seen as justified due to manifest destiny → spreading the same superiority idea back home

• Racial supremacy forcing black fighters into subjugated units

Entrenchment of segregation - Supreme Court role

• undermining civil rights and the reconstruction through their rulings

• catalysed disenfranchisement

• strength of rulings made them long term issues that needed lots of effort to solve

entrenchment of segregation - lack of enforcement

• no will of Southern law enforcers to uphold the 14th and 15th Amendments

• no effort to close obvious loopholes which ended up becoming discriminatory laws in themselves

entrenchment of segregation - fear

• African Americans freely mixing into society disrupted the natural order of society

• lynch mobs often citing rape and miscegenation as primary reasons for targeting

• higher crime rates in the African-American community

Booker T. Washington

• Ideas

  • More moderate, passive

  • economic gain priority

  • education was the solution to discrimination

  • served to gain the respect of white Americans

• Criticisms

  • Accepting white supremacy had to be done until African Americans were economically strong enough to tackle long term goals

  • accommodationist

• Achievements

  • Influential and respected → invited to the White House by Theodore Roosevelt 1901

  • Achieved investment from the North into education

  • 1904: secured legal success against excluding African Americans from jury service

  • Professional African Americans in teaching: 68,000 in 1910, 137,000 in 1930

• Failures

  • evidence for economic gain by 1915 was meagre and circumstantial

W.E.B Du Bois

• Ideas

  • Civil Rights just as important as economic advances

  • African Americans should not just accept menial occupations

  • more militant

  • The talented tenth (top 10% of African Americans) would lead the fight for civil rights

• Criticism

  • Elitist

• Achievements

  • First African American with a doctorate from Harvard

  • helped set up the NAACP in 1909

  • secured a pay increase for black teachers from ½ to 2/3 of white teachers

• Failures

  • Attempts to secure scholarships for black students blocked by the Supreme Court in 1938

  • Legislation for full teacher pay didn’t star until 1952

Ida B. Wells

• Ideas

  • Bringing national recognition to lynching

  • personally lobbying politicians and presidents

  • attacking specific elements of segregation eg. railcars

• Criticism

  • The Federal Government refused to interfere in state law enforcement

• Achievements

  • Nationally recognised writings eg. Lynching and the Excuse 1901

• Failures

  • No one was persuaded to take anti-lynching action

  • unsuccessful in her Tennessee Railroad campaign

NAACP

• set up in 1909

• Manifesto

  • Abolish segregation

  • equal voting rights

  • improve education

  • enforce the 14th / 15th Amendments

• William Du Bois - editor of their magazine ‘The Crisis’

• Greatest emphasis on Supreme Court action

• 1915 - Supreme Court declares the ‘Grandfather Clauses’ in Maryland and Oklahoma unconstitutional

• 1917 - the Louisville regulation on segregated housing was rendered invalid

• 1920 - 90,000 members

• achievements limited until it could recruit a wider membership