"New South", Segregation, & Discrimination

Review

  • 13th Amendment → Freed the slaves
  • 14th Amendment → Due Process; everyone equal before the law and entitled to same rights
  • 15th Amendment → Universal Male Suffrage

Disenfranchisement

  • African Americans faced their right to vote being revoked due to the following ways:   * Poll Tax- tax that was required in order to vote   * Literacy Tests- required tests to qualify for voting   * Grandfather Clause- people could still vote (even if they didn’t pay tax or pass test) if their father or grand father was eligible to vote before Jan. 1, 1867   * Violence and intimidation

Segregation

De Jure vs. De Facto

  • De Jure:   * Segregation by Law     * Ex: Plessy v. Ferguson
  • De Facto:   * Segregation by Practice     * Ex: White only neighborhoods

Background on Plessy v. Ferguson

  • 1892   * Homer Plessy sat in a vacant seat in the “Whites Only” section and refused to sit in the railroad car for “Blacks Only”   * Was arrested and jailed   * Plessy claimed that this violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment
  • Result: Supreme Court declared that the protections of 14th Amendment applied only to political and civil rights, not “social rights”.

Plessy v. Ferguson Case

  • Landmark Supreme Court case in 1896
  • Established the constitutionality of “Separate but Equal” → Racial Segregation

The Great Migration

  • The Mass Movement of more than 6 million African Americans from the South to cities to the following areas:   * The North   * The Midwest   * The West
  • Many migrated for the following reasons   * Opportunities for jobs   * Violence & intimidation   * Segregation

Origin of Jim Crow (Thomas Rice)

  • White performers painted cork on their faces to resemble Blacks   * They danced and sang → minstrels     * “Wheel about and turn about and do just so, every time I wheel about I jump Jim Crow”   * Laws named after these characters

Race Riots in America

  • 1898- Wilmington Insurrection/Coup/Race Riot   * White supremacist mob:     * Overthrew Fusion local government (black and white leaders)     * Attacked and destroyed a black newspaper     * Terrorized black community (killed 60 to 300 people)   * Blacks stopped voting and left Wilmington by the thousands
  • 1921- Tulsa Massacre   * Black Wall Street destroyed   * At least 300 African Americans

Responses to Jim Crow

  • Ida B. Wells   * Journalist- investigated and spoke publicly on lynching   * Co-founded the National Association of Colored Women   * Fought for civil rights, especially after Plessy decision

W.E.B Dubois

  • First African American to earn a degree from Harvard
  • One of the founding members of the NAACP
  • Argued that African Americans should strive for higher education and equal rights
  • Believed in the “Talented Tenth”   * The best of the race must be educated i order to lead the rest

NAACP

  • National Association of the Advancement of Colored People
  • Founded in 1909
  • Formed the Niagara Movement   * Compromised of African American intellectuals seeking equal rights
  • Used courts system to gain rights for African Americans   * Focus:     * Abolish segregation     * Increase educational opportunities for African Americans

Booker T. Washington

  • Critic of W.E.B Dubois
  • Was born enslaved
  • He advocated for vocational training for African Americans in order to achieve economic independence   * Believed that African Americans can’t reach political and social equality if there isn’t a secure economic base
  • Founder of the Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University)   * Initial focus on:     * Farmers     * Mechanics     * Domestic servants

Marcus Garvey

  • “Back to Africa Movement” (1920)   * Move back to Africa to find homeland   * Important for building “Black Pride”

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