THE JIM CROW SOUTH

African Americans in the South

Southern Blacks made political gains during Reconstruction but these gains were rolled back after the Compromise of 1877 and the End of Reconstruction

Poll taxes & literacy tests (with grandfather clauses attached) greatly limited African American civil rights and the right to vote in the South.

Northern segregation was generally de facto, with patterns of segregation in housing enforced by covenants, bank lending practices, and job discrimination, including discriminatory union practices for decades.

Jim Crow Laws In the South, de Jure

Segregation – Segregation by force of law.

Laws were enacted between 1876 and 1965, legally enforcing Segregation in the South.

Public places; private businesses, schools , etc…

These Jim Crow Laws followed the same pattern/beliefs as the1800–1866 Black Codes, which had previously (before the Civil Rights Act of 1866) restricted the movement and civil liberties of African Americans with no pretense of equality.

Thomas Dartmouth Rice as "Jim Crow" 1832

 

Plessy v. FergussonAn 1896 Supreme Court case

upholding segregation laws as constitutional as long as services and facilities were separate, but equal…will not be overturned until 1954’s Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court Case.

Which Amendment had language that would have made such laws possible?

Lynching Black people were

kept from demanding their rights by the threat of lynching.

Lynching was an illegal vigilante mob attack in which a black person was hung for a perceived (often untrue – often “rape”) offense. Sometimes for just being too “uppity”. Lynch mobs were rarely, if ever, prosecuted.

Ida B. Wells: newspaper

woman and crusader

against lynching

Washington vs. Dubois

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON (1856-1915): (Atlanta Compromise) Black people need to economically prove themselves (mostly in trade skills) and make themselves necessary before seeking equal civil rights – patiently work within the segregated system.

W.E.B. DUBOIS (1868-1963): (The Talented Tenth) Black people need to fight for their Constitutional civil rights RIGHT NOW, or become permanent victims of segregation.

An Alternative Solution

Marcus Garvey (1887-1940) (Declaration of the Rights of the Negro) brought the Universal Negro improvement Association from his native Jamaica to the US in 1916. He established the organization in Harlem, promoting racial pride, black separatism, universal black nationalism, black economic self-sufficiency, and a back-to- Africa movement.

Niagara Movement

Dubois’ ideas struck a nerve with many educated black (and white) people, who formed the Niagara Movement, denouncing the idea of gradual progress.

The Niagara Movement eventually became the NAACP, after it was joined by white reformers following 1908 Springfield, Illinois riot.

1907 Annual Meeting, Boston

Founding members of the Niagara Movement

WEB Dubois

NAACP

Used the courts to fight discriminatory laws

In the early years, the NAACP fought for equal access to decent housing and professional careers

While The NAACP concentrated on middle-class political and social justice, the Urban League focused on the growing numbers of poor black urban workers

How much progress did these Early Civil Rights Activists and Movements make?

African Americans did not make much actual progress in their rights during the time period 1900-1920.

The Jim Crow Laws and the high rate of lynching in the South were major factors in the Great Migration during the first half of the 20th century. Eventually, 6 million African Americans moved out of the rural south to northern, western and mid-western cities to seek better lives, becoming an urbanized population, but it will take a century and a Civil Rights movement to make real change.

Aside from Jim Crow, what else was happening in The New South ? “New South” Term coined by Atlanta newspaper editor

to describe the Post-War/Post Reconstruction South; the idea that the “the South will rise again” in a new and improved form

New Railroads From 1881-1890180 new rail companies began operations and southern rails expanded by 135%, networking the South within and throughout the Nation

New Industries Textile mills, using southern cotton flourished; the tobacco industry expanded with the introduction of cigarette manufacturing companies, like RJR; new industries, such as limestone, phosphate, coal, iron mining and steel were also established throughout the South

New Cities by 1900, eight Southern Cities boasted populations over 50,000

New Schools New Post-Confederate Southern State Constitutions all included public education requirements; Public Universities and trade schools also founded; By 1900 200+ colleges and universities in the south (though, mostly for whites)