The World of Jim Crow

Post Civil War Reconstruction

• Whites in South feared freed blacks (afraid of black majority rule), responded with strong oppression

• Voting

1. Poll tax – fixed tax on every voter

2. literacy tests – have to read to vote

3. grandfather clauses – if ancestors could vote

Jim Crow Laws

• Named after a minstrel song• 1st appeared in Massachusetts in 1830s

RR cars• Most strong in South• 1890 – all southern states had segregated

public transport and schools• Schools, hospitals, churches, parks,

toilets, restaurants, public buildings, transport, water fountains, cemeteries

What did Government say?

• 1883 Supreme Court overturned Civil Rights Act of 1875 – said 14th Amendment (abolishment of slavery) did NOT prevent PRIVATE organizations from discriminating against others

• Plessey v. Ferguson (1896) Legalized separate facilities. Homer Plessey had been denied seat in first-class RR car, even though he had valid ticket.

• “Separate but Equal” doctrine

Violence

• Violence grew

• Lynching – mob hanging of a suspect – mock trial and torture/mutilation

• 4,743 between 1882-1968, 3,500 AA

• People rarely punished for participating

Northern Conditions

• De facto segregation – unwritten agreements

• Schools, housing, public areas, employment

• Race riots and occasional lynchings

Solutions

• Bishop Henry M. Turner (Episcopal Church) – for black pride and emigration to Africa – Liberia and Sierra Leone

• Ida B. Wells – muckraker, anti-lynching, leave the South and move North: “There is therefore only one thing left that we can do; save our money and leave a town which will neither protect our lives (nor) property.”

• Mary White Ovington – white social worker who helped organize NAACP

Booker T. Washington vs. W.E.B. DuBois

•Born a slave, graduated from Harvard•Booker T. Washington believed that AA should concentrate on achieving economic independence, which he saw as the key to political and social equality•Urged AAs to seek practical training in trades and professions – like vocational school•Was criticized for silence on lynchings, but fought legal battles against segregation and secretly funded civil rights movements and black businesses

• "Think about it: We went into slavery pagans; we came out Christians. We went into slavery pieces of property; we came out American citizens. We went into slavery with chains clanking about our wrists; we came out with the American ballot in our hands...Notwithstanding the cruelty and moral wrong of slavery, we are in a stronger and more hopeful condition, materially, intellectually, morally, and religiously, than is true of an equal number of black people in any other portion of the globe." - from Up From Slavery

W.E.B. DuBois

•Never accept inferiority, bow to oppression, or apologize before insults•Niagara Movement•NAACP•Citizen of Ghana at 95•Du Bois argues that given the chance, African Americans would contribute to society after they had achieved self-respect and self-realization •He also argued that it is not enough for African Americans to become economically stable, and instead they must become educated

•1. Political Power•2. Civil Rights•3. Higher education

Quiz

1. What are Jim Crow laws?

2. Describe the three legal ways African-Americans were kept from voting

3. What was the purpose of lynching?

4. Explain De Facto segregation

5. What was B. Washington’s solution to racial problems?

6. What was DuBois’ solution?