Fighting Jim Crow

African Americans and the Struggle for Civil Rights

1870-1930

Reconstruction

14th and 15th Amendments guarantee equality for freed slaves

Northern occupation of South helps enforce new laws Many black men begin to vote and hold office

Compromise of 1877 End of Reconstruction, Northern troops leave

Origin of Jim Crow

Character created by whites Minstrel, buffoon

Symbolizes keeping blacks “in their place”

South begins to create new laws to enforce Jim Crow ideas

Jim Crow in Practice

Segregation Public accommodations Schools

Miscegenation No marriage between

blacks and whites

Jim Crow in Practice

Disenfranchisement (withholding the vote) Limits on registration

Poll taxesLiteracy testsGrandfather clause

Terror

Strange FruitSouthern trees bear strange fruitBlood on the leaves and blood at the rootBlack bodies swinging in the southern breezeStrange fruit hanging from the poplar trees

Pastoral scene of the gallant southThe bulging eyes and the twisted mouthScent of magnolias, sweet and freshThen the sudden smell of burning flesh

Here is fruit for the crows to pluckFor the rain to gather, for the wind to suckFor the sun to rot, for the trees to dropHere is a strange and bitter cry

Jim Crow in Practice

Ku Klux Klan (KKK) “Secret” organization

formed to kill and terrorize blacks

Lynching Mob rule Over 3,700 killed,

1889-1930

Lynching of Lige Daniels, Texas 1920

Jim Crow Upheld

Supreme Court upholds “separate, but equal” Plessy v. Ferguson

In reality, separate far from equal No black public high schools in many Southern

states

Federal government fails to pass anti-lynching law

Black Methods of Survival

Masking Play the part in public Don’t challenge white superiority openly

Accommodationism Accept segregation, pursue separate goals

Black Methods of Survival

Escape “Great Migration”

of blacks to Northern cities

1.6 million between 1910 and 1930

Booker T. Washington

Believed in gradualism Stressed education

Vocational

Tuskegee Institute

“I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.” - 1901

Mary Church Terrell

Founder and first President of National Association of Colored Women (NACW)

Opposed segregation in education and lynching

“Lifting as we Climb”

W.E.B. DuBois

Rejected gradualism Blacks must demand equality

Founder Niagara Movement, NAACP

“To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships.” - 1903

Ida Wells-Barnett

Friend a victim of lynching Co-founder NAACP Tried to get anti-lynching law

passed

“One had better die fighting against injustice than die like a dog or a rat in a trap.”

Marcus Garvey

Jamaican immigrant Black pride and self-help Founded Universal Negro

Improvement Association (UNIA)

"Up, you mighty race, accomplish what you will."

Other Forms of Resistance

Religion Black churches as supportive communities Nation of Islam

Black nationalism

Culture Ragtime, Jazz, Blues, Literature, Sports Harlem Renaissance

Justice Delayed isJustice Denied

For all the efforts of black leaders, very little progress made in laws Segregation further entrenched Voting rights denied No lynching law passed

But, social and economic gains of African Americans promises better future

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Born January 15, 1929 “Men often hate each other

because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don't know each other; they don't know each other because they can not communicate; they can not communicate because they are separated.” - 1958