PostReconstruction

1
Post-Reconstruction
2
The South legal status

• Majority African Americans remained in the South
• Post-1890 southern state and local govt.
  controlled by white Democrats
• Disenfranchisement devices poll taxes, literacy
  tests, white primary elections removed southern
  blacks of their political rights
• e.g. Louisiana 130,000 voters 1896, 5,000 1898
• 1890-1910 segregation by law in almost all public
  facilities system named Jim Crow
• Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896) Supreme Court Case
  reasoned mandating separate facilities, as long
  as they were equal, did not violate the 14th
  Amendment

3
The South social status

• In addition to legal restrictions, African
  Americans expected to conform to rigid code of
  racial etiquette
• Blacks required to enter houses of whites and
  most public buildings by the side or rear door
• Encounters with whites required specific
  greetings (Sir, Mister, Miz)
• Failure to conform to this system could result in
  lynching
• Between 1882 and 1930 at least 3295 blacks were
  lynched in the US
• Murder or rape often cited as justification, but
  occurred for many other reasons attempting to
  vote, talking back to white person, economic
  success

4
The South - economic status

• 1st half century most blacks remained in the
  rural South as sharecroppers and farm laborers,
  some as renters or owners
• Scarcely affected by industrialisation most
  factory jobs reserved for poor whites
• Constituted a class of oppressed and impoverish
  peasantry denied upward mobility and full
  rights of citizenship

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What caused these changes?

• Withdrawal Northern troops 1877
• Decline of Populist Party (political alliance
  between poor white southerners and blacks)1896
• Growth of racism in the North (conservative
  social Darwinism)

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The North

• Retained civil rights, including right to vote
  and right to hold office
• However, no adequate defence against extralegal
  discrimination denying equal access to jobs,
  housing, education, police protection and public
  amenities

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Black response

• South
• Opposition to black political rights massive and
  unyielding therefore
• Dominant ideology accommodationist, condoned
  social segregation, stressed economic self-help,
  deferred aspirations for full citizenship
• North
• Protest movement, modeled on pre-Civil War
  abolitionism, rejected accommodationism and
  called for end of enforced segregation,
  disenfranchisement, all publicly sanctioned
  discrimination
• 1909 creation of National Association for the
  Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

8
The Great War (WWI)

• Combination economic boom and restriction
  European immigration provided new employment
  opportunities for blacks in the North
• The Great Migration massive shift black popl.
  from South to North, from country to city
• 500,000 moved North between 1915 and 1920, 1
  million in following decade
• Established new institutions such as storefront
  churches
• Centres of African American culture black
  newspapers, jazz and blues night clubs, literary
  salons

9
Effects of the Great Migration

• Profound effect race relations discrimination
  housing market and preference to live in ethnic
  neighborhoods produced urban ghettos
• North not the promised land find and keep decent
  jobs, violence in struggle for living space,
  racial discrimination social and cultural
  adjustment from country to city
• According to Alain Locke creation of a New
  Negro
• Harlem Renaissance literary and artistic
  movement development cultural identity
• Black artists and writers openly embraced their
  folk culture and African past raised political
  consciousness and increased black cultural pride
  In the very process of being transplanted, the
  Negro is being transformed.

10
Garvey movement

• Marcus Garvey, a black Jamaican, brought his
  Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) to
  Harlem 1916 largest African American secular
  organisation at that time
• Claimed more than 1,000,000 members, mostly in
  black communities of urban North
• Garvey a black nationalist sought to raise
  political consciousness, race pride, economic
  power pan-African philosophy
• In 1922, after failure of one UNIA business, the
  Black Star Line, Garvey convicted of mail fraud,
  imprisoned, deported movement declined
• Garveys ideas later influence Nation of Islam
  and Black Power Movement 1960s

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Positive changes

• Despite racial inequalities, economic and
  educational opportunities were normally greater
• Less repressive environment gave blacks political
  space to air grievances and mount protest
  movements
• Regained right to vote in the North politicians
  began to appeal to black interests
• NAACP functioning as legislative lobby, blacks in
  1930s able to block confirmation of racist judge
  to Supreme Court, came close to getting federal
  antilynching law through Congress

12
Positive changes

• Developed first significant ties to organised
  labour joined nondiscriminatory unions in auto
  manufacturing, steel
• WWII labour shortages, pressures from black
  organisations and movements, and federal policy
  encouraging nondiscriminatory hiring brought
  substantial increase in proportion of blacks in
  steady, relatively skilled jobs
• Gap between incomes of whites and black began to
  close

13
Race relations

• Increased membership in 1920s, 30s, including
  significant white membership
• Many white Americans felt tension between
  subordination of the Negro and Jeffersonian ideal
• American blacks affected by both these strands
  lighter skinned blacks looked down on those
  darker than themselves, but also knew were being
  treated unjustly

14
The Great Depression

• Slowed migration to cities
• Blacks remained at bottom of economic ladder
  during 1920s, hit hard by the depression
• In cities black unemployment reached over 50,
  more than twice national average
• Cotton prices dropped, forcing thousands
  sharecroppers off land and into greater poverty
• 1929-32 depression worsened Herbert Hoover
  responded slowly, employing a trickle-down
  approach that benefited few working class
  Americans

15
Increasing politicisation

• In face of unrelieved suffering, blacks explored
  new political solutions
• Some became Communists or Socialists, some
  embraced fledgling Congress of Industrial
  Organizations (newly open to African Americans)
• In 25 cities organised Dont Buy Where You Cant
  Work campaigns to force more equitable hiring
  practices
• But, election Franklin Delano Roosevelt meant
  many looked to government for support

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The New Deal

• Collection of federal programmes (e.g. Social
  Security) created by FDR to bring relief,
  recovery, and reform to the economy and the
  nation
• Majority blacks moved allegiance from Republican
  to Democrat
• Mixed record of New Deal on race
• Federal restrooms, cafeterias, and secretarial
  pools were desegregated, increased number African
  Americans in second-level positions on Capitol
  Hill (Black Cabinet)
• FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt invited prominent
  blacks to the White House
• Black writers participated in New Deal writing
  projects documentation slavery through interviews

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However

• Critics looked at failure to address Jim Crow
  (fear of alienating white voters)
• Declined supporting legislation to make lynching
  a federal crime, although denounced in speeches
• Declined advocate banning poll tax and
  grandfather clause
• Did not use relief agencies to challenge local
  patterns discrimination
• Nonetheless, 1930s brought new relationship
  between African Americans and the federal
  government

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Music and sport

• Billie Holiday (jazz singer)
• Duke Ellington (jazz and blues singer)
• Paul Leroy Robeson (played for NFL, acted in
  films and onstage outspoken criticism racism and
  blacklisted 1940s-50s, supported by NAACP)
• Jesse Owens (Olympic Games gold medalist)
• While these talents appreciated, outspoken
  criticism not. These people in-between white
  and black community, and if they became political
  it could mean the end of their career

19
WWII

• New Deal stemmed damage of depression, WWII ended
  it
• Presented opportunities and new strategies for
  attacking racial injustice
• Federal govt. needed social harmony in face of
  international conflict govt. more willing to
  acquiesce to black demands for change
• March-On Washington Movement 1941 demonstrated
  effectiveness of new tactic nonviolent direct
  action opened jobs in defense industries for
  the first time
• Joining the war, most black agreed with Double
  V campaign fighting fascism abroad, while
  continuing to struggle against Jim Crow at home

20
Internal Unrest

• New opportunities to work in defense industries
  meant migration to port and industrial cities
• Southern whites also moved to these cites,
  bringing racial attitudes with them
• Frequent job disturbances over jobs and housing
  in urban centres during the war
• 1943 these tensions erupted in full-scale riot in
  Detroit, while smaller riots occurred in other
  cities

21
Soldiers

• Black soldiers discriminated against
• Segregation of armed forces
• Most blacks trained at camps in rural south,
  increasing likelihood racial tension
• Many joined the NAACP

22
Effects on race relations

• War spawned optimism and rising militancy among
  blacks
• In addition to success of MOWM, NAACP continued
  to challenge the colour line, winning a judicial
  victory in 1944 against white primary elections
• Membership of NAACP increased from 50,000 in 1940
  to 450,000 in 1946
• New civil rights organisation, Congress of Rcail
  Equality (CORE) created in 1942 pioneered
  sit-ins, picketing, other innovative tactics.
  Successfully desegregated restaurants, movie
  theatres etc. in northern cities
• At end of the war, African Americans ready for
  full-scale assault on Jim Crow