THE JIM CROW ERA

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THE JIM CROW ERA

• Plessy v. Ferguson, Jim Crow Laws,the KKK and
  Lynching

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Reconstruction Ends

• Compromise of 1877
• Rutherford B. Hayes over Samuel Tilden (Dem)
• Hayes removes federal troops from Florida,
  Louisiana, and South Carolina
• Democratic Party returns to power in the Solid
  South
• Doesnt change until 1950s, when Dems support
  Civil Rights legislation

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Jim Crow both culturally and legally imposed
racial inferiority

• Jim Crow a minstrel character from 1820s
• Came to mean any black kept in inferior social
  status
• Also refers to laws imposed after Reconstruction
  to segregate whites blacks

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Jim Crow Laws

• Case of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
• Famous Supreme Court case upheld Jim Crow laws,
  racial segregation
• Ruled that Louisiana law mandating separate but
  equal accommodations on trains was
  constitutional
• What are the main arguments of the majority
  opinion?
• What are the main arguments in Harlans dissent?

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Jim Crow Laws After Plessy

• Decision opened door to segregation across South
  and beyond
• Jim Crow laws common until ruled unconstitutional
  by Supreme Court in Brown v. Board (1954)
• Note some examples of Jim Crow laws

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Ku Klux Klan
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Ku Klux Klan

• Secret terrorist organization founded in
  Tennessee in 1865 by Confederate veterans
• Started after Civil War to fight Reconstruction
  in the South
• Believed in the innate inferiority of blacks
• mistrusted and resented the rise of former slaves
  to an equal status
• Attacked, murdered, and lynched both freedmen and
  white Republicans

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• Intimidated African Americans and their allies
• If intimidation didnt work, they would torture
  and/or murder these individuals
• Local chapters (klaverns) became so
  uncontrollable and violent that the Grand Wizard,
  former Confederate general Nathan B. Forrest,
  officially disbanded the Klan in 1869
• In 1871, President Grant issued a proclamation
  calling on members of illegal organizations to
  disarm and disband (Force Acts)

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• Second Klan founded in 1915
• expanded rapidly in 1920s
• 1924 - 3 million members (height of membership)
• Focused its attack on what it considered to be
  alien outsiders (Roman Catholic church and all
  non-Protestants, aliens, liberals, trade
  unionists, and striking workers - threatening
  traditional American ways and values)
• Masked Klansmen burned crosses on hillsides,
  marched through the streets of many communities,
  threatening various persons with punishment and
  warning others to leave town.

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• 1944 KKK disbanded formally when unable to pay
  back taxes to federal government
• Civil Rights Movement caused increased interest
  and membership in Klan
• Brown v. Board (1954)
• Civil Rights Act of 1964

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Lynchings in the U.S.

• 1890-1960, 4,742 Americans were documented as
  having been lynched actual numbers are believed
  to be much higher.
• Over 70 percent of the victims were
  African-Americans.
• By late 1920s, 95 of lynchings took place in
  South.
• Few lynch mob participants ever went to jail.
• Police and other eye-witnesses refused to
  identify lynch mob members, and Southern
  all-white juries rarely convicted them.

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• The white mobs who lynched African-American men
  often justified their actions as a defense of
  "white womanhood"
• the usual reason given for lynching black men was
  that they had raped white women
• lynch mobs' real motive was the determination to
  keep African-American men economically depressed
  and politically disenfranchised.

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Claimed Causes

• 41 Felonious Assault
• 19.2 Rape
• 6.1 Attempted Rape
• 4.9 Robbery and Theft
• 1.8 Insult to White persons
• 22.7 Misc. or no offense at all
• 11.5 Trivial Offenses-"disputing with a white
  man, attempting to register to vote",
  "unpopularity", "testifying against a white man",
  "asking a white woman in marriage", "peeping in a
  window"

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Rubin Stacey, 1935 Knocked on door of white
woman, asked for food (NYT)
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Anti-Lynching Crusade

• Constitution leaves law enforcement up to the
  states, a movement spearheaded by Ida B. Wells
  and the NAACP sought to pass anti-lynching laws
  at the federal level
• Southern states unwilling
• From 1890 to 1960, nearly 200 anti-lynching bills
  were introduced to the U.S.Congress.
• The U.S. House of Reps. passed three
  anti-lynching bills, but all failed in the Senate
• Left the federal government powerless to
  intervene and protect Americans from these
  heinous acts of mob violence.

• Ida B. Wells (1862 1931)

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Booker T. Washington (1856-1915)

• Leader in black education (Tuskegee Normal and
  Industrial Institute)
• Believed the way to achieve economic equality was
  through education
• Promoted idea of working with whites to achieve
  progress criticized for this

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• Put down your bucket where you are and work for
  immediate self-improvement rather than long-range
  social change.
• - Booker T. Washington
• He urged blacks to postpone efforts to achieve
  political equality and concentrate on
  self-improvement.

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W.E.B. DuBois(1868-1963)

• Demanded racial equality
• immediately and criticized Booker
• T. Washington
• Started a newspaper called The
• Crisis to report on racial equality issues
• Founded the NAACP in 1905
• talented tenth, exceptional blacks would gain
  positions of full equality
• 1963 gave up U.S. citizenship and became a
  citizen of Ghana

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Marcus Garvey (1887-1940)

• Believed in black nationalism
• Founded Universal Negro
• Improvement Association (1914)
• Audience lowest class of blacks, most
  disenfranchised
• Goals 1) foster worldwide unity among blacks 2)
  encourage pride in African heritage 3) rejected
  integration 4) back to Africa movement

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• Moved to New York (1916)
• Charismatic speaker and published newspaper
  called Negro World
• Had millions of followers
• Misused funds in 1925, jailed, deported and died
  in obscurity

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