African Americans in the Gilded Age
KEY FIGURES
BOOKER T WASHINGTON WEB DUBOIS
- Political civil rights should be abandoned in favour of - Talented Tenth would lead AA to equality and
personal improvement social and political equality and integration
- Success of his Tuskegee institute brought about gradual - Appalled by lynchings spoke with a passion
improvement without political or social change won - Du Bois had shifted attention to the need to
support publicise civil rights through the press and to
- Told AA to ‘dip your bucket’ - take responsibility for own organise
progress and accept white supremacy - Interest in pan Africanism
- Seemed to be quite rational + practical – problems in IDA B WELLS
resisting JC and no developed white support for CR - who openly carried 2 guns strapped to her waist
- Washington promoted some opposition to Jim Crow Laws - Publication of The Lynching Fever in 1892 where
behind the scenes and in secret, but was too concerned 241 lynchings happened that year
about antagonising the whites and ending long term - Resistance to violence seen in the 1880s
progress in education and economic opportunity Coloured Farmers Association
More Measures Against Voting
- Between 1870 and 1900 the South’s black population - Mississippi began process of setting stringent
jumped from 4.4 million to 7.9 million voter registration tests in 1890, other states
- Found employment in farming, building railroads, followed
mining coal and phosphate, making turpentine and - Each state was free to establish its own
lumber qualifications, most excluded AA
- Black population in the Northwest doubled from - Poll tax, literacy tests, violence at polls
460,000 to over 910,000 - Grandfather clauses said that if a man's family
- 1883 decision in The Civil Rights Cases invalidated the had voted before say 1866, then he could vote
Civil Rights Act of 1875 - 13,000 AA voters in Louisiana in 1896 had fallen
- By 1900 there were some 47,000 AA professionals out to 5000 in 1900
of a population of 8 million - Rise of the Populist Party divided the white vote
- Following the election of 1876 President Hayes in the South to such an extent that in some
removed federal troops from the South allowing states places the black vote became the balance of
to reassert control over AA power
- Literacy was the main improvement. In 1865 only one - Bourbons revived the race issue and began
in 20 AA could read, but by 1895 had risen to 1 in 2 arguing that the black vote should be eliminated
SUPREME COURT
1896 Plessy v. Ferguson Ruled that Louisiana wasn’t going against the constitution by segregation.
Established the legal basis for segregation laws
1898 Williams v. Mississippi Court declared that discriminatory voter registration laws weren’t
unconstitutional as there was no specific mention of race in voting
qualifications
Segregation - George H. White was a black
- Tennessee segregated rail travel in 1881, soon spread through the Congressman until 1901
South
- After 1899, laws segregating waiting rooms and street cars Lynching
- Affected not only transportation, but sports, hospitals, orphanages, - Peak time of lynching of AA
prisons, funeral homes, cemeteries, and education - By 1890s, on average an AA was
- Attempts to designate separate residential areas, whilst they didn’t brutally killed every two days
become law because of objections by SC, in practise was possible to - New direction of the court seen in
achieve areas of predominantly white and predominantly AA 1882 judgement, which declared
residents by intimidation and refusal to rent or sell legislation against the Klan
- Chicago 5,000 and Harlem 23,000 unconstitutional
- Politically, South was able to remove AA political representatives by - 2500 through 1882 – 1891
intimidation and then by measures against voting
, African Americans and the New Deal
Acts and Administrations
1937 Farm Security Administration and Sharecropping 1934 Federal Housing Authority
- AA sharecroppers became independent farmer, help - Made 50,000 new homes for AA
combat rural poverty - Created segregation by preventing AA from
- In 1938 200,000 sharecroppers were evicted moving to white neighbourhoods by refusing to
- 1941 convict leasing and sharecropping banned give them a mortgage
1935 Social Security Act 1935 Wagner Act
- Excluded agricultural and domestic workers (65% of - Excluded agricultural and domestic work
AA workers) from old age insurance and - No support given to sharecroppers union
unemployment insurance
Agricultural Adjustment Act 1935 Works Progress Administration
- Attempts to reduce production by giving subsidies to - Employed millions of jobseekers to carry out
farmers to produce less public works projects
- Subsidy provided to those who owned the land not - Many AAs in Northern cities benefitted from
black sharecroppers who worked the land – workers employment scheme
became unnecessary and unemployed - Economy in turn by stimulated by increased
- 100k sharecroppers lost employment between 1933 purchasing power of newly employed, wages
and 1934 under program ranged from $15 to $90 per
- Loss of employment caused loss of property and month
forced migration of AAs out of South (drivers of wider - In 1935 WPA employed approximately 350,000
Great Migration of AA to cities in north and west) AA about 15% of its total workforce
CCC - Aimed at reducing the high levels of unemployment (50% of AAs unemployed)
- Robert Fechner, defended the CCC's policy of segregation, arguing that it did not amount to
discrimination. He maintained that AAs, although segregated, received equal treatment and
had not complained
- Not true, AAs received fewer CCC jobs and other New Deal benefits
- At PWA, Harold Ickes installed a quota system that required contractors to hire a fair share
of AA’s; this action became a model for subsequent equal opportunity efforts.
- Close to 250,000 African American corpsmen served in nearly 150 segregated camps that
spanned the forest lands of the United States. Should have been 700,000 jobs offered.
National Youth - Fought for integrated state advisory boards, better skills training for youth, and more black
Administration staff and managers within the NYA
- First federal agency to aid black youth through educational and vocational training projects
Don’t buy where you can’t work New Deal Officials + Public Works
- Started by protests of AA unemployment rates Administration
- 1929 Chicago Newspaper sponsored campaign, resulted in - Harold Ickes = Head of PWA which
>2000 workers being employed spent 45 million on black schools,
- Led to increase in AA employment, opportunities for hospitals, and housing
advancement and creation of larger AA businesses - Desegregated Department of the
- SC upheld right of AAs to picket in 1938 New Negro Alliance v. Interior
Sanitary Grocery National Negro Congress
CIO - Pressure group aimed at ensuring
- Welcomed AA members despite resistance from white that AA receive share of ND benefits
workers - United black and white workers and
- Advocated passage of anti-lynching laws and Southern voting intellectual to fight for racial justice
rights - Encouraged protest action like
- Brought large numbers of AA into labour movement for first economic boycotts
time - 1941 helped sponsor a National
- Southern Tenant Farmers Union founded in 1934 by black and Committee to abolish poll tax
white tenant farmers - In 1930s had established 75 local
- Promoted non violent protest to gain fair share of money and chapters across the country
goal of all working together
, African Americans in Black Power
Black Power Derivation MALCOLM X
- Ideas of Malcolm X, opposing - Skill in speaking and writing
over-reliance on white support - Responsible for a rapid growth in membership of the NOI from 400 in
to progress AA CR 1952 to 40,000 in 1960
- Anti-colonialist theories, - Preached a violent revolution, urged AA not to reject any means for
African nationalists forming change
independent nations - Considerable influence on the emergence of the black power movement
- Interests in previous separatist - Given the aims, it was not possible for him to claim the sort of success
movements eg. Garvey that King could claim over the civil rights legislation
- Wave of riots in the 1960’s - Less popular support then Garvey at his height and perhaps a less
- Shift of conventional politics to coherent strategy
identity politics - Considerable influence in promoting a sense of pride and identity
among AA that didn’t depend on integration or accepting white values
Black Panther Party
- Black Panther Party founded in 1966 by - 1966, only 16 of Oakland's 661 police officers were
Bobby Seal and Huey Newton in CA and African American (less than 2.5%)
reached peak in 1970 - 1967 Eldridge Cleaver head of BPP, changed self-defence
- Framed on beliefs that AA were living in an to one violent revolution
internal colony within the US - 1967 black unarmed construction worker Denzil
- Seale and Newton interested in Pan- Dowell shot by police
Africanism - Although Hutton had stripped down to his underwear and
- Politics informed by the troubles of people had his hands raised in the air to prove that he was
fighting for self-determination around the
unarmed, Oakland Police shot Hutton more than 12
world
times, killing him. Two police officers were also shot. He
- Wanted free healthcare for all AA’s and
oppressed people (one of many things they became the first member of the party to be killed by
wanted from gov) - free health clinics in 13 police in 1968.
communities - 1968 –1971 BPP newspaper had 300,000 weekly
- 2000 in 1968 - 5000 MEMBERS IN 1969 circulation
- Concentrated in LA, Chicago, Philadelphia, NY - 1969 FBI Edgar Hoover declared BPP greatest threat to
- Helped to bring black power to international internal security of the country - communists.
prominence, raise important questions about - 1969 – BPP member murdered by other BP member as
black self-defence and civil rights they believed he was an informant
- Spread wider consciousness of black culture - Panthers became the primary target of the FBI 1969
and heritage - 1970 around 40% to 70% of party members women
- Greater interest and appreciation of AA - Oakland Community school -> student population
history, music, dress continued to grow ranging between 50 and 150 between
- ‘Black is beautiful’- powerful new ideas of 1974 and 1977
aesthetics. Pride in black appearance, move - By 1980, Panther membership had dwindled to 27
away from trying to copy white American - Panther-sponsored Oakland Community School closed in
dress and appearance 1982 amid a scandal over Newton embezzling funds
- Courses run on AA culture in uni and schools
- Panthers officially dissolve in 1982
DIFFERENCES FROM CR MOVEMENT
- BP did not have unified aims 1972 Brazburg v. Hayes - Invalidated the use of the First
and did not focus on Amendment.
cooperation with white
1980 Hanrahan v. - Surviving members of Black Panther Party
progressives or the
Hampton filed actions against 28 state and federal
achievement of political goals
law enforcement officials involved in a 1969
- Different way of looking at AA
Chicago FB raid that killed two people
progress
- Included Fred Hampton, 21 yr old chairman
- More popular in North, spread
of the Chicago black panthers
