Transcript Jim Crow - Bainbridge Island School District

THE JIM CROW ERA
Plessy v. Ferguson, Jim Crow
Laws,the KKK and Lynching
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”
– Doesn’t change until 1950s, when Dems
support Civil Rights legislation
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
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 Harlan’s
dissent?
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…
Ku Klux Klan
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
• Intimidated African Americans and their allies
– If intimidation didn’t 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)
• 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.
• 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
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.
• The white mobs who lynched AfricanAmerican 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.
Claimed Causes
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
41%
19.2%
6.1%
4.9%
1.8%
22.7%
11.5%
Felonious Assault
Rape
Attempted Rape
Robbery and Theft
Insult to White persons
Misc. or no offense at all
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"
Rubin Stacey, 1935: Knocked on door of white
woman, asked for food (NYT)
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 antilynching 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)
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
“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 selfimprovement.
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
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
• 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