Populism and Jim Crow

1. PopulismandJim Crow

2. The Wizard of Oz, 1939

3. The Wizard of Oz, Frank Baum (1900) - an allegory of the silver standard debate? Yellow brick road = gold standard Magical silver slippers (ruby slippers in movie) = silver standard Political coalition: Scarecrow = farmers Tin Woodman = workers Cowardly Lion = politicians Wizard = the President Oz = Washington, DC Munchkins = the People Wicked Witch of the West = the corporation or Trust (enemy of the People)

4. Outline for Today: 1. Agrarian Protest 2. Role of Labor and Women’s Movements 3. Jim Crow Laws and Violence 4. Response of Black Leaders

5. A Populist family from Nebraska

6. “Which Will Win?” New York Graphic, 1973

7. Cartoon about Populist unity

8. 1896 Republical Party anti-silver standard poster

9. William Jennings Bryan Swallowing the Democratic Party, Judge, 1896

10. Election map of 1896 - republican candidate, William McKinley wins

11. Samuel Gompers, founder and president of the American Federation of Labor

12. Mary Elizabeth Lease, Speech, 1890 [speaks to an audience of women] “Speech to the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union”[equality] … there is no difference between the brain of an intelligent woman and the brain of an intelligent man. [participation] … The doors of the Farmers’ Alliance were thrown open wide to women of the land. … we find at the present time upward of a half-million women in the Alliance …[political power] … to these women, unknown and uncrowned, belongs the honor of defeating for reelection to the United States Senate of a man [who argued that] “a woman could not and should not vote because she was a woman.”[addresses white demands only] … as grand Senator [William Morris] Stewart [of Nevada] puts it, “For twenty years the market value of the dollar has gone up and the market value of labor has gone down, till to-day the American laborer, in bitterness and wrath, asks which is the worst—the black slavery that has gone or the white slavery that has come?”

13. Editorial cartoon on Plessy v. Ferguson

14. Jim Crow, a minstrel theater character used to name the practice of segregation

15. Separate water fountains and coolers, 1939

16. Separate movie theater entrance, 1939

17. Violence as instrument of social control Slave whippings (Barrow plantation): 0.7 per black per year Every 4,5 days - a slave saw one of their number whipped Lynchings (155 in 1893s): 0.00002 per black per year Consider word of mouth, newspapers, and postcards

18. Lynching postcard http://www.withoutsanctuary.org/main.html

19. Booker T. Washington

20. Booker T. Washington’s Atlanta Compromise Speech A ship lost at sea for many days suddenly sighted a friendly vessel. From the mast of the unfortunate vessel was seen a signal: “Water, water. We die of thirst.” The answer from the friendly vessel at once came back: “Cast down your bucket where you are.” A second time, the signal, “Water, send us water!” went up from the distressed vessel. And was answered: “Cast down your bucket where you are.” A third and fourth signal for water was answered: “Cast down your bucket where you are.” The captain of the distressed vessel, at last heeding the injunction, cast down his bucket and it came up full of fresh, sparkling water from the mouth of the Amazon River. To those of my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land, or who underestimate the importance of preservating friendly relations with the southern white man who is their next door neighbor, I would say: “Cast down your bucket where you are.” Cast it down, making friends in every manly way of the people of all races, by whom you are surrounded.

21. W. E. B. DuBois “Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others,” 1903 The other class of Negroes who cannot agree with Mr. Washington … feel in conscience bound to ask of this nation three things. 1. The right to vote. 2 Civic equality. 3 The education of youth according to ability.

22. Populism and Jim Crow Timeline 1874 Women’s Christian Temperance Union established 1883 Supreme Court: the Civil Rights Act does not apply to individuals 1890 “The Mississippi Plan” and the “Purity Clause” 1892 Populist Party organized 1895 Booker T. Washington’s Atlanta Compromise speech 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson 1896 William McKinley wins presidential election 1898 Louisiana’s “Grandfather Clause” 1900 Gold Standard Act 1900 Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz 1903 W.E.B. DuBois responds to Booker T. Washington Themes: 1. Agrarian Protest 2. Role of Labor and Women’s Movements 3. Jim Crow Laws and Violence 4. Response of Black Leaders

23. U.S. Presidents, 1877-Present Rutherford B. Hayes, 1877-1881 James Garfield, 1881 Chester Arthur, 1881-1885 Grover Cleveland, 1885-1889 Benjamin Harrison, 1889-1993 Grover Cleveland, 1993-1997 William McKinley, 1897-1901 Theodore Roosevelt, 1901-1909 William H. Taft, 1909-1913 Woodrow Wilson, 1913-1921 Warren Harding, 1921-1923 Calvin Coolidge, 1923-1929 Herbert Hoover, 1929-1933 Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933-1945 Harry Truman, 1945-1953 Dwight Eisenhower, 1953-1961 John F. Kennedy, 1961-1963 Lyndon Johnson, 1963-1969 Richard Nixon, 1969-1974 Gerald Ford, 1974-77 Jimmy Carter, 1977-1981 Ronald Reagan, 1981-1989 George H.W. Bush, 1989-1993 William J. Clinton, 1993-2001 George W. Bush, 2001-present