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Fighting Jim Crow. African Americans and the Struggle for Civil Rights 1870-1930. Reconstruction. 14th and 15th Amendments guarantee equality for freed slaves Northern occupation of South helps enforce new laws Many black men begin to vote and hold office Compromise of 1877
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Fighting Jim Crow African Americans and the Struggle for Civil Rights 1870-1930
Reconstruction • 14th and 15th Amendments guarantee equality for freed slaves • Northern occupation of South helps enforce new laws • Many black men begin to vote and hold office • Compromise of 1877 • End of Reconstruction, Northern troops leave
Origin of Jim Crow • Character created by whites • Minstrel, buffoon • Symbolizes keeping blacks “in their place” • South begins to create new laws to enforce Jim Crow ideas
Jim Crow in Practice • Segregation • Public accommodations • Schools • Miscegenation • No marriage between blacks and whites
Jim Crow in Practice • Disenfranchisement (withholding the vote) • Limits on registration • Poll taxes • Literacy tests • Grandfather clause • Terror
Strange Fruit Southern trees bear strange fruitBlood on the leaves and blood at the rootBlack bodies swinging in the southern breezeStrange fruit hanging from the poplar treesPastoral scene of the gallant southThe bulging eyes and the twisted mouthScent of magnolias, sweet and freshThen the sudden smell of burning fleshHere is fruit for the crows to pluckFor the rain to gather, for the wind to suckFor the sun to rot, for the trees to dropHere is a strange and bitter cry
Jim Crow in Practice • Ku Klux Klan (KKK) • “Secret” organization formed to kill and terrorize blacks • Lynching • Mob rule • Over 3,700 killed, 1889-1930 Lynching of Lige Daniels, Texas 1920
Jim Crow Upheld • Supreme Court upholds “separate, but equal” • Plessy v. Ferguson • In reality, separate far from equal • No black public high schools in many Southern states • Federal government fails to pass anti-lynching law
Black Methods of Survival • Masking • Play the part in public • Don’t challenge white superiority openly • Accommodationism • Accept segregation, pursue separate goals
Black Methods of Survival • Escape • “Great Migration” of blacks to Northern cities • 1.6 million between 1910 and 1930
Booker T. Washington • Believed in gradualism • Stressed education • Vocational • Tuskegee Institute • “I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.” - 1901
Mary Church Terrell • Founder and first President of National Association of Colored Women (NACW) • Opposed segregation in education and lynching • “Lifting as we Climb”
W.E.B. DuBois • Rejected gradualism • Blacks must demand equality • Founder Niagara Movement, NAACP • “To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships.” - 1903
Ida Wells-Barnett • Friend a victim of lynching • Co-founder NAACP • Tried to get anti-lynching law passed • “One had better die fighting against injustice than die like a dog or a rat in a trap.”
Marcus Garvey • Jamaican immigrant • Black pride and self-help • Founded Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) • "Up, you mighty race, accomplish what you will."
Other Forms of Resistance • Religion • Black churches as supportive communities • Nation of Islam • Black nationalism • Culture • Ragtime, Jazz, Blues, Literature, Sports • Harlem Renaissance
Justice Delayed isJustice Denied • For all the efforts of black leaders, very little progress made in laws • Segregation further entrenched • Voting rights denied • No lynching law passed • But, social and economic gains of African Americans promises better future
Martin Luther King, Jr. • Born January 15, 1929 • “Men often hate each other because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don't know each other; they don't know each other because they can not communicate; they can not communicate because they are separated.” - 1958