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The Long Civil Rights Movement. Desegregation Non-violent Direct Action Resistance. AIHE – Buena, NJ December 12, 2012 Dr. Lillie Johnson Edwards Drew University, Madison, NJ. Acts of Racial Violence. Intimidation & Harassment Ritual Violence Lynching Rape.
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The Long Civil Rights Movement Desegregation Non-violent Direct Action Resistance AIHE – Buena, NJ December 12, 2012 Dr. Lillie Johnson Edwards Drew University, Madison, NJ
Acts of Racial Violence Intimidation & Harassment Ritual Violence Lynching Rape
Plessy vs. Ferguson(1896) Separate, but Equal
Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (1787) On biology: “The first difference which strikes us is that of colour. Whether the black of the negro resides in the reticular membrane between the skin and scarf-skin, or in the scarf-skin itself; whether it proceeds from the colour of the blood, the colour of the bile, or from that of some other secretion, the difference is fixed in nature, and is as real as if its seat and cause were better known to us. And is this difference of no importance? . . . They have less hair on the face and body. They secrete less by the kidnies, and more by the glands of the skin, which gives them a very strong and disagreeable odour. . . .This greater degree of transpiration renders them more tolerant of heat, and less so of cold, than the whites. . . .They seem to require less sleep.
On beauty and sexuality: “Is it not the foundation of a greater or less share of beauty in the two races? Are not the fine mixtures of red and white, the expressions of every passion by greater or less suffusions of colour in the one, preferable to that eternal monotony, which reigns in the countenances, that immoveable vile of black which covers all the emotions of the other race? Add to these, flowing hair, a more elegant symmetry of form, their own judgment in favour of the whites, declared by their preference of them as uniformly as is the preference of the Oran-ootan for the black women over those of his own species. . . . “ Jefferson, Notes, 1787
Jemima's Wedding Day: Cake Walk. Martin Saxx (words by Jere O'Halloran). Boston, MA: Saxx Music Co., 1899 sheet music cover.http://www.digitaljournal.com/image/79004#ixzz1QxkTfjom
On work, leisure & entertainment: “A black, after hard labour through the day, will be induced by the slightest amusements to sit up till midnight, or later, though knowing he must be out with the first dawn of the morning. . . .” T. Jefferson, Notes, 1787
Women’s Day Magazine, 1940. http://graphic-design.tjs-labs.com/show-picture?id=1178077169
On emotions: “They are more ardent after their female; but love seems with them to be more an eager desire, than a tender delicate mixture of sentiment and sensation. Their griefs are transient.. . In general, their existence appears to participate more in sensation than reflection. To this must be ascribed their disposition to sleep when abstracted from their diversions, and unemployed in labour. An animal whose body is at rest, and who does not reflect, must be disposed to sleep of course. T. Jefferson, Notes, 1787.
On intellect: Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me, that in memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior, as I think one could scarce be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous.” T. Jefferson, Notes, 1787
Gone with the Wind Margaret Mitchell novel, 1936 Film, 1939 Culver Pictures
“Uplifting the Race” and the Culture Wars Ideas about how to “uplift” the image of the race has generated heated artistic and political debate within the African-American community and the debate continues among African-American scholars. At the beginning of the 20th century the debate was shaped largely by middle class African-American women, such as those who founded major black women’s organizations: the National Council of Negro Women, the Negro Women’s Club Movement, and the first black sororities. These women’s self-identity as “ladies” was shaped by the ways in which society denied them that status and the reality of how black women were treated.
Shaw, Stephanie.What A Woman Ought To Be and Do: Black Professional Women during the Jim Crow Era. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966. Library of Congress, NAACP Collection; photograph by M. Smith. Spelman College Archives, Atlanta, Georgia http://www.oxfordaasc.com/public/features/archive/0408/photo_essay.jsp?page=4 http://www.oxfordaasc.com/public/features/archive/0707/photo_essay.jsp?page=4
Conservative and Radical Influence of Black Religion Radical Agenda Conservative Agenda • Undemocratic abuse of power by black ministers • Stained Glass Ceiling for Women • Early 20th century middle-class black church bans expressive spirituality in worship • Civil Rights: confronts racial status quo • Reparations for Slavery • Black Education, especially higher education for men and women • Speaks to the world for the black community
Civil Rights in the Early 20th Century National Association of Colored Women/NACW (1896) National Association for the Advancement of Colored People/NAACP (1909) National Urban League (1910) Association for the Study of Negro Life and History/ASNLH (1915)
Civil Rights in the Early 20th Century • 5. United Negro Improvement Association/UNIA (1917) First Pan-African Congress (1919) • Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (192o) • Congress of Racial Equality (1942) • Committee for Equal Justice (1944)
Civil Rights in the Early 20th Century 9. Women’s Political Council, Montgomery, AL (1946) 10. Montgomery Improvement Association (1955) 11. Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (1964)
National Association of Colored Women (NACW), 1896 • “” • Lifting As We Climb “Lifting As We Climb” Mary Church Terrell (1863-1954) worked alongside Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and Mary McLeod Bethune. She co-founded the Colored Women's League in Washington and the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) and helped found the NAACP. Library of Congress
Ida B. Wells Barnett (1862-1931)“Princess of the Black Press” Journalist NACW and NAACP The Library of Congress. http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/civilrights/il2.htm (http://hierographics.tripod.com/IdaBWells-Barnett/IdaBWellsBiographyandLinks2.htm)
The Great Migration Creates Black Urban Communities 1914-1919: 1 million 1920-1930: 1 million The Black Migration by Gerald Early. (http://www.pbs.org/jazz/places/faces_migration.htm)
Culture Wars of the Harlem Renaissance Era Old Guard, e.g., DuBois New Writers • The artist as an individual • Depict the realities of black life as it exists • Blues • Poverty • Anger • Internal conflicts, i.e., gender, colorism, and class • Depict the best of the race as proof of black intellect and achievements • Art is part of the Civil Rights agenda
Langston Hughes • (1902-1967) • Blues and jazz style • Race relations • Realism of black working class life National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution/Art Resource, NY . http://www.oxfordaasc.com/public/features/archive/0807/photo_essay.jsp?page=1
ZoraNeale Hurston • (1891-1960) • Compiled folktales, spirituals, sermons, work songs, blues, and children's games in the South • Mules and Men (1935), was the first collection of black folklore published by an African American. • Her most famous novel is Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937). Library of Congress http://www.oxfordaasc.com/public/features/archive/0807/photo_essay.jsp?page=2
“But I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not belong to the sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal and whose feelings are all but about it. Even in the helter-skelter skirmish that is my life, I have seen that the world is to the strong regardless of a little pigmentation more of less. No, I do not weep at the world--I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.” From “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” (1928) ZoraNeale Hurston
Association for the Study ofNegro Life and History Dr. Carter G. Woodson, 1875-1950 • Journal of Negro History • Negro History Bulletin • Negro History Week • Inclusion of K-12 Teachers • Inclusion of Community Organizations
United NegroImprovement Association Marcus Garvey(1887-1940) New York, 1922 • Black Star Shipping Line • Negro World • Back to Africa Movement • Support of Black Businesses The Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers Project, UCLA
Dr. W.E.B. DuBois (1868-1963) • Niagara Movement • NAACP • Crisis Magazine • Pan-African Congress, 1919 • (http://www.nps.gov/hafe/historyculture/w-e-b-dubois.htm)
Brotherhood of the Sleeping Car Porters “My Name is Not ‘George’” http://www.aphiliprandolphmuseum.com/evo_history4.html
Brotherhood of the Sleeping Car Porters & the Women’s Auxiliary A. Philip Randolph (1989-1979) Rosina Tucker (1981-1997) http://www.notablebiographies.com/Pu-Ro/Randolph-A-Philip.html
March on Washington & Executive Order 8802 • “There shall be no discrimination in the employment of workers in the defense industry or government because of race, creed, color, or national origin.” Pres. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1941 A. Philip Randolph http://www.notablebiographies.com/Pu-Ro/Randolph-A-Philip.html
Congress on Racial Equality CORE (1942) James Farmer, Jr. (1920-1999) Bayard Rustin (1912 – 1987) Influenced by Ghandi’s activism in India 1947 Journey of Reconciliation (the precursor to the Freedom Rides of the 1960s)
Ecumenical& Interracial Civil Rights • Coalitions formed among African-American and white women • Church Women United (1941) • Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA)
The Committee for Equal Justice for Mrs. Recy Taylor, 1944 Interracial Sexual Violence & the Activism of Southern Black Women [Danielle McGuire, At the End of a Dark Street (Knopf, 2010)] Rosa Parks (1913-2005)
Emmett Till (1941-1955) Racial Violence The Press Mose Wright: The Extraordinary Courage of Ordinary People
Women’s Political Council, 1946 “This is for Monday, December 5, 1955 Another Negro woman has been arrested and through into jail because she refused to get up out of her seat on the bus for a white person to sit down. . . .Don’t ride the bus at all on Monday.” 30,000 leaflets distributed Jo Ann Gibson Robinson (1912-1992)
Montgomery Improvement Association The Montgomery Bus Boycott December 1, 1955 – December 21, 1956 E.D. Nixon (1899-1987) Pullman Porter and Union Organizer
Mississippi Freedom Democratic PartyFannie Lou Hamer (1917-1977)
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968): The Beloved Community • The Southern Christian Leadership Conference SCLC (1957) • “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (1963) • “I Have A Dream” (1963) • Civil Rights Act of 1964 • Nobel Prize for Peace (1964) • Voting Rights Act of 1965 • Poor People’s Campaign (1967) and the March on Washington (1968)