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The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement

The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement. Prof. Jeffrey D. Gonda Syracuse University September 26 th , 2012. Our Agenda. Why Make the Civil Rights Era Long? Experimentation: 1910-1940 New World A’Comin : 1940-1954. Part I: Why Make the Civil Rights Era Long?. The Debate.

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The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement

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  1. The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement Prof. Jeffrey D. Gonda Syracuse University September 26th, 2012

  2. Our Agenda • Why Make the Civil Rights Era Long? • Experimentation: 1910-1940 • New World A’Comin: 1940-1954

  3. Part I: Why Make the Civil Rights Era Long?

  4. The Debate “Short Movement” Historians “Long Movement” Historians vs. vs. American Popular Memory

  5. What Does A “Long” Civil Rights Era Do? • Broadens the scope of our historical understanding: • Expanding the temporal, geographic, and ideological boundaries of the Movement. • Economic issues and housing rights. • Contextualizes ideas, individuals, and alternatives. • Grapples with the incompleteness of this “Second Reconstruction”

  6. What Does A “Long” Civil Rights Era Do? (Cont.) • Deepens our sense of the actors and agenda (even within the “Classical” narrative) • The role of women. Daisy Bates Ruby Hurley • The significance of global decolonization struggles. • Ongoing importance of legal activism.

  7. Adding Depth and Breadth: Baker, Rustin, and Randolph Bayard Rustin A. Philip Randolph Ella Jo Baker

  8. Ella Jo Baker • Southern-born political activist. • Embraces grassroots organizing in Harlem during the 1930s. • Works for the NAACP 1940-1946. • Key staff member for Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). • Helps to found Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). • Works with the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). Ella Jo Baker

  9. Bayard Rustin • Begins organizing in the 1930s. • Works with the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR). • First Field Secretary for Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) during World War II. • Plans the Journey of Reconciliation in 1947 to protest segregation in interstate transportation. • Assists Martin Luther King, Jr. with the Montgomery Bus Boycotts (1956). • Deputy Director and Chief Organizer for the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Bayard Rustin

  10. A. Philip Randolph • Publisher and political organizer. • Organizes the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP) in 1925. • First president of the National Negro Congress (NNC) in the late 1930s. • Organizes the March on Washington Movement (MOWM) in 1941. • Founds League for Non-Violent Civil Disobedience Against Military Segregation. • A key organizer for the 1963 March on Washington A. Philip Randolph

  11. What Might We Lose? • Where do we draw the boundaries? • Historian Leon Litwack: “The civil rights movement began with the presence of enslaved blacks in the New World, with the first slave mutiny on the ships bringing them here.” • Sacrificing objectivity? • Sacrificing specificity? • Clear that the “Long” Movement concept is not without its own perils.

  12. Part II: Experimentation, 1910-1940

  13. Understanding the Early Era • Characterized by experimentation • Tactics • Organizations • Alliances • Focus on economic rights as central to the needs of black citizens. • Establishing social and political infrastructures upon which later efforts will build.

  14. In the Shadow of Jim Crow • Turn of the 20th Century marks the low-point of American race relations since emancipation. • Violence, law, and custom restrict African Americans’ rights in virtually every sphere. • The philosophy of “Accommodation” dominates the black political landscape

  15. Finding a New Approach • Four broad political strategies will overtake Accommodation in the coming decades. • Integration (1910-) • Nationalism (1919-1930) • Unionization (1925-) • Communism (1929-1939) • Represent overlapping approaches that often share constituencies and respond to changing political/economic conditions.

  16. Integration • Emphasis on formal mechanisms of protest (i.e. litigation and lobbying). • Interracial coalition building. • Internal focus on “uplift” – social and moral fitness for citizenship. • Not seeking fundamental change to the basic structure of American society. Advocates inclusion rather than revolution.

  17. Riot in Springfield • August 1908 a racial pogrom in Springfield, Illinois. • 4,000 state militia needed to quell the violence. • 2,000 African Americans flee the city and are denied entry to neighboring towns. • Fear that a southern race war was making its way to the North.

  18. Organizing a Response • Oswald Garrison Villard • Wealthy NYC publisher • Longstanding supporter of Booker T. Washington. • Interracial meeting of activists in 1909. • By 1910, organized as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Mary White Ovington, co-founder

  19. Taking Root: 1915 • Three significant events in the NAACP’s development as a protest organization: • Guinn v. U.S. (Voting Rights Case) • Release of D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation • Death of Booker T. Washington

  20. Expanding the Program • Over the next 25 years the NAACP establishes a crucial legal and political infrastructure to challenge racial discrimination. • Anti-lynching. • Housing rights. • Voting rights. • Educational discrimination. • Employment litigation.

  21. Nationalism • Longstanding political tradition. • Reinvigorated by militancy and disillusionment of World War I. • Economic self-determination • Racial pride • Black separatism • Pan-African identification.

  22. World War I • WWI appears to be a unique opportunity for black empowerment. • Scale of the involvement – more than 350,000 African American troops. • Expansion of officer training for black soldiers. • Contact with European troops. • The War’s stated objectives (democracy and freedom).

  23. 369th Infantry March to Harlem, February 1919 – 250,000 New Yorkers gather to watch

  24. Bloodletting: America’s Red Summer • The summer of 1919 explodes in racial violence. • Mass violence in Chicago, Washington, Omaha, Knoxville, and Arkansas (and 20 other cities and towns) • Spike in the number of lynchings, including returning black soldiers in uniform.

  25. Up, You Mighty Race! • Marcus Garvey (1887-1940) • Born in Jamaica. • Trained and worked as a printer. • Founds the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in 1914 in Jamaica. • Comes to America in 1916.

  26. The UNIA and Economic Empowerment • Garvey embraces the capitalist spirit of the 1920s. • Emphasizes black economic self-help through cooperative ventures. • His signal program: The Black Star Line • Shipping company funded by $5 stock certificate purchases. • Opportunities for black employment. • Exchange of ideas and global transportation for black communities.

  27. Unionization • First major breakthrough with Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP) in 1925. • Bolstered by the reforms of the New Deal. • Single-industry or single-occupation organizing. • Focus on opportunity and equity in employment. • Both intra- and interracial efforts. • Positions economic rights as essential parts of full citizenship.

  28. Communism • Toe-hold in black communities like Harlem in the mid-1920s. • Gains traction during the Great Depression. • Emphasis on interracial cooperation of laborers. • Reliance on confrontation through mass protest tactics (strikes, demonstrations, rallies). • Seeks to change the fundamental political and economic structure of American society.

  29. African American Unionization A. Philip Randolph’s Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (1925)

  30. A New Deal for Unions • The National Labor Relations Act (1935) • The option for workers to unionize and bargain collectively become a federally protected right. • Spawns a new wave of union organizing. • The Committee for Industrial Organization breaks from the AFL (1935). • The CIO begins interracial organizing for Steel Workers, Packinghouse Workers, Automotive Workers, and Mining.

  31. Red Tide Rising: The Growth of Black Communism • By the late 1920s, the Communist Party begins to see an American black constituency as a powerful tool. • A commitment to racial equality as key to the class struggle. • The Sixth Congress (1928) marks a shift in Party policy. • Emphasizes “self-determination” for African Americans • The Party turns southward, begins organizing in the black belt.

  32. Rise and Fall: The Black Communist Trajectory • 1929 Gastonia, NC Textile Mill Strike establishes a lasting southern presence. • Economic desperation in the Depression gives a wave of new recruits. • 1931-1936 “Scottsboro Boys” Case builds a national following for the Party. • 1934-1939 “Popular Front” encourages coalition building and expansion of the Party base. • 1939 Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact dramatically weakens the Party’s standing among African Americans.

  33. The Era of Experimentation • Accommodation gives way to a variety of tactics/organizations/demands: • Inclusion (integration, unionization) • Revolution (nationalism, Communism) • Economic rights will remain the primary focus for most of these approaches. • These organizations establish networks and provide experience that activists will build upon in future endeavors.

  34. Part III: New World A’Comin, 1940-1954

  35. Workplace Discrimination • African Americans only make up 3% of defense industry employees. • Exclusion by employers, unions, federal agencies. • “Hate Strikes” in response to black hiring.

  36. March and Response: Randolph’s March on Washington • A. Philip Randolph organizes the March on Washington Movement (1941) • Builds a coalition of supporters. • Prompts Federal intervention: Executive Order 8802 • Prohibiting discrimination by defense contractors • Establishing the Fair Employment Practices Committee to oversee enforcement.

  37. March and Response: Randolph’s MOWM • A. Philip Randolph organizes the March on Washington Movement (1941) • Builds a coalition of supporters. • Prompts Federal intervention: Executive Order 8802 • Prohibiting discrimination by defense contractors • Establishing the Fair Employment Practices Committee to oversee enforcement.

  38. Nobody’s Closing Ranks • African Americans have significant reservations about the war effort. • Take a more militant stance regarding domestic civil rights demands. • In 1942, the Pittsburgh Courier gives a name to the campaign: The Double V • “Victory at home, Victory abroad.”

  39. Black Military Service • Nearly 1,000,000 African American men and women serve during WWII. • The vast majority in the Army. • 500,000 serve overseas. Most continue to be relegated to labor battalions.

  40. Turning the Tide: The Military • Pressure on the Federal Government leads to “integration” of all military branches by 1943. • Elimination of racial segregation at base facilities. • But still segregated by units. • Introduce literacy education.

  41. Turning the Tide: The Military (Part II) • Most famous of the new units … the Tuskegee Airmen

  42. Turning the Tide: The Homefront • New opportunities and protections in employment. • Defense industries: Black workers from 3% (1942) to 8.3% (1944) • Skilled work: Black men 4.4% (1940) to 7.3% (1944) • 1943 War Labor Board bans race gap in wages. • U.S. Employment Service bans race-specific job advertisements • National Labor Relations Board denies certifications to unions that openly discriminate. • Strengthen the FEPC. (Philadelphia Transit Strike 1944)

  43. Turning the Tide: The Homefront (Part II) • Newly strengthened FEPC opens Federal employment opportunities. • 1938 – African Americans are 9.8% of Federal workforce. • 1944 – rises to 12%. African American Federal Employment by Classification

  44. Working for Democracy

  45. Turning the Tide: The Homefront (Part III) • Voting rights expand. • Soldier Vote Act (1942) • Poll-tax provisions eliminated for all servicemen regardless of race. • Smith v. Allwright (1944) • Elimination of the “White Primary” by the Supreme Court. • Registered black voters in the South increase: • 1940: 250,000 (5% of eligible black voters) • 1947: 600,000 (12%)

  46. Turning the Tide: Public Opinion • Nazi racial ideology spawns a pro-civil rights shift in public attitudes. • Interracial coalitions boom: • NAACP goes from 54,000 members (1939) to more than 500,000 (1945) • Growing cooperation of NAACP and Jewish civil rights groups. • Founding of Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in 1942.

  47. Turning the Tide: Public Opinion (Part II) • The growth of “Scientific Anti-Racism” • 1944 – Gunnar Myrdal’s American Dilemma • 1939 poll – more than 70% believe blacks are less intelligent than whites • 1946 – 57% believe the races are equally intelligent.

  48. The Truman Show: Postwar Progress • President Harry S. Truman (1945-1953) • December 1946 – Executive Order 9808 – establishing the President’s Committee on Civil Rights (PCCR) • To Secure These Rights (1947) • January 1948 – Special Message to Congress outlining Civil Rights Program • July 1948 – Executive Order 9981 – Desegregating the military.

  49. Building Momentum at the NAACP • Flurry of new court cases. • Morgan v. Virginia (1946) – Interstate transportation • Sipuel v. Board of Regents (1948) – Education • Shelley v. Kraemer (1948) – Housing discrimination • McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents (1950) – Education • Sweatt v. Painter (1950) – Education

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