AAs Gilded Age Flashcards
Negative view
This was a very negative era for African American Civil Rights.
Rights actually regressed and segregation, discrimination, violence and lynching became more prevalent.
There was little challenge to this from any quarter
Verny highlights the rampant
“electoral fraud, violence and intimidation”
Date of segregated transport beginning
1881, when Tennessee enacted a segregated railway law, and continued with every Southern state following suit
Leadership issues on segregation
Blacks like Booker T. Washington also favoured segregation, however he was split with Du Bois
Judgement supporting segregation
Plessy v. Ferguson judgement of 1896, which reinforced the idea of ‘separate but equal’
De facto northern segregation
In Chicago 5,000 African Americans were concentrated in one restricted area
Harlem effectively became a separate district for New York’s 23,000 blacks
Effect of exclusion from voting
African American voters had become a powerless minority by 1895
First Grandfather Clause
Introduced by Louisiana in 1898
Judgement supporting registration laws
Supreme Court upheld changes to the Mississippi Constitution in Williams vs. Mississippi 1898 ($2 poll tax)
Last black congressman
In 1901 the last remaining African American congressman, George H. White, retired, leaving no African American congressional representation
System of violence and lynching
The punishment of violence and lynchings for minor offences created a system whereby the law was deliberately ignored in much of the South, in favour of mob rule.
Lynchings in 1890s
Around 190 lynching/year
False arrests
There were notorious numbers of false arrests and imprisonment, with disproportionate numbers of African Americans prisoners in chain gangs and labour camps
Vicksburg riots
In 1874 in Vicksburg, Mississippi, rampaging whites killed about 300 blacks and terrorised thousands of potential voters
SC - slaughterhouse decision
Slaughterhouse decision (1873) - 14th Amendment protects only the rights of national (as opposed to state) citizenship
SC - Reese
US v. Reese (1875) - threw out indictment of Kentucky officials who had barred blacks from voting
SC - Cruikshank
US v. Cruikshank (1876) - rules that the 14th Amendment bars states, but not individuals, from encroaching on individual rights
SC - ruling on Civil Rights Act
In 1883, the Supreme Court ruled that the 1875 Civil Rights Act was unconstitutional
Compromise effect
The ‘Compromise of 1877’ essentially removed federal supervision of Southern states
Proportion of southern farms sharecropped
In some southern states, as many as 80% of farms were sharecropped (Georgia particularly bad)
Racial differences in value of output
In 1880 the average value of output for a black sharecropper was $160 compared to $200 for whites
Racial differences in land owned
Even black farm owners tended to have less land - in Georgia in 1890, the average white owner held 290 acres compared to 70 acres for blacks
Mixed view
There was a mixed picture of civil rights in this era; while segregation and discrimination was very entrenched in the South, it was less so in the West and North
African American cowboys
Significant progress from westward expansion - up to a quarter of ‘cowboys’ on Western ranches were African Americans
Western AA jobs
Trappers, farmers, miners and shopkeepers
Number of AAs moving West
Up to 40,000 African Americans moved West
Limits to Western numbers of AAs
The bulk of African Americans lacked the capital or expertise to travel westwards to create new homes away from prejudice
All black towns
Many all-black towns, including Dearfield, Colorado
Bass Reeves
African American lawmen like Bass Reeves (1838-1910), who was a Deputy US Marshal who arrested thousands of criminals and shot 14 outlaws
Afro-American league
Some blacks challenged segregation with some success - the Afro-American league was formed in 1890.
Afro-American league - inaugural meeting
The league’s inaugural meeting in Chicago attracted 100 delegates from 23 states
Afro-American league limit
Short-lived, had ceased to exist by 1893
Positive view
It is wrong to characterise this period as a negative one for civil rights. African Americans were able to make de facto progress, for example economically, and in this period the foundations were laid for later advancements.
Schweikart and Allen
Emphasise the emergence of the “elite eight” black universities to rival the Ivy League and how blacks used buying power to combat racial prejudice and challenge white business.
Black businesses
AAs set up their own insurance and banking companies and formed their own all-black unions
Georgia AAs - schools
Georgia blacks built 1,544 schools that educated more than 11,000 students
AA universities
Universities included Howard (1867) and Tuskegee (1881)
Constitutional guarantees
African Americans had achieved constitutional guarantees, even if they were not enforced, and in the industrial age it was possible for them to own businesses.
Political progress in North Carolina
North Carolina in 1894, Populist-Republican cooperation got 1000 blacks into office
Booker T Washington
The support given to Booker T. Washington by Alabama for his institute, and the success of many educational establishments laid the basis for a great deal of civil rights agitation later on.
Literacy increases
Literacy increased from 1 in 20 to 1 in 2 (1865-95)
AA professionals
By 1900 there were some 47,000 African American professionals including doctors, lawyers, teachers and artists (however out of a population of 8 million)
