African-Americans Flashcards
The Ku Klux Klan, 1868-1867
Spread rapidly
500,000 Klansmen in the South by 1870
Juries often reluctant to convict them
Congress enabled President Grant to take action - somewhat successful (Enforcement Acts)
1871 - membership of 40,000 in Tennessee alone
Suppressed by 1972
Return of Democratic control in the South
Tennessee - 1869 N Carolina -1870 Texas - 1873 Georgia - 1871 Arkansas - 1874
Jim Crow laws
Tennessee segregated rail travel in 1881
Louisiana had 13,000 AA voters in 1896 compared to 5,000 in 1900
Georgia - $2 tax on those who wanted to vote, many AAs could not afford this
Plessy Vs. Ferguson
1896
doctrine of “separate but equal” established
Homer Plessy
Lynchings
1890s - on average an AA was brutally killed every 2 days
Texas, 1893 - 10,000 white people gatehred to watch the lynching of an AA - Henry Smith
Continued until the 1950s
1889-1918 - 2558 AAs were lynched, nearly 100 a year
1900 - 90% of AAs lived in the South
Gains made by AAs by 1913
Owned 550,000 homes
Owned 937,000 farms
70% literacy rate
1.7 million pupils in state schools
Great Migration - black population by cities 1910-1930
Washington, DC: 94,000 - 132,000
Houston, TX: 24,000 - 63,000
Chicago, IL: 44,000 - 233,000
Los Angeles, CA: 7,500 - 38,000
Motivations of the Great MIgration
Lynchings Voting rights AA communities formed in the North Higher wages Segregation
Great Migration figures
6 million AAs moved from the South to the North, Midwest and West from 1916 to 1970
By the end of 1919, 1 millions AAs had left the South
New York grew by 66% (1910-1920)
Housing tensions grew between AAs and whites
Red Summer race riots
April - November, 1919 Chicago Washington, DC Most in Georgia (7) Montgomery, AL
Great Depression
Cotton prices dropped 18% on the eve of the crash
Proportion of AAs living in urban areas rose by 44% in 1930 (sharecropping no longer sustainable)
By 1933 - 12,000 AA sharecroppers had lost their footing in Southern agriculture and moved toward cities
AA urban employment well over 50%
New Deal
Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) - gave loans to farmers. Because of sharecropping white farmers tended to receive the money
Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) - provided work experience, military camps, conservation projects. 10% of places reserved for AAs, some faced racial discrimination. E.g. Clarke County, Georgia had not one AA at the CCC camps. Camps eventually segregated too
National Recovery Administration - AAs faced discrimination under the NRA codes, given unskilled jobs, flat % pay increase - whites with higher paid jobs got better pay increases
Wagner Act - AAs underrepresented in trade unions
Redlining - helping white housing districts to build and buy new houses while ignoring AAs creating de facto segregation
The March on Washington
4th March, 1963
250,000 demonstrators
Peaceful
“I have a dream”
The Voting Rights Act, 1965
LBJ
Early 1960s - Mississippi had 45% AA population but only 5% of AAs were registered to vote
The Civil Rights Act, 1964 resulted from the Mississippi Freedom Summer - voter registration drive, protests and economic boycotts
Bill empowered the Attorney General to appoint federal registrars to monitor voter registration
Mississippi by had 60% AA voter registration within 3 years
1964 - 19% in Alabama registered to 61.3% by 1968
Aims of Black Power
Total equality for African Americans
A separate state from White people
To create a pride in African American communities/culture/fashions
Methods of Black Power
Violent protest - The Black Panthers Party for Self Defence would attack white racist police
The Nation of Islam - 30,000 members in 1963, discipline and racial pride
Events and individuals - e.g. Malcolm X, Mohammed Ali addressed 10,000 in 1959 criticising MLK in Washington DC
The Impact of Black Power
Brought the issue of race to the attention of the USA and the world
Succeeded in bringing awareness of AA culture
Violent race riots in a number of cities - Black Panthers condemned
Criticised by followers of MLK as it isolated the Black community
Achievements of the Black Panthers
Respect in ghettos
Set up clinics to advise on health, welfare and legal rights
Southern California had a free breakfast programme
Armed themselves and followed police cars in ghettos - some violent shout-outs
End of the Black Panthers
Targeted by the FBI between 1967 and 1969
Most of the leadership was killed or imprisoned
1970 - 64% of AAs took pride in Black Panthers
President Nixon and AA rights
Strong line against the Black Panthers
Continued affirmative action - e.g. Philadelphia Plan, increased AA workers from 1% to 12%
Affirmative action confirmed by the SCOTUS case Griggs Vs. Duke Power Company, 1971
Hand-ups better than hand-outs
Desegregation of schools via bussing
Supreme Court - Swann Vs. Board (1971), upheld bussing. White people simply moved to the suburbs
Reagan and African Americans
Cuts to welfare disproportionately hurt AAs, 11% of unemployed population were AAs
Appointed Conservative Rehnquist to the Court and so civil rights legislation was interpreted more cautiously
Against quotas and affirmative action
Jesse Jackson
Two attempts to be the Democratic nominee for President - 1984 and 1988
“Rainbow coalition”
Highlighted the importance of the AA vote - 12% of the electorate
Radical Reconstruction
Civil Rights Act, 1866 - all persons born in the US to be citizens
First Reconstruction Act, 1867 - 5 military districts
14th Amendment, 1868
15th Amendment, 1870
The Klu Klux Klan, 1915-1920s
Reborn following ‘The Birth of a Nation’ film
Anti-AA, Anti-Semitic, Anti-Catholic - more widespread less of an impact on AAs
6m members in 1924 to 30,000 in 1930
Slight resurgance
AA rights under Eisenhower (1953-1961)
Supported desegregation of the army
Only met with AA leaders once (King, Wlikins and Randolph)
Thought AA issues got too much attention
Brown Vs. Board
Desegregated Washington DC
Appointed Justices who were sympathetic to civil rights
Little Rock, 1957
9 AA students tried to attend a “white” high school
Federal troops sent in
Argued that Eisenhower did not do enough
MLK in the South
Sit-ins
Freedom Rides
Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955 - Rosa Parks
SCOTUS and Civil Rights
Plessy Vs. Ferguson, 1896
Brown Vs. Borrd, 1954
Thurgood Marshall appointed
Boynton Vs. Virginia 1960 (segregation on interstate buses unconstitutional)
Swann Vs. Board, 1971 (approved bussing plans)
Griggs Vs. Duke Power Company, 1971 (protected against implicit discrimination (needing a diploma when not really needed))
Progress in the 1960s
24th Amendment - right of citizens to vote should not be abridged by any taxes
Civil Rights Act, 1964 - federal courts would hear cases involving discrimination in voting
Voting Rights Act, 1965
Executive Order in 1965 barred discrimination in federal employment
Immigration Act, 1965 - ended quota-based immigration based on nationality, race, religion and colour
Situation in the 1990s
Economic inequality - 77% of whites graduated high school compared to 63% of AAs (1989)
21% of whites graduated college compared to 11% of AAs (1989)
1988 - unemployment 5% higher for AAs compared to whites (higher than in the 1950s)
AA family income had doubled between 1950 and 1989 but the gap between AAs and white incomes increase from $7,000 to $12,000 in 1987
Average hourly wage $6.26 for AA men and $7.69 for white men
Marcus Garvey, 1887-1940
Black nationalism
1912 - set up the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNAI)
4m members by 1920
Separatism
Booker T. Washington, 1856-1915
Born a slave in 1856
AA self-help
Worked with the white establishment - adviser to Roosevelt and Taft
Tuskegee Institute to increase education of AAs
Atlanta Compromise Speech
1877 Corrupt Bargain
Rutherford Hayes (R) Samuel Tilden (D) Deal done with Southern Democrats in Congress Hayes agreed to withdraw federal troops Jim Crow laws introduced in the South
President Grant
Took tough action against the KKK
1872 Amnesty Act for 150,000 ex-Confederates - their rights returned
The Freedmen’s Bureau collapsed, 1872
1875 Civil Rights Act - intended to prevent discrimination further but had virtually no impact (declare unconstitutional in 1883
1890s for AAs
Loopholes in the interpretation of the 15th Amendment exploited - voting laws upheld in Mississippi Vs. Williams
1892 - Populist Party needed AA votes (brief resurgence) AAs and whites grew closer together - pushed for AAs to get the franchise in areas they had lost it
Short-lived Populist Party died in 1896
1896 Plessy Vs. Ferguson - separate but equal
1900 statistics
90% of AAs lived in the South
2.5m remained illiterate
88% of lynching victims were black (1909)
South average wage - $509, compared to $1165 nationally
1.6% of the North was illiterate, 12% of the South was illiterate
WEB Du Bois, 1868-1963
The Souls of Black Folk, 1903 More radical than Booker T Washington 'Talented Tenth' - AA elite who would lead Niagara Movement, 1905 and NAACP in 1909 Pan-Africanism
Theodore Roosevelt
Against “hyphenated Americans”
Worked with Booker T Washington
Spoke out against lynchings
Did not take much action however
WWI
Expansion of the manufacturing industry - 500,000 AAs moved to the cities of NY, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago and Detroit
Race riots in 1919
350,000+ AAs fought in WWI
Jazz Age
Duke Ellington Louis Armstrong New York New Orleans 'Harlem Renaissance'
Truman and AAs
Consistently supported legislation to abolish poll taxes and stop lynching in the Senate in the 1930s
Privately still racist (from the South)
Fair Employment Practice Committee - intended to help AAs find work during the war but didn’t maintain the level of funding it needed
Desegregated the army
Eisenhower, 1953-1961
Born in the South
Feared integration but called for equality of opportunity
Only met black leaders (MLK, Wilkins and Randolph) once
Brown Vs. Board
Slow to act at Little Rock, 1957 but did eventually
Sit-ins, 1960
100 cities Involved nearly 50,000 people People had been refused service at a bus terminal Forced closure of a Woolworths TV coverage
Ghettos
Only 32% of ghetto pupils finished high school compared with 56% of white children
Early 1960s - 46% of unemployed Americans were black
Some ghettos in Chicago had 50-70% youth unemployment
Ghetto riots (1964-1968) - 234
Nixon gvae $28m to the National Urban League but it wasn’t enough
Jimmy Carter and civil rights
37 AA federal judges appointed (twice as many as ever before)
90% of the AA vote
Poor economic position
Lacked support to further civil rights much + unsympathetic SCOTUS
Rodney King and 1992
Severely beaten by police for drunk driving
All white jury acquitted the officers
Protest erupted - 50 killed, 2,000 injured
14.2% AA unemployment in 1992
23% of AA men were in prison, on parole or on probation
