Civil Rights - FP2 - Black Resistance and Economic Progress

Question 1

Black Resistance - Accommodationists

Answer 1

Favour black concerntration upon economic improvement rather than social political and legal equality = Booker T Washington
Established Tuskegee Institute in Alabama 1881 - recognised as America’s premier black spokesman and several presidents consulted him

Question 2

Atlanta Speech 1895

Answer 2

Argued that if whites could regard blacks as potential economic partners, the race question would be defused
Altanta compromise - attempt to reach an accommodation with the white dominated South

Question 3

Critics of Accommodationists

Answer 3

Irritated people as he seemed to be playing down the importance of black suffrage - didnt use his position to challenge the lynch mentality or Dem political control
Widening education gap
DuBois regarded his views as limited - after 1905 his position as AA leader was increasingly questioned

Question 4

Black Protest - DuBois

Answer 4

Academic who published many criticisms of discrimination and helped establish the NAACP - first AA to get PhD from Havard
Niagara Movement - founded 1905 - campaign to restore voting right and end all discrimination
Never became a mass movement - but outlined principles of the belief in black equality as well as employment and educational opportunities

Question 5

Black Protest - NAACP

Answer 5

Niagara Movement provided an influx in the number of blacks wnating to challenge Washington - trigger for race riot in Springfield 1908 - violent attack after allegations of attempted rape - some white residents attacked and burned black homes and businesses
DuBois teamed up with other civil rights leaders to form first organisation
Adopted approach of lawsuts - 1915 Guinn v US grandfather clauses in state constitutions of Maryland and Oklahoma were outlawed

Question 6

Economics - Rural

Answer 6

1900 9/10 AA laboured in former slaveholding states
1900 1/4 of AA farmers own their land
Successes = focus of violence
Widespread sharecropping - economic entrapment, crop lien

Question 7

Economics - Urban

Answer 7

AA = Wage labourers in iron, steel mills, Alabama, tobacco factories N. Carolina, Virginia
Seasonal work coupled with industry - textiles ban AA because of stereotypes surrounding savagery - given least skilled and manual jobs
98% AA female wage earners work domestically in Atlanta 1880s

Question 8

Economics - Business and profressionals

Answer 8

AA lack skills and capital
Class tensions mean resentment from poorer blacks
Risk of violent retailiation by whites