The Rise of Segregation
Sharecropping After Reconstruction most African Americans are
living in conditions no better than slavery
Technically they were free but very few could escape the impoverished conditions
Sharecroppers: Landless farmers who gave a share of their crop to the landlord to cover their costs for rent and farming supplies
“Cycle of Poverty”
Exodus to Kansas
Mass migration of African Americans from the South to Kansas
Kansas = The land of Abolitionist John Brown and more Progressive and Tolerant
Led by Benjamin “Pap” Singleton: Former Slave, Abolitionist, and Community leader
Colored Farmers’ National Alliance
African Americans who stayed in the South joined the fight with other poor white farmers
Set up cooperatives and many African Americans joined the Populist Party
Threatened by the power of the Populist, Democrats use racism to try and win back the poor white vote in the South
15th Amendment ???
Right to vote shall not be denied by any citizen based on race, color, or previous conditions of servitude
Loophole: Doesn’t bar the government from requiring that citizens be literate or own property
Poll Taxes Citizens must pay a
sum of money in order to vote
Most African Americans can’t afford this fee
Literacy Tests
Most African Americans can’t read and the ones who can don’t fare any better
Complicated Passages from Constitution filled with legalese and convoluted sentences
Write down the section as the registrar spoke it
Asked to interpret questions based on the excerpt you just read
What about the poor illiterate Whites?
Whites were given simple passages as election officials were far less strict in applying these tests
Grandfather Clause: Any man may vote as long as an ancestor had voted before
Jim Crow Laws “Jump Jim Crow” A song and dance
done by a white performer in black face during the 1820’s
Lampooned African Americans as being ignorant, lazy and buffoonish
Jim Crow Laws = Legalized Segregation
Mandated de jure Segregation of all Public Facilities including:
Public Schools Public Places Public Transportation Restaurants Hotels Theaters
Bus Station
Restaurant in Louisville, KY
Schools
Drinking Fountain
Plessy v. Ferguson
Homer Plessy challenges a Louisiana law that forced him to ride in a separate railcar
He was arrested for riding in a white’s only car
1896 Supreme Court upheld the Louisiana Law and endorsed a new doctrine of “Separate but Equal”
Separate but Equal?
Ruling establishes the legal basis for discrimination for over 50 years
While Public Facilities for African Americans were separate, they were far from being equal
Almost always drastically inferior
Lynching of African Americans Huge Spectacles
with 100’s watching
Consisted of Hanging the Victim, Mutilating, and then burning the body
African Americans Respond Ida B. Wells Journalist who
launches a campaign against lynching
Believed that lynching was a result of economics and greed
Booker T. Washington Born into slavery
became a successful educator, orator, and author
Wanted African Americans to focus on Economic goals as opposed to Legal or Political ones
Washington’s Atlanta Exposition Speech
Presented to a mostly white crowd at the Cotton States and International Exposition
“We shall constitute one third of the ignorance and crime of the south or one-third of its intelligence and progress”
Wanted the whites to rely on African American Labor and not immigrant
Washington actually endorsed segregation by claiming that blacks and whites could exist as separate fingers of a hand
W.E.B. Du Bois
Concerned with African American voting rights
Helped found the NAACP Disagreed with Washington’s integration
of blacks into the community, wanted equal rights, self government, and unity for African people
Du Bois called Washington’s speech the “Atlanta Compromise”