AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE PROGRESSIVE ERADiscrimination and Racism

Segregation

Segregation enforced by laws

Becomes a reality with Plessy vs. Ferguson

Segregation based on unwritten laws like custom and tradition

De Jure Segregation De Facto Segregation

Plessy vs. Ferguson, 1896 Homer Plessy was 1/8 African American

and bought a white train ticket in Jim Crow segregated Louisiana…denied seat

Case goes to Supreme Court Court decides to uphold Jim Crow

segregation “Separate but equal”

Is separate ever equal?...Justice Harlan did not think so, only Justice that went against the 8-1 decision (Harlan Dissent)

Sets up de jure segregation

Reformers

Urged for AA to be patient while waiting for equality (“Atlanta Compromise Speech”) Eventually AA would gain

white respect “Cast down your bucket” with

the people who share the same aspirations

Be economically independent Become craftsmen and learn a

skill Setup Tuskegee Institute for

vocational education

Urged AA to demand their rights immediately or else fall victim to permanent racism

Promoted an academic education not skill/trade based

Called Washington’s speech the Atlanta Compromise since he “gave in”

Booker T. Washington W.E.B. Du Bois

Other Reformers Ida B. Wells Barnett

Wrote about the horrors of lynching (execution by hanging without a trial) in the South

Helped form the NAACP

Reforms Niagara

Movement: Denounced the idea of gradual progress

Denounced Booker T. Washington

Wanted full voting rights for AA

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP): 4 front campaign:

Socially free from insult

Mentally free from ignorance

Physically free from low wage labor

Politically free from disenfranchisement

The Crisis was the official magazine of the NAACP

Founded by Du Bois

Disenfranchisement Taking away the right of AA to

vote because there were loopholes in the 15th Amendment Through intimidation, KKK Through laws

Grandfather Clause: AA could vote if his ancestors had voted in 1866…15th Amendment not passed until 1870

Poll Tax: AA must pay a tax to vote, AA can’t afford it

Literacy Tests: AA had been denied an education so they can’t pass the test

Wilmington Race Riot, 1898 AA newspaper editor writes an article about white

women enjoying the company of black men just as much as white men enjoy the company of black women…highly controversial

KKK and Redshirts run AA out of Wilmington Burn down the newspaper building A definite number of the dead has yet to be

determined…evidence tampered with????

Great Migration AA leave the

South to go North (Land of Hope)

Looking to: Leave racism

behind Find jobs Better life in

general