Topic: African-American Civil Rights Leaders and their impact/accomplishments
STATUS OF BLACKS DURING RECONSTRUCTION
- Unprecedented political opportunities opened of them
o Some even held political office in the South.
- Were able to buy or lease small tracts of land.
o HV economic condition would fail to improve and would find employment as agricultural workers or domestics.
o Hired as sharecroppers, tenant farmers, farm workers, and generally in bottom of social hierarchy.
AFTER RECONSTRUCTION
- Blacks lost political opportunities they had gained during Reconstruction.
- Used poll taxes, literacy tests, white primaries which evaded the 15th Amendment, and grandfather clauses to limit black vote.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON
- Born a slave on a plantation but achieved national distinction as educator, political leader, and spokesman for blacks.
o Worked his way up from working as a janitor to pay for his tuition.
o Explains his gradualist approach to breaking down barriers to black advancement.
o Autobiography Up From Slavery
§ Outlines how his gradualist approach emphasizes how the black should “work his way up”.
- Founded the Tuskegee Institute
o Worked for economic equality but not immediate social or political equality.
§ Was accommodationist, gradualist, and separatist.
§ Argued that blacks must concentrate on educating themselves and investing in their own business so that hard work, economic progress and merit would prove to the whites the value of black economy.
o Tuskegee became powerhouse of African-American education and political influence in US.
§ Used w/ Hampton Institute.
o Emphasis on agricultural and industrial training as his model.
- More accepted by whites.
o Welded more influence with white politicians and philanthropists than any other African-American of his day.
§ Would retain leadership until death 1915.
o Aid from philanthropists such as Andrew Carnegie
§ As white Americans viewed Washington’s vision as key to racial peace in nation.
- Famous for Atlanta Compromise
o “Cast down your bucket” and accept aid from the whites, while the whites should meet the blacks by accepting that this one third of the Southern population.
o Accepted the reality of racial segregation.
- “In all things social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress”
o Emphasized that white-black cooperation, with whites accepting how the blacks are willing to benefit them, and in terms of the blacks, how they should accept their place from the bottom and work upwards, can lead to prosperity.
- “No race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world is long in any degree ostracized”
o That the race will be 1/3 of the South’s ignorance and crime, or 1/3 of intelligence and progress.
o Quote shows how it’s important that we have rights, but more important that we prove ourselves.
- Downstream
o By his death 1915 segregation laws and racial discrimination firmly established as a result of Plessy v. Ferguson and blocked advancement of African Americans.
DU BOIS
- Born as a free black in the North.
- Leadership in Niagara Movement and co-founder of the NAACP
o In charge of writing in The Crisis.
§ Attached racial segregation, discrimination and lynching of blacks.
§ Washington rejected this approach but by time of his death in 1915 would lose influence among many blacks.
o NAACP most famous victory would be Brown v. Board of Education which overturned Plessey v. Ferguson.
- Confronted white and the public in an attempt to achieve complete equality
- Confrontationist
- Rejected Washington’s gradualism and separatism.
o Agreed self-improvement was a good idea but not at the expense of giving up immediate full citizenship rights.
o Believed that white discrimination kept blacks from good paying jobs and comfortable lives.
§ Argued that Washington’s concepts only encouraged whites to deny blacks the right to vote and undermine black pride and progress.
o Began to oppose the influence of the “Tuskegee Machine” criticized for controlling newspapers including the New York Age.
o The Souls of Black Folk a prominent work in opposition against Washington’s ideas.
o Refers to Washington’s ideas of attempting to achieve economic prominence while giving up citizenship rights as a triple paradox.
- Envisioned the creation of an elite group of educated black leaders, the Talented Tenth who would lead blacks in securing equal rights and higher economic standards.
§ Demanded that Talented Tenth be given full and immediate access to the mainstream society.
- By World War I had become leading black figure in US
o HV after war disillusioned that Americans continued to deny blacks equal political and civil rights.
- Downstream
o Became increasingly disillusioned with American society and moved towards socialist solutions to the nation’s economic problems.
o Questioned NAACP’s goal of a racially integrated society.
§ Joined Communist party 1961 which was only one which offered universal suffrage.
o Died in Ghana 1963.
§ Never took part in American Civil Rights Movement in 1950s and 1960s.
GARVEY
- Founded UNIA
o 1887 Jamaica born
o Universal Negro Improvement Association in 1914.
o Stressed racial pride and self-improvement much like Washington whom Garvey admired.
- Over 20,000 participated in Garvey’s first UNIA convention
o Produced a Declaration of Negro Rights denouncing lynchings, segregated public transportations, job discrimination, and inferior black schools.
§ Demanded “Africa for Africans”
o Without actually consulting any Africans, proclaimed Garvey as the Provisional President of Africa.
- HV had greater ambitions, including development of worldwide black-owned industries and shipping line.
o The Black Star Line, first black owned shipping company in the United States.
- Advocated the Back-to-Africa movement and promoted resettlement of Blacks to Africa.
o Mirrored American Liberation Society in sending blacks back to Liberia when there was still slavery.
§ Liberia only country in Africa governed by Africans.
§ HV failed due as UNIA lacked necessary funds and few blacks in US any interest in returning “back to Africa”.
- Known for Pan-Africanism
o That all Africans across the world have a common goal and should unite.
o Gave up on integration and promoted separatism between the races.
§ Believed US would never accept blacks as equals.
§ Would later become inspiration for Nation of Islam movement.
o Stressed racial pride and self-improvement, the development of global black owned industries
§ Shipping lines to “keep Black money in Black pockets”
- Declared that he had similar interests with the KKK in 1922
o “Completely separate black and white societies”
o Praised racial segregation laws, explaining that they were good for building black businesses.
§ Criticism grew
- Downfall
o 1922 arrested for mail fraud in attempt to sell more stock in failing Black Star Line.
§ The case evidence = poor businessman, but jury convicted him anyways.
o Coolidge would commute his sentence and deport him to Jamaica.
- Would die almost a forgotten man.
o “back to Africa” never caught on with most African Americans.
Future Leaders
- Washington, Du Bois and Garvey did not settle future of black people.
- 20th century would have new leaders to civil rights movement
o Martin Luther King Jr advocated non-violent to overcome segregation in South.
o Leaders of NAACP including Thurgood Marshall advocated end of segregation through legal cases.
- Black Muslims led by Elijah Muhammad advocated separation while Malcom X founded an organization opposing separation.
o Black Panthers led by Huey Newton prepared for revolution for equal black rights.
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