African Americans After Reconstruction

Frederick Douglass, 1866• The arm of the Federal government is long, but it is far too

short to protect the rights of individuals in the interior of distant States. They must have the power to protect themselves, or they will go unprotected, in spite of all the laws the Federal government can put upon the national statute-book.

                           

Failure of Reconstruction

• Southern whites were violently opposed to black rights; many in north were indifferent

• Rise of KKK• Where army was present, KKK leaders were

apprehended and imprisoned• Land Reform—blacks (and poor whites) left to

farm tenancy/sharecropping

“Boy, You ain’t a votin’ here”!

Blacks in Southern PoliticsBlacks in Southern Politics Core voters were black veterans.

Blacks were politically unprepared.

Blacks could register and vote in states since 1867.

The 15th Amendment guaranteedfederal voting.

President Grant 1868-1876

Grant Administration ScandalsGrant Administration Scandals Grant presided over an era of

unprecedented growth and corruption.* Credit Mobilier

Scandal. – jacked up prices for railroad construction and cheated the government out of money

* Whiskey Ring.- members of his administration were taking kickbacks to keep certain businesses from having to pay taxes on the production and sale of alcohol

Northern Support WanesNorthern Support Wanes “Grantism” & corruption.

Panic of 1873 [6-yeardepression].

Concern over westwardexpansion and Indian wars.

Key monetary issues:* should the government

retire $432m worth of “greenbacks” issued during the Civil War.

* should war bonds be paid back in specie orgreenbacks.

The main reason the North was so willingto compromise was due to the Panic of1873.

Northerners were more concerned withproviding for families and their owneconomy that they were ready to letthe South off.

A Political Crisis: The “Compromise” of 1877A Political Crisis: The

“Compromise” of 1877

Compromise of 1877

• In the Compromise of 1877, Hayes promised that as President, he would remove federal troops from all southern states. Southern Democrats would regain complete control of the region. This ended the Reconstruction era in the south.

Compromise of 1877

• …allowed Rutherford B. Hayes to become president and removed federal troops from the South marking the end of Reconstruction.

Jim Crow laws

• …were passed to enforce segregation.

Poll tax

• …required voters to pay a special tax before they could vote.Since African Americans were poor for the mostpart they were not able to pay the tax.

Literacy Tests

In order to vote men had to pass a testto prove they were intelligent enoughto vote. The purpose was to make surewhite men could vote and black mencould not

Grandfather Clause

Men in the South whose grandfather had voted prior to the Civil War were exempt from any of the new requirements to vote.

Sharecropping

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Early Civil Rights Movement: Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois

• Booker T. Washington and W.E.B DuBois were the two most significant early leaders in the modern Civil Rights movement.

• This being said, they were very different men with very different approaches.

• Washington, the founder of the Tuskegee Institute, believed that Jim Crow was the reality and that, for the time being, African Americans should focus on self improvement through education and economic strength separate from whites.

• In one of his most famous speeches, Washington used the metaphor of a hand, saying that whites and blacks could be as separate as the fingers but, when needed, as united as a fist.

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• DuBois, the first African American to receive a PhD from Harvard, believed that Jim Crow should be opposed with every means available. In other words fight for rights first then worry about education.

• To this end, he was one of the founders of the NAACP, which offered legal challenges to the Jim Crow system.

• Although seeking the same ends, Washington and DuBois shared a rivalry through the early part of the twentieth century.

Booker T. Washington• Believed the way to equality was

through vocational education and economic success.

• He accepted social separation.– Believed in industrial education

for blacks and provided it at his Tuskegee Institute.

– Felt that blacks could achieve good lives if they were properly prepared for the industrial jobs in demand.

– A man “of his times”

Getting educated at Tuskegee Institute

Booker T. Washington’s Approach to Discrimination

• Find ways to help the newly freed farmers to be more productive on their farms.

• This way they could get out of poverty.• He started his Tuskegee Institute for the

purpose of providing vocational education for African Americans.

• His idea was that once they had training to make themselves better they could then fight for social and political rights.

Cont.

• As the northerners opened textile mills in the South, he tried to convince them to hire these newly trained people.

• That was one purpose of his “Atlanta Compromise Speech.”

Atlanta Compromise Speech

• Many thought he sounded like he didn’t mind the situation as it was but was willing to put up with the literacy tests, poll taxes, etc. set up by the Jim Crow laws.

• Basically trading jobs for 2nd class citizen status and putting up with the Jim Crow Laws.

• Whites accepted his way of going about change. • At the same time he was pushing for equal rights without

making a show of it.• Basically start by making yourself better so you can prove

yourself then more people would listen to you.

• Washington was backed by the southern African Americans he was trying to help but those in the North didn’t think he was pushing hard enough.

W.E.B. Du Bois• Believed that education was meaningless without

equality. • Supported political equality for African Americans by

helping to form the National Association of Advancement for Colored People– Disagreed with Washington’s plan of blacks settling for low

class industrial jobs– Didn’t think blacks would achieve

their potential or compete with whites with only factory jobs.

– Was a “man ahead of his times”– Believed the “talented tenth” should be educated and pursue civil rights for the remaining African Americans

Du Bois supported his desire for political equality for African Americans by helping to form the National Association for the Advancement of

Colored People (NAACP).

Ida B. Wells (Ida Wells-Barnett)• Led an anti-lynching crusade and called on the

federal government to take action.– Between 1882 and 1930

almost 5,000 people werelynched in the U.S.

– Most lynchings were against blacks in the south, though some were white or Asian

– She spoke out and wrote against this injustice and later reformers would use her writings to help end this violent act.