Chapter 16

Conciliation, Agitation, and Migration:

African Americans in the Early 20th Century

I. Race and the Progressive Movement

Social problems– Industrialization, urbanization, and

immigration Solutions Numerous efforts aimed at reforms Middle- and upper-class white people “Whites only” Glimmer of hope for black people

The Tuskegee Machine

Booker T. Washington as a political figure Connections - Theodore Roosevelt Invited Washington to dinner at the White House Regularly consulted each other on political

appointments Behind-the-scenes political activities Conservative leader Did not challenge white supremacy Accepted equitable voting qualifications Opposed women’s suffrage

Booker T. Washington Shares the Podium with President RooseveltBooker T. Washington had access to and influence among the most powerful political and business leaders in the United States. Here he shares the podium with President Theodore Roosevelt. Washington persuaded Republican leaders like Roosevelt to appoint black men to an assortment of federal offices and convinced businessmen to contribute sizable sums to black colleges and universities. Nevertheless, some African Americans criticized the Tuskegee leader for not speaking out more candidly in opposition to white supremacy and Jim Crow.

Opposition to Washington

Challenges to racial oppression Afro-American League, 1889 Pressed for civil and political rights William Monroe Trotter – Harvard educated editor of

the Boston Guardian Labeled Washington – “the great traitor”, the

“benedict Arnold of the Negro Race” 1903 interrupted a Washington speech, spent 30

days in jail, newspapers labeled “the Boston Riot”

III. W. E. B. Du Bois

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois Born and raised in Great Barrington,

Massachusetts Little overt racism Fisk University Harvard University

– Earned Ph.D. in 1895

• Activist• The Souls of Black Folk• Critical of Washington’s gradualism

The Niagara Movement Niagara Falls, 1905 Emphatic and continual protest Political rights Equal treatment in public places Discrimination in military Booker T. Washington

• Opposed• Paid for anti-movement advertising • Threatened loss of federal jobs for supporters

The Founders of the Niagara MovementThe founders of the Niagara Movement posed in front of a photograph of the falls when they met at Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, in 1905. W. E. B. Du Bois is second from the right in the middle row.

IV. The NAACP

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People -Founded 1909

No direct link with Niagara Movement Militant organization during the early

years Dedicated to racial justice White leaders dominated and financed

Using the System

Full political and civil rights Relied on judicial and legislative systems Lawsuits and bills Guinn v. United States, 1915

– Overturned Grandfather clause in Oklahoma

Dyer bill – US anti-lynching law. Passed in the House, blocked in the Senate. Never became law.

Du Bois and The Crisis

Director of publicity and research The Crisis NAACP publication Denounced white racism Demanded that black people stand up for civil rights Did not provoke violence

» Would not tolerate mistreatment• Propaganda tool

– 30,000 subscribers, 1913

W. E. B. Du BoisThis early-twentieth-century illustration depicts a dapper young W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963). He was a key figure in opposing Booker T. Washington’s Tuskegee Machine. Du Bois helped found the NAACP and edited its publication, The Crisis, for two decades.

The CrisisThe first issue of The Crisis monthly magazine edited by W. E. B. Du Bois, was published in November 1910.

Washington versus the NAACP

Many NAACP leaders despised Washington

Washington His followers returned the feelings Worked to subvert the NAACP Saw Du Bois as a puppet for white people

• Refused to debate him• Manipulated white supremacists

The NACW and Phillis Wheatley Clubs

National Association of Colored Women, 1896– Sought to end poverty and racial discrimination – 50,000 members and a thousand clubs nationwide– Rivalries and ideological disputes

Phillis Wheatley Clubs• Provided living accommodations for single, black

working women in cities where YWCA denied rooms

• Nurseries and domestic skills classes

Women’s Suffrage

Nineteenth Amendment Division between black and white

supporters Opponents

– Ratification would increase black voters– White women supported voting restrictions– Literacy and education

Black suffragists• Increased political power

– Civil rights, improved education, and respect

Cool Down

Who had the better plan for black equality, WEB Dubois or Booker T. Washington? Explain the specific reasons for your choice.

“The Party of Lincoln” Occasionally rewarded support with

federal jobs Regularly punished for the color of their

skin Taft tolerated restrictions on southern

black voters Denied entrance to 1912 Republican

convention

IX. Presidential Politics

Woodrow Wilson

Some black leaders supported democrat Woodrow Wilson– New Jersey reform governor– Scholar

Wilson ignored black people– Permitted segregation

• Federal agencies and buildings– Defended separation of races as a way to avoid

friction

World War I Rampant racism and rigid segregation 10,000 black regulars in U.S. Army,

1917 5,000 black men in the Navy Most were waiters, kitchen attendants,

stokers Marine Corps did not admit black men

X. Black Men and the Military in World War I

African-American Troops, 1918

African-American troops on the march near Verdun in France in 1918.

Black men lived in tents, no floors, no blankets

Low morale White men failed to salute black officers Military did not plan to use black troops in

combat Only 42,000 out of 380,000 Little military training Laborers, construction, kitchen workers

Discrimination and Its Effects

Atlanta, 1906 Springfield, 1908 East St. Louis, 1917 Houston, 1917 Chicago, 1919 Elaine, 1919 Tulsa, 1921

XI. Race Riots

Major Race Riots, 1900–1923

In the years between 1900 and 1923, race conflicts and riots occurred in dozens of American communities as black people migrated in increasing numbers to urban areas. The violence reached a peak in the immediate aftermath of World War I during the Red Summer of 1919. White Americans—in the North and South—were determined to keep black people confined to a subordinate role as menial laborers and restricted to well-defined all-black neighborhoods. African Americans who had made significant economic and military contributions to the war effort and who had congregated in large numbers in American cities insisted on participating on a more equitable basis in American society.

The Greenwood Neighborhood in Flames During the Riot

This is the Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa, Oklahoma, in flames during the riot in June 1921.

Rosewood 50 miles west of Gainesville – primarily black town White married woman was beaten by her white adulterer Claimed she was robbed and raped by black men Accused man was abducted and lynched for the rape Black people armed to defend themselves Word spread and several hundred whites traveled to Rosewood

to hunt black people Officially 6 dead blacks Believed body count is approx. 100 Burned town, survivors fled, hid in swamp, never returned Town of Rosewood removed from the map No government response 1993 Florida became the first state to award damages to

survivors and decedents of survivors for the racially based massacre.

Why migrate? Southern agricultural disasters, 1910s Labor shortages during World War I To escape the most blatant Jim Crow laws Bleak culture of rural South

Destinations Most went to Midwest or northeastern locales Few went west

XII. The Great Migration

Black Population Growth in Selected Northern Cities, 1910–1902

The Great Migration and the Distribution of the African-American Population in 1920

Map 16–2. The Great Migration and the Distribution of the African-American Population in 1920

Although several hundred thousand black Southerners migrated north in the second and third decades of the twentieth century in the largest internal migration in American history, most African Americans remained in the southern states.

Segregation usually less overt Embraced Jim Crow Southern Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois Chicago Harlem

• “Negro Capital of the World”

XIII. Northern Communities

The Expansion of Black Harlem, 1911–1930

Before the American Revolution, Harlem was a small Dutch village located at the northern end of Manhattan Island. In the early twentieth century, African Americans transformed it into a thriving black metropolis. Migrants who arrived either after a short trip of just a few miles from the “Tenderloin” or “San Juan Hill” sections of midtown Manhattan or after much longer journeys from the Carolinas or Georgia took over block after block of Harlem homes and apartments.

Migration strained families Family members left behind Men found work as unskilled laborers in

factories Women worked as domestics Younger women lured into prostitution Most black families survived intact Northern black families two-parent

households

XIV. Families