A History of African Americans

The New South / Segregation 1877-1950 • From 1877-1892 the situation for African Americans in America only got worse • ~1882 the low point of African American history has been reached • during the 1890s and early 1900s, lynchings² increased, racial segregation became law, and African American citizens didn't have the right to vote • system of sharecropping³ (“the new slavery“)

The New South / Segregation 1877-1950 • “Jim Crow“ laws¹ • interracial movements / all-black towns • promised land • Northern Metropolises movement • Jim Crow • in the 1930s and 1940s people believed in their hope • highest umemployment rate of black workers • “Double Victory“ during the 2nd World War

Harlem Renaissance A blossoming (c. 1918 – 37) of African American culture As a literary movement significant impact on black literature and consciousness worldwide.

Booker T. Washington: “During the interracial movements he called on Southern black folk to cast down their buckets where they are and carve out a life on the land“ Ida B. Wells: “Believed that blacks should cast down the gauntlet and punch it out with white supremacists. Wells, one of many leading black women activists of that era, declared war on lynching and sexual violence against black women.“ =>The period from 1945 to 1970 might be described as a protracted war for freedom

Henry Woodfin Grady establish a New South and past was put to rest 1886 speech => “South of slavery and secession is dead“ “There is a New South of union and freedom“ In the tumultuous decades following the war when hatreds lingered in many, it was a conciliatory Grady who sought to establish a New South in which the past was put to rest. "There was a South of slavery and secession - that South is dead. There is now a South of union and freedom - that South, thank God, is living, breathing, and growing every hour," he said in an 1886 speech before a dinner audience that included J. P. Morgan and H. M. Flagler at Delmonico's Restaurant before the New England Society of New York. He popularized an antithesis between the “old South” which “rested everything on slavery and agriculture, unconscious that these could neither give nor maintain healthy growth,” and a “new south” – “thrilling with the consciousness of growing power and prosperity”.

Plessy vs Ferguson In 1896 a landmark by United States Supreme Court decision Racial segregation in private businesses => doctrine “sperate but equal“ Handed down by a vote of 7 to 1 “Seperate but equal“ remained standard doctrine in U.S. law until its repudiation in the 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896), is a landmark United States Supreme Court decision in the jurisprudence of the United States, upholding the constitutionality of state laws requiring racial segregation in private businesses (particularly railroads), under the doctrine of "separate but equal". The decision was handed down by a vote of 7 to 1 (Justice David Josiah Brewer did not participate in the decision), with the majority opinion written by Justice Henry Billings Brown and the dissent written by Justice John Marshall Harlan. "Separate but equal" remained standard doctrine in U.S. law until its repudiation in the 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education. After the Supreme Court ruling, the New Orleans Comité des Citoyens (Committee of Citizens) that had brought the suit and arranged for Homer Plessy's arrest in order to challenge Louisiana's segregation law, replied, “We, as freemen, still believe that we were right and our cause is sacred.”[1]

Ku Klux Klan A secret society Founded in 1866 Terrorist organization To reassert white supremacy organized in the South after the Civil War to reassert white supremacy by means of terrorism. After the Civil War, lynching became particularly associated with the South and with the first Ku Klux Klan, which was founded in 1866.

Glossary “Jim Crow“ laws¹: laws that forced racial segregation Lynching²: Lynching is the illegal execution of an accused person by a mob. Lynching was originally a system of punishment used by whites against African American slaves. However, whites who protested against this were also in danger of being lynched. After the establishment of the Ku Klux Klan in 1867 the number of lynching of African American increased dramatically. Sharecropping³: Sharecropping is a system of agriculture in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crop produced on the land (e.g., 50% of the crop)

A short presentation created by Hendrik S. , Robert W. , Mariann L A short presentation created by Hendrik S., Robert W., Mariann L., Anna R.