UNITED STATES HISTORY AND THE CONSTITUTION South Carolina Standard USHC-3.5

Jim Crow laws  Determined to claim the full rights of citizenship in a democracy, African Americans responded to the restrictions placed upon them by the Jim Crow laws and their loss of the vote through poll taxes and literacy tests.

African American leaders  African American leaders emerged who were united in their determination to attain full citizenship but were divided as to the best strategy to pursue.  The strategies each advocated depended in large measure on personal background and the audience that each addressed.

Booker T. Washington Booker T. Washington  Booker T. Washington was born a slave in the South and raised himself to a leadership position through his determination to receive an education and hard work. Booker T. Washington Booker T. Washington  He founded the Tuskegee Institute in order to provide vocational training to African Americans who knew only how to farm.

George Washington Carver  George Washington Carver worked at Tuskegee developing new crops to aid the poverty stricken cotton farmers of the region. George Washington Carver George Washington Carver

Vocational Education  Booker T. Washington’s experience in the increasingly segregated South led him to advocate vocational education and opportunities for employment as more important to the well-being of African Americans than social and political equality.

Atlanta Compromise”  Although Washington’s ultimate goal was full equality, African Americans who were too assertive in advocating for their political and social rights might fall victim to a lynching.  As Southern businessmen opened textile mills throughout the region, Booker T. Washington pleaded with them to hire the hard-working former slaves in his so- called “Atlanta Compromise” speech

Second Class Citizenship  Although Booker T. Washington lobbied behind the scenes for greater social and political rights, his public statements suggested that he was willing to accept the second class citizenship offered by Jim Crow laws, literacy tests and poll taxes in exchange for jobs that would alleviate the poverty of African American sharecroppers.

“Accommodation”  Although Washington’s strategy was acceptable to the white majority of the South, jobs were not forthcoming.  Southern African Americans revered Washington but northern African Americans criticized his gradualism and “accommodation”.

W.E.B. DuBois W.E.B. DuBois  W.E.B. DuBois was born free in the North, attended prestigious schools on scholarship and earned a PhD from Harvard University. W.E.B. DuBois W.E.B. DuBois  DuBois opposed Washington’s emphasis on vocational education and argued that all African Americans should have the opportunity for any education that fit their talents.

NAACP  DuBois promoted the development of a “Talented Tenth” of well-educated African American leaders.  DuBois voiced both his opposition to Washington’s strategy and his own advocacy for full social and political rights for all African Americans through the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which he had helped to found, and its publication The Crisis, which he edited. NAACP

Rhetoric  DuBois’s militant rhetoric energized his readers, the growing African American middle class, but was less acceptable to the white community.

Public Facilities, Equal?  Schools, neighborhoods and public facilities continued to be segregated in the North by practice (de facto) and in the South by law (de jure).  African Americans were most often the last hired and the first fired.

Brown v Board of Education  It would be many years before the NAACP would be successful in protecting the rights of African Americans in the courts [Brown v Board of Education, 1954] and launch the modern civil rights movement Brown v Board of EducationBrown v Board of Education

Ida Wells-Barnett  Ida Wells-Barnett was born a slave in Mississippi shortly before emancipation. Ida Wells-Barnett Ida Wells-Barnett  She grew up on a plantation where her parents continued to work for their former master.

Ida Wells-Barnett  Educated in a Reconstruction-era freedom school, Wells-Barnett took a job as a teacher and later as a newspaper writer.

Jim Crow Laws  Ida Wells-Barnett experienced Jim Crow first hand when she was forcibly removed from a railroad car and forced to sit in a colored-only car.  She sued the railroad company but her initial victory was overturned on appeal.

Critical Editorial  She wrote an editorial critical of the segregated schools in Memphis that cost Wells-Barnett her job as a teacher.  Wells-Barnett also experienced violent intimidation when a friend was lynched in Memphis.

Run Out of Memphis  This experience launched her investigation of lynching as a newspaper editor.  She devoted the rest of her life to an anti-lynching crusade.  Her outspoken criticisms of lynching met with a violent reaction from whites and she was forced to leave Memphis.

Founding Member  Ida Wells-Barnett strenuously objected to Booker T. Washington’s strategy which she labeled as accommodation.  She was a founding member of the NAACP, but left that group when it was not militant enough.

Jane Addams  She worked with Jane Addams to prevent the Chicago public schools from being segregated and supported the cause of women’s suffrage.  Although Wells-Barnett’s campaign against lynching was not successful in her lifetime, it raised awareness of the conditions of African Americans