1. Confronting Jim Crow

2. The Black Population in 1900
In 1900 more than 90% of African Americans lived in the South
About 80% of them lived in the countryside
Living in segregation – under Jim Crow laws
Southern blacks fought Jim Crow in a variety of different ways

3. “Back to Africa” Some African Americans considered leaving the USA
Colonization
The idea of “returning” to Africa predates the Civil War
Idea became more popular in the late 19th century
Dr. Martin Delany and Henry M. Turner
Few ordinary Blacks considered going “back to Africa”
Expensive, disruptive – How can you “go back”?
Black intellectuals – like the idea of a “motherland”
Awakens a spirit of ethnic pride and black nationalism

4. Internal colonization
“Internal colonization” more popular than “returning” to Africa.
Establishing Black communities within the US
More practical and affordable
Benjamin “Pap” Singleton
“Exodus of 1879"
Thousands of migrants to go to Kansas
Establish all Black towns
Blacks also migrated to the new Oklahoma Territory
Establish more than 50 towns and settlements

5. All Black towns in the South
By 1910 about 50 Black towns existed in the South
Some of these towns enjoyed initial success
None had more than 5000 people.
By the 1920s, all were in decline.
Dependent on white county governments
America was becoming urban
By the 1930s, most were ghost towns

6. Stay in the South and fight segregation
They joined labor unions -- Knights of Labor
Black and white farmers organized -- Populist movement
Campaigned for constitutional rights
They held conventions
Most supported Republican party
Party of Lincoln -- Party that freed the slaves
Frederick Douglass supported the Republican Party
Most powerful black leader in America
Douglass -- committed to integration

7. Frederick Douglass
“The Republican Party is the ship and all else is the sea”

8. Ida Wells Part of a new generation of Blacks fighting for justice
Ida Wells fought segregation on public transportation
Unsuccessfully sued Tennessee to end it
Wells was from Memphis
A schoolteacher and newspaper editor
A lifelong crusade against lynching

9. W. E. B. Du Bois
Spokesman for a generation of college-educated African Americans
Born in 1868 – a free man in Massachusetts
Graduated in from Fisk College
Ph.D. in history from Harvard
Spoke for the “Talented Tenth”
Educated, middle-class blacks
The Souls of Black Folk (1903)
Calls for an end to segregation, the vote, and civil rights
Prior to 1920s, DuBois had little impact on Black life in the South.

10. Booker T. Washington “Accommodation” A more moderate position
Don’t fight Jim Crow head on
Work within the system
First, improve your economic condition
Political improvement will follow naturally
Born in 1856 in Virginia – a slave

11. Washington’s education & Message
1872 – The Hampton Institute
Virtues: personal morality, hard work, an industrial education
Washington believed all Black people should adopt these virtues
The Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute
School founded by Washington (1881)
Urged Black people to stop talking about racial pride
Urged Black people to strive for “amalgamation.”
“Self Help” – The key to black success
“Up From Slavery” (1901) – his autobiography

12. Washington’s “Atlanta Compromise”
A speech in which Washington told blacks to accept the status quo
Progress through self-help and hard work
Washington became the new “leader of Black America”
White Americans liked his message
It was conservative; not offensive
Northerners donated money to Tuskegee institute
Southern whites liked Washington and his message
Until President Theodore Roosevelt invited him to dine at the white House in 1901

13. DuBois vs. Washington
Contrasting approaches to the problems facing black America
Each attracted like-mined allies
Differences stem from their different backgrounds
Du Bois -- born free in the North
“Aristocratic” Harvard graduate
Targeted men like himself – The Talented Tenth
Washington -- born a slave in the South
Industrial education
Targeted men like himself – southern blacks