1. Racism and Violence in the North

2. The Great Migration 1.5 million Southern blacks moved North
During the 1910s and 1920s
Chicago's black population grew by 148%
Cleveland's by 307%
Detroit's by 611%
Finding places to live became as source of friction

3. Housing – A source of friction between Blacks and Whites
Access to housing became a source of friction
Blacks needed places to live
Whites did not want Blacks in their neighborhoods
Some cities adopt residential segregation ordinances
In 1917, Supreme Court rules it unconstitutional
Government could not impose segregation
Buchanan v. Warley

4. Deed restrictions The restrictive covenant A formal deed restriction
Prohibited whites from selling to Blacks
Whites could be sued for selling to Blacks
Sued by "damaged" neighbors.

5. Individuals impose residential segregation
Neighborhood improvement associations
Keep Black families out of white neighborhoods
White Realtors kept neighborhoods segregated
Realtors in St. Louis established “Negro zones”
Whites sold homes when Blacks moved nearby
Some real estate agents fed this panic
“Blockbusting”
Some Blacks moved out when poor Blacks moved in!
Established Blacks vs. Southern migrants

6. Black homes attacked Blacks who bought homes in White neighborhoods
Sometimes beaten
Sometimes their houses bombed or torched
Many bombings were the work of the Ku Klux Klan
I’ll talk about them later
Chicago: One bombing every 20 days in Chicago
between 1917 and 1921
Bombings kept Blacks out of white neighborhoods

7. Confined to all Black neighborhoods
African Americans created cities-within-cities
During the 1920s.
The largest was Harlem, in upper Manhattan
200,000 African Americans lived in Harlem

8. Blacks fight “de facto” segregation in the North
The National Urban League
helped Blacks find jobs
The NAACP mounted successful challenges against
the grandfather clause (1915)
restrictive covenants (1917)
The NAACP fought school segregation
The NAACP lobbied a federal anti-lynching bill

9. Marcus Garvey
Spoke of racial pride and self-help Told Black followers to love their beautiful black skin Universal Negro Improvement Association (1917) The first mass movement in African American history Negro World had 200,000 subscribers Related businesses employed 1,000 black people

10. The rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan
The original Klan of Reconstruction died in he 1870s
Federal government went after lawbreakers
Their mission done – Reconstruction defeated
Southerners later romanticized the KKK
A noble organization
Saved the South from Negro rule
The novels of Thomas Dixon perpetuated these myths
The Leopard's Spots (1902)
The Clansman (1905)

11. The Birth of a Nation, 1915 A film by D. W. Griffith
Adapted from Dixon's novels
A commercial success
Outraged the Black community
Portrayed Blacks as dumb & sexually aggressive
Black characters played by whites in black face
Popularity of movie explains rebirth of the KKK
Leo Frank murder case also explain new KKK
Jewish man accused of killing young girl

12. The New Ku Klux Klan By the mid-1920s 5 million members nationwide
Followed Blacks North in their great migration
Attracted both Democrats and Republicans
Very influential in state governments
Oklahoma, Indiana, Oregon, Ohio, and California
Hated anyone that was less than “100% American”
Immigrants, radicals, intellectuals, Catholics, & Jews.
African Americans

13. The Ku Klux Klan was a terrorist organization
Committed horrible crimes Mobs hanged 78 Black Burned eleven men at the stake. Summer Blacks were lynched

14. Race Riots April & early October 1919
Race riots in 25 cities around the USA
Some involved the Ku Klux Klan
Elaine, Arkansas
Charleston, South Carolina
Knoxville, Tennessee
Longview, Texas
Omaha, Nebraska
Washington, D.C.

15. Chicago: Site of the largest race riot of 1919
southern migrants came to Chicago
Blacks AND whites between 1915 and 1919
Black population in Chicago tripled
Southern whites brought their racism
Race war in Chicago -- July 27-30, 1919
38 persons of both races died
500 were injured

16. Tulsa Oklahoma, May 1921 Another “race war”
85 people killed – both Black and White
Several hundred people were wounded.
Large parts of Black community destroyed
Thousands were left homeless
Black business district was destroyed by fire.
6,000 blacks were placed in detention camps

17. Lynching continued
Blacks lynched in the US 30 victims were taken from jail cells by white mobs 1919 – begins campaign to make lynching a federal crime Their efforts were blocked by conservative southerners

18. Why the outbreak of violence?
❶ The Great Migration
whites and blacks living in close proximity
❷ A post-war recession
Blacks and whites competing for fewer jobs
Greater tensions
❸ An anti-communist “Red Scare”
Whites mistrusted all things “alien”

19. Why were Blacks more likely to fight back?
Fighting back in the courts AND on the streets
❶ Rising expectations
Blacks were coming to expect more
❷ Blacks now in cities
They can join together and defend themselves
❸ Black World War I veterans
Tired of being mistreated