4/30: Discussing Race

1. 4/30: Discussing Race • Do you believe that Jane Elliot’s “Brown Eyes/Blue Eyes” 1960s experiment was an effective way to introduce her third-grade students to issues of race and prejudice? Why or why not? Why do you believe that the issue of race continues to be a sensitive one for many people, and how can we encourage an honest, respectful discussion on the history of race relations in the United States?

2. Reconstruction • Even while the Civil War was in progress, Union politicians had been looking for ways to achieve Reconstruction, bringing the South back into the Union • Some congressional leaders favored a harsh Reconstruction plan designed to punish the South

3. The Freedmen’s Bureau Aids Southerners • Shortly before the war ended, Lincoln and Congress did agree on the Freedmen’s Bureau, a federal agency designed to aid freed slaves and relieve the South’s immediate needs • The black and white agents of the Bureau delivered food and healthcare and began to develop a public school system for both black and white southerners • It also helped to reunite families separated by slavery and to negotiate fair labor contracts between formerly enslaved African-Americans and white landowners

4. The Reconstruction South • As a condition of readmission to the Union, all southern states were required to grant the vote to African American men • The South also had to accept the Thirteenth Amendment, which ended slavery in 1865 • The Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, granted full citizenship status and rights to every person born in the United States, including African Americans

5. Under Reconstruction, many African American men eagerly signed up to exercise their new right of suffrage • By 1868, many southern states had black elected officials • The Fifteenth Amendment, ratified in 1870, guaranteed that no male citizen could be denied the right to vote on the basis of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude”

6. Freedmen Rebuild Their Lives • In the South, formerly enslaved African-Americans worked to carve out new lives • They assembled their scattered families and built strong churches that also served as community centers, employment agencies, schoolhouses, and – in later years – centers of protest

7. For the first time, many African American men and women could legalize and celebrate their marriages, set up housekeeping with their families and make choices about where they would reside • Freed women could care for their families and leave field labor

8. Freed people also realized the importance of learning to read and to count their money – so the Freedmen’s Bureau schools quickly filled • By 1869, as many as 300,000 African American adults and children were acquiring basic literacy

9. The Ku Klux Klan Uses Terror Tactics • Even though the South remained under military occupation, organized secret societies, such as the Ku Klux Klan, used terror and violence against African Americans and their white supporters • A federal grand jury concluded that the chief goal of the Klan attacks was to keep African Americans from voting

10. Congress passed federal laws making it a crime go use violence to prevent people from voting • Although Klan activities lessened somewhat, the threat of violence persisted, keeping many southern African Americans from the polls

11. Separate But Equal • During the decades after Reconstruction, southern states passed laws that separated blacks and whites – these laws were known as Jim Crow laws • In the 1896 case Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court upheld segregation as long as states maintained “separate but equal” facilities for both races • Yet facilities for blacks almost always were inferior • During the same time period, southern states enacted laws such as poll taxes and literacy tests that stripped blacks of the vote

12. 1920’s: A New “Black Consciousness” • Like the immigrants who traveled from Europe and Asia, African Americans who left the South dreamed of a better future • They had heard stories of economic opportunity, social advancement, and greater political rights

13. The South, they reasoned, was a dead end • Locked into low-paying rural jobs barred from decent schools, faced with the reality of Jim Crow oppression and the threat of lynching, they looked to move north

14. Migrants Face Chances and Challenges • Most African American migrants to the north probably found a better life • Wages in a Detroit auto plant or a Pittsburgh steel mill were far better than what a sharecropper earned in the South • In such cities as New York, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland, African Americans had a growing political voice

15. In those towns, there also existed black middle and upper classes • African American ministers, physicians, lawyers, teachers, and journalists practiced their professions and served as role models to the younger generation

16. But… • In coming North, African Americans had certainly not escaped racism and oppression • On average, they were forced to live in the worst housing and labor in the lowest paying jobs • In addition, as the race riots in the summer of 1919 demonstrated, violence was a threat to African Americans in the north, as well

17. New York City’s Harlem became the focus for the aspirations of hundreds of thousands of African American • Migrants from the South mixed with recently arrived immigrants from Caribbean islands, such as Jamaica • This dynamic blend of different cultures and traditions bred new ideas

18. Garvey Calls for Racial Pride • The most prominent new African American leader to emerge in the 1920s was Marcus Garvey • Born in Jamaica, Garvey traveled widely before moving to Harlem in 1916 • He came to the conclusion that African Americans were persecuted everywhere

19. To combat this problem, he promoted the idea of universal black nationalism and organized a “Back to Africa” movement • Unlike Booker T. Washington or W.E.B. DuBois, Garvey did not call for blacks and whites to work together to improve America • Instead, Garvey advocated the separation of the races

20. By the mid-1920s, Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association boasted almost 2.5 million members and sympathizers • His advocacy of black pride and black support of black-run businesses won considerable support

21. Garvey’s movement fell apart in the second half of the decade • The federal government sent him to prison for mail fraud and then deported him to Jamaica • Without his powerful leadership, the Universal Negro Improvement Association lost its focus and appeal • Although Garvey’s movement died, his ideas did not fade

22. How did these past events/ideas/people influence the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s/60s?