Context of Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry: PreCivil Rights American South

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Context of Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry
Pre-Civil Rights American South

• English 305
• Dr. Roggenkamp

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Pre-Civil Rights South

• Racial segregation
• Jim Crowa pernicious, negative stereotype used
  to describe a system of government-sanctioned
  racial oppression and segregation in the U.S.
• Label used from late nineteenth-century through
  first half of twentieth century
• Label taken from popular nineteenth-century
  minstrel song

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Jim Crow images, mid nineteenth century
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Historical Timeline Legalizing Segregation

• 1863Emancipation Proclamation
• Abraham Lincoln, initially opposed My paramount
  object is to save the Union, and not either to
  save or destroy slavery.
• But convinced of necessity for emancipation by
  1863
• 1865Civil War ends
• Confiscated southern lands sold to northern
  investors and carpetbaggers
• Land granted to freed slaves

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Historical Timeline Legalizing Segregation

• 1865-1877Reconstruction of the South
• Set up to assist southern blacks and whites in
  transition from slave culture to non-slave
  culture
• Introduce system of free labor, oversee 3,000
  schools for former slaves, settle race-based
  disputes, enforce contracts between white
  landowners and usually black labor forces, and
  secure justice for former slaves in state courts
• Federal government sets conditions whereby
  southern states can apply for entry back into
  Union
• At least 10 of voting population must take oath
  of allegiance to Union (lenient!)
• Lincoln assassinated, April 1865

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Historical Timeline Legalizing Segregation

• 1865-1877Reconstruction of the South, continued
• Andrew Johnson favors white supremacy in south,
  supports political leaders who aided Confederacy
• Johnson wants to leave future of African
  Americans in south in hands of whites
• Movement to restore slavery in substance if not
  in name
• 1865Ku Klux Klan first organized
• Tennessee social club organized by 6 vets
• Grows quicklyterrorist organization across south

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Historical Timeline Legalizing Segregation

• 186814th Amendment to U.S. Constitution
  Guarantee citizenship, protect civil liberties
• 13th Amendment had abolished slavery
• 1870-1871Enforcement Acts
• Congress passes criminal codes to protect rights
  to vote, hold office, serve of juries
• KKK rises further in response

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Historical Timeline Legalizing Segregation

• 1875First Civil Rights Act
• Sought to guarantee freedom of accessfull and
  equal enjoyment of public facilities
• 1877Reconstruction Ends
• Removal of federal troops from south
• 1883Civil Rights Act of 1875 declared
  unconstitutional
• Clear way for segregation

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Historical Timeline Legalizing Segregation

• 1880s-1920sRising terrorism
• Activities of KKK grow annually
• Rising lynching rate
• Wiping out civil rights of African Americans

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Historical Timeline Legalizing Segregation

• 1896Supreme Court ruling on Plessy v. Ferguson
• 1892 Homer Plessy jailed for sitting in white
  railroad car in LA
• Supreme Court upholds constitutionality of law
• Sets precedent of separate but equal
• A fiction rarely equal, always separate

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Historical Timeline Legalizing Segregation

• 1931Scottsboro Case
• Nine black youths falsely charged with raping two
  white women in Alabama
• No evidence, but all-white jury convicts all nine
• All but youngest (age 12) sentenced to death
• Last pardon not granted until 1976
• This case, more than any other event in the
  South during the 1930s, revealed the barbarous
  treatment of blacks by whites.

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Resources

• http//www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/
• http//www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/s
  cottsboro/SB_imag.html