1877-1900 Post Reconstruction Self-Segregation

1
1877-1900Post Reconstruction Self-Segregation

• Black Codes during Reconstruction
• Jim Crow Laws after Reconstruction
• In rural deep south
• All black communities in some locales
• In towns, the other side of the tracks.

2
Leo Frank case 1913/1915

• Leo Frank Accused of killing Mary Phagan.
• Very little evidence against him but Frank was
  found guilty and sentenced to death.
• Frank was convicted of the murder, but his death
  sentence was commuted to life imprisonment by
  Gov. Slaton
• Two months later, Frank was taken from the prison
  by an angry mob, brought back to Marietta, and
  lynched by a group calling themselves the Knights
  of Mary Phagan.
• Resulted in the rebirth of the KKK
• Nov. 1915 Atlanta preacher William Simmons and
  34 others climbed to the top of Stone Mountain,
  lit torches, circled a burning cross, and rallied

3
Jim Crow laws

• Separate but equal
• Laws passed to establish facilities for whites
  and blacks
• Resulted in separate bathrooms, water fountains,
  railroad cars, waiting rooms, schools
• 1889 Georgia General Assembly segregated public
  facilities
• Always separaterarely equal
• African Americans protested the laws in public
  meetings
• Henry McNeal Turner the civil rights laws and
  segregation that followed them was barbarous.

4
Plessy v. Ferguson

• Staged as a way to test the constitutionality of
  the Jim Crow laws (Jim Crow Car Act of 1890)
• Homer Plessy 7/8 white, 1/8 black took a seat in
  the whites only car of a train
• When he refused to move, he was arrested under
  the above act which required separate but equal
  accommodations on train cars
• Heard by the US Supreme Court in 1896
• Upheld by a 7-1 vote (single dissenting vote
  John Marshall Harlan, a Southerner)
• Plessy v. Ferguson gave states the right to
  control social discrimination and promote
  segregation

5
Plessy v. Ferguson

• 1899 Richmond County closed the only public high
  school in Georgia for descendents of enslaved
  Africanspurely for economic reasons to create
  an elementary school
• Parents sued the school board based on the
  original Plessy v. Ferguson case that ensured
  separate-but-equal facilities
• Lower court agreed overturned by GA Supreme
  Court
• December 1899 U.S. Supreme Court ruled
• Africans had the right to be educated only to the
  8th grade
• Closing the white high school did not relate to
  the equal rights granted by the 14th amendment
• The use of funds to open the elementary school by
  closing the high school was a state issue
• Ruling finally overturned in 1954 with Brown V.
  Board of Education which ended segregated schools

Picture Atlanta Journal-Constitution
6
Disenfranchisement

• 1900 African-Americans make up 47 of Georgias
  population
• Despite 15th amendment, laws were passed with the
  sole purpose of keeping them from voting
• 1908 Grandfather clausestated that only men
  whose fathers or grandfathers had been eligible
  to vote in 1867 were eligible to vote (b/c so few
  African Americans had been able to vote in 1867
  it kept most of GAs Af. Amer from voting)
• Poll tax a tax to be able to vote
• Other requirements own property, pass literacy
  tests
• Literacy tests were very subjectivecould be
  asked anything
• (explain antidisestablishmentarianism)
• Gerrymander a way of drawing up an election
  district to benefit a certain group (racial,
  political, special interest)

In 1812, the US portrait painter, Gilbert Stuart,
known for his portraits of the great US
presidents, noticed a map in a newspaper office.
The map showed a voting district that had been
created by the Democratically dominated
Massachusetts Assembly when Elbridge Gerry
(1744-1814) was governor. The district had a
peculiar shape that assured that any election in
that district would favor the Democrats. Stuart
drew eyes, claws, and wings on the outline of the
district because it looked like a salamander.
Someone in the office watched him and blended
Gerry with salamander on the spot to create the
word, gerrymander which survived to this today.
7
Booker T. Washington

• Important civil rights leader
• President of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama
• Believed that economic independence was the only
  road to social and political equality
• African Americans should focus on learning skills
  and gaining economic strength
• Urged white Southerners to remember that the
  African American workforce had created the wealth
  of the Southfeared that African Americans would
  be cast aside for immigrant labor
• Speech Atlantas Cotton States and International
  Exposition in 1895--condoned social segregation
  of the races, provided that educational and
  economic opportunities were equal.

8
W.E.B. Dubois

• Disagreed with Washington
• Called for social and political integration
• Talented 10th higher education for 10 of the
  African American populationthis group could
  become leaders for the community
• Thought Washington was making decisions that
  affected all blacks negatively
• Disagreed that blacks who became economically
  successful and waited long enough would help
  improve race relations

9
Atlanta Race Riot--1906

• Sept. 22, 1906 over 5000 whites and African
  Americans had gathered on Decatur Street
• Lasted 2 days martial law declared
• 18 African Americans killed
• 3 whites killed
• Hundreds injured
• Value of property destroyed very high
• How did propaganda contribute to the riot?
• Tom Watson spread racial fears
• Hoke Smith used racial fears to gain votes
  during the governors race that year
• Atlanta Newspapers printed story after story of
  African American violence against whites

10
John and Lugenia Burns Hope