Between 1877 and 1920, white southerners were persistent about limiting the rights of African Americans by setting out objectives they soon wish to accomplish that demanded blacks to remain inferior throughout society. The Jim Crow era was characterized by legalized segregation, lynch mobs, and white supremacy which caused a dark oppressive period of American race relations from 1890 to 1910 (Campbell). The period which the states of Confederacy were controlled by the federal government and social legislation which granted African Americans new rights consisted of a time frame called the Reconstruction period.
The Reconstruction period resulted as one of the main causes of why the Jim Crow era began rising throughout the nation. In 1865, the thirteenth amendment abolished slavery in the United States which initiated a huge uproar within the white community. Though slavery was abolished and considered every man free, whites were still firmly standing on their beliefs by not willing to accept African Americans as free men. In the course of the Jim Crow era, Jim Crow laws were formed and proceeded to legalize state and local laws that enforced racial segregation in the southern United States.
After Jim Crow laws became legal, white southerners began using all their resources to thoroughly deny the rights held by African Americans. “The arbitrary separation of citizens, on the basis of race, while they are on a public highway, is a badge of servitude wholly inconsistent with the civil freedom and the equality before the law established by the Constitution. It cannot be justified upon any legal grounds” (Course Reader 19), stated Justice Harlan in “Plessy v. Ferguson.
”The Plessy v. Ferguson case that took place in 1896 supported the “separate, but equal” approach when Homer Plessy, an African American male, epudiated to dismiss himself from a traveler cart that was specifically made to accommodate travelling whites. Nearly three decades before this event was marked down in American history, the fourteenth amendment was enlisted in the Constitution of the United States and granted citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws to all citizens including African Americans. After the trial, the Supreme Court reached a 7-1 ruling, which confirmed that the Louisiana made law along with the “separate, but equal” approach did not violate the fourteenth amendment.
However, if the fourteenth amendment granted equality to all American citizens, the law that was established by white southerners in Louisiana theoretically ought to have been seemingly been measured as unjust. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court ruling proved that southern whites were still diligently and willingly demanding that African Americans remain inferior throughout society despite the laws that were invented to protect their rights. Ida B. Wells, an investigative journalist who organized a natural crusade in the early twentieth century, believed that lynching was the United States national crime.
Within “Lynch Law in America” Wells stated, “No matter that our laws presume every man innocent until he is proved guilty; no matter that it leaves a certain class of individuals completely at the mercy of another class; no matter that it encourages those criminally disposed to blacken their faces and commit any crime in the calendar so long as they can throw suspicion on some negro, as is frequently done, and then lead a mob to take his life” (Course Reader 24).
Lynching is defined as killing someone, especially by hanging, for an alleged offense with or without a legal trial. Although the United States government consisted of an executive, legislative, and judicial branch of the federal government during this time, many men, women, and children were constantly being murdered without the opportunity of life, liberty, and freedom. The only way an African American had the opportunity to be able to survive murder was to faithfully abide and respect the values of one of white superiority.
During the Jim Crow era, laws were not enforced to protect African Americans who were murdered on a consistent basis because many whites thought taking one life of an African American meant one less threat to society. For instance, if a white woman was having a troublesome day and an African American male nodded his head as a way of acknowledging her presence and she thought the head nod was offensive, the life of that African American male would be shortly be taken not too long after the incident occurred.
Not only would the man be publicly lynched in front of the community, he would be stripped, teased, and beaten before being murdered just because someone, anyone must pay for the misunderstanding of the white woman. Practically four thousand African Americans were lynched in twelve southern states from 1877 to 1950. Nonetheless, public lynchings demonstrated that white southerners were still pressing forward to make African Americans remain inferior throughout America.
In 1905, W. E. B. Du Bois, the first African American to earn a doctoral degree from Harvard University, and twenty eight other African American activists met at Niagara Falls to establish a list of political and social demands. According to the Primary Source Reader, throughout “The Niagara Movement’s Declaration of Principles” list of demands, Du Bois stated that he firmly believed that every African American should set out to concentrate on attaining full political constitutional rights, social equality, and occupational opportunities.
One of the many issues Du Bois and the activists of the Niagara Movement demanded was the right to vote in political elections. , Du Bois stated, “Suffrage: At the same time, we believe that this class of American citizens should protest emphatically and continually against the curtailment of their political rights. We believe in manhood suffrage; we believe that no man is so good, intelligent or wealthy as to be entrusted wholly with the welfare of his neighbor” (Course Reader 28), stated Du Bois.
In addition o not having the right to vote in political elections, whites in the solid south continued to prove that African Americans were inferior to society by promoting political disfranchisement that deprived many African Americans from privilege, immunity, or right of citizenship including the right to vote (Campbell). Due to political disfranchisement, white southerners in the solid south used various schemes to prevent African Americans from being able to vote such as creating barricades to voter registration, poll tax, disqualifying voters with a criminal record, implemented educational qualifications, and literacy tests.
The Louisiana State Literacy Test was a requirement for anyone to vote during 1963 to 1964. The intent of literacy tests was to disfranchise African Americans, but also disfranchise the poor and illiterate white voters as well (Campbell). In order to pass the literacy test, you had to answer all thirty questions correctly in ten minutes. Nonetheless, the majority of Americans including white southerners were not able to answer all thirty of these questions correctly, but whites were still allowed to vote through the grandfather clause.
The grandfather clause was a clause that exempted certain classes of people or things from the requirements of a piece of legislation affecting their previous rights, privileges, or practices. For instance, if poor whites were illiterate they were still able to vote because of their lineal descendants. As an effect of the schemes southern whites used to disfranchise African Americans and their voting rights, they still succeeded in making them inferior to society by not allowing them to have a voice in political elections.
Whites were not only capable of succeeding in making African Americans feel inferior mentally and emotionally, but they also made sure African Americans would remain inferior physically as well. Due to the lack of the government, but majority of whites, African Americans would remain in poverty their entire lives and furthermore into the following generations. Harry S. Truman, the 33rd United States President, impacted the African American community significantly, but expressing his voice.
Truman issued “To Secure These Rights: The Report of the Committee on Civil Rights” which outlined how African Americans were deprived of rights due to racial discrimination. In 1947, Truman proclaimed within his report, “Discrimination depresses the wages and income of minority groups. As a result, their purchasing power is curtailed and markets are reduced. Reduced markets result in reduced production. This cuts down employment, which of course means lower wages and still fewer job opportunities. Rising fear, prejudice and insecurity aggravate the very discrimination in employment which sets the vicious circle in motion” (Course Reader 45).
President’s Truman’s observations to how corrupt society was were proven accurately due to the percentage of African American families who were a part of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration. Generally, African Americans were not given the chance of building a good foundation for their families because they were constantly being torn down. Nevertheless, no matter how hard African Americans attempted to be successful, southern whites were always capable of reassuring that all African Americans remain as inferior American citizens who are unable to contribute anything abundant to society.
Without being given the chance at life, equal protection of laws, political and social constitutional rights, living as an African American was challenging due to always having to live by the standards of the white community. Though it was not impossible to be a successful African American during this time, more than enough African Americans contributed to help make a change, achieve their goals and contribute to bettering the African American community.
