One of the main focus of historians is to delve into the historical record in order to critically analyze the past. The purpose of this module is to give you a series of primary documents historians have used in order to understand race relations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Students will read the documents, analyze them separately (part one of the assignment) and then offer an analysis of what these documents tell us about a particular time period when looking at them together (part two of the assignment).
Following the end of the Civil War and Reconstruction, Southern whites sought to control the former enslaved in the South and undermine the influence of the Republican Party. A typical method was to use mob violence or its threat by informal groups or organized groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. Gradually, following the end of Reconstruction in 1877, these extra-legal methods, although never completely abandoned, were replaced with the systematic building of legal restrictions to segregate African Americans from white society. Popularly referred to as Jim Crow laws they affirmed the second-class citizenship of the former slaves and their descendants by denying them even the most basic civil rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These restrictions were upheld by the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Plessy v Ferguson (1896) by declaring that separate but equal public accommodations were sanctioned by the United States Constitution.
Mob violence was never accepted by African Americans. One of the most outspoken and tireless leaders against lynch law was Ida B. Wells-Barnett. Born an enslaved person in 1862, she managed to gain a college education and pursued her love of journalism. First in editorials, in her Memphis, Tennessee newspaper Free Speech, she spoke out forcefully about the practice of lynching and exposed its darkest inspirations and intense brutality. After her newspapers office was burned, she moved to Chicago where she continued her crusade until her death in 1931.
Segregation also was never accepted by African Americans. Beginning in the 1880s, a debate over how best to fight segregation animated the black community. The most prominent African American in the late Nineteenth Century was Booker T. Washington. Born an enslaved person, he worked his way through Hampton Institute and in 1881 became the President of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Living in the South and depending on Southern philanthropy, Washington followed a cautious route, but his goal always remained to end the system of racial segregation. His Atlanta Exposition Address (1895) was widely circulated and met with an overwhelming favorable response throughout the United States.
Early in the twentieth century, Washingtons position was attacked by a new group of young African Americans. Led by W.E.B. DuBois, a Harvard Ph.D. in history, these mostly Northern lack intellectuals believed that Washingtons public remedy for segregation was not the answer. DuBois, who taught at Atlanta University and had first supported Washington, broke with the famous leader in a book titled The Souls of Black Folks (1903). His efforts to chart a new course lead eventually to the founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Funded in part by Northern white philanthropy, this inter-racial organization would assume the leadership role in the struggle for African-American Civil Rights.
This research module exercise is designed to introduce students to the nature of race relations at the turn of the twentieth century and the African American response to these conditions. The exercise has two components.
Assignment (both parts to be submitted as one file):
Part one: For the preliminary analysis of the documents do the following (in paragraph/essay format):
Read the three documents below (note: you have a choice with regard to the Lynch Law document as the incidents are divided by chapter 1, 2, and 3; all read chapter 4 and the introduction “Consider the Facts”; read one of the lynching accounts and all read the chapter four police report).
Guided by the questions under each document, describe the content of each document noting:
What is the historical context for each document? (Why was the document created?)
Who is the audience for each document?
How do the documents contradict other documents?
Your analysis of each document should be between 250 and 500 words.
Part two: For the final analysis, submit (in paragraph form and in 300-500 words) an essay that does the following:
Building on your preliminary analysis, explain what the materials taken together tell us about race relations and the debate over them at the turn of the twentieth century.
What evidence within the documents most informs and supports your analysis?
