Life At The Turn Of The Century · Ch 15 Black Southerners Challenge White Supremacy. Overview • AAs response to white supremacy (Social Darwinism, Eugenics) • Work within social

Life At The Turn Of The Century

Progressive Era I The African American Perspective

Ch 15 Black Southerners Challenge White Supremacy

Overview

• AAs response to white supremacy (Social Darwinism, Eugenics) • Work within social constraints • Education/conflict on how AA should be educated • Create own institutions (Education and Church) • Cultural Expressions • Sports • Period of Industrialization and Immigration o Fight for resources - housing, jobs, etc.

Education

• Many obstacles for AA to get an education – societal constraints, poverty, general lack of

access; testament of AA perseverance that education was acquired

• Some AA and Whites regarded education for AA as pointless

Hampton Model

• Hampton, Virginia • Samuel Chapman Armstrong • Training for skills and morals/ethics • Learning Trades • No critical thinking • Politics • Booker T. Washington

Booker T Washington (Bio)

Up From Slavery

1865-1915

Opposition to Washington

• Those who favored direct challenge to racial oppression

• William Monroe Trotter

William Monroe Trotter

1872-1934

W.E.B.DuBois

The Souls of Black Folks

1868-1963

Talented Tenth

• Upper 10% of AA were responsible for achievement and advancement of race – Education key in advancement – Color Consciousness or Colorism

Colorism/Color Consciousness

• African American view of and discrimination against other African Americans based on skin color/tone

Church and Religion

• Church the most important institution in community

• AA organize own churches & denominations • Source of comfort; center of activities • Free from white intervention • Community service

Church and Religion

• Church services • AA clergymen

– Women’s Day Nannie Helen Burroughs • No challenge to white supremacy

– AME Bishop Henry McNeal Turner (344) • Stressed middle-class values

Church and Religion Baptists and Holiness

• Baptists • Holiness

– affect Methodists and Baptists – gained foothold with Whites and AAs – in reaction to elite domination and stiff authority

of white Methodism – Ordained women – Preached sanctification – COGIC was leading AA Holiness church

• Charles Harrison Mason and C P Jones • Charles Harrison Mason expelled

Church and Religion The Pentecostal Church

• Pentecostal Church – Charles Fox Parham – William J Seymour – Charles Harrison Mason “Reorganized

COGIC” – Spread across South among AAs and Whites – Crossed racial divide despite tensions

Church and Religion Roman Catholics and Episcopalians

• 200,000 AA were Roman Catholic in 1890 • Segregated churches and parishes • Augustus Tolton • Mother Mathilda Beasley • New Orleans/Sisters of Blessed Sacrament

• Episcopalians

Red vs Black: The Buffalo Soldiers African American military service after Civil War

• The Army Reorganization Act of 1869 (Sen Henry Wilson)

• 4 all-AA troops (9th/10th Calvary, 24th/25th Infantry aka Buffalo Soldiers)

• 3 decades on western frontier fighting Plains Indians

AA serve in the Army□ Buffalo Soldiers

■ Why called?□ Treatment□ Poor Conditions□ Assignments□ Discrimination

■ Brownsville 1906 (346)■ Johnson C Whittaker

(328)

Red vs Black□ History/Cultural

Similarities□ Irony of AA in Indian

Wars□ No qualms about fight

■ Lack of self knowledge■ Prejudice

Resources

□ Black Indians: A Hidden Heritage by William Katz

□ The Black West: A Documentary and Pictorial History of the African American Role In The Westward Expansion of the United States by William Katz

African Americans in the Navy

• AAs served in Navy before U.S. a republic • No records until work of Naval Historical

Center, Howard University and National Park Service

before WWI records not kept by race Statistics Service

• Notable Naval Heroes

African Americans in the Navy

• Notable Naval Heroes Robert Smalls John Lawson Frank Allen

• Jim Crow Restrictions “Integrated” ships

• 1949 Ensign Wesley A Brown • Men of Honor ~ Carl Brashear

Black Cowboys□ Learned skills as

slaves and in armed services

□ Worked with Whites and Mexicans

□ Condition of cattle drive

Famous Black Cowboys and Girl

The Spanish-American WarThe Philippine Insurrection

The Unwept: Black American Soldiers and the Spanish-American War

Book by Edward Van Zile Scott

The United States

• Conclusion of western expansion • Push for overseas expansion • Annexation of Hawaii • 1898 War with Spain to liberate Cuba

The Spanish-American War• AA men enlist • Support of war=reduction of

white hostility • Question U.S. cause

– Expansion of U.S. influence and racial practices

• AA soldiers from West to Florida to prepare for combat in Cuba

• President McKinley • War Dept designates AA units as

“immune regiments” • All-AA militias from several states

The Spanish-American War

• States follow feds and have all-AA units with White officers

• All-AA volunteer units demand AA officers “no officers, no fight”

• AA men command all-AA units for 1st time • Charles Young

The Spanish-American War

• Racial prejudice • Most AA units never saw

combat • Buffalo soldiers to Cuba • All-AA units perform well

(“smoked yankees”) – Performance reflects on

whole race • Fought with Black Cubans

The Spanish American War

• Fought at San Juan and Kettle Hills with the Rough Riders – Theodore Roosevelt

After the Spanish-American War

• AA soldiers work in yellow fever hospitals • Garrison duty in Cuba after war • Lack of discrimination and Jim Crow in

Cuba • All-AA units joined invasion of Puerto Rico

Philippine Insurrection• U.S. obligated “to uplift

those less fortunate” • U.S. acquisition of Guam,

Puerto Rico, Philippines from Spain

• Filipinos under Emilio Aguinaldo fight U.S. – Expected U.S. to help them

be independent like Cuba

African American response to Philippine Insurrection

• AA denounce effort – Why would Black men fight Brown men? – Black Man’s Burden Association

• AA men enlist – Filipinos use propaganda to convince AA not to

fight – AA serve with only 5 desertions; executed

• Regardless of service Army undervalues achievements

Black Businesspeople and Entrepreneurs

• Why were African American businesses needed? – Whites deny services – Lack of opportunities for employment and

management

Type of Businesses in African American Community

• Small businesses

• Retail

• Personal Services

• Banks – How to save money – Extended credit

• Insurance Companies

Maggie Lena Walker

• Teacher • Founder/President-St.

Luke’s Penny Bank • Community Servant • Wealthiest African

American woman of her time

• Alexander Hamilton – Army Veteran – Building contractor – Good Samaritan Bldg – Morris Brown College

• Alonzo Herndon – Former Slave – Fashionable

Barbershop – Insurance Company

• H.A. Loveless – Former Slave – Butcher – Undertaker – Hack and Dray Co. – Coal and Wood Yard – Real Estate

• John Dabney

Madame C.J. Walker• Sarah Breedlove • Laundress • Formula to nourish and enrich

black hair – Scalp conditioning and

healing formula – Hair culturists – Cosmetics

• Sold product and employed many women

• Factory, salon, training school • Millionaire • Popularized use of

straightening comb, not inventor

Problems of African American Businesses

• Fail – Lack of Experience – Poor business decisions – Competition with White businesses with more

capital and lower prices

Importance of African American Businesses

• Economic stability • Development of a middle class • Base for growing number of educated

African Americans

African American Inventors

African Americans and Labor Unions

• AA worked in factories, mills, mines

• Textile mill only hire AA as janitors

• AA women worked as domestics

• AA workers paid less than whites in same jobs

• AA excluded from labor unions

• Knights of Labor, United Mine Workers, Industrial Workers of the World open to AA

• AA excluded from American Federation of Labor

• Gandy Dancers

African American Professionals

• Medical and Legal professions strictly segregated

• African American professionals attend/formed all-black professional schools

• African Americans excluded from all-white hospitals, put in all-black wards

African Americans and Medicine

• African American Hospitals

• African American Medical Associations – “National”

• African American Medical Schools

• African American Women

• Nursing

• African American Doctors – Dr. Daniel Hale

Williams

African Americans and Law

• African American lawyers in court system

• National Bar Association

• Education

• William H. Lewis • Charlotte Ray • Lutie A. Lytle

African American Music• Music created and

performed by AA evolves into unique American art forms – Ragtime – Jazz – Blues

• Roots of music – Slave work songs – Spirituals – Fisk Jubilee Singers – Minstrels

• Regional influences

African American Music

• Ragtime – 1890s – Music composed for

piano – No lyrics; not meant to

be sung – Scott Joplin

African American Music• Jazz

– Gradually replaced ragtime

– Improvised, not confined to piano

– African and European musical elements

– New Orleans – Brass, reeds and drums – Jelly Roll Morton

(Ferdinand J La Menthe)

African American Music

• Blues – Mississippi Delta Area – Songs about lives and

experiences

African American Music

African Americans and Sports

• Boxing – Jack Johnson

African Americans and Sports

• Basketball –James Naismith

African Americans and Sports

•Baseball •Civil War •White and AA men compete for contracts •1887 International League •Wilberforce Walker •Moses Fleetwood Walker •Negro Leagues 1900

African Americans and Sports

• Horse Racing – Kentucky Derby

• Bicycle Racing – Marshall W “Major”

Taylor • College Athletics

– AA athletic conferences • CIAA, Southeastern,

Southwestern