Position of African Americans (AQA A-Level History): Revision Notes

Position of African Americans

Overview of the period 1865-1912

The period witnessed minimal advancement in the status of African Americans, particularly in Southern states. In several instances, conditions deteriorated rather than improved. Most African Americans across both Northern and Southern regions remained impoverished, though a minority achieved some economic progress. By 1912, African Americans occupied a position of second-class citizenship, especially pronounced in the South.

Economic and social conditions

Despite the end of slavery following the Civil War, poverty remained the dominant reality for the overwhelming majority of African Americans. Whether residing in Northern or Southern states, black Americans faced severe economic disadvantages. Access to well-paid employment remained restricted, and educational opportunities were limited. While some individuals managed to achieve economic advancement through education and entrepreneurship, these cases represented exceptions rather than the norm.

Segregation in the South

Development of Jim Crow laws

Formal racial segregation began to crystallise in 1887 when a Florida railroad company pioneered segregated railway carriages. Over the subsequent four years, seven additional Southern states implemented similar measures on trains. This segregation gradually expanded to encompass all public facilities, creating a comprehensive system of racial separation throughout the South.

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

Homer Plessy was a light-skinned man legally classified as African American due to one-eighth black ancestry. In a deliberate challenge to Louisiana state law, he refused to vacate a railway carriage designated for white passengers, thereby testing the requirement for railroad companies to provide separate facilities for black and white Americans. Following his arrest, Plessy argued that his rights under the Fourteenth Amendment were being violated. Judge Ferguson ruled against him at the local level.

The case progressed to the Supreme Court, where seven of the eight justices upheld segregation as constitutional. They established the "separate but equal" doctrine, ruling that racially segregated facilities satisfied legal requirements provided they were theoretically equal in quality.

Extension to education

The separate but equal principle was extended to schools in 1899 through the case of Cumming v Board of Education. In practice, this meant that underfunded, inferior-quality schools for African Americans received legal sanction. Black children were systematically provided with inadequate educational facilities, perpetuating cycles of disadvantage and limiting opportunities for social mobility.

Political disenfranchisement

Southern states implemented deliberate strategies to prevent African Americans from exercising their voting rights guaranteed under the Fifteenth Amendment. State governments devised complex regulations and additional qualifications that, while appearing race-neutral on paper, were specifically designed to exclude black voters.

Methods of restricting the vote

Poll taxes required citizens to pay a fee to register to vote. Georgia introduced an individual tax of up to $2 on citizens wishing to vote. Most African Americans, trapped in poverty, could not afford such sums. This economic barrier effectively excluded the vast majority of black voters.

The grandfather clause, introduced by Louisiana in 1898, restricted voting rights to adult males whose fathers or grandfathers had voted before 1 January 1867—the date when African Americans gained the franchise. This measure automatically disqualified virtually all black voters while protecting white voting rights.

Property requirements in some states stipulated that only homeowners could vote. Given the economic disadvantages faced by African Americans, few owned their own homes, thus excluding them from electoral participation.

Literacy tests, introduced by Mississippi in 1890, required potential voters to demonstrate reading ability. This systematically excluded many illiterate African Americans. Moreover, the process was often administered corruptly, with questions for uneducated white Americans made deliberately simpler than those posed to their black counterparts.

Impact by 1910

By 1910, very few African Americans retained voting rights in the South. Consequently, almost no black political leaders emerged at local, state, or national levels. Many African Americans accepted the situation as too difficult to challenge, particularly given the absence of support at national level. The loss of political representation made it extremely difficult to challenge white political domination through legitimate democratic means.

Violence and terror

Booker T. Washington (1865-1915)

Background and education

Booker T. Washington was born into slavery in Virginia to a black mother and a white father whom he never knew. Following emancipation, he gained access to education and became a teacher. In 1881, he established the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, which developed into a model institution providing vocational training for black students.

Philosophy of accommodation

Washington contended that African Americans must prioritise acquiring practical skills through education before demanding full civil and political rights. He believed that economic progress and financial success would gradually weaken discrimination. Later, he helped establish the National Urban League to assist black workers in adapting to industrial, urban life.

In a speech delivered in Atlanta, Georgia in 1895, Washington argued that if white Americans could regard African Americans as potential economic partners rather than threats to political control, racial tensions would diminish. He suggested that African Americans should concentrate on education and economic advancement rather than immediately pursuing segregation's removal or voting rights. He acknowledged that change would necessarily be gradual.

The Atlanta Compromise

Critics labelled Washington's speech the "Atlanta Compromise" and attacked his willingness to accommodate white supremacy. They argued that he appeared to accept the racist ideology of white supremacy, failed to challenge the second-class social position of African Americans, and accomplished little for civil rights advancement. He seemed focused on working within the existing system rather than attempting to transform it. Moreover, he underestimated the importance of voting rights for improving African American conditions.

Achievements

Despite these criticisms, Washington achieved important successes. He provided an inspirational role model for African Americans, demonstrating progression from slavery to college principal through education, behavioural standards, and self-discipline. He developed valuable contacts within the white-dominated political sphere.

W. E. B. Du Bois (1868-1963)

Background and education

Du Bois came from a markedly different background to Washington. After obtaining degrees at Fisk (a college for African Americans), Berlin, and Harvard University, he became a philosophy lecturer. Initially supportive of Washington's gradualist approach, by 1900 Du Bois was advocating more active resistance to discrimination. He urged the deployment of legal and political processes through sustained agitation.

The Niagara Movement (1905)

Du Bois helped establish the Niagara Movement in 1905, emerging from a meeting held in Niagara Falls, Canada. The movement rejected Washington's cautious approach, instead emphasising protest to demand immediate civil rights and the complete abolition of discrimination.

The NAACP

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was established in 1909 by Du Bois and other prominent African American campaigners. The organisation aimed to attract white support where possible.

Du Bois assumed an important role within the organisation, editing its magazine for twenty years. However, his frustration at the slow pace of change eventually led him to relocate to Ghana, where he died in 1963.

The position of African Americans by 1912

By 1912, African Americans occupied an even more entrenched position as second-class citizens, particularly in Southern states. The active political participation at lower levels of government that some African Americans had achieved during Reconstruction had vanished completely. No African Americans served in Congress or state legislatures. The right to vote had been systematically removed across the South through various state laws. This absence of political power made challenging white domination extremely difficult, especially in Southern states.

As African Americans disappeared from voting registers, they forfeited any right to serve on juries, thus losing the ability to provide their own race any prospect of legal equality. Segregation laws had formalised and intensified racial separation throughout the South. African Americans frequently encountered inferior facilities, particularly in education, where underfunded schools offered poor-quality provision.

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