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Summary African Americans - OCR A Level History Civil Rights in the USA
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These notes cover all of African Americans for OCR A Level History for the unit Civil Rights in the USA
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African American Revision: Reconstruction:
o 15th April 1865 Andrew Johnson inaugurated as president.
o 1865 Johnson allows the southern states to rejoin the union if they agree to
the 13th Amendment.
o 1866 Civil Rights Act is proposed (later the 14th Amendment).
o 1868 The 14th Amendment ensures citizenship to anyone born in America.
o 1870 15th Amendment secures voting rights for African Americans.
o 1872 Freedman’s Bureau was shut down.
o 1873 SCOTUS declares voting rights were the choice of individual states.
o 1875 The ‘redeemer’ white supremacist democrats began taking control of
certain states.
o 1877 The Compromise removed troops from the South and effectively ended
reconstruction.
Progress: Limitations:
-The 13th Amendment provided legal -The emergence of white supremacist
freedom to African Americans. groups such as the Ku Klux Klan.
th
-The 14 Amendment made African -Black codes in southern states aimed to
Americans legal citizens. restrict African American freedom.
th
-The 15 Amendment provided voting -80% of African Americans were illiterate by
rights for African Americans. 1877.
-Two black Americans achieved seats on -Northern black Americans began viewing
the Senate (1870 Hiram Revels of themselves as superior to southern black
Mississippi). Americans.
-The emergence of black charities. -The corrupt bargain was a negative turning
-Burgeoning sense of identity and purpose. point as democrats regained power.
Progress and Limitations of 1865-77 Reconstruction:
The Compromise of 1877 was an informal, unwritten deal that settled the disputed
1876 U.S. Presidential election; through it, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes was
awarded the White House on the understanding that he would remove the federal
troops from the South.
The 1877 Compromise saw southern democrats regain control and saw a reduction
in federal involvement leading to discrimination and disenfranchisement.
Supreme Court Cases:
o Plessy v. Ferguson 1896 = established the principle of ‘separate but equal’
o Williams v. Mississippi (1898) = SCOTUS ruled states could decide their own
voting laws
o Cumming v. Richmond (1899) = established the legality of segregation in
schools
Ida B. Wells:
o A journalist and anti-lynching campaigner and one of the founders of the
NAACP
o Her 1890s, writings ‘Southern Horrors: Lynch laws in all its phases’ exposed
white Americans to the barbarism of white supremacy.
Booker T. Washington:
, o Formed the Tuskegee Institute in 1881 and helped educate 1000s of African
American students.
o First Black American to receive an honorary degree from Harvard (1896) and
the first to visit the White House.
o 1895 Atlanta speech argued African Americans should accommodate to
existing socio-economic systems.
o Privately donated to anti-segregation funds.
o Almost entirely focused on economic gains.
W.E.B. Du Bois:
o Became a professor of economics, sociology, and history at Atlanta university
after becoming the first black American to complete a PhD from Harvard.
o Believed African American and women’s rights were directly intertwined.
o 1910 became Director of Publicity and Research for the NAACP.
o Published the ‘Souls of Black Folk’ in 1903.
o The Niagara Movement in 1905 brought activists together.
o Believed in the ‘talented tenth’ who could inspire the masses.
Gains in progress for African Americans during the Gilded Age:
o Literacy went from 1 in 20 African Americans in 1865 to 1 in 2 by 1895.
o There had been a rise in the number of African American religious
organisations and in banks, insurance schemes, societies, and companies run
by African Americans.
o By 1900, there were 47,000 African American professionals, including
doctors, lawyers, teachers, and artists. Admittedly, this was out of an African
American population of 8 million.
Lack of progress for African Americans during the Gilded Age:
o The growth of segregated transport began in 1881 with Tennessee.
o Booker T. Washington believed African Americans should work within
segregation and take advantage of existing opportunities.
o Plessy v. Fergusson SCOTUS decision legitimised segregation.
o Segregated districts became common in the north as well; 5000 African
Americans concentrated in one restricted area in Chicago and 23,000 in
Harlem.
o Literacy tests, taxes, and ‘Grandfather Clauses’ limited voting rights (e.g. $2
tax for voting in Mississippi 1890).
o The last remaining African American in congress, George H. White, retired in
1901.
o The punishment of violence and lynching for minor offences created a system
whereby the law in the south was ignored in favour of mob rule which hade
the unspoken consent of the authorities.
o African Americans lacked the capital and expertise to take advantage of the
movement west (only 40,000).
o False arrests, imprisonments, and labour camps used as means of controlling
young African American men.
o Between 1882 and 1889, over 2500 black Americans lynched.
o Numbers of black children in schools doubled between 1877 and 1887, but
still only 2/5 of eligible black children were enrolled.
, Niagara Movement and NAACP:
The Niagara Movement was founded by W.E.B. Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter
in 1905.
The Niagara Movement was a campaign with the aim of restoring voting rights and
abolishing all forms of discrimination. They believed a ‘mighty current of change’ was
needed instead of Washington’s cautious approach; they put an emphasis on protest
and demands.
The Niagara Movement was never likely to become a mass movement because of
their academic approach which most could not relate to, and they also lacked
funding and effective organisation.
The key principles were a belief in black equality as well as equal employment and
education opportunities.
The NAACP was formed after a serious race riot in Springfield, Illinois in 1908
resulting in a meeting of civil rights campaigners such as Du Bois and the formation
of a proper organisation.
The aims of the NAACP were to investigate racism, publicise it, suggest positive
solutions and take legal actions to enforce the law and the Constitution to ensure
civil rights and equality.
They adopted a Constitutional approach to lawsuits believing many measures taken
against African Americans violated Amendments.
Du Bois played a crucial role and edited its magazine, ‘Crisis’, for over 20 years.
The increasing circulation of this magazine began to fulfil necessary ingredients for
civil rights success: greater awareness, especially in the north, of the black
predicament, powerful arguments for change, and the refusal of African Americans
to accept their lot.
The National Urban League, set up in 1911, was set up to look after the welfare of
African Americans in northern cities.
The Great Migration:
The period of rapid population shift which saw more than a million African
Americans leave their homes in the south and take up residence throughout the
country, mostly in urban areas.
In addition, more than 100,000 black immigrants (75% from the Caribbean) entered
the country.
As a result, whilst 78.7% of the black population was southern, a number of northern
cities hard large black populations and, even within the south, 31% if black
Americans lived in urban areas.
New York’s black population went from 90,000 to 325,000.
Push Factors: Pull Factors:
-Lynching widespread in southern states. -Voting was a right in the north.
-Boll weevil created work-insecurity. -Encouragement and connections with
-Isolation and KKK violence. family.
-Segregation and discrimination was -Black newspapers, such as the Chicago
widespread. Defender, encouraged the movement.
-Poverty acute for African Americans across -Higher wages and the possibility of
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