Black Consciousness Flashcards
(21 cards)
What was Booker T. Washington’s technique?
Accommodation: best way is to fight system from within existing structure
Accommodate white supremacy
Make as much ground within restraint of Jim Crow
Why was resistance non-violent?
Whites had control of the police, courts, weapons
Odds too stacked against them
Must avoid being too simplistic - different types of non-violent protest
Tuskegee
Taught accommodation & instilled Puritan ethic
‘Vocational training’: 10 hours everyday then allowed 2 hours of study
Only way to fund it was through white funding e.g. Carnegie made $ in industry so willing to fund workforce
Way out of farm jobs theyd been stuck in after emancipation
What did white politicians think of BTW
admired him
Non-threatening
Symbiotic relationship - working with each other, needed each other
Atlanta Compromise Address
First time african-american had been invited to talk in front of white politicians
@ Cotton States Exposition, Atlanta 1895
Would challenge inferior racial status
Not looking for social equality just wanted to work together socio-economically
Realist - this is within the bounds of possibility
Is he an Uncle Tom?
Critics accused him of being this way - submissive. Especially his black critics
But can see where he subtly threatens - “16 million hands…will pull against you…We shall constitute one third…of the ignorance and crime…or intelligence and its progress”
But also tells them what they want to hear - “we shall stand by you with a devotion…ready to lay down our lives”
W.E.B Du Bois
Not willing to work within the system
‘The Souls of Black Folk’ 1903 referred to slavery as barbaric - pro slavery argument said it had stopped them from being barbaric.
Attacked accommodation & stated that whites feared educated blacks
Prolific author - gave insight into how blacks feel about themselves
The Talented Tenth
1/10 of the black population were intellectuals who should lead the nation in civil rights
Double consciousness
In Du Bois ‘The Souls of Black Folk’.
Constantly at odds with what it is to be American
“Feels his twoness, an America, a Negro…two warring ideals in one dark body”
NAACP
Du Bois set up National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People 1909-10.
Fight legal basis of segregation & disenfranchisement.m
Main goal up to WWII: make lynching a federal crime, only a state crime so no way an all white court would prosecute an all white mob.
Huge publicity campaign - huge banner on Lexington Avenue to bring attention to it in the North.
Dyer Bill 1921: anti-lynching law - never ratified
Took long time to pass legislation but when they did it had major ramifications e.g. SC force to nullify White Primary in Texas
The Great Migration
Difficulties of moving - sharecropping kept in rural isolation & in debt
1910-20 c. 300,000 went North
1930s c. 1.5 million
Became more politicised because closer together in ghettos
Factors that fuelled migration
Not willing to put up with it anymore
Migrate for jobs in war industries during WWI/II
Mechanisation made transport easier
Marcus Garvey
Largest numerical following
1914 set up UNIA (Universal Negro Improvement Association) - membership between 500,000-6million.
1916 set up ‘Negro World’ in NYC
What did MG promote?
Psychological empowerment
Black self-sufficiency e.g. Owning a business, catering to black communities.
Emphasis on black racial pride.
African Orthodox Church
Set up by Garvey
Worshipped a black God
“Back to Africa”
Needed to be independent
Empowering mantra for many
Didn’t separate Africa geographically or by tribe to create shared experience - Pan Africanism
Predecessor of MG
Henry McNeal Turner c.1870
Believed engineers, politicians etc should be sent first to set up
Got 300 back to Africa
Garvey’s African sucess
Set up Black Star Liner - no one got back because ships unsafe.
Wasn’t really about getting back - psychological empowerment of shared history is what is important
Violent resistance
Not common as all instigators died
Pre-planned = few because knew odds were against them so it was usually spur of the moment
Produced some sentiment of self-worth
1900 New Orleans, Robert Charles Riot
Wrongly arrested, escaped and chased by police.
Penned into house with 2 guns, surrounded by 20,000 strong mob
Killed but did some damage to police: 7 killed, 8 wounded, 12 scarred
-> Battle Creek, Michigan: black man shot police in station in honour of Charles
Whites saw it as example of bestiality
1919 Race Riots
Happened in many places e.g. South Carolina, Texas, DC
Based on teachings of DuBois and Garvey more than Washington
Prepared to fight back against attacks
Psychological edge is key - taking strength from own ethnicity.
