II.

The Racial Thought of the Slaves

Ch.5 Devils and Good People Walking de Road at de Same Time White People in Black Folk Thought

Khary WorldPeace Professor A. Diallo

AMH 5905 Slavery & Emancipation Summer 2011

MAJOR POINTS

Description & Definition of White by former slaves pg. 151 Former slaves reluctance to discuss white behavior pg.151 Discretion & Reticence in Former slaves testimonies pg.152 Accuracy, Reliability & Truthfulness issues in slave narratives pg. 152- 153 Richness & Complexity in Ex-slaves testimony pg. 153 The decision to tell it allor not! pg. 153

Freedman Jack Maddox told his interviewer he loved white folks like a dog loves [a] hickory [stick]I can say these things nowId say them anywhere- in the court housebefore the judges, before God. Cause they done done all to me that they can do pg. 153

White folks jes naturally different from darkies

How Whites defined Blacks

pg.153

the racial thought of the slaves is profoundly different from that of whites of the same era for whom race served pg. 153 Race used by whites was a social construction that helped produce and maintain relations of power & subordination pg. 154 White supremacy provided white workers with an important source of status and positive self-definition pg.154 Cultural and social differences divided [blacks] from [whites]received further reinforcement from a variety of inescapable forms of legal, civil, and political discrimination that set black Americans apart from white Americans pg.154

DRED SCOTT CASE

1847 Scott vs. Emerson in the FederalFederal-State Courthouse in St. Louis, Missouri 10 years of litigation lands the case in the US Supreme Court Maybe the most infamous US Supreme Court decision of all time. How does the DRED SCOTT Chief Justice case reinforce the idea of a Taneys defined black race ? race during slavery.

Decided that all people of African descent, slaves as well as free, could never become US citizens and therefore could not sue in federal court Established that the federal government could not ban slavery anywhere in the United States Dred Scott died 9 months after the Courts decision

How Blacks defined Whites

Historian Barbara Fields suggests that African Americans viewed themselves as a nation rather than a race pg. 155 African-Americans conflated race and class, with full awareness of class distinctions amongst whites, yet the general term- white folks pg.155 Slaves understood class distinctions amongst whites but expressed little sentiment to lower class whites because enslaved African Americans tended to encounter property less whites under the worst circumstances[overseers], patrollers pg.155 Rich whites = Buckras pg.155 Poor whites = White Trash pg.155

Buckras vs.White Trash

You never see classy white buckra men patrollin! commented freedwoman Mauda Walker pg.156 A rich man wouldnt ever whip a slavethey [the rich men] always hire someone to do this according to an unnamed freedwoman pg.156

Ex-slave Hannah McFarland said The overseer was sho nothing but poor white trash, the kind who didnt lak niggers and dey still dont, old devils. pg.155 low down white men, dat never owned a nigger in deir life, doin de patrollin and strippin de clothes off men, lak pappy, right befo de wives and chillun and beatin de blood out of him. said Walker pg.156.

Recognitiondatof Whitenesstoby Slaves Us Darkies was taught poor white folks didnt amount much. Course we
knowed dey was white and we was black and dey was to be respected for dat, but dat was about all pg.156 Ex-Slave Tom W. Woods from Alabama, WPA Oklahoma Slave Narratives

Southern law required black Americans to defer to all whites, rich and poor Ex. Pass Laws which gave whites the power to detain, question, and punish any black person encountered outside the supervision of his or her owner- including free blacks who could not produce their papers pg. 156 Southern law gave black Southerners every incentive to distrust whites as a class pg. 156
Such laws gave the lowest villain in the country, should he be a white man broad powers over all African-Americans pg.156 Fugitive slave couple William and Ellen Craft, in Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom, 1860

Black Unity through Armed Resistance

The racial division of allegiance that shaped the slave world may have emerged most decisively in those rare moments when the power relations that sustained the slave system came under attack: when the slaves organized armed resistance to their condition pg. 157 The goals of the black insurrectionists were expressed in strikingly similar terms- get the white people pg. 157

#1

Four Slave Rebellions which Define Race

Gabriel Prossers Virginia Rebellion- an abortive slave plot to take Richmond organized in 1800 by a slave blacksmithset their plan in motion by recruiting enlistees willing to join a society to fight the white people for freedom pg.157
#2

Denmark Veseys South Carolina Plot- Inspired by the black revolt that took place in St. Domingue in 1792, Vesey enlisted slave supporters into what he called a rising to kill the whites in 1820 pg.157

Four Slave Rebellions which Define Race

#3

Nat Turners Virginia Rebellion- The slaves who followed the visionary slave preacher Nat Turner on a bloody rampage through Southhampton, Virginia, in 1831 intended to rise and kill all the white people pg. 158
#4

Civil War Slave Revolt in Natchez, Mississippi- @ the beginning of the Civil War in the incident at Second Creek, a plantation district ten miles south of Natchez, Mississippi, discontented slaves once again plotted to kill the white folks. An able and well-informed group, many of the conspirators worked as coachmen for wealthy planters giving them access of to news which led to the plot pg.158

Significance of the Four Slave Rebellions

pg.159

provides us with a rare glimpse into the racial worldview they probably shared not only with other slave rebels but with man slaves who did not rebel. rebels plans bear out the sense of racial difference used by slaves. no distinction between rich and poor planters between slaveholding whites and slaveless all white people [were] the common enemy even when their plans included the possibility of incorporating white allies

American Slave Rebellions Through Time

Slaves Racial Worldview- Gender & Piety as Occasional Exceptions

Religion- In Vesey and Gabriel rebellions the conspirators considered exempting certain whites on religious grounds, some of Denmark Veseys followers did not want to kill the ministers while one of Gabriels lieutenants understood that Quakers and Methodists would be spared along with their potential allies pg. 159-160 Gender- One participant in Gabriels rebellionintended to spare all poor white women who had no slavesin both Veseys Rebellion and the Second Creek plot, the conspirators considered exempting white women from the carnage, sometimes with the aim of seizing them for sexual purposesone defiant second Creek conspirator said the blacks were to kill all the men and take young ladies and women for wives pg.160

Real Meaning of White Folks in Slave Rebel Jargon

slave rebels qualms about killing white women and men of the cloth, like the plans of some of these rebels to enlist white allies, [is] often lost in the racial languagep.160 for the slaves whiteness had become synonymous with authority and oppression pg.160 white people in black folk thought are defined above all by the superior economic and social power that accompanied their whiteness rather than by their color or any special racial characteristics pg. 161

From Bays description of slaves racial worldview, how do we identify the white folks in this picture?

Power & Authority Inverse in American Racial Difference

The power and authority that nineteenthcentury African-Americans saw in white people were in a sense the inverse of the qualities their white contemporaries associated with black people: namely inferiority and degradation. But the inversion of white racial ideology in black folk thought had distinct limits pg.161

Closer Look at Racial Difference

White View Negative assessments of Negros color and human capabilities pg. 161 Laws of the land favored whites pg. 162 White saw exploited, degraded, and largely unfree class pg.162 Understood black inferiority as more natural than political pg. 162 James Campbell & James Oakes- a vision of innate, ineradicable inferiority, rooted in the body, in The Invention of Race: Rereading White Over Black, Reviews in American History 21, no.1 (March 1993) pg.162 Black View associated white people with power, authority, and oppression pg. 162 No strong associations between the power and authority of white people and their physical characteristics pg.162 denigrated temperament and conductrarely mention color pg.162 White peopledescribed with no elaboration regarding skin color, eye color, or any vagaries of complexion pg.163 Freeborn Victoria McMullen- He look like an old possum. He had a long beard down to his waist and he had long side burns too, in Arkansas Narratives, v.10 pt.5

VERSUS

White- the Ideal

ex-slaves occasionally expressed an awareness that white people found the appearance of black people unlovely pg.163 absence of slave testimony on [racial difference] pg. 163 both slave and free African-Americans commonly used black and white color imagery in their religious practice in a manner similar to that of white Americans, identifying black with evil and sin, and white with purity and holiness pg.163

The Color an if our skins here are black dey wont of God? Some day Ize gwine to be with my ole friens
be no colors in Heaven- predicted Oklahoma freedman Frances Banks. Our souls will be white.--- AS, Oklahoma Narratives, Supplement, Series I, v. 12, 12

In ex-slave religious visions the newly white souls of black folk often joined a white God in an all-white heaven pg. 163 Some of the color imagery in slave religion may have been fostered by white slaveowners pg. 164 The religious imagery the slaves used may have had African roots that antedated their experiences in America pg.164
I dont believe in all that people have to say about having to see a little white man. That is all FogeyismDont believe nothing like that, said an un-named ex-slave preacher in AS, Unwritten History of Slavery (Fisk University), v. 18, 50

Which image of Christ or God might this enslaved person be calling on?

Is this enslaved person calling on a Christ or God?

Real Origins of Black Color Preference

for black Americans white power and authority never became linked to the physical being of white people pg.164 Closer attention paid to complexion- black, brown and yellow than a simple polarity, according to Lawrence Levine in his book- Black Culture, Black Consciousness. pg. 165 African Americans rarely demonized or valorized the physical characteristics of white people as a mark ofpower and authority pg.165 African American intellectuals sometimes attributed the status and wealth of white people to the rapacious, acquisitive character of the Anglo-Saxon race pg. 165

No Explanation for the Power and Authority of Whites

pg.166

A few ex-slave told their questioners that black subjugation was in fact natural and divinely ordained But these kinds of explanationsdo not prevailFar more ex-slaves describe the power of whites over blacks without any elaboration of its causes, as an inescapable reality the legal and disciplinary powers that Southern whites wielded over their slaves were only the beginning of their resources freedpeople identified no special qualities or personal traits distinctive to the white race that would explain white peoples priviledged position or oppresive behavior

The one-dimensionalomnipresent and yet curiously shadowy white person according to ex-slaves
Described either kindhearted and good to their slaves or mean pg.166 Defined more by their powerful position vis-vis black people than by any distinctive set of personal characteristics pg. 167

Reflections on White Power in 19th Century African American Songs, Folklore & Humor
the black folk who sang these songs expressed a deep feeling of injustice and enduring sense of being used unfairly, according to Levine pg. 167 African-Americans songs both depicted and expressed their resentment toward white power and privilidge pg.167 black songssimply described the advantages of whites over blacks without linking them to inborn white characteristics pg. 167

Enduring RhymeCritique Through Song

White man goes to college Nigger to the field White man learns to read and write Poor Nigger learn to steal --- Common African American turnof-century work song The bee flies high, The little bee makes honey; The black folks makes the cotton And the white folks gets the money --- transcribed by William Wells Brown in Clotel, or the Presidents Daughter 1853

White man in a starched shirt settin in the shade Laziest man that God ever made. --- 1920s work song in Levines Black Culture, Black Consciousness pg.248 How are white people described in each of the three folksongs/poems? What observations about white behavior, white expectation?

Black Folk Culture as a Lens

in African-American jokes from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, white people typically appear as authority figures whose pretensions and hypochrisy are lampooned, rather than racial temperment pg. 167 Subversive humor [which] challenged white authority by exposing the absurdities inherent in the American racial system pg. 167 Black folk culture challenged racial stereotypes rather than revising them pg. 168 Ex-slaves assigned no personal characteristics to white folks that they did not see in themselves pg. 168 took pride in the ability of lowly black slaves to outwit white folkshowever such pride rarely led to claims that blacks were naturally stronger or smarter than whites pg. 168 most slave tales offered a moral far more complex than black superiority pg.168

All Kind of White Folks: White Power and White Character

Ex-slaves claimed a moral and behavioral superiority, not an intellectual or physical one pg. 168 Some slaves were so impressed by white power and privilege that they assumed white people were divine pg. 169
Nobody could read de Bible when I was a boy, and dey wasnt no white preachers who talked to de niggers. We had meeting sometimes, but de nigger preacher jest talk about being a good nigger and doing to please de Master, and I allus thought he meant to please old Master, and I always wanted to do dat anyways--- Oklahoma freedman Charley Williams I member well when de stars fellI wasnt scared cause I thought long as I staid where de white folks was--- Missouri freedman Edward Taylor

White Power versus Slave Conjure

White power frequently defied the wiles of slave magic, compromising the cultural authority of the powerful slave conjurers pg.170 slaves who doubted that conjure could affect their masters and mistresses appear to have assumed that white people had a natural and racially distinct immunity to the powers of black conjurers pg. 170 Yet in the slaves deeply religious worldview, there were many kinds of power, and whites did not control all of them pg. 170

Slave Stereotypes & Why pg.171

SAMBO- Good natured and docile slave NAT- rebellious trouble maker MAMMY- devout, doting housekeeper/cook JEZEBEL- lascivous, irresistable, sex hungry

Slave stereotypes allowed whites to think about black people in contradictory ways as both docile and dangerous, childlike and savage, sexless and seductivereflected the dominant cultures need and ability to impose a multipurpose set of negative images on an exploited racial class pg. 171
Which labels applies to each picture, why?

Ex-Slaves Views of Native Americans

The shadowy racial character of white people in black folk thought is all the more striking because [they] do appear to have assigned a distinctive racial character to Native Americans pg.171 Black view of Native Americansa) naturally fierce b) independent c) hot-tempered d) defiant pg.171
One Virginia man explained that he was proud, fearless, and full of the devil because his mother was part Red Indian which is one of the fiercest tribes of Indians that lived as you probably know, as described in Robert Elletts Weevils in the Wheat, 84.

Shared Views of Native Americans

The character African-Americans assigned to blacks with Indian blood is similar to the character white Americans assigned to the Native American race as a whole pg.171 In addition to attributing a fierce and independent character to people with Indian blood, ex-slaves extended this characterization to Indians themselves pg.172

Comparing African American Views of Whites, Native Americans & Mulattoes

In characterizing American Indians as a naturally fierce people, the ex-slaves spoke of this group quite differently than they did of whites: no comparable racial stereotypes about white character emerge in black folk thought pg.172 Few ex-slaves attributed any personal characteristics possessed by individuals of mixed black and white ancestry to the influence of white blood, but they did to people of mixed Native American & African blood pg.172
Jim Henry, a an ex-slave from South Carolina said he had three bloods in my veins, white folks, Indian folks, and Negro folks making him thrifty like de white man, crafty like de Indians, and hard workin like de Negroes.

The Romantic Native American in African American Ideals

Since Many African Americans had little contact with Native Americans, they took much of their informationfrom white stereotypes about the Indian pg. 173 African Americans reconfigured these stereotypes to suit their own needs, associating Indian blood with cherished traits of rebelliousness, ferocity and fortitutde pg.173 Ex-slave stereotypes about Indians break down, when slave narratives from Oklahoma are included as many belonged to slaveholding Indian families relocated there in the 1830s. but many [conclude] that Indian master were preferable pg. 173

African American Reticence in Describing Whites

Proximity and power shaped black Southeners relationships with whites in ways that discouraged the former from making loose generalizations about white people or discussing whites in term of a set of racial stereotypes pg.173 African Americans took a very pragmatic interest in the individual characteristics of white people pg.173 As a subordinate group, African-Americans needed to be able to read white behavior accurately and well to survive in a white dominated world pg.173

Whites Were Not All Alike

Unequal power required African Americans to be keen students of white behavior pg. 174
Olaudah Equiano described this awareness after being purchased by an English naval lieutenant- I had sails to lie on and plenty good victuals to eat; and everybody aboard treated me very kindly, quite contrary to what I had seen of white people before; I therefore began to think they were not all of the same disposition One ex slave reported thathe trained himself to watch the changes in my masters physiognomy, as well as those of the parties he associated with, so as to frame my conduct in accordance with what I had reason to believe was their prevailing mood at the time Isaac Green, an ex-slave from Georgia, said Yo actual treatment depended on de kind o marster you had.

Continuity of White Behavior Before and After Slavery pg.175

Freedpeoples observations about the mixed character of whites applied to their behavior after emancipation as well. The varying behavior of whites during slavery was identical to that of contemporary whites
Folks is no different today than in slavery time. Some of them is good and some of them is bad, said exslave Charlie Bowen as he remembered telling a fellow exslave who made a case for reparations. It was den, boss, just same wd white men as tis in dis day and time. Dere is a heap of good white folks now and dere is a heap of dem what aint so good, said Arkansas freedman James Gill

Devils and good people walking in de road at de same time

- Oklahoma Freedman Anthony Dawson pg. 176
During Slavery During Slavery

After Slavery

After Slavery

Comparing Racial Attitudes pg.177

Slaves could not afford to obscure the differences among individual whites by thinking of them in terms of simple stereotypes, nor did they have the cultural power to impose stereotypical images on white people African Americans emphasis on the mixture of good and bad individuals in the white race was quite unlike the racial stereotypes white Americans imposed on black people Stereotypes served to distance whites from individual blacks through negative imagery that divided the racial character of all blacks into a few superficial personality types. When African Americans resisted slavery and racial discrimination as an injustice to black humanitythey asserted their fundamental kinship with white people.

Belief in a Just God pg.178

By the late antebellum period, Christianity pervaded the American slave community. Christianity provided the interpretive framework through which African-Americans understood their lives and the peculiar world of slavery. African Americans looked to the Lord to pass judgement on white people in the next world.

 Although their Bible told them that all souls would meet as equals in Heaven, masters and slaves alike found such an afterlife hard to imagine. pg.178 Southern White Christians held a variety of views about the intersection between race and the afterlife a) all earthly distinctions would vanish b) slaves color would bar them from entering heaven c) separate heavens for whites and blacks d) segregated heaven (blacks on one side/whites on the other) e) Negro heaven aka Kitchen heaven for good slaves
A slave mistress told Eliza Washington, an ex-slave from Arkansas, I would give anything if I could have Maria in heaven with me to do little things for me pg. 179

The Color of Heaven? White Beliefs

 African Americans visions of heaven were ultimately quite different from those of their white contemporaries. pg.181 Southern Black Christians cherished the idea of achieving freedom in the next world. pg.180 Black beliefs in the afterlife encompassedthe Good Shepherd will give the best white man a) recognized humanity a heaben that is hotter than the worstest b) leaving white people behind niggers hell, said Texas altogether ex-slave Millie Manuel c) a place of vengeance Now dat slavery is over I wish and hope dat God d) reversal of status of blacks and whites would treat all dem slave owners as dey did e) place where justice would be found & us when dey get in hell, served said Oklahoma
freedman Robert Burns

The Color of Heaven? African American Beliefs

III. New Negroes, New Whites

Black Racial Thought in the Twentieth Century
Ch.6 A New Negro for a New Century Black Racial Ideology, 1900-1925

If God is white, Why should I pray? If I called him, Hed turn away T.Thomas Fortune Fletcher White God (1927)

Ch.6 A New Negro for a New Century

Black Racial Ideology, 1900-1925
MAJOR POINTS

Academic ideas about Race at the turn-of-the-century 1) Demise of scientific racism aka ethnology in Academia 2) Spread of Liberal Environmentalism as reason for racial differences- Social Darwinism to Environmental determinism Rise of 20th century African American Intellectual Giants Dubois, Washington, Locke, & more Racial violence, racial invective aimed @ blacks throughout the New south and in the Urban north- Black exploitation, Disenfranchisement, Segregation, Discrimination, Lynching, Contempt World Wars as accelerators of racial equality

MAJOR POINTS

Great Migration North into Urban Centers African-Americans organize (Civil Rights Mvmt.) as racism loses the authority of science Cultural Revitalization movements within early 20th century African-American communities featuring 1) messianic black nationalism 2) religious racialism

The Fall of Scientific Racism pg.187

The early decades of this century ushered in the slow demise of scientific racism Scientific Racism aka Ethnology was a feature of 19th century racial thought Lent itself to polygenesis, idea that blacks and whites come from separate creations Liberal Environmentalisms ultimate triumphwould not be decisive until after WW II This scientific revolution was less revolutionary among black thinkers, who had long attributed most racial differences to culture and environment

Franz Boas
German born, Doctorate in Physics from Kiel University worlds greatest anthropologist Curator @ American Museum of Natural History from 1896 to 1936 Columbia University Professor 1899 1936

Franz Boas
Investigated biological basis of race Proved that culture and environment were primary arbiters of human difference, not race Attacked idea of innate racial differences Argues against innate inferiority of blacks Cites Culture and Environment and main determiners of human differences Boas picks up on racial ideas already expressed within African-American intelligentsia in the late 1800s Boas brings those arguments into the mainstream

Gunnar Myrdals American Dilemma

Nobel Prize winner 1974 Nobel Economic Science Received more than 30 honorary degrees An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy is his most well known text Established foundation of racial liberalism aka equality of races

Social Darwinism- Turn of the Century Racial Thought

pg.190 Social Darwinism- the status quo in society evolved out of an evolutionary struggle. Theory after the Civil War. Championed by Herbert Spencer, countryman & contemporary of Charles Darwin Used by 1800s white writers to establish a racial hierarchy with blacks at the bottom Appeals to some black thinkers because it rules out Pre-Civil War polygenesis which claimed blacks werent human

Social Darwinism & AfricanAmerican leaders

W.E.B DuBois embraced [social darwinism] it as a social theory of black uplift that promised racial redemption of the uneducated black freedmen and freedwomen pg.190 Booker T. Washington sought to provide black laborers with the skills and discipline needed to compete more successfully in the Darwinian struggle pg. 190 Assigned women a more clearly defined role in racial uplift. Viewed women as critical to the success of the race pg. 191

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois

Feb. 23, 1868 thru Aug. 27, 1963 Sociologist, Historian, Civil Rights Activist, Pan-Africanist, Organizer, Writer, Advocate, Fraternity member 1st African-American PhD holderHistory, Harvard 1895 Early member of Alpha Phi Alpha Published more than 4000 articles, essays & books Early member of NAACP Harlem Renaissance editor and publisher Founded Niagara Movement 1st African American to address American Historical Association (AHA)

Early Dubois 1897 to 1906

embraced race as an organic distinction between human beings in order to call for the cultural uplift of the black race pg. 189 Sees blacks as an unawakened race that had yet to find its own destiny pg.190 had little patience for scriptural accounts of the history of the races pg.193

Booker Taliaferro Washington

Apr. 5, 1856- Nov. 14, 1915 Born a slave, dies leading African-American authority Founder, leader of Tuskegee Institute, University aimed at training African American in fundamental job skills industry, thrift, intelligence and property were his main goals authored 14 books including Up from Slavery 1901 Saw blacks as an undeveloped race pg.194 Did not believe in the equality of the races

Booker Ts Views Jobs, jobs & jobs

= African American Opportunities to close the Social Darwinian gap

Gender, Race & the shift from Ethnology to Social Darwinism

pg.192

Anna Julia Cooper, in Voice from the South (1892), said every attempt to elevate the Negrocannot but prove abortive unless so directed as to utilize the indispensable agency of an elevated and trained womanhood National Association of Colored Women (1896) formed to defend [women] and their race against unjust and unholy charges. P.192 1st work of Ethnology by an AfricanAmerican woman- Pauline E. Hopkins Primer of Facts Pertaining to the Early Greatness of the African Race and the Possibility of Restoration by its Descendents(1905), said that racial differences were due to environment and took on the assertion that abolitionists were emissaries of Satan. Druscilla Dunjee Houstons The Wonderful Ethiopians of the Cushite Empire (1926), establishes Africans @ the origin of civilization through Arabia, Persia, Babylonia & India pg.

Dubois Shifts 1907 to 1915

Even though Du Bois preached conservation of the race in 1897, he admitted that essential difference of races was hard to identify. pg 194 When the matter of race became a question of comparative culture, I was in revolt. I began to see that the cultural equipment attributed to any people depended largely on who estimated it; and conviction came later in a rush as I realized what in my education had been suppressed concerning Asiatic and African culture, said Du Bois in Dusk of Dawn, in Writings(626-627). pg.196 Boas research had an effect on Du Bois in 1907. In a challenge to southern racial segregationists at a meeting of the American Sociological Society, Du Bois used Boas findings to argue that there was no scientific evidence for significant differences between races. pg.196 Dubois stated in The Negro (1915), It is generally recognized to-day that no scientific definition of race is possible. Differences, and striking differences, there are between men, and groups of men, but they fade into each other so insensibly that. pg.197

Roman & Locke Argue Legitimacy of Race

CV Roman used science and research to prove human equality by comparing racial features of Africans, Europeans, Asians & Native Americans pg. 197-198 Alain Locke lectured and intellectualized racial equality, stating any true history of race must be a sociological theory of race pg.199 Locke sought to replace biological theories of race with a sociological theory in order to preserve racial conciousness pg. 199 Both Roman and Locke critque White/Anglo-Saxon culture as the inferior culture, turning white supremacy on its head pg.199-200

CV Roman, prominent Turn-of-the-century African American Physician

Alain Locke, Father of the Harlem Renaissance, PhD in Philosophy from Howard University 1918

 The traditional African American critique of the brutal white man took on renewed vitality as a result of the war pg.200 Black minister Frances Grimke said Germany hardly equaled the United States in savagery as he commented on ever-worsening relations between the races in the US pg.200

WW I: as proof positive
Over 380,000 African American served in WWI, with 42,000 seeing combat action. Below are soldiers of the 369th Infantry Regiment which won the Croix de Guerre for gallantry in action in 1919.

The 369th Harlem Hellfighters Infantry Regiment in action in the trenches.

Post WW I: Catalyst of Cultural Revitalization

Henry Johnson, a soldier of the famous 369th infantry was honored with the Croix de Guerre from France.

In the period immediately following World War I, economic and social stresses created by an enormous migration of Southern blacks to the urban North combined with heightening racial discrimination to spur aggressive protest and an enhanced sense of racial consciousness among American blacks pg. 203

Why African Americans Moved

Jim Crow Segregation reigns supreme. Sharecropping, cotton picking, menial agriculture based on black labor is prominent

Racial Violence, Racial INVECTIVE

Lynching is the illegal execution of an accused person by a mob. Terrorism Close to 3500 African Americans lynched between 1882-1968

Floridas History of Racial Violence, Racial Invective

An early FL Lynching Highest per capita rate of lynchings 1900-1930 282 lynchings between 1882-1968

ROSEWOOD FL 1923
LYNCHING & LANDGRAB

Two segregated communities- 1) Prosperous, All-African American Rosewood & 2) Economically Stagnant, All-white Sumner Starts when a white woman accuses a black man of assault Only 7 people confirmed killed, but the entire black community was displaced

Black Wall Street aka Tulsa, Oklahoma 1921

Nicknamed Wall Street because it was so prosperous- home to many African American millionaires & thriving businesses Started on the accusation of a white woman that a black man had assaulted her Resulted in 39 dead (26 black + 13 white), over 800 injured, over 10,000 people displaced Tulsa Confronts Past

Hard Economics of Early 20th Century African American Migration

Push What factors conspire to push AfricanAmericans out of the south and into Northern Cities? Pull What factors conspire to pull African Americans out of the south and into Northern Cities?

What is the relationship between the Klu Klux Klan and AfricanAmerican migration patterns?

Great Migration(s) North

They were drawn north by the prospect of industrial jobs- work that became available to large numbers of black laborers only during World War I. pg. 203
The Great Migration refers to the mass movement of approximately 1.5 million people from the primarily rural South to the Urban dominated North between 1916-1930.

Based on the picture of A Negro Family (bottom left), which state(s) are the African Americans pictured likely to have come from?

Great Migration(s) North: By the numbers #1

a) What does Map #1 tell us about early 20th century AfricanAmerican population growth rates? What types of information about African American migration can be gleaned from Map#2? Which northern US cities received the most African Americans, using Map#3?

b)
#2

#3

c)

Living Conditions in the North

Housing in Detroit Dunbar Housing Project in Harlem, New York

Torched School in New Jersey

Housing in Pittsburgh

Housing in Chicago

Housing in Akron

Based on the pictures, how would you describe average living conditions of southern African Americans who traveled north in the Great Migration?

Great Migration(s) Cultural Legacy

In what ways did the migration of southern African Americans into northern US cities change the cultural landscape of the north?

Harlem Renaissance: The New Negro Movement

The Harlem Renaissance was viewed as a result of social and cultural change deriving from, but not limited to, the migration of black peasants out of the South and into Harlem, said Wilson Jeremiah Moses, an African American historian, describing the new black confidence and assertiveness. pg. 204

Harlem Renaissance: Connecting the Diaspora

New Negroes were not only bohemian artists, but staid intellectuals, rugged labor leaders, tough minded preachers, and conservative pan-Africanists writes Moses. Most of them did not see themselves as breaking with past literary and intellectual traditions. During the twenties, they simply continued to engage in the same sort of activities that had always interested them. --pg.205

Birth of the Civil Rights Movement

W.E.B Du Bois, Ida B. Wells were among several influential and diverse thinkers concerned with race relations around the turn of the century who founded the Niagara Movement and later, the NAACP.

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is founded in 1909 to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination. National Urban League is founded in 1910 to advocate on behalf of African Americans and against racial discrimination in the US

"The white world's vermin and filth: All the dirt of London, All the scum of New York; Valiant spoilers of women And conquerors of unarmed men; Shameless breeders of bastards, Drunk with the greed of gold, Baiting their bloodstained hooks With cant for the souls of the simple; Bearing the white man's burden Of liquor and lust and lies!" -W.E.B. Du Bois, 1920 Valiant Spoilers of Women

Expressions of Rage & Passion Post WW I

The militant mood of the American black community in the postwar era, together with the challenges the war and modern science had posed to nineteenth-century black ideas about race, combined to create a variety of new forms of discourse about race and white people in black thought. pg.205

Eloquent Fury expressing Black Chauvinism

(pg.207)

If we must die, let it not be like hogs Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs, Featuring the Making their mock at our accursed lot. most firebrand If we must die, O let us nobly die, work of So that our precious blood may not be shed Langston In vain; then even the monsters we defy Hughes, Zora Shall be constrained to honor us though dead! Neal Hurston, O kinsmen we must meet the common foe! Countee Cullen Though far outnumbered let us show us brave, and more, this And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow! edgy medium published by What though before us lies the open grave? Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack, Wallace Thurman only Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back! - Claude McKay, If We Must Die 1919

released 1 issue.

Cultural Revitalization
The Harlem Renaissance critique of European civilization was cultural rather than racial, and it partook of the general disillusionment with Western civilization and search for authentic, primal experience that took place among both American and European intellectuals in the wake of World War I. pg. 207

Up You Mighty Race

The UNIA [Marcus Garveys Pan-Africanist organization]- whose motto was One God! One Aim! One Destiny!- had a distinctive theology and liturgy pg.206 Garveys black chauvinism looked to the races past and future for its glories pg.208

Organizing for an African Renaissance

The White people have Negroes to write [this] kind of stuff so that the Negro can still be regarded as a monkey or some imbecile creature Garvey wrote of Claude McKays risque novel of black working-class life, Home to Harlem, in the Sept. 1928 edition of his periodicalNegro World. pg.208 Garvey believed (like Washington) that African Americans should compete to win in the competition between racescivilizationism pg.208

Garveys Legacy: Messianic Black Nationalism

the size of the Garvey movement testified to its appeal among the uneducated black masses, as well as educated churchmen of many denominational affiliations pg.209 Garvey appealed to the black masses because their religious racialism addressed concerns about religion and race that had a long history in the black South pg.209 According to historian E. Franklin Frazier in his text- Opportunity, Garvey re-introduced the idea of a Moses, who was incarnate in himself pg.209 Marcus Garvey resolved the issue of Gods color and racial affiliation when he said God is not white or black, angels have no colorbut if [whites] say God is white, this organization says that God is black pg.210

Garveys Legacy: Messianic Black Garveys followers paraded with paintings Nationalism

of an Ethiopian Christ and a black Madonna and child to celebrate Garveys Fourth International Convention of Negroes, but Garvey held to a more universalistic vision of Christ pg.210 Garvey used racial particularism to critique mainstream white Christianity. Ex. Oh Jesus the Christ, Oh Jesus the redeemer, when white man scorned you, when white men pierced your side out of which blood and water gushed forth, it was a black man in the person of Simon the Cyrenian who took the cross and bore it on the heights of Calvary pg.211 Garveyism [amongst others] posited that the black race had an especially close relationship with God, and a lineage superior to that of the white race pg 212 Garveyism branded the white race devils while it delighted in references to the greatness of colored civilization at a time when white men were barbarians and savages pg.213

Garveys The Tragedy of White Injustice

not an attempt at poetry; just a peculiar style of using facts as they impress me as I go through the pages of history and as I look at and note the conduct of the white race said Garvey as he described the 1927 poem pg. 213 (1) Lying and stealing is the whiteman's game; For rights of God nor man he has no shame (A practice of his throughout the whole world) (7) At all, great thunderbolts he has hurled; He has stolen everywhere-land and sea; They have stolen, murdered, on their way here A buccaneer and pirate he must be, Leaving desolation and waste everywhere; Killing all, as he roams from place to place, Leaving disease, mongrels-moral disgrace- Now they boastingly tell what they have done, Seeing not the bloody crown they have won; Millions of Blacks died in America, (20) Coolies, peons, serfs, too, in Asia; With a past brilliant, noble and grand, Upon these dead bones Empires they builded, Black men march to the future hand in hand; Parceling out crowns and coronets gilded. We have suffered long from the white man's greed, Perforce he must change his unholy creed. Stealing, bullying and lying to all Will drag him to ignominious fall; For men are wise-yes, no longer are fools, To have grafters make of them still cheap tools.

Religious Racialism in the form of Noble Drew Alis MOORISH SCIENCE TEMPLE
Sects such as the Muslims mainly attracted the poorest and least-educated negroes in the North, many of them born in the south. pg.209 The Moorish back-toIslam movements that began in the 1920s under the leadership of a black carolinian who called himself Noble Drew Ali regarded their religion as secret and guarded their teachings so zealouslyAlis Holy Koran. pg.212

Moorish Science Temple & Black Muslim Teachings

Holy book called Circle 7 Holy Koran. pg. 212 White race originated from Yakub, a black scientist who selectively bred black babies to create a mutant white race. pg. 212 This big-headed scientistmade this race of devils to plague the peaceable Black Nationemploying the ugliest colors, as everyone knows, he colored them pale white with blue eyesand he called them Caucasians[they] were aggressive troublemakers who were inferior to black people in every way. pg.212 Rejection of the Judeo-Christian traditionthe black race has an exceptionally close relationship with God, and a lineage superior to that of the white race. pg.212

Other Black Messianic Teachings Daddy Grace

Charismatic leaders, such as Daddy Grace and Father Divine, were understood by their followers as living gods. pg. 209
Father Divine

Divines followers believed that Father Divine had come in his present form because the Negro is one of the lowliest creatures on earth. pg. 209
Black Jews

The black Jewish followers of the Church of God held that both God and Jesus- whom they accepted into their Judaic doctrinewere black, as were the original inhabitants of the earth. pg.209

Noble Drew Alis Legacy

Conclusion
Boass culture concept caught on among educated blacks who were eager to abandon the 19th century hierarchy of racial civilizations pg.216 By the 1930strained black intellectuals such as E. Franklin Frazier, Abram Harris, and Ralph Bunche saw race [as] a useful myth which had been perpetuated by powerful whites and manipulated by the black leadership class for its own selfish interests. pg.217

The AfraAmerican, being more tolerant than the Caucasian, is ready to admit that white people are not all the sameI venture to say, he rises several notches higher than the gentility of the ofays, to whom, even in this day and time, all coons look alike- George Schuyler in Our White Folks (1927), in The Black Man and the American Dream: Negro Aspirations in America, 1900-1930