The lives of African Americans until 1912

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  • Created by: Lissimay
  • Created on: 27-02-19 10:53

The lives of African Americans until 1912

Advantages

  • Free to leave the South. The Black Exodusters movement organised migration West to free land in Kansas under the Homestead Act.
  • Population doubled from 4.4 million to 7.9 million.
  • Found employment farming, building railroads and lumbering. By 1910 25% of Black farmers had their own land and living standards were rising.
  • BY 1875 17 Northern states had civil rights legislation in their books (although not always effectively enforced)
  • By 1890 segregated schools in the North were slowly disappearing and many high schools accepted black applicants and universities admitted small numbers of African Americans.
  • Booker T Washington-born a slave, 1881 Tuskegee Institute helped African Americans progress through education, National Urban League helped African Americans adjust to urban life, role model, consulted frequently by TR.
  • W.E.B Du Bois- founded Niagara Movement in 1905 which emphasised protest to demand Civil Rights, set up NAACP which aimed to enforce law against racism, began civil rights protest movement.

Disadvantages

  • Fall in cotton prices after 1873 led to poverty for plantation workers.
  • Many tied to farming and received low prices for their produce and were forced to grow cotton or tobacco- damaged by boll weevil insect 1892.
  • forced into ghettos like Harlem .
  • Barred from trade unions and had low quality housing.
  • Racism existed in North and South and had a lack of civil rights.Formal segregation in the South- Jim Crow Laws 1876-1965 Became legal in Plessy v Ferguson 1896. Seperate but unequal.
  • 1881 supreme court denied the individuals access to places of public accomodation.
  • Lynching became a public event and southern gov did little to stop it between 1882-1899 over 2500 American Africans were lynched.
  • 1882- Senator Henry W Blair introduced education bill would have provided millions of dollars o black and white schools but was rejected by congress.
  • only 2/5 of eligible black children were enrolled into schools between 1877-87.
  • Black schools were often ill equipped and dirty and would open for a month or two then close for children to pick cotton.
  • Many still lived in poverty in both the North and the South.
  • Without fed troops in the South African Americans were kept from voting by intimidation, disenfranchised via literacy tests and the Grandfather Clause, poll taxes which poor African Americans could not afford.

Evaluation

Did not improve at all . Given freedom but oppressed and restricted via politics and rejection of social intimidation and terrorism.

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