US Civil Rights - African Americans - Role of AA leaders

HELP

• Opposed slave trade - created his own anti-slavery newspaper
• Began to raise awareness of the AA CR movement - one of the first to do so
• Offered a position to run the Freedman's Bureau

HINDER

• Impact diminished following the civil war
• No real lasting impact

HELP

• Formed Tuskegee Institute in 1881
• Founded National Business League in 1901 to encourage AA economic enterprise
• Progression form slave to college principle = example to AAs
• Main spokesperson for AAs 1895 - 1905 (at least)
• Developed many valuable political contacts for AAs - even advised President Roosevelt
  • Dinner at the White House was highly publicised
• Long term aim - to show by example that blacks could equal them in terms such as hard work

HINDER

• Limited by President Johnson (racist)
• No SC influence
• Focused on working with the system, not changing it 
• Atlanta Compromise (1895) - argued AAs should accept segragation and rights should wait
• Negative view of the importance of the vote
• Did not respond well to criticism - resulted in further questioning of his effectiveness as a leader

HELP

• 1884: campaigned against segragation laws
• Challenged lynching
• Helped launch NACW and NAACP

HINDER

• Failed to gain any commitment from Congress for a federal anti lynching law

HELP

• Helped form NAACP - lead to successful SC cases eg. Brown v BoE
• Founded Niagra Movement - campaign to restore voting rights and abolish segragation
• Outlined clear principles in belief of AA equality of equal education/employment opportunities

HINDER

• Niagra Movement failed
  • Had an academic appraoch to CR hence working people did not relate to them
  • Lacked money and achieved little
• Limited influence on younger public leaders while chair of NAACP

HELP

• Effective orator - seen as a replacement for Booker T
• Popular with working class AAs
• Came nearer to mobilising mass black action than any other black leader until this time
• UNIA = 4 million members by 1920
• Promoted black power - inspired Malcolm X?

HINDER

• Actions to influence political equality (eg. Black Star Line) failed
• Lacked political strategy 0 seemed more concerned with fancy ventures
• Support for UNIA died down following the diminishing of post-war tensions
• Career coincided with the Harlem Renaissance and the Jazz Age - calls into question the extent of Garvey's impact on black pried
• Talks with the KKK limited his credibility and led to his downfall

HELP

• Rallied black organised labour - BSCP = first black TU
• Believed in mass non-violent protest - influenced by Gandhi
• Pressured the government to end discrimination in wartime industires in 1941 by threatening a mass march
• First time an AA leader had managed to influence public policy substancially - Executive Order 8802
• After WW2 he led a campaign which resulted in President Truman passing Executive Order 9981 - desegragated the military
• Involved in the March on Washington (1963)

HINDER

• Impact of the Executive Order 8802 limited - true equality in the workplace would have to wait for Civil Rights Act (1964)
• Little social impact

HELP

• Unified 'du Bois' and 'Washington' type AAs
  • Closer link between the AA leadership and the less educated than the NAACP
• Successes include the Montgomery Bus Boycott and sit ins - peaceful protest
• Birmingham Protest - impact on mindset of JFK
• Marhc on Washington - Civil Rights Bill (1964)
• Selma - Voting Rights Act (1965)
• Inspired young people - SNCC

HINDER

• Campaign too slow - led to militancy in the mid 1960s
• Didn't relate to nothern AAs - minimal focus on economic CR
• Alienated LBJ by slating Vietnam War
• After his death, CR movement disintigrated, becoming leaderless, divided and more violent

HELP

• Black Power - politically awakened those sidelined by the mainstream CR movement
• Black nationalist groups provided practical help to nothern AAs living in ghettos
  • Drew attention to the dreadful conditions
• King manipulated fears about the growth of the NOI - helped to encourage Johnson and Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act

HINDER

• Black Power had negative aspects
  • Strategy of gaining support from the CR movement seemed on track with the successes of the 1960s, now the militancy and violence of Black Power had ruined the movement
  • Black Power emphasised black culture - didn't want to intergrate with whites in a 'colourblind' society
  • Fragmented and divided CR movement
  • White people and moderates felt alienated form the CR movement 
    • Loss of support and loss of funding

HELP

• Wanted to help the economic CR of AAs
• Helped found the Black Pathers with Bobby Seal

HINDER

• Poor publicity of the Black Pathers directly impacted the CR movement
• Federal government recognised the Black Panthers as the 'greates threat to the internal security' of the US
  • The impression given off to many white Americans was that parts of the CR movement had become inherently criminal organisations that threatened America's way of life and security - hindering the acceptance and progress of CR in American society

HELP

• Founded PUSH to help AAs into employment
• Campaigned for Democratic presidential nomination
• Highlighted the importance of the black vote
• AAs made up 13% of the electorate and tended to vote for an AA leader
• A desire to make individual successes proportional to the black population followed Jackson's candidacy
  • Many white politicians accepted this - Bill Clinton sad he wanted to make his administration 'look like America' during his presidential campaign in 1991

HINDER

• Some viewed him as old fashioned - a throwback to baptist ministers
  • Approach was considered unnecessary