Welcome to Political Science Level 2, Lesson 7: Jim Crow 2

If you haven’t studied Jim Crow before, check out our Political Science Level 1 lesson Jim Crow 1. If you haven’t studied segregation before, check out our Political Science Level 2 lesson The Ghetto 1

In this lesson, you will learn about:

Political parties prior to Jim Crow
The height of Jim Crow
The KKK and Hollywood
Lynchings
Resistance to the KKK
The World Wars and Jim Crow
The Harlem Renaissance
Court laws that began to end Jim Crow
The start of the civil rights movement

Primary Objectives

By the end of this lesson, you will understand:

How conservatives consolidated political power
Who the Populist Party were
Which court cases gave birth to Jim Crow
How Jim Crow laws affected Black people
Where the term “Jim Crow” comes from
How the KKK were reborn
What methods of racist terrorism white people used
Who the NAACP were
How the UNIA resisted the KKK
How WWI affected Jim Crow
How the Great Depression and the New Deal upheld Jim Crow
What the Harlem Renaissance was
How Jim Crow was upheld in WWII
Which court cases began to end Jim Crow
The backlash to the court cases

Additional Objectives

By the end of this lesson, you may understand:

Why the Populist Party became pro-Jim Crow
What the case of Plessy vs. Ferguson led to
What the case of Williams vs. Mississippi led to
How Hollywood is intrinsically linked to white supremacy and the KKK
What Woodrow Wilson thought of the KKK
Where the term “lynching” comes from
How many lynchings occurred in the Jim Crow South
The ideological differences between the NAACP and the UNIA
What the case of Smith vs. Allwright directly led to
What the case of Brown vs. Board directly led to
Some of the main figures of the Montgomery bus boycott

When tens of thousands of Black people were imprisoned due to new vagrancy laws, prison labour camps emerged all over the US. The prison population exploded as Black people were once again enslaved.

However, there were still many Black people considered free. As many of the segregation laws were yet to be codified, Black people found themselves interacting with whites on a semi-regular basis. In some states, such as Virginia and North Carolina - states that would come to embrace Jim Crow wholeheartedly - Black people could ride the same train carriages and eat at the same restaurants as white people. Of course, racism was rife, and social and unofficial segregation were often practiced, but these were not yet state laws.

THE POLITICAL BASIS

At this time, white people were said to fall into three different political alignments: there were the extremists, who believed that Black subjugation was the only possible way to alleviate the “racial problem” of the USA. They demanded to strip “the Negro” of all constitutional rights, waging an aggressive war of terror to rob Black people of their humanity. This was the mode of thought that the majority of white people followed, eventually leading to the birth of Jim Crow laws. Next were the conservatives, who believed in the innate superiority-inferiority relationship between the white race and the Negro race, but did not think the inferiority of the Negro should prevent them from participating in society. Both major parties, the Democrats and the Republicans, shared many conservative tenets before capitulating completely to white supremacist extremism. The third were the liberals, who thought that both Black and white citizens should have equal rights. Men such as George Washington Cable and Lewis Harvie Blair attacked the practice of racial segregation, calling for an end to segregated schools, places of entertainment and churches in a paternalistic, perhaps patronising manner. However, neither Cable nor Blair attracted any significant following, particularly in the South.

The conservatives did their best to secure the Black vote, declaring empty promises if they were placed in power. Although many Black people did not vote due to racist intimidation, defrauding and imprisonment, disenfranchisement was not yet official in the 1880s. The conservatives therefore saw themselves as the realistic choice for Black voters, in the middle of the extreme white supremacists who wanted them dead, and the “cosy liberals” who were trying to elevate them beyond their proper stations in life. Conservatives would even appoint a few Black men in governmental positions - albeit, in positions that granted them very little power - in an effort to garner Black support. This tactic has proceeded throughout US history, working very well in the 2008 presidential election. However, as the 1880s rolled on, the Republicans and the Democrats began to stop pandering to Black voters. Republican President Chester A. Arthur, for example, withdrew his support from Black officials, placing white people in their governmental positions, and abandoned obtaining the Black vote entirely.

The Populist Party then emerged, offering an alternative to the wealthy elites of the North and South. Black people viewed the Populists as their best alternative, who vowed to work for the poor white and Black people of the USA. Although they initially approached Black people directly, trying to convert them to the cause of class solidarity, the Populists eventually used the tactic of speaking through Republican leaders, a party Black people were more familiar with. The Populists enjoyed success in the South during the early 1890s, blaming the lack of jobs and severe agricultural depression on elite conservatives. They steered clear of what they considered to be the patronising approach that conservatives and other liberals used, instead grounding their message in Black self-interest. They declared that they wanted to create “a platform immensely beneficial to both races and injurious to neither” by “making it to the interest of both races to act together for the success of the platform.” They vowed to denounce racist laws and assured Black people of their full integration into society if elected into power. Alarmed by the possible unity of Black people and poor whites via the Populists, conservatives in power developed new segregation laws. Much like slavery, these laws gave poor whites significant advantages over Black people.

JIM CROW BEGINS

This ultimately led to the Populists caving under pressure for votes. They abandoned their former allies, aligning themselves with the conservatives they swore to fight a few years prior. Even the most forceful advocates for interracial alliance within the Populist party adopted the cries of “Black elimination” from politics. The capitulation of liberals, as well as the drifting of conservatives to a farther right-wing position, enabled extreme racism to take hold. The decline in opposition led to an increased intensity of racist hatred, fear and fanaticism that had long been present throughout the white population of the US. This led directly into the formation of Jim Crow, with Black people discriminated against in every sphere of infrastructure: schools, housing, restrooms, churches, employment, restaurants, prisons, morgues, cemeteries, hospitals and bars. Black people had to drink from “coloured” water fountains, ride trains and buses in segregated areas, and were forced to abide by a curfew. They weren’t even allowed to read the same Bible as white people!

In the 1896 court case of Plessy vs. Ferguson, the US Supreme Court ruled that segregation would be US law under the guise of “separate but equal.” The Court declared that “legislation is powerless to eradicate racial instincts”, stating that Jim Crow laws were the natural order of things. In 1898, Williams vs. Mississippi completed the legalities behind segregation and disenfranchisement. This of course coincided with a new wave of imperialism, as the US invaded lands throughout the Pacific and the Caribbean. Shouldering the “white man’s burden”, the US declared that “the stronger and cleverer race is free to impose its will upon new-caught, sullen peoples.” The justifications for invading these places were the same used to justify the Jim Crow laws: white supremacy.

The term “Jim Crow” came from a minstrel act known as “Jumpin’ Jim Crow.” In the 19th and 20th centuries, minstrel acts were common throughout the USA and Europe. A white actor would blacken their face with makeup and perform on stage as a racist caricature of a Black person. “Jumpin’ Jim Crow” became a hit performance across the US in the 19th century, performed by a man named T. D. Rice.

The early 20th century saw politicians throughout the US trying to outdo each other. Each governor sought to enforce harsher Jim Crow laws than their political rivals. Barriers were put in place to prevent Black participation in society, such as property or literacy qualifications and poll taxes. Loopholes and clauses were simultaneously introduced to ensure that poor white people were afforded the privileges of Jim Crow, such as the grandfather clause, which gave white people the same rights their ancestors had enjoyed prior to the Civil War. Although Jim Crow differed slightly between states, it was practiced throughout both the North (albeit with less scrutiny) and the South, and was seen as “the permanent solution to the Negro problem.” White Americans across all states claimed Jim Crow laws were a necessity, as they were the only thing that could preserve the white race. It was said that the North and South were as unified as ever, and not since the height of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade had their been such mutual agreement between the two divisions of states.

Scientific racism exploded in a plethora of justifications for Jim Crow. Biologists, anthropologists, sociologists, historians, journalists and novelists all gave support to the ideas of a racial hierarchy, with the white race at the top and the Negro race at the bottom. Much of this pseudo-science had been imported from other places and other times, with the works of Carl Linneaus and Francis Galton heavily cited.

THE KU KLUX KLAN AND WHITE TERRORISM

This era also saw the rebirth of the KKK due to the Hollywood film The Birth of a Nation, which was released in 1915. The film, which was originally titled The Clansman, tells the story of a Black man - played by a white actor in Blackface - who sexually assaults a white woman. The Black man is complete with racist myths and tropes, behaving aggressively and animalistic towards the damsel in distress. Upon being confronted and assaulted by the Black man, the white woman decides to kill herself. The KKK then heroically ride in to enact vengeance, sporting the white hooded attire that they are associated with today. They proceed to lynch the Black man in an act of heroism and revenge. The Birth of a Nation was the biggest film in US history at the time and was the first film to ever be screened in the White House, watched by US President Woodrow Wilson. He spoke highly of the film and offered his support of the KKK, stating: “The white men were aroused by a mere instinct of self-preservation… until at last there had sprung into existence a great Ku Klux Klan, a veritable empire of the South, to protect the Southern country.” The film was also shown to the entire Supreme Court and, adjusted for inflation, made the equivalent of $1.8 billion today.

It was due to The Birth of a Nation that the KKK became what they are today. The costumes and themes within the film were not present in the 19th century version of the KKK. The film tapped into the racist minds of white America, unleashing white supremacist terror across the country. The KKK even opened a women’s-only branch - and half a million joined. Lynchings soon became common across the US, with the KKK seen as vigilantes enacting racial justice. The word lynching comes from “Lynch Law”, a 19th century term meaning a punishment without trial, coined by Charles and William Lynch. Black people were lynched routinely in the streets, often with an audience of men, women and children wearing their suits and dresses. Children would sometimes be given the day off school to watch a lynching, as the police ensured no one interfered with the murder taking place. Many would gather around for photographs with the dead Black person, smiling for the camera, and just like during slavery, body parts of the victim were kept by attendees as souvenirs. Between 1877 and 1950, there were over 4000 racist lynchings reported in the Southern States alone! This is far below the actual figure for the entirety of the US, and excludes state lynchings by the police. Anti-lynching bills that would criminalise the act were put forward, but were rejected at least 240 times. In 2018, a federal anti-lynching bill was passed for the first time.

Not all racist violence was enacted by those donning the attire of the KKK. White supremacist mobs were common throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In North Carolina in 1898, a mob of 400 white men, led by a former congressman, invaded the Black district of Wilmington, setting fire to buildings and killing hundreds. In 1906 in Atlanta, mobs roamed the streets for 4 days, looting, beating and lynching much of the Black population. 25 racist massacres occurred in the last 6 months of 1919 across the USA, with many Black World War I veterans lynched in their uniforms. In 1921, the most infamous racist massacre occurred in the Greenwood district of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Known as “the Black Wall Street”, Greenwood was a hub of Black economic progress. When a Black teenager was accused of harassing a white girl, a huge mob of white rioters rampaged through the neighbourhood, killing over 300 people. They burned down the homes and businesses of Greenwood, and left about 10,000 Black people homeless.

As the KKK grew in numbers - over 5 million - resistance to their racial terrorism became stronger. Booker T. Washington was a prominent Black leader in Tuskegee, Alabama. He was a major proponent of Black progress through the development of businesses and education. Instead of challenging the KKK directly, he proposed an indirect compromise between white people and Black people, allowing white supremacy to continue as long as Black people were allowed their own businesses and education centres. He assumed this would deter racist terrorist acts, as white people would be assured of their societal superiority. However, not all Black people agreed with Washington’s flawed vision. The National Association for the Advancement of Coloured Peoples (NAACP) was founded in 1909 and worked towards “eliminating race-based discrimination.” Unlike Washington, they organised protests against Jim Crow laws, and campaigned against The Birth of a Nation. Founded by W.E.B. Du Bois and two white activists, Moorfield Storey and Mary White Ovington, the NAACP sought to overturn Jim Crow and stop lynchings by educating the public and working for anti-racist legislation. The US branches of the UNIA heavily resisted KKK aggression directly. Unlike the NAACP, the UNIA actively defended themselves, and were openly hostile to the KKK. There were instances where UNIA members kidnapped members of the Klan and beat them with whips! Interestingly, Garvey himself preferred to deal with the KKK and openly racist white people compared to those he deemed covert racists, which he accused the white members of the NAACP of being.

THE WORLD WARS AND JIM CROW

From 1914, World War I saw many white men drafted into the US army and sent overseas. This created a void in American industry in the Northern States, and many Black families relocated to these areas, acquiring jobs in factories. As Jim Crow laws were often not as stringent in the North, many Black people saw this as an escape from racist terror. After WWI there was a huge demand for labour, and Northern territories were forced to relax some of their segregation policies. However, Black people were still prevented from working in proximity with white workers, were banned from joining unions and were forced to eat in separate areas. The migration of Black people to Northern cities led to the development of new facets of Black culture. In the 1920s, an explosion of Black artistic and intellectual prowess occurred in New York known as the “Harlem Renaissance.” Inspired by the spirit of protest and racial pride, an outpouring of music, poetry, artwork, philosophy, fiction and intellectual thought emerged, gaining international attention. Major figures emerged during this period, such as Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington and Paul Robeson. African culture was reblended as Black people from across the Americas migrated to Harlem, including Marcus Garvey, who based his operations there.

However, when the Great Depression occurred in 1929, Black families were hit the hardest thanks to Jim Crow. Many lost their jobs and homes, unable to afford to live. President Roosevelt’s New Deal, developed to combat the Depression, excluded Black people thanks to Jim Crow laws. Housing laws and redlining prevented Black people from acquiring mortgages and loans, trapping them in a cycle of impoverishment, and segregation in education prevented Black people from obtaining adequate qualifications for better paid jobs.

World War II began shortly after in 1939. Black soldiers were drafted into the US army, but within the ranks, Jim Crow segregation was still present. When Nazi prisoners of war were captured by the US army, they were allowed to dine with white Americans while their Black “countrymen” were forced to eat separately. Despite being political enemies, the ideology of white supremacy was still the most important thing to all involved. Adolf Hitler stated himself that his Nazi laws were directly inspired by the USA’s Jim Crow laws and treatment of Black people, with his favourite book being The Passing of a Great Race by American eugenicist Madison Grant.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

After WWII, the courts slowly began to end Jim Crow laws. The US sending soldiers to fight a regime directly inspired by themselves meant it was nonsensical to completely uphold Jim Crow - at least overtly. Unsurprisingly, the first areas of employment to be desegregated were the armed forces - specifically, the navy and the airforce. As the USA’s war in Korea approached, the army was desegregated as well. In 1944, the case of Smith vs Allwright led to the end of an all-white primary election. This meant that states could no longer bar Black people from voting in primary elections due to their race. 1954’s Brown vs Board of Education led to the end of segregation in public (state-owned) schools, which undermined the entirety of Jim Crow. Black students could no longer be barred from attending white schools due to their race, at least in theory, although there was a huge backlash from the white public to this decision. The case originally emerged due to Black families suing the Topeka Board of Education in Kansas for its segregation policy.

In 1956 segregation on interstate buses was made unconstitutional. This was primarily due to the Montgomery bus boycott, a protest campaign against racial segregation on buses. Rosa Parks famously refused to give up her seat for a white man, and once arrested, became the face of the movement alongside Martin Luther King, jr. Although many Black people before her, such as Claudette Colvin and Mary Louise Smith, had taken the same action, Parks helped the movement grow in large numbers. The court cases that were slowly dismantling Jim Crow led to huge backlashes from the white public, and in the 1950s, 101 of 128 members of Congress opposed the end of Jim Crow. After Brown vs. Board, 50 new pro-Jim Crow laws from 5 legislatures were imposed throughout the Southern States. The KKK and other white supremacist groups were out in full murdering force.

Emmett Till, a 14-year-old boy, was lynched in Mississippi in 1955. He was accused of wolf-whistling and assault by a white woman, and was consequently murdered by two white men. Till’s public funeral made him an anti-racist icon, with images of his mutilated body printed in magazines. An all-white jury found the culprits not guilty of the murder, despite them both admitting it a year later. Recently, Emmett Till’s accuser confessed she made the entire altercation up, murdering a young boy with her lies. Unfortunately, Till was one of thousands of victims of racist white terror during this period.

The late 1950s and early 1960s saw huge resistance to racism in the US. This was the beginning of the civil rights movement, which demanded equal treatment for Black people under US law. 20,000 men, women and children were arrested between 1961-63 for engaging in activism, and in 1963 alone, over 1000 anti-segregation protests occurred through the US in more than 100 cities. This era also saw the peak of the Nation of Islam (NOI), referred to as the “Black Muslims” in white media. Revolutionary leaders like Malcolm X spearheaded the calls for Black independence, inspiring the Black masses to fight for freedom.

Further Reading:

The Strange Career of Jim Crow, C. Vann Woodward
The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander
It’s Bigger Than Hip Hop, M. K. Asante, jr
Black Reconstruction in America, W. E. B. Du Bois