Summary
Highlights
The lecture begins by focusing on Black Americans' responses to the oppressive "New" South, which, despite its name, was recreating the social controls of the Old South from 1877 to 1900. The discussion centers on resistance to these new modes of control.
Ida B. Wells, an African-American woman born in Mississippi and educated in Freedmen's Bureau schools and Rust College, became a teacher in Tennessee. She personally experienced Jim Crow laws when she was removed from a whites-only train car despite holding a ticket. Her attempt to sue and challenge segregation laws in court ultimately failed, leading her to become a vocal critic of Jim Crow.
After losing her job due to her outspoken journalism under the pen name 'Iola,' Ida B. Wells dedicated herself to writing and activism, particularly against lynching. Motivated by the lynching of close Black male friends, she conducted three years of research, culminating in her influential publication, 'The Red Record.' She concluded that lynching accusations of rape were often false, masking economic jealousy of successful Black men, and advocated for federal laws to make lynching illegal.
Ida B. Wells enlisted the help of prominent abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who echoed her findings in his publication, 'Lynch Law in the South,' further highlighting the issue. Despite their efforts, federal anti-lynching legislation was not passed. Wells also encouraged migration out of the increasingly violent South as a more immediate form of self-protection for Black Americans.
The Kansas Exodus, led by Benjamin Singleton, encouraged thousands of Black Americans to migrate to Kansas, 'the land of John Brown.' This mass migration, largely from 1879-1880, created significant Black communities such as Singleton and Nicodemus. The West offered economic, political, and educational opportunities in areas less densely populated by whites, allowing for the formation of self-sufficient Black communities.
Booker T. Washington, born a slave in 1856, advocated for 'Accommodation' or 'self-help.' This approach emphasized working within existing laws, proving oneself through hard work and economic success, and postponing demands for social equality. Washington, who received an industrial education at Hampton Institute and later led the Tuskegee Institute, believed that economic stability would eventually lead to social acceptance.
In his influential 'Atlanta Compromise' speech in 1895, Booker T. Washington reassured a predominantly white audience that Black Americans were not seeking immediate social equality but rather the opportunity for industrial education and economic advancement. His famous line, 'separate as the five fingers, yet one as the hand' when mutually beneficial, advocated for segregation while promoting economic cooperation. This speech earned him widespread praise from white society.
W.E.B. DuBois, initially praising Washington, became one of his biggest critics. Born in Massachusetts in 1868 and holding a Ph.D. from Harvard, DuBois advocated for immediate social and economic equality, arguing that Black Americans, as citizens, should not have to compromise their rights. In 'The Souls of Black Folk' (1903), he criticized accommodation and proposed the 'Talented Tenth' concept: that the top 10% of educated Black Americans should lead the fight for civil rights, emphasizing intellectual education over industrial training.
A radical for his time, W.E.B. DuBois co-founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909, the first major protest organization for Black rights in the United States. The lecture concludes by affirming that the 'New' South, between 1877 and 1900, was not truly new in terms of race relations, as white southerners found new ways, including Jim Crow laws, chain gangs, convict leasing, and lynchings, to perpetuate Black inferiority.