ISSUE 2
Evaluation of the obstacles to the
achievement of civil rights for black
people up to 1941
This question is asking you to make a judgement on how important these
obstacles were in preventing civil rights – what was the biggest obstacle they
faced?
Possible questions
• 2013 - To what extent were divisions within
the black community the main obstacle to
achieving civil rights before 1941?
• 2012 - How far can it be argued that the
activities of the Ku Klux Klan was the most
important obstacle to the achievement of Civil
Rights for black people up to 1941?
CONTEXT
• Constitution – 13th and 14th amendments to
civil and voting rights
• Emancipation of slaves 1865 – slavery
abolished
• State authorities did not allow these – Jim
Crow laws passed after the ‘Separate but
equal’ ruling perpetuated this racial inequality.
KKK
Divisions in
black
community
Popular
prejudice
OBSTACLES
Lack of
political
influence
Legal
impediments
KKK KU
• Originally formed in 1860s with direct purpose
to prevent former slaves enjoying equal rights
• Resurgence in 1920s, in order to protect the
‘American way of life’.
• Hiram Wesley Evans - leader in 1923.
• By 1925, 3 million members, many of which
were police, judges and politicians.
• Tactics of lynching, torture and violence
characteristic of this secret organisation.
KKK ARGUMENT
• A SIGNIFICANT obstacle:
• Lynching resulted in a black population too terrified to
campaign for fear of the consequences.
• Roosevelt refused to support an anti-lynching bill in his
New Deal for fear of losing Democrat support in south
therefore allowing lynching to continue unpunished.
• 1925 March on Washington permitted showed their
support
• In some states, only KKK approved candidates could
stand for election proving their political power.
• By 1920s, scandals discredited KKK. In Alabama where
they were most powerful numbered less than 6,000 by
1930 but they remained powerful in local groups.
DIVISIONS IN BLACK COMMUNITY KU
1.
Booker T Washington, accomodationist philosophy, regarded as an
‘Uncle Tom’ by many – he argued not to antagonise whites but prove
themselves through hard work and education.
2. W. E. B. Du Bois disagreed with Washington – he said this approach
assumed that blacks were inferior and fought for complete racial
equality. W E B De Bois founded the NAACP – a national organisation
whose main aim was to oppose discrimination through legal action.
1919 he campaigned against lynching, but it failed to attract most
black people and was dominated by white people and well off black
people
3. Marcus Garvey and Black Pride – he founded the UNIA (Universal
Negro Improvement Association) which aimed to get blacks to ‘take
Africa, organise it, develop it, arm it, and make it the defender of
Negroes the world over’. This ‘Negro nationalism’ was very popular as
it rejected white culture. 1922 6 million members. However, Garvey’s
fraudulent activity discredited him.
DIVISIONS IN BLACK COMMUNITY
ARGUMENT
• Resulted in a WEAKENED campaign before
1941, lack of COHESION. DISAGREEMENT in
approach and ideology. Shared goals but not
the approach.
• Garvey did raise pride in black community.
Washington’s Tuskegee institution did educate
black Americans who attended.
LEGAL IMPEDIMENTS KU + ARGUMENT
• ‘Jim Crow Laws’ − separate education, transport, toilets
– passed in Southern states after the Civil War – this
gave legal justification to racism. Restricted their civil
rights and resulted in apathetic black Americans.
• ‘Separate but Equal’ Supreme Court Decision 1896,
when Homer Plessey tested their legality – proved a
significant legal obstacle
• Attitudes of Presidents eg Wilson ‘Segregation is not
humiliating and is a benefit for you black gentlemen’.
Wilson also called them ‘an ignorant and inferior race’
– unsympathetic president would prevent further
reforms being passed that would improve civil rights
for blacks
LACK OF POLITICAL INFLUENCE
• By 1900, almost no blacks could vote despite
their constitutional right to do so therefore could
not elect someone to fight for civil rights. Voting
registration rules were an important obstacle.
• 1898 case of Mississippi v Williams – voters must
understand the American Constitution.
• Grandfather Clause: impediment to black people
voting.
• Most black people in the South were
sharecroppers they did not own land and some
states identified ownership of property as a
voting qualification.
LACK OF POLITICAL INFLUENCE
ARGUMENT
• Therefore black people could not vote,
particularly in the South, and could not elect
anyone who would oppose the Jim Crow Laws
• Direct obstacle to the achievement of civil
rights.
• Little was achieved to end discrimination,
political activists were a minority.
• Lacked political education and experience to
change this.
POPULAR PREJUDICE KU
• After the institution of slavery the status of
Africans was stigmatised, and this stigma was the
basis for the anti-African racism that persisted
• The relocation of millions of African Americans
from their roots in the Southern states to the
industrial centres of the North after World War I,
particularly in cities such as Boston, Chicago, and
New York (Harlem).
• In northern cities, racial tensions exploded, most
violently in Chicago, and lynchings – mobdirected hangings, usually racially motivated –
increased dramatically in the 1920s.
POPULAR PREJUDICE ARGUMENT
• Civil rights was treated with hostility.
• Most African Americans were more concerned
with their economic survival.