Black Twentieth
Century Thought
HUMANITIES 1300 9.0A
Faculty of Arts
1. Setting the Stage: The Nineteenth
Century and the “Promise” of Freedom;
2. Booker T. Washington and the Philosophy
of Self-Help;
3. W.E.B. Du Bois and the Black Intellectual
Platform; and
4. Marcus Garvey and Pan-Africanism.
Lecture Outline: Black TwentiethCentury Thought
1793: Canadian bill to prevent further importation of slaves;
1804: Haiti declared free republic (recognized by France in
1825, Britain in 1832, and USA in 1862);
1807: Abolition of British slave trade;
1834: Abolition of slavery in British colonies but introduction of
Apprenticeship, which lasted until 1838;
1865: Abolition of slavery in the US South;
1886: Abolition of slavery in Cuba;
1888: Abolition of slavery in Brazil—last colony in the Americas to
abolish slavery.
Abolition of Slavery
Reconstruction of the US South aimed to
1.Reorganize southern states after Civil
War
2.Facilitate re-admittance of southern
states into the Union
3.Define the means by which whites and
blacks could live together in a non-slave
society.
Reconstruction 1866-1877
Section 1.
“All persons born or naturalized in the United
States, and subject to the jurisdiction
thereof, are citizens of the United States . . .
No State shall make or enforce any law which
shall abridge the privileges or immunities of
citizens of the United States; nor shall any
State deprive any person of life, liberty, or
property, without due process of law; nor
deny to any person within its jurisdiction the
equal protection of the laws.”
14th Amendment (1868)
Section 1.
“The right of citizens of the United States to
vote shall not be denied or abridged by
the United States or by any State on
account of race, color, or previous
condition of servitude.”
15th Amendment (1870)
1.Refused blacks the right to vote
2.Restricted legal and civil rights of blacks
3.Prevented blacks from carrying weapons
4.Heavily punished interracial marriage
5.Introduced vagrancy laws that tied blacks
to agricultural labour
Southern Black Codes
1. Literacy Tests: you had to be able to
read to be eligible to vote;
2. Poll Taxes: you had to pay a tax in
order to vote;
3. Grandfather Clause: you could only
vote if your grandfather had been
eligible to vote and had been a
citizen.
Disenfranchising Black Votes in
the South
First Tradition: Frederick Douglass
- militant approach that lobbied for
full citizenship
Second Tradition: Alexander Crummell
- segregated community development
and self-help
Development of African American
Political Thought
1.Thrift, industry and Christian morality
would earn blacks their rights in US
society;
2.Blacks should transform themselves into
a productive workforce and begin to
accumulate capital;
3.Future of blacks tied to the south.
Booker T. Washington
“In all things that are purely social,
we can be as separate as the five
fingers, yet as the hand in all things
essential to mutual progress” (Atlanta
Exposition Address 365).
Booker T. Washington
“One ever feels his two-ness,--an
American, a Negro; two souls, two
thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two
warring ideals in one dark body, whose
dogged strength alone keeps it from being
torn asunder” (Souls of Black Folk 11).
W.E.B. Du Bois
“The history of the American Negro is the history of
…this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to
merge his double self into a better and truer self. In
this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to
be lost. He would not Africanize America, for America
has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would
not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white
Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a
message for the world. He simply wishes to make it
possible for a man to be both a Negro and an
American, without having the doors of Opportunity
closed roughly in his face” (Souls of Black Folk 215).
W.E.B. Du Bois
“Another way of seeing these two souls
surely is as a contest between memory
and amnesia. American culture demands
of its blacks amnesia concerning slavery
and Africa, just as it encourages amnesia
of a different kind in whites” (“Slavery
and the Literary Imagination” 307).
Arnold Rampersad
1.UNIA was the most influential black
movement of the 20th century;
2.Promoted a philosophy of black pride,
self-worth and self-reliance;
3.Fought for the decolonisation of Africa;
4.Encouraged global cooperation among
Africans.
Marcus Garvey
1. Can cultural and political identity only be
determined by “race” and colour?
2. Is the project of self-recovery the same
for all blacks globally?
3. Can we base the development of any
community on a common racial
identity?
Some Questions