A.P African American Studies Unit 3
"How the Sisters Are Hindered from Helping" by Nannie Helen Burroughs, 1900 (3.8 2 of 3)
- Spoke about the importance in having Women help out with issues, specifically in the church, during the current time -Nannie Helen Burroughs was the daughter of enslaved people and an educator, suffragist, and church leader. She helped establish the National Association of Colored Women in 1896 and founded a school for women and girls in Washington, D.C., in 1909.
"Lift Every Voice and Sing" by James Weldon Johnson and J. Rosamond Johnson, 1900 (3.8 3 of 3)
-Acknowledges past sufferings, encourages African Americans to feel proud of their resilience and achievements, and celebrates hope for the future. -Became known as the Black National Anthem.
Ways that Black women promoted the advancement of African Americans.
-Advocated for the rights of Black women during the women's suffrage movement of the early 20th century -Black women's leadership was central to rebuilding African American communities in the generations after slavery. Black women - -Entered the workforce to support their families and organized labor unions with the goal of fair treatment. -Created women's clubs that countered race and gender stereotypes by promoting the dignity, capacity, beauty, and strength of Black women.
How the introduction of Jim Crow laws impacted African Americans after Reconstruction.
-Jim Crow laws were local and state-level statutes passed primarily (but not exclusively) in the South under the protection of the Supreme Court's decision in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). -Jim Crow laws limited African American men's right to vote and enforced the racial segregation of hospitals, transportation, schools, and cemeteries for Black and White citizens. -Jim Crow-era segregation restrictions would not be overturned until the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
Describe strategies for racial uplift (or social advancement) proposed by African American writers, educators, and leaders at the turn of the 20th century.
-Leaders such as Booker T. Washington advocated for industrial education and training as a means of economic advancement and independence. His speech at the Atlanta Cotton Exposition, led to Ida B. Wells labeling him a "Accommodationist" -Educators and activists called for women's education and suffrage to promote greater inclusion of Black women in American society. -African American literature, poetry, and music, such as the song "Lift Every Voice and Sing," encouraged African Americans to take pride in their heritage and cultural achievements.
The impact of Marcus Garvey and the UNIA on political thought throughout the African diaspora.
-Marcus Garvey inspired African Americans who faced intense racial violence and discrimination to embrace their shared African heritage... -The ideals of industrial, political, and educational advancement and self-determination through separatist Black institutions. -Marcus Garvey outlined the UNIA's objective to achieve Black liberation from colonialism across the African diaspora. -This framework became the model for subsequent Black nationalist movements throughout the 20th century. -The UNIA's red, black, and green flag continues to be used by advocates of Black solidarity and freedom worldwide.
Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) (3.19)
-Marcus Garvey led the largest pan-African movement in African American history as founder of the UNIA. -The UNIA aimed to unite all Black people and maintained thousands of members in countries throughout the Caribbean, Latin America, and Africa. -Marcus Garvey's Back-to-Africa movement popularized the phrase "Africa for the Africans" Founded a steamship company, the Black Star Line, to repatriate African Americans to Africa. -
"The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" by Langston Hughes, 1926 (3.12 2 of 2)
-Talks about how artists and writers try to mimic "white" artists and how there should be a way that an African American artist could could create art without it being seen as "black art"
"The Negro Digs Up His History" by Arturo A. Schomburg, in The New Negro: An Interpretation edited by Alain Lock, 1925 (3.16)
-The American Negro must remake his past in order to make his future. -History must restore what slavery took away, for it is the social damage of slavery that the present generations must repair and offset
How the Reconstruction Amendments impacted African Americans by defining standards of citizenship.
During Reconstruction (1865-1877), the federal government sought to reintegrate the former Confederate states and to establish and protect the rights of free and formerly enslaved African Americans by granting them citizenship, equal rights, and political representation in American government.
Convict leasing
Southern prisons profited by hiring out African American men imprisoned for debt, false arrest, or other minor charges to landowners and corporations. Prisoners worked without pay under conditions akin to those of slave labor.
How African Americans used visual media in the 20th century to enact social change.
-African American scholars, artists, and activists turned to photography to counter racist representations that were used to justify their mistreatment and Jim Crow segregation. -During the New Negro movement, African American photographers, seeking to create a distinctive Black aesthetic, grounded their work in the beauty of everyday Black life, history, folk culture, and pride in an African heritage. -W.E.B. Du Bois used photography to show what "the New Negro" looked like at the Paris Exhibition in 1900. (3.13 1 of 2)
Describe the responses of African American writers and activists to racism and anti-Black violence during the nadir.
-African American studies scholars refer to the period between the end of Reconstruction and the beginning of World War II as the "nadir," or lowest point of American race relations. -This period included some of the most flagrant public acts of racism (including lynching and mob violence) in U.S. history -African American journalists and writers of the era highlighted the racism at the core of Southern lynch laws that sought to justify the rampant, unjust killing of Black people. -African American activists responded to attacks on their freedom with resistance strategies, such as trolley boycotts. -Activists relied on sympathetic writers in the press to publicize the mistreatment and murder of African Americans.
Explain how African Americans responded to white supremacist attacks in the early 20th century.
-African Americans resisted white supremacist attacks on their communities through political activism, published accounts, and armed self- defense. -Racial discrimination and violence, coupled with a lack of economic opportunities in the South, spurred the beginnings of the Great Migration.
The reasons for the increase in Black Caribbean migration to the United States during the first half of the 20th century.
-Afro-Caribbeans were affected by the: Decline of Caribbean economies during World War I and the Expansion of U.S. political and economic interests in the region -Came to the U.S. for economic, political, and educational opportunities. -Caribbean migrations to America increased due to U.S interventions in the region, including: U.S. acquisition of the Panama Canal (1903) U.S. occupation of Haiti and the Dominican Republic (1915-1934)) U.S. purchase of the Virgin Islands for $25M from Denmark (1917).
Tulsa Race Massacre
-After WW1 Tulsa was recognized for its affluent African American community with the Greenwood district -An African American Man was accused of raping a woman which started the mobs -In 1921, a mob of White residents and city officials incited the Tulsa race massacre, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. -The Tulsa race massacre destroyed more than 1,250 homes and businesses in Greenwood, also known as "Black Wall Street," which was one of the most affluent African American communities in the U.S.
How African Americans strengthened family bonds after abolition and the Civil War.
-After emancipation, African Americans were able to locate kin separated by the domestic slave trade. -They relied on newspapers, word of mouth, and help from the Freedmen's Bureau (used to provide aid to African Americans during Reconstruction) as they traveled to find lost family and friends. -Thousands of formerly enslaved African American men and women sought to consecrate their unions through legal marriage when it became available to them.
How Reconstruction- era reforms were dismantled during the late 19th century.
-After the election of 1876 and the Compromise of 1877 (Hayes agreed to remove troops from the south if he was reelected) some states began to rewrite their state constitutions to include de jure (by law) segregation laws. -Black voting was suppressed through measures such as poll taxes, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses. -African Americans were endangered by acts of racial violence (e.g., lynching) and retaliation from former Confederates, political terrorist groups like the Ku Klux Klan, and others who embraced white supremacist doctrine. -With the Supreme Court ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896, the doctrine of "separate but equal" became the legal basis for racial segregation in American society. In practice, the decision legalized separate and unequal resources, facilities, and rights. This decision opened the floodgates for many states to pass Jim Crow laws
Excerpt from The New Negro: An Interpretation by Alain Locke, 1925 (3.12 1 of 2)
-Alain Locke encouraged young black artists to reject the burden of being the sole representation of a race -He emphasizes that the value of creating a Black aesthetic lies not in creating tangible cultural artifacts but rather in a shift of the "inner mastery of mood and spirit" (in "Negro Youth Speaks"). -African Americans have been presented as a problem and they don't get to showcase their point of view on things
How African Americans promoted the economic stability and well-being of their communities in the early 20th century. (3.9)
-As a response to their ongoing exclusion from broader American society, many African Americans created businesses and organizations that catered to the needs of Black citizens and improved the self- sufficiency of their communities. -Citizens Savings Bank and Trust Company: Founded in 1904, is the oldest, continuously operating African American-owned bank in the U.S. Originally known as the One Cent Savings Bank, it became the first African American-owned bank in the U.S. to become a member of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Federal Reserve System. -African Americans continued to transform Christian worship in the U.S. and created their own institutions. The African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) was founded in 1816 as the first Black Christian denomination in the U.S., After Reconstruction, the number of Black churches increased significantly. They served as safe spaces for Black organizing, joy, and cultural expression and created leadership opportunities that developed Black activists, musicians, and political leaders.
Describe the causes of heightened racial violence in the early 20th century.
-Between 1917 and 1921 there was a proliferation of racial violence incited by white supremacists. The acute period of tensions in 1919 is known as the "Red Summer." -In the summer of 1919, a global flu pandemic, competition for jobs, and racial discrimination against Black World War I veterans all contributed to a rise in hate crimes across the country. -More than 30 urban race riots occurred that summer.
A Voice From the South: By a Black Woman of the South, Anna Julia Cooper (3.9 1 of 2)
-Book is seen as one of the first articulations of Black feminism -The book advanced a vision of self-determination through education and social uplift for African-American women -Cooper was the daughter of an enslaved woman and her enslaver. She became a champion for Black women's rights and education. Her work details the inequities that Black women have experienced and the incomplete picture of U.S. historical narratives that exclude the voices of African Americans and specifically Black women. -
Jacob Lawrence, The Migration Series
-Chronicles African Americans' hopes and challenges during the Great Migration. -His work is known for its social realism due to his use of visual art to depict historical moments, social issues, and the everyday lives of African Americans.
14th Amendment (1868)
-Defined the principle of birthright citizenship in the United States and granted equal protection to all people -Overturned the Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857) Supreme Court decision and related state-level Black codes. -Doesn't specifically mention African Americans, states anyone born in the U.S. is a citizen
Ways the New Negro movement emphasized self-definition, racial pride, and cultural innovation.
-Encouraged African Americans to define their own identity and to advocate for themselves politically in the midst of the nadir's atrocities (red summer, kkk, etc) - Pursued the creation of a Black aesthetic, which was reflected in the artistic and cultural achievements of Black creators. -Produced innovations in music (e.g., blues and jazz), art, and literature that served as counternarratives to prevailing racial stereotypes. -The artistic innovations reflected the migrations of African Americans from the South to urban centers in the North and Midwest. -Encompassed several political and cultural movements, including the Harlem Renaissance.
"Describe the founding of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including the role White philanthropists played."(3.10)
-Discrimination and segregation in education led African Americans to found their own colleges, the majority of which were established after the Civil War. -The first wave of HBCUs were private colleges and universities established largely by White philanthropists. -Wilberforce University (Ohio, 1856), founded by the African Methodist Episcopal Church, was the first university fully owned and operated by African Americans. -Later HBCUs were established as land- grant colleges with federal funding. The Second Morrill Act (1890): Required that states either demonstrate that race was not a factor in admission to educational institutions or create separate institutions for Black students. -As a result, 18 HBCUs were established and started emphasizing liberal arts education and a vocational industrial model -HBCUs were the primary providers of postsecondary education to African Americans up until the Black campus movement of the 1960s.
W.E.B Du Bois exhibit at the 1900 Paris Exposition
-Displayed more than 300 photographs of African Americans. -Demonstrated the diversity and achievements of African Americans. -It included dozens of charts and infographics in English and French with data grounded in demographic, scientific, and sociological research on the status of African Americans.
We Wear the Mask" by Paul Laurence Dunbar, 1895 3.7 2 of 2 -
-Dunbar writes about the fact that many members of a marginalised community (which can be tacitly understood to mean the Black community in this context) are forced to hide their true feelings from the wider world.
Black Greek Letter organizations
-Emerged in colleges and universities across the United States, not only at HBCUs but also at predominantly White institutions. -African Americans found spaces to support each other in the areas of: Self-improvement Educational excellence Leadership Lifelong community service
"If We Must Die" by Claude McKay, 1919 (3.6 1 of 3)
-Encouraged African Americans to preserve their dignity and fight back against anti-Black violence and discrimination.
How the creation of HBCUs in the United States impacted the educational and professional lives of African Americans nationally and internationally.
-Founding of HBCUs transformed African Americans' access to higher education and professional training -Allowed them to rise out of poverty and become leaders in all sectors of society. -Created spaces of cultural pride, Black scholarship, and innovation, and helped address racial equity gaps in higher education.
How Harlem Renaissance poets express their relationships to Africa in their poetry.
-Harlem Renaissance writers, artists, and scholars explored connections to and detachments from their African heritage as a response to the legacies of colonialism and Atlantic slavery. -Poets used imagery to counter negative stereotypes about Africa's peoples and landscapes. -Explored the relationship between Africa and African American identity and heritage through personal reflection.
How Black codes undermined the ability of African Americans to advance after the abolition of slavery
-In 1865, Union General William T. Sherman issued Special Field Orders No. 15 Aimed to redistribute about 400,000 acres of land between South Carolina and Florida to newly freed African American families in segments of 40 acres. -During Presidential Reconstruction, many state governments enacted Black codes which aimed to restore the social controls and surveillance of earlier slave codes
The effects of Afro-Caribbean migration to the U.S. in the early 20th century and the migration's effect on African American communities.
-More than 140,000 Afro-Caribbean immigrants arrived between 1899 and 1937. Most settled in Florida and New York. -The arrival of Afro-Caribbean immigrants to African American communities sparked tensions but also created new blends of Black culture in the United States. -Afro-Caribbean migration to the U.S. increased the religious and linguistic diversity of African American communities -Many of the new arrivals were Catholic, Anglican, and Episcopalian and hailed from non-English-speaking islands. -Afro-Caribbean intellectuals also contributed to the radicalization of Black thought in the 20th century by infusing their experiences of Black empowerment and autonomy into the radical Black social movements of the time.
Why New Negro renaissance writers, artists, and educators strove to research and disseminate Black history to Black student.
-New Negro renaissance writers, artists, and educators believed that U.S. schools reinforced the idea that Black people had made no meaningful cultural contributions and were thus inferior. -Writers, artists, and educators urged African Americans to become agents of their own education and study the history and experiences of Black people to inform their future advancement. They refuted the idea that African Americans were people without history or culture and created a body of literature and educational resources to show otherwise. -The early movement to place Black history in schools allowed the ideas of the New Negro renaissance to reach Black students of all ages.
13th Amendment (1865)
-Officially abolished slavery, or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for a crime. -Due to the loopholes didn't really free African Americans
The Great Migration
-One of the largest internal migrations in U.S. history. Six million African Americans relocated in waves from the South to the North, Midwest, and western United States from the 1910s to 1970s. -Labor shortages in the North during World War I and World War II increased job opportunities in northern industrial cities, appealing to African Americans in search of economic opportunities. -Environmental factors, such as floods, boll weevils, and spoiled crops, had left many Black Southerners impoverished. -African Americans relocated in search of safety for their families. -The dangers of unmitigated lynching and racial violence prompted many Blacks to leave the Jim Crow South. -A new railway system and the Black press made the Great Migration possible. -Trains offered a means to travel -The Black press provided encouragement and instructions for African Americans leaving the South.
3.3 sources
-Postcard, Picture of juvenile convicts in the fields, and the Circular No.8 from the Bureau of Refugees showcase what the black codes looked like for African Americans -Circular No. 8 from the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1866 prohibits landowners from expelling sharecroppers without payment.
15th Amendment (1870)
-Prohibited the federal government and each state from denying or abridging a citizen's right to vote "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude," thereby granting voting rights to Black men. - Federal troops go to the polling stations in south to make sure its being followed
James Van Der Zee (3.13. 2 of 2)
-Recast global perceptions of African Americans by further illustrating the qualities of the "new negro." -They documented Black expression, labor, leisure, study, worship, and home life, and highlighted the liberated spirit, beauty, and dignity of Black people -He often used props (including luxury items) and special poses to capture the vibrant personalities of everyday African Americans and leading figures such as Marcus Garvey and Mamie Smith
Black Codes
-Restrictive laws that undermined the newly gained legal rights of African Americans and controlled their movement and labor. -Aimed to restore the social controls and surveillance of earlier slave codes -Restricted the advancement of African Americans in various ways: Limiting their options for property ownership by requiring them to enter into unfair labor contracts. Many annual labor contracts provided very little pay. Those who tried to escape a labor contract were often whipped Those without a labor contract could be fined or imprisoned for vagrancy. -One set of Black codes disrupted African American families by allowing Black children to be taken by the state and forced to serve unpaid apprenticeships without their parents' consent.
The Atlanta Exposition Address by Booker T. Washington, 1895 (3.8 1 of 3)
-Showcasing his argument for African Americans having to build themselves first before anything else -Appealed to a conservative audience and suggested that Blacks should remain in the South and focus on gaining an industrial education before political rights. -He debated strategies for Black advancement with W.E.B. Du Bois, who promoted a civil rights agenda.
Banner used by the Oklahoma Federation of Colored Women's Clubs, c. 1924 (3.9 2 of 2)
-Showed how people were creating organizations for specifically African American women to get a supportive community -Black women's clubs and regional federations came together in 1896 to form The National Association of Colored Women (1896). -Churchwomen also formed denominational organizations at the state and national levels, as was the case of Black Baptist women like Nannie Helen Burroughs.
The development and aims of the Black intellectual tradition that predates the formal integration of African American studies into American colleges and universities in the mid-20th century.
-The Black intellectual tradition in the United States began two centuries before the formal introduction of the field of African American studies in the late 1960s. -It emerged through the work of Black activists, educators, writers, and archivists who documented Black experiences. -Beginning in the late 18th century, the African Free School provided an education to the children of enslaved and free Black people in New York. The school helped prepare early Black abolitionists for leadership. -The Black Puerto Rican bibliophile Arturo Schomburg's collection, donated to The New York Public Library, became the basis of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. -The sociologist and activist W.E.B. Du Bois's research and writings produced some of the earliest sociological surveys of African Americans. -Anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston's writings documented forms of African American culture and expression as colloquialisms (writing words how they sound instead of how usually written) -The historian Carter G. Woodson founded what became Black History Month in addition to publishing many works chronicling Black experiences and perspectives in history.
Impact of the Great Migration on Black communities and American culture.
-The effects of the Great Migration transformed American cities, Black communities, and Black cultural movements. -The migration infused American cities such as New York, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Los Angeles with Black Southern culture, creating a shared culture among African American communities across the country. - It transformed African Americans from primarily rural people to primarily urban dwellers. -Black Southerners forged new connections to their northern environment, such as engaging with nature for leisure rather than labor. -As underpaid and disempowered Black laborers began to leave the South, racial tensions increased. Employers often resisted the flight of African Americans and at times had them unjustly arrested. -Southern whites took drastic steps to keep their Black labor force: a: Interfered with the US Mail to prevent the Chicago Defender from reaching blacks b: As northern family members sent train tickets to relatives in the south, cities passed ordinances that made it illegal for trains to accept pre-paid tickets c: Ordinances preventing group travel. "Police...rounded people up"
Engraved portrait of five African American legislators from Reconstruction Congresses, early 1880s (3.1 2 of 2)
-The engraved portrait from the early 1880s depicts Hiram R. Revels (Mississippi), James T. Rapier (Alabama), Blanche K. Bruce (Mississippi), Joseph H. Rainey (South Carolina), and John R. Lynch (Mississippi). -Senator Hiram Revels (of African and Indigenous ancestry) was the first African American to serve in either house of the United States Congress. James Rapier founded Alabama's first Black-owned newspaper and became Alabama's second Black representative. -Blanche K. Bruce, born enslaved, was the first African American elected to serve a full term in the U.S. Senate. -Joseph Rainey, born enslaved, was the first African American to serve in the House of Representatives and to preside over a debate in the House, and the longest-serving Black lawmaker in Congress during Reconstruction. -John Lynch, born enslaved, was elected as the first African American Speaker of the Mississippi House of Representatives, and he went on to be the only African American in the following century to represent Mississippi in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Double Consciousness
-The internal conflict experienced by subordinated groups in an oppressive society. -Gave African Americans a way to examine the unequal realities of American life. -Resulted from social alienation created through racism and discrimination. However, it also fostered agency, adaptation, and resistance.
The Mis-Education of the Negro by Carter G. Woodson, 1933
-The son of formerly enslaved people, Carter G. Woodson: Became the founder of what is now the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) Created Negro History Week, which became Black History Month; and... Published many works of African American history that started with African origins through the early 20th century. -Talks about how not having the history of African Americans being taught is highlighting the work of the oppressors and showcasing African Americans as weak and lesser and having no history
How W.E.B. Du Bois's groundbreaking text The Souls of Black Folk (1903) portrays Black humanity and the effects of racism on African Americans in the early 20th century (3.7 1 of 2)
-The symbol of "the Veil" in The Souls of Black Folk represents African Americans' separation from full participation in American society and struggle for self-improvement due to discrimination. -The metaphor of the "color line" refers to racial discrimination and legalized segregation that remained in the United States after the abolition of slavery. -Du Bois identified "the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line." -Each chapter of The Souls of Black Folk opens with verses of spirituals, which Du Bois calls "Sorrow Songs." which responded to the proliferation of lynching.
Peonage
-The use of laborers bound in servitude because of debt -Southers could just accuse African Americans on them owing them debt and they would have to repay it even if there was originally no debt
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
-Was Challenging Louisiana Law on separation with public transportation -Goes from segregation in Louisiana to federal law. -Henry Brown writes legislation can't make people equal -DID NOT CREATE SEGREGATION -Creates a rule that if you have even one drop of blood that is from African descent, you are considered African American
Red Record by Ida B. Wells (3.5 3 of 3)
-Wrote The Red Record in 1905 to publicize knowledge of lynchings in America. which tabulated statistics on racial lynchings and served as a foundation for further protest campaigns. -Called out murders of African Americans that are excused and ignored -Excuses used by European Americans for the lynchings are stopping "race riots", and no rights that an African American has that the white man can respect, and accusations of "bothering" European Americans -Born into slavery, Ida B. Wells-Barnett became a journalist, civil rights advocate, and feminist active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. -Her writings described how lynching aimed to terrorize African Americans from seeking any form of advancement. -She also took part in the Women's Suffrage movement
"Heritage" by Countee Cullen, 1925
-Wrote about his anger that he didn't have more of a connection to his African heritage through metaphors and how he's not allowed in society to express his anger about this.
"Restricted West Indian Immigration and the American Negro" by Wilfred A. Domingo, 1924 (3.18)
-Wrote about how the new Immigration restriction acts were preferring those migrating from European countries and not those who were of African descent.
"Address to the Second UNIA Convention" by Marcus Garvey, 1921 (3.19 1 of 3)
-Wrote about how there was no point in fighting for rights in U.S when Africa would ultimately be better for them. -African Americans can better themselves in Africa
Harlem Renaissance
A flourishing of Black literary, artistic, and intellectual life that created a cultural revolution in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s.
Fisk Jubilee Singers
A student choir at Fisk University, introduced the religious and musical tradition of African American spirituals to the global stage during their international tours.
Crop liens
Farmers who began with little or no cash received food, farming equipment, and supplies, borrowing against the future harvest. Their harvested crops often did not generate enough money to repay the debt, leading the farmers into a vicious cycle of debt accumulation.(Sharecropping)
Madame C.J. Walker
First woman millionaire in the U.S.; developed products that highlighted the beauty of Black people Fostered Black economic advancement, and supported community initiatives through philanthropy
Share cropping
Landowners provided land and equipment to formerly enslaved people or indigent White people As part of this exchange, the farmers were required to return a large share of the crops to the landowner, making economic advancement very difficult.
How new labor practices impeded the ability of African Americans to advance economically after the abolition of slavery.
President Andrew Johnson revoked Special Field Orders No. 15 in which confiscated plantations were returned to their former owners or purchased by northern investors. As a result, African Americans were evicted or shifted into sharecropping contracts.
"Heritage" by Gwendolyn Bennett, 1922 (3.14 1 of 2)
Wrote a poem about her longing for her connection to her African heritage
