BEFORE
You
READ
Focus
MAIN IDEA
READING
Countless individuals and groups
worked tirelessly to
improve the lives
and situations of
African Americans
during the late
1800s and early
1900s,
• What was the Progressive movement, and what did Progressives
want to achieve?
~ILDING
• Why did some black activists protest the Progressives?
• What goals were black Progressive
organizations founded to achieve?
KEY TERMS AND
PEOPLE
Progressive movement
Booker T Washington
Atlanta Compromise
W. E, B. Du Bois
Niagara Movement
National Urban League
National Association
for the Advancement
of Colored People
(NAACP)
BACKGROUND
I By l 900 African
Americans had seen the denial of their political rights, Even worse, they
had witnessed the destruction of basic human rights. But African Americans were not
alone in noticing the hardships they faced. At the beginning of the century, reformers
from all over the country-mostly
white members of the middle class-banded
together
to fight injustice in society .•
Black Self-Reliance
The reform movement of the late 1800s and early 1900s was called
mO\lement. Among the key issues that Progressives
challenged with their actions were terrible poverty, unfair business
practices, the lack of rights for women, and racial discrimination.
The Progressives tried to change society by publishing articles and photographs that exposed evils
in society. For example, Progressive journalists published photos of the horrible living conditions faced
by the urban poor and wrote moving pieces about
the unfair treatment of black Americans.
Among the Progressives who called for reform
and improved conditions for African Americans
were many black activists. The heart of their message was the idea of self-reliance, that blacks should
not have to depend on anyone else to succeed.
To attain self-reliance, they argued, black people
needed the same educational and economic opportunities that whites enjoyed.
theiP'rogressive
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THE SEPARATION OFTHE RACES
175
Black Progressives included both men and women. Among the most prominent
supporters of African American rights were two black women, Ida Wells-Barnett
and Mary Church Terrell. As you have already read, Wells-Barnett was an outspoken
critic oflynching, but she also wrote passionately for increased rights for blacks and
women. Likewise, Terrell traveled around the country calling for the same rights.
Booker T. Washington
The most vocal of all the black Progressives was an energetic young man named
Booker T. Washington.
Washington was a prominent educator and speaker.
Washington had been born a slave in 1856 in Virginia to a black mother and a
white father. After the slaves were freed, he moved with his mother and stepfather to
Malden, West Virginia, where he was put to work in a salt factory.
Young Washington's greatest dream was to learn to read and write. Eventually his
mother saved enough to buy him a secondhand spelling book. Then a black school
finally opened in the next town. Washington, still working a full day in the salt factory, walked to school at night. At the age of 16, he made his way to the Hampton
Institute in Virginia. After graduation, Washington got a job as a teacher.
On September 18,1895, Washington made a speech to the Cotton States and
International Exposition in Atlanta. During his speech, Washington mesmerized his
audience, black and white alike, with his vision of the future. He saw African Americans working diligently and humbly alongside whites to make money for the good of
the South, and ultimately the country as a whole.
"Learn a trade" was Washington's enthusiastic advice to black citizens. He was
convinced that once black people had taught themselves to be efficient workers, they
would later be granted their rights as citizens. His philosophy came to be known as
vocational education. In a statement known as the Atlanta eomRromis~, Washington declared that blacks and whites would have to work together to achieve racial
equality. Tolerance was not something that could be forced on people.
HISTORY'S VOICES
ACADEMIC VOCABULARY
1. Use the context, or surrounding words in the sentence, to
write a definition of ostracized.
"The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of
social equality is the extremist folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of
all the privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing. No race that has anything to
contribute to the markets of the world is long in any degree ostracized. It
is important and right that all privileges of the law be ours, but it is vastly
more important that we be prepared for the exercise of these privileges."
-Booker T. Washington, speech to the Cotton States
and International Exposition, September 18, 1895
Many whites in the audience approved of Washington's message. At the close of
Washington's speech, Georgia's former Governor Rufus Bullock publicly shook Washington's hand. Later, President Grover Cleveland wrote him a congratulatory letter.
But many people, primarily African Americans, were outraged. They thought he
had done terrible harm to their fight for equal rights. According to his own writings
years later, Washington acknowledged that he knew only too well the tightrope he
walked that day. But he felt he had no choice. He was determined to help black people
in the South keep from starving any way he could.
176 CHAPTER 7
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Tuskegee Institute
Throughout his life, Washington felt that one way he could help black people succeed
was by teaching them. That was why he accepted the chance to open the Tuskegee
Institute in 1881.
When Washington arrived at Tuskegee, Alabama, he found that the new school
was nothing more than a rundown old plantation and a barn. He had to borrow
money from a friend to open the place on July 4, 1881. Undaunted, he and his 30
students cleared land, cut timber, and, over the next fifteen years, built all the school
facilities themselves. By his death in 1915, the institute had an annual endowment in
excess of$2 million, 1,400 students (including undergraduates from Africa and the
Caribbean), 2,300 acres ofland under student cultivation, and 66 school buildings.
The Tuskegee Institute had been founded to train teachers and to teach poor
blacks trades so they could succeed. In this, the school was successful. Eventually, its
focus changed from vocational training to a more traditional college curriculum and
began offering college degrees. Now called Tuskegee University, the school today has
an enrollment of more than 3,000.
Bla~kEducation Movement
Inspired by Washington and wanting to help black students receive a quality education, many benefactors from around the country began to give money to support
black schools. Rich business owners from the North, including George Peabody, who
had established museums at Harvard and Yale, gave more than $2 million to open
public schools in the South. Likewise John D. Rockefeller, the oil tycoon, established
schools in the South that were open to all students, black or white.
Other philanthropists paid to open schools that were only open to black students.
One such donor was Anna Jeanes, the daughter of a Philadelphia merchant. In the
early 1900s she donated $1 million to black schools in the South. Julius Rosenwald
likewise established a fund dedicated to building and improving rural black schools.
Jeanes and Rosenwald were not alone in their generosity; many wealthy individuals
worked to help black students gain new opportunities and improve their lives. ~
V'Reading Check
2. Explain What role did
education play in Booker T
Washington's vision of African
American success?
The Black Protest Movement
As you have read, not all African Americans agreed with Washington about the
best way to gain equality and opportunity. Many were not happy with Washington's
~ acceptance of discrimination in exchange for economic opportunity, They felt that it
~ was necessary for black Americans to fight bitterly against discrimination and segre..c::
.g' gation, to protest the status quo and work for a positive change in society.
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~" W. E. B. Du Bois
~ 'One of the leaders of the Black Protest movement was W. E. B. Du Bois, a brilliant
'" young professor of economics at Atlanta University. Du Bois feared that if African
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Americans gave up their struggle and just waited to gain full equality, as Washington
.s
~ suggested, they would be headed back to slavery. After all, what good were a house
;) and farm if they could be looted by whites at any time? What use was a loving family
[ if one's mother or father could be lynched any day?
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THE SEPARATION OFTHE RACES
177
3. Use the graphic
organizer below to
compare and contrast the
views of Booker T Washington
and w. E. B. Du Bois.
Similarities
Du Bois's point of view, like Washington's, was shaped in no small part by his
upbringing. Du Bois was born to free parents in 1868 in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. At an early age, Du Bois showed such signs of brilliance that he won
a scholarship to Fisk University. Eventually, he went on to receive a master's degree
and a Ph.D. from Harvard University, the first black student ever to do so.
Early in his career, Du Bois gained fame as a scholar. His first major work, The
Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America, 1638-1870,
established his reputation in the field of history. In 1899 he published The Philadelphia Negro, the first in-depth sociological examination of African Americans. And
in 1903, greatly disappointed by Booker T. Washington, Du Bois penned The Souls of
Black Folk. In it, he pointed out how wasteful it was for whites to keep blacks down,
instead of allowing them to be productive members of society.
HISTORY'S
-
Differences
VOICES
"Actively we have woven ourselves [into] this nation-we
have fought their
battles, shared their sorrow, mingled our blood with theirs, and generation
after generation have pleaded with a headstrong, careless people to despise
not Justice, Mercy, and Truth, lest the nation be smitten with a curse. Our
song, our toil, our cheer and warning have been given to this nation in blood
brotherhood. Are not these gifts worth the giving? Is not this work and striving? Would America have been America without her Negro People?"
-w. E. B. Du
Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, 1903
Like Booker T. Washington, Du Bois wanted better lives for African Americans.
But the two men differed on how to bring those lives about. Washington focused on
getting the black working class what it needed to survive. Du Bois, on ilie other hand,
believed that the black middle class was the only group with the resources, both
material and mental, to pull the working class out of poverty. He dubbed those young
black people with the most potential for leadership the Talented Tenth. He thought
that the skills and talents of the Tenth could pull all black citizens up from hardship.
fI' Reading
Check
4. Identify What was the goal
ofthe Niagara Movement?
178
CHAPTER 7
The Niagara Movement
Du Bois, unlike some intellectuals, did not simply sit around and talk about the problems in society. He set out to change them. He was determined that black Americans
have three things: the right to vote, civic equality, and the education of youth according
to their ability.
On July 11, 1905, Du Bois and 29 other determined young black intellectuals met
at Fort Erie, Ontario, in Canada, just across the Niagara River from Buffalo, New
York. Du Bois's original plan had been to hold the meeting in Buffalo, but the hotel at
which he wanted to stay refused to rent rooms to African Americans.
Du Bois and his young intellectuals were determined to create an organization
which would aggressively push for full civil rights for all African Americans. The group
incorporated itself as the Niagara.ffiZlln/ement and, to underscore their determination,
met the following year at the site of lohn Brown's failed slave revolt, Harpers Ferry.
The next year, in 1907, the Niagara Movement met in the old abolitionist stronghold of Faneuil Hall in Boston. In 1908, after a shocked nation heard the news of a
major race riot in the city of Springfield, Illinois, many young liberal whites decided
to join with their black counterparts to take up the civil rights banner. V
Niagara Movement's Declaration of Principles
After the first meeting of the Niagara Movement in
1905, its members published a list of the basic principles for which they stood. The list addressed topics as
diverse as education, military service, religion, and work.
Three articles from the declaration are printed below.
"Protest: We refuse to allow the impression to
remain that the Negro-American assents to inferiority, is submissive under oppression and
apologetic before insults. Through helplessness we
may submit, but the voice of protest of ten million
Americans must never cease to assail the ears of
their fellows, so long as America is unjust.
Color-Line: Any discrimination based simply on
race or color is barbarous, we care not how hallowed it be by custom, expediency or prejudice.
Differences made on account of ignorance, immorality, or disease are legitimate methods of fighting
evil, and against them we have no word of protest;
but discriminations based simply and solely on
physical peculiarities, place of birth, color of skin,
are relics of that unreasoning human savagery of
which the world is and ought to be thoroughly
ashamed.
"Jim Crow" Cars: We protest against the "Jim Crow"
car, since its effect is and must be to make us pay
first -class fare for third-class accommodations,
render us open to insults and discomfort and to
crucify wantonly our manhood, womanhood and
se If-respe ct".
5. Draw Conclusions Why do you think the members of the
Niagara Movement wanted a clear statement of their principles?
Progressive Organizations
Booker T. Washington and WE. B. Du Bois recognized the importance of African Americans
banding together. Both men helped found large
organizations in efforts to improve African American lives. But Washington and Du
Bois were not alone. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, dozens of national organizations dedicated to bettering the African American experience were created.
Go online to read a historical document from the
Niagara Movement.
Economic Organizations
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Booker T. Washington organized the first successful nationalblack business association of the early twentieth century. At the group's 1900 meeting, he urged the more
than 400 delegates who came from 34 states to start as many businesses as possible.
Indeed, by 1907 the National Negro Business League had 320 branches.
Between 1906 and 1910, three different organizations were formed in New York
City to press for economic advancement for African Americans. By 1911 the three
organizations decided to centralize their efforts. The new organization was called the
National League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes. It still exists today as, simply,
the National UrDamteague~
Since its creation, the National Urban League has devoted itself to helping African
Americans in cities make progress in all walks oflife. Over the years, it has assisted in
everything from helping newly arrived southern blacks adjust to the North, to working to develop training programs to help people progress beyond unskilled jobs .
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THE SEPARATION OFTHE RACES
179
The NAACP
On February 12,1909, the one hundredth
anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth, the
National
Association
for the Advancement
was born and
dedicated to advancing the position of black
Americans. W E. B. Du Bois and the Niagara
Movement joined with white reformers to
found the NAACP. Among the white founders
were Mary White Ovington, a New York social
worker, and Oswald Garrison Villard, grandson of abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison.
In May 1910 Du Bois created a magazine
in which the leaders of the new organization could share their views. The magazine
was aptly entitled The Crisis. By 1920 The
Crisis was selling as many as 100,000 copies a
month. Du Bois explained the purpose of the
magazine in its first editorial.
of Colored eeoRrn, (NAAGPv)
HISTORY'S
VOICES
"The object of this publication is to set forth those facts and arguments which
show the danger of race prejudice. particularly as manifested today toward
colored people. It takes its name from the fact that the editors believe that
this is a critical time in the history of the advancement of men ... Finally. its
editorial page will stand for the rights of men, irrespective of color or race.
for the highest ideals of American democracy. and for reasonable but earnest and persistent attempts to gain these rights and realize these ideals."
-w. E. B. Du Bois, Editorial
in The Crisis, 1910
White and black attorneys soon joined the NAACP and began waging the battle
against injustice-a battle that continues today. They won three landmark cases in
the NAACP's first 15 years of existence:
• Guinn v. United States (1915), in which the Supreme Court declared the "grandfather clauses" in Oklahoma to be illegal.
• Buchanan v. Warley (1917), in which a Louisville, Kentucky, law that had forced
black people to live only in certain sections of town was declared unconstitutional.
• Moore v. Dempsey (1923), in which 5 black men convicted of murder in Arkansas who protested that their rights had been violated due to public pressure on the
judge and jury were given a new trial.
These cases became precedents for attorneys in other parts of the country to
argue the rights of African Americans.
Labor and Political Organizations
The National Urban League and the NAACP attracted black professionals and activists as members. Most black Americans, however, were farmers and workers who
lived quiet lives, relying on their own enterprise to get ahead. To help get what they
needed to thrive, they formed unions, business organizations, and banks.
180 CHAPTER 7
In spite of efforts to integrate unions, racial separation remained the order of the
day. In 1866 the National Labor Union was formed. The NLU made some overtures
toward black workers about joining, but old attitudes were hard to change. The union
ended up accepting black members only in separate local chapters. A black labor
leader named Isaac Myers then organized the Colored National Labor Union in 1869.
INFO TO KNOW
But by 1872 the CNLU had virtually disappeared.
In addition to African American workers, the Knights of
Two major unions were formed in the 1880s. The first, the Knights of Labor,
Labor also welcomed women
actually agreed to welcome black workers into their ranks. Some 95,000 black people r- and unskilled workers. It
excluded,
among others,
paid their money and joined the union-one-seventh
of the union's total member - bankers, gamblers, and
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ship. But after a series of unpopular strikes, membership dropped sharply, and by
liquor sellers.
the 1890s the union had declined. The other new union, the American Federation
of Labor (AFL), claimed to welcome black members as well. However, few African
Americans were actually allowed to join, though many did join unions affiliated
with the AFL. It was not until years later, after the emergence of another large union,
the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), that black people were able to join a
major integrated union.
As part of their desire to have more say in their lives, black Americans also began
~ Reading Check
to rethink their political affiliations. Most black voters still sided with the Republican
6. Identify Cause What was
Party, the party of Lincoln that had put an end to slavery. Some black citizens, howthe purpose ofthe creation of
ever, believed that the Republicans had begun to take their support for granted. After
organizations such as the NAACP
and the National Urban League?
all, the Democrats made no effort to gain black support, so Republican candidates
could generally assume they would win the black vote.
By the early 1900s changing political attitudes led some black voters to abandon
the Republicans for the Democrats. Blacks in many northern cities learned that they
could get concessions from local Democratic organizations in exchange for their support. As a result, black Democrats formed a group called the National Independent
Political League to encourage their fellow African Americans to consider voting for
Democratic candidates.
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Reviewing Ideas, Terms, and People
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7. Identify What organizations were founded to help improve the lives of black Americans in the late 1800s and early 1900s?
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8. Compare and Contrast How were the goals of Booker T Washington and W. E. B. Du
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Bois similar? How were their opinions different?
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9. Evaluate Do you think the Progressive movement helped improve the lives of African
Americans? Why or why not?
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THE SEPARATION OFTHE RACES
181