The Darker Side of the 1920s

1
The Darker Side of the 1920s
2
Sharecropping

• Blacks rented land equipment from white farm
  owners in exchange for a portion of the crop or a
  share of the profits
• Farm owners overcharged and cheated the
  African-Americans so badly
• They finished the year in debt
• Only method of payment - labor

3
Racist Politicians

• Interested in stripping African-Americans of all
  their rights
• Example Carter Glass of Virginia
• The people of the original thirteen southern
  states curse and spit upon the 15th Amendment and
  have no intention of letting the Negro vote.
  White supremacy is too precious a thing to
  surrender for the sake of a theoretical justice
  that would let a brutish African deem himself the
  equal of white men and women in Dixie.

4
Grandfather Clause

• One way Southern states prohibited
  African-Americans from voting
• If a mans grandfather had voted pre-1867, he was
  exempt from harsh voting requirements
• African-American men did not have the right to
  vote until 1870, so they had to meet these
  requirements while whites did not
• Guinn v. US overturns these in 1915

5
Voting Requirements

• Poll Taxes
• Men had to pay to vote and many African-Americans
  couldnt afford this tax
• Literacy Tests
• A man had to prove he could read before he was
  allowed to vote
• Many African-Americans couldnt read and those
  who could were given very difficult or foreign
  language passages to read (Results scored by
  white men)
• http//kpearson.project.tcnj.edu/interactive/imm_f
  iles/test.html

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Lynching

• The murder of individuals by mob action without
  lawful trial
• Means to control African-Americans resistance
  to oppression
• 3,000 documented cases from 1882-1920

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More Lynching

• Exposed the ugliest side of human nature
• Newspapers announced dates and locations
• A festive occasion for the entire family
• Prevailing belief Theyre all rapists
• Most guilty of minor offenses (at best)
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vbTxU5_hjCQEsafety_
  modetruepersist_safety_mode1

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Reaction to Lynching

• We have crawled and pleaded for justice and we
  have been cheerfully spit upon and murdered and
  burned. If we are to die, in Gods name let us
  perish like men and not like bales of hay.
• -Du Bois

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More Reaction to Lynching

• Strange Fruit By Lewis Anderson, sung by Billie
  Holiday
• Southern trees bear strange fruit
• Blood on the leaves
• Blood on the root
• Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze
• Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees
• Pastoral scene of the gallant south
• The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth
• The scent of magnolia sweet and fresh
• Then the sudden smell of burning flesh
• Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck
• for the rain to gather
• for the wind to suck
• for the sun to rot
• for the tree to drop
• Here is a strange and bitter crop

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Birth of a Nation 1915

• Showed KKK as saviors
• Showed blacks as violent rapists of white women
• Most profitable film 1915-1937
• It is like writing history with lightning, and
  my only regret is that it is all so true.
• Woodrow Wilson
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vE4s2zl2trn0feature
  relatedsafety_modetruepersist_safety_mode1