The Awakening of the Negro: Booker T. Washington
Article from the Atlantic Monthly, 1896
The Philadelphia Negro | W.E.B. Du Bois
Students can skim this article for contextual basis for understanding the African-American experience in a northern city at the turn of the 20th century. DuBois pioneered the social survey, and this article can be read or even just skimmed for evidence
W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folks
The Souls of Black Folk is a classic work of American literature by W. E. B. Du Bois. It is a seminal work in the history of sociology, and a cornerstone of African-American literary history.The book, published in 1903, contains several essays on race, some of which had been previously published in Atlantic Monthly magazine. Du Bois drew from his own experiences to develop this groundbreaking work on being African American in American society. Hypertext version of book from the University of Virginia
The Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers Project, UCLA
The Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers provides a full, objective account of the movement and its leader, as it chronicles how the movement achieved a global dimension by awakening the political consciousness of African and Caribbean peoples to the goals of racial self-determination and national independence.
Tulsa race massacre: Possible mass grave linked to 1921 race riot discovered - CBS News
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
The ruling in this Supreme Court case upheld a Louisiana state law that allowed for "equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races." from Our Documents project
Plessy v. Ferguson :: 163 U.S. 537 (1896) :Opinion of the Court
Text of the opinion itself. Students would be better served by a quote from the opinion than a teacher's bullet point description on a lecture slide
The argument also assumes that social prejudices may be overcome by legislation, and that equal rights cannot be secured to the negro except by an enforced commingling of the two races. We cannot accept this proposition. If the two races are to meet upon terms of social equality, it must be the result of natural affinities, a mutual appreciation of each other's merits, and a voluntary consent of individuals.
<p>If the civil and political rights of both races be equal, one cannot be inferior to the other civilly </p>
<p><a id="552" href="#552">[552</a>]</p>
<p> or politically. If one race be inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the United States cannot put them upon the same plane.</p>
Heirs of Plessy v. Ferguson team up for change -
This five minute video is a local news broadcast featuring the great granddaughter New Orleans judge Ferguson and the great grandson of a cousin of Homer Plessy. Their meeting is hard to believe, but what they did after they met is even more important. Students should see this
How Woodrow Wilson’s racist policies eroded the Black civil service | Haas News | Berkeley Haas
Any argument referencing "systematic" racism would be well-served by research into the segregation of the federal workforce during the Wilson administration. Census data shows a significant wage gap and suppression of black home-ownership resulting from federally sanctioned segregation and discrimination
Marcus Garvey: Look for me in the Whirlwind
Companion site for American Experience documentary. Includes timeline and extra information of people and events in film
Democracy and Education: Booker T. Washington Speech
Booker T. Washington. Up From Slavery: An Autobiography
When Washington's autobiography, Up From Slavery, was published in 1901, it became a bestseller and had a major impact on the African American community, its friends and allies. One of the results was a dinner invitation in 1901 by Theodore Roosevelt.
The Souls of Black Folk, by W. E. B. DuBois (Book)
The book, published in 1903, contains several essays on race, some of which had been previously published in Atlantic Monthly magazine. Du Bois drew from his own experiences to develop this groundbreaking work on being African-American in American society. Outside of its notable place in African-American history, The Souls of Black Folk also holds an important place in social science as one of the early works to deal with sociology.
A Biography of America: A Vital Progressivism
Companion site to documentary, be sure to check out maps, transcripts and "Webography" links to primary documents from Annenberg Media. Note Washington Du Bois focus
Imaging Americans
Shawn Michelle Smith discusses Frances Benjamin Johnston's photograph of Whittier primary school students as a historical inquiry into African-American education, citizenship, "uplift" campaigns, and visual propaganda.
W. E. B. Du Bois’ Hand-Drawn Infographics of African-American Life (1900) | The Public Domain Review
Series of charts that can be used to explore differences in white and black populations of America in the early 1900s, but can also serve as a reminder that everything has a deeper history that one might imagine. Data visualization was a "think" long before computers
"The negro a beast" by Charles Carroll, 1906 (Book)
This book is shocking to the 21st century audience, teachers could clip just the images or a clip or two to show students the pervasiveness of racism in early 20th century America
Atlanta Exposition Speech, by Booker T. Washington, 1895 (Speech)
Notice the title of this speech in the typed copy - isn't that different from the versions of the same speech that refer to it as the "Atlanta Compromise" speech? Who named the speech and when? How did one title for the speech become more prominent than the others? How is power exercised through the titling of the speech? How does this represent the psychological concept of anchoring
Another Open Letter to Woodrow Wilson by WEB Du Bois
The taught narrative canon focuses on Wilson in WOrld War I, Versailles and the League of Nations - this letter illustrates another significant element of his presidency.
The Leopard's Spots: A Romance of the White Man's Burden--1865-1900
This book published in 1902 is a belated response the "Uncle Tom's Cabin", written by a Baptist minister who grew up in the south during Reconstruction. This racist book claims that giving blacks the vote after the Civil War empowered them to take wealth from white people and give it to themselves. It is part of a three books series of which some claim was the inspiration for the movie "The Klansman", which became "Birth of a Nation"
(1901) Congressman George H. White’s Farewell Address To Congress
George White was the las of the Reconstruction-era African-Americans to serve in Congress. This is his last speech. The next African-American was elected to Congress in 1928
This, Mr. Chairman, is perhaps the Negroes’ temporary farewell to the American Congress; but…phoenix-like he will rise up some day and come again…
Race traits and tendencies of the American Negro : Hoffman, Frederick L. (Frederick Ludwig), 1865-1946
Using data from the 1890s census, Frederick Hoffman argues that African-Americans are a race that is going extinct, justifying higher insurance rates for them or the denial of coverage. he was an executive for the Prudential Insurance Company. He was also the PResident of the American Statistical Association and his papers are not housed at the National Library of Medicine
(1901) William Hannibal Thomas on the American Negro
Negroism…is an attitude of mental density, a spiritual sensuousness; but that each of these characteristics, though endowed with great persistency and potency, is nevertheless amenable to radical treatment. On account of this belief I have pity and profound sympathy for an awakening group of negroes, to whom…I gladly reach out a hand of succor. On the other hand, I have a deep-seated aversion [and] unfeigned disgust for a distinctive phase of negro characteristic of those bereft of all uplifting desire, because I know that they deliberately…pander to every phase of racial viciousness and resist every attempt for social betterment.
The great majority, it is true, have all the defects and weaknesses attributed to them; but it is also a fact that good and true men and women are to be found among them,