*Due to the numerous events in this
unit, this post will be split into 4 parts: New South, Disenfranchisement, Early
Civil Rights, and WWI.*
After all of the violence shed from the ignorance of white supremacy, African Americans needed to show that they are equal to whites. There were two very different ways that this came about through two very important men that you may have heard of.
 |
| Niagara Movement |
 |
| W.E.B. DuBois |
W.E.B. DuBois (1868-1963) could be considered the founder of the entirety that is the Civil Rights Movement. Yes, more famous names come to mind like MLK Jr. and Rosa Parks, but there were those who made a lasting impact long before the more known movement of the sixties. W.E.B. DuBois was a black educator whom did not want blacks to prove themselves; instead, he wanted laws to be made to insure that any sort of discrimination becomes illegal. He was the founder of the Niagara Movement, a group of intellectuals, mostly African Americans, who would use the power of their minds to find a way to enforce a law of racial equality. The Niagara Movement was the foundation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP. The NAACP will become more familiar to you, but that is for another post. A rather odd idea of DuBois was that blacks should move back to the homeland of Africa, but that never really took off.
 |
| Atlanta Compromise |
 |
| Booker T. Washington |
Booker T. Washington (1856-1915)- took another approach to civil rights. Having been a slave himself, he knew of the harsh realities of white supremacy and forced labor that DuBois was never alive to see. He thought that making laws right away wasn't going to do anything; instead you must convince whites that blacks
are infact equal and then put it into law. DuBois opposed this approach because he believed that blacks are equal and there was no need to prove it. Washington went about this by telling African Americans to learn a trade. Washington was a very outstanding speaker and gave many many speeches. His most influential speech was given at the International Cotton Expostion in Atlanta in 1895. What is the International Cotton Expositon? The ICE was a convention held in Atlanta to show off the industrial improvements of the South. It was a way to attract Northern businesses to produce in the South, and was very successful. ICE was a convention that was made by New South idealist such as the Bourbon Triumvirate. The Atlanta Compromise was a speech by Booker T. Washington that stated Blacks will prove themselves worthy to whites and that they will help the whites with the economy in many ways. The speech was highly thought of by most, but not to all. Such was the case of DuBois. DuBois dubbed the speech the "Atlanta Compromise" because he believed Washington was giving whites too much of what they want.
 |
| Alonzo Herndon |
 |
| Crystal Palace |
Alonzo Herndon (1858-1927) was someone who you could consider to be more allied with Booker T. Washington and his ideals, but he was also a member of the Niagara Movement. He was born into slavery in Walton County in 1858, with a mixed ethnicity. His father was a white plantation owner and his mother a slave. After the Civil War, his family was left broke and homeless. He worked in some odd jobs in his early life as well as a sharecropper, a job in which you know from earlier posts. In 1878 Herndon left his town and learned to be a barber. He was owning a respectable barbershop in Jonseboro in a couple of months, and in 1883 he went to work at a barbershop in Marietta. In six months he was a part time owner with another African American, a rare sight to see at this time. By 1904 he had a very large and respectable business as a barber. One of his locations, named the "Crystal Palace," was very famous to much of the Southeast. Very respectable white businessmen, lawyers, mayors, and all the like were getting their haircut at the Crystal Palace. This lead Herndon to be the first black millionaire in Atlanta.
But Herndon wasn't finished yet. In 1905 Herndon purchased a failing insurance company and renamed it the Atlanta Life Insurance Company. This became very profitable and gave many black men jobs. It grew to successfulness across the Southeast as one of the largest companies owned by blacks.
 |
| Lugenia Burns Hope |
 |
| John Hope |
John and Lugenia Hope (1868-1936) and (1871-1947) was a couple of very famous African American educators. He was the very first black president of Moorehouse College (which you will hear of in a later lesson) and later on the first black president of Atlanta University. John Hope, like many we have studied, is of duel lineage. Both John and Lugenia were avid supporters of education, mostly for the betterment of black education. The Hopes, most notably of which Lugenia, were not only in the Niagara Movement but other charitable clubs as well. Lugenia worked with returning soldiers during WWI, worked with the National Red Cross after a great flood in Arkansas in 1927, created the Neighborhood Union, as well as the Commission on Interracial Cooperation. Lugenia is mostly known for her membership in the NAACP, where she bettered schools for black children.
Both of the Hopes remained in service and civil rights until their deaths in 1936 and 1947, respectively.
Links:
No comments:
Post a Comment