The Worse Evil: The Jim Crow South
Historically the African American population in America has been faced with a multitude of oppressive forces. The gradual attainment of personal rights and acceptance that African Americans have gained over time can be viewed as a progression through certain "stages" of freedom. In their quest for equality, African Americans faced hardships much worse during the period of time known from 1876-1954 as the Jim Crow South era as compared to their time of enslavement due to physical torture, educational, and political problems.
The life of an African American slave could be extremely brutal, as accounts from numerous once-enslaved persons have reported. Frederick Douglass had a first hand account of the torture slaves faced. As an enslaved child, "[Douglass had] often been awakened at the dawn of day by the most heart-rending shrieks of an own aunt of [his], whom [the slaveholder] used to tie up to a joist, and whip upon her naked back till she was literally covered with blood."[1] This account clearly illustrates how poorly many slaveholders treated their slaves. Though the whipping was occasionally done out of pure pleasure on behalf of the slaveholder, oftentimes the torture was "warranted" in the eyes of the slaveholder. If certain rules or orders were not abided by, slaveholders would "teach" the slaves to follow orders by beating them.[2] It was this way that the slaveholders assumed their power over the slaves.
However, in the Jim Crow South era, free African Americans faced a wider range of tortures and felt insecure in their own homes. This time period saw a rise in the white supremacist group the Ku Klux Klan. Though the fundamental reason for the founding of the group was to scare African Americans from voting, the group saw a second phase in the late 1800s in which physical torture on free African Americans was prevalent.[3] "Raging crowds of white southerners publicly burned, mutilated, castrated, hanged, shot, and torturedmen, women, and children," which became a public spectacle for the white community.[4] Thousands of whites would gather and witness the horrible atrocities performed on innocent African Americans and cheer. Children attended the lynchings and many police authorities joined the masses and allowed the horrific actions to continue.[5] Even more surprising was the fact that "[t]he mayor gave the school children a holiday and the railroads ran excursion trains so that the people might see a human being burned to death."[6] This far-fledged violence was much worse than the fear of torture from a slaveholder.
A majority of the lynchings were associated with absurd charges placed against African Americans from many white men and women, the main charge being rape. The free African American man faced a new obstacle in his quest for freedom; promiscuous married white women. Numerous white women would have relations with African American men and, if caught, would claim that they were raped. In doing so, African Americans would be taken to court and found guilty since a white women's word was taken as absolute.[7] No evidence was needed whatsoever and the African American would be lynched. Lynchings were just one example of the worse condition African Americans faced during the Jim Crow South as compared to years of enslavement.
Another factor that attributed to the worsened conditions of African Americans during the Jim Crow South was the issue of education. As slaves, African Americans were not educated. Slaveholders prevented African Americans from learning to read or write in order to ensure their dominant role over the slaves. "If you teach [a] nigger how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would become unmanageable, and of no value to his master."[8] Therefore, the slaveholder's goal was to keep his slaves ignorant. Although this was morally wrong, African Americans were almost content with their lives due to the fact that they did not know any better. However, education became a way that enslaved African Americans received their freedom. Slaveholder's held the idea that "[to a slave, education] could do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him discontented and unhappy."[9] This served true for the African Americans of the Jim Crow South.
The ignorant African Americans in the Jim Crow South were at a clear disadvantage for survival on their own. It was a common sentiment among African Americans that "[their] toil is still unrequited, hardly less under freedom than slavery, whereby [they] are sadly oppressed by poverty and ignorance, and consequently prevented from enjoying the blessings of liberty."[10] The ignorance of the African Americans was acceptable while enslaved, but once freed, African Americans struggled to adjust to their newly found "freedom." However, education also added to the discontentment of many African Americans because those educated knew what rights should lawfully be theirs. This ultimately caused discontentment among the free African Americans because they were not receiving what they thought they deserved.
Also, the fight for education became pivotal during the Jim Crow South era. W.E.B. Dubois stated that "Negroes must insist continuallythat black boys need education as well as white boys."[11] Therefore, African Americans fought for better education for their race and founded the first all-Negro university, the Tuskegee University.[12] The more educated that the African American population was, the more upset they became with their present conditions, leading to much unrest and resentment. Although the African Americans obviously had a right to be upset with their conditions, during slavery they did not have any rights to education, which ultimately made life much easier. In slavery, they knew what they had to do and did not know anything outside of slavery, leading to a life of simplicity.
Adding to the educational crisis the African Americans faced was the idea of "separate but equal," from the Plessy vs. Ferguson court ruling. This maintained a separation of public schools, facilities, and transportation.[13] However, it could be more correctly stated as "still separate, still unequal." African American schools were of inferior quality to the white schools and the division of the children only worsened the divide between the two groups. This inequality was a huge source of discontentment among the African American population and enraged many. Once again, the African Americans had received their freedom, but they were not truly free. In a sense, they were more restricted than their prior lives in slavery.
In line with the educational unrest, there was also political unrest among the African Americans in the Jim Crow South. As slaves, the African Americans were seen as property, and therefore had no political rights. Thus, they never expected the right to vote while enslaved. With their freedom, however, African Americans faced a new form of oppression in the political sphere. Strongly fighting for the civil right to vote, Du Bois thought that "voting is necessary to modern manhood."[14] As free men, the African Americans did not understand their lack of political power or the continuing congressional attempt to stem the tide of voting. The common sentiment of the African Americans was indeed that "in the local affairs of government [they were] practically denied the rights and privileges of freemen."[15] Disillusionment was a common theme of the Jim Crow South. The freedom that the African Americans expected to be so great only added more burdens to their lives.
The disillusionment that accompanied the African Americans in the Jim Crow South led to division among the African American population. Though some African Americans pushed strongly for their rights, others felt that it would be more beneficial to gain rights slowly and ease into the life of a free man. Booker T. Washington, a large proponent of the idea of a gradual increase in personal rights, or submission, said that "blacks would stop making political demands in exchange for curbs on white violence."[16] Great opposition to Washington's ideas came from W.E.B Du Bois, who was very radical and demanded immediate political and educational rights for all African Americans. This shows how even the African American community was torn on the issue of civil rights, creating great difficulty during the Jim Crow South era.
The obvious cultural divide permeating throughout the Jim Crow South crushed the African American's dream of freedom. Hoping to build successful lives and the possibility of becoming prominent figures in society, African Americans were disillusioned as they faced increase opposition and oppression from the dominant white culture. Though African Americans held on strongly to the words of the Founding Fathers, "We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," African Americans in the Jim Crow South struggled to achieve the life, liberty, and happiness that they hoped to attain.[17] The hardships and loss associated with this continual pursuit of these truths throughout the twentieth century reveals that between slavery and the Jim Crow South, the Jim Crow South was the worse evil.
[1] Frederick Douglass. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave. (New York NY: New American Library, 1845), 23.
[2] Frederick Douglass. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave. (New York NY: New American Library, 1845), 24.
[3] Monica Witowski, "Civil War," October 16, 2007, (Marquette University).
[4] Booker T. Washington, "Washington's Speech at the Atlanta Exposition," in Retrieving the American Past ed. Howard Baker (Boston, MA: Pearson Custom Publishing, 2003), 219-223.
[5] Monica Witowski, "Gilded Age America," October 25, 2007, (Marquette University).
[6] Ida B. Wells-Barnett, "Lynch Law in America," The Arena 23.1 (January 1900): 15-24.
[7] Ida B. Wells-Barnett, "Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases." Project Gutenberg, 2005. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14975/14975-h/14975-h .htm.
[8] Frederick Douglass. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave. (New York NY: New American Library, 1845), 48.
[9] Frederick Douglass. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave. (New York NY: New American Library, 1845), 48.
[10] "Southern Freedmen Resolve to Move West, 1879," in Major Problems in American History Volume 2: Since 1865 ed. Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman and Jon Gjerde (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 2007), 41.
[11] W.E.B. Du Bois, "Souls of Black Folk," in Retrieving the American Past ed. Howard Baker (Boston, MA: Pearson Custom Publishing, 2003), 224-230.
[12] Monica Witowski, "Gilded Age America," October 25, 2007, (Marquette University).
[13] Monica Witowski, "Redemption and the End of Reconstruction," October 23, 2007, (Marquette University).
[14] W.E.B. Du Bois, "Souls of Black Folk," in Retrieving the American Past ed. Howard Baker (Boston, MA: Pearson Custom Publishing, 2003), 224-230.
[15] "Southern Freedmen Resolve to Move West, 1879," in Major Problems in American History Volume 2: Since 1865 ed. Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman and Jon Gjerde (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 2007), 41.
[16] Booker T. Washington, "Washington's Speech at the Atlanta Exposition," in Retrieving the American Past ed. Howard Baker (Boston, MA: Pearson Custom Publishing, 2003), 219-223.
[17] W.E.B. Du Bois, "Souls of Black Folk," in Retrieving the American Past ed. Howard Baker (Boston, MA: Pearson Custom Publishing, 2003), 224-230.