Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
So let me take you back just a bit. Again
oftentimes the focus is on 1950s and 1960s in those
events but
I think it's worthwhile since really hasn't been covered in
in this course certainly to drop back and pick up
a bit of the history leading up to for instance the Brown decision in 1954.
Some we've covered, some is worth review.
First of all let's go all the way back
to the turn of the century, let's go back to the early 20th century here.
And think about varying
ideas of what the path for African Americans
ought to be in the midst of Jim Crow segregation being enforced
and political or voting rights being denied through disenfranchisement.
And really there are two camps and that's often the case.
On the one hand you have the accommodationist you will have
the people like Booker Washington who
advised African Americans not to struggle
overtly against the repression of being denied the vote
so much as to build themselves up economically and socially
until they became until they became such a
force that they could demand political equality.
Show yourself worthy in other words
of middle class white notions of appropriateness
and the time will come when you can demand what is yours.
The phrase that became so much associated with the so called
Atlanta Compromise going back to the 1890s would be
this notion to put down your bucket where you are. In other words,
don't wait and go thirsty but
focus on the things you can change the things you can
make work on your behalf so that you build yourself up
or in other words as they or how he might have put it build up your race
and then, then
your ship will come in to port, you'll survive.
There's another voice at work here to that is often associated with W.E.B.
Du Bois.
It suggests that really
African Americans ought to focus on demanding what is theirs by right.
You know, don't wait and don't think so much about pulling or uplifting up
everyone
as the so called Talented Tenth, those who are already educated, those who are
lawyers and doctors and professionals in their own right
who enjoy much of middle-class existence in terms of
lifestyle and standard of living.
Let them be the leaders
and let them push for securing
those rights which which already belong to African Americans under the
Constitution.
Well in 1909
Du Bois and number of other African Americans
put together or organize the NAACP the National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People.
This
organization will be integral to the civil rights movement
from the early twentieth century through the First World War
the 20s, 30s, into the 40s,
and particularly leading up to Brown. Predominantly
the challenge of the NAACP to
segregation and to a denial of voting rights or disenfranchisement
will be legal. And that's really where I want to
start this out. But let me throw in another thread here. In both World War One in World
War Two you've noticed African American service
and Melanie Storie will have talked about the double V Campaign the notion
that African Americans would be foolish not to ask the question in the midst of
war
fought against fascism and authoritarianism
what sort of world they'll go home to when the war's over.
In other words don't they face many of the same kind of
threats when they go home so it's not just a war
against fascism it is it also becomes very much, World War Two does, a war
to change America.
There's also going back to World War Two there's also
the story of A. Philip Randolph
and his threat in 1941
talking about
equal treatment for African-Americans in particular under defense contracts
and talking to Franklin Roosevelt and saying look
if we can't get equal treatment or even
jobs assured under these defense contracts
then one option available will be to march on Washington.
To march on Washington A. Phillip Randolph the head
the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.
Franklin Roosevelt responds with the Fair Employment Practices Commission, it's
it's a
sent a half-hearted measure, but it's more than
more than had existed to try and protect some opportunities for
African-Americans in defense work.
And then there is Harry Truman. Don't forget that
in 1947 Truman
has put together a commission to study civil rights in the United States based
upon the response, the
the threats, the violent, the
violent incidents that occurred with African American Veterans
after the Second World War. And the Commission comes out with what
ultimately is a sort of national or federal plan for civil rights for twenty
years hence twenty years on
to secure these rights.
It's not as if suddenly civil rights pops fresh
from the vacuum in the 1950s,
it just isn't so. African Americans
have been struggling for these rights since reconstruction. And that struggle
will continue in the early 20th century.
But it is in the 40s where we see
A. Philip Randolph, where we see the creation of the congress of
racial equality and interracial political group
1942. And where we see
court case is beginning to come to a head or bring
to the courts these questions of fair treatment to challenge
the very essence of segregation
separate but equal, right, the doctrine of separate but equal.
1930s the NAACP's actively challenging
and trying to do so in ways that are strategically in
well perhaps tactically advantageous.
One of these ways is to go after educational inequality.
Not necessarily with children which could raise
real issues with white parents,
but in professional schools and law schools.
One of the first cases that I want to make an example of here is the case if Smith v.
Allwright,
1944. And the question in Smith v. Allwright is a question of the all white primary.
Basically the argument and this is a a court case that's launched from
Harris County Texas, a fellow named Lonnie Smith,
is that because African-Americans are denied the right to participate in the
Democratic Party's primary elections
in which candidates are selected for the general election
and because the Democratic candidate
is gonna be the winner of the general election,
in essence African Americans are denied a say
in the general election. Let me see if I can say that more simply.
If the candidate is gonna be democratic in the general election
and that's going to be the winner because Democrats dominate this
this particular County say Harris County.
If that candidate for the Democratic Party is then chosen in a primary in
which African Americans cannot participate
then defacto, you know
African-Americans are not having a say in the election
of their representative for Harris County.
So the question in Smith v. Allwright is a question of the all white primary or the
lily white primary as it is sometimes called.
The Supreme Court decides in 1944
that these all white or lily white primaries are
unconstitutional because indeed they do
deny citizens the rights that they have as citizens when it comes to the
vote.
And we go back here think about to the 15th amendment.
1950 another major year and there are two sort of examples that I wanna
bring up here before we get to Brown. Number one is the case
of Sweatt v. Painter. This case
involves the University of Texas law school.
And basically the question was
whether or not
equal education but separate education was acceptable. In other words
whether not University of Texas can effectively farm out
an African American law student to a specifically
African American law school.
The idea was as early as 1947
that Texas would create a
an African American School of Law separate from the University of
Texas but that hadn't really happened and the court says it doesn't matter if it
happens because
ultimately that law school by being separate
would be unequal. It would inherently be inferior that
the the experience of this law student,
you know, this law student in spite of race
being that he is gonna be there you know pretty much alone
certainly in a smaller group and
without connection to the law students at University of Texas
would automatically place this law school as sub-par
and thus unequal.
What's happening in the professional schools like the University of Texas
in Sweatt v. Painter is that NAACP
is finding ways to challenge in the court system
the very doctrine by which segregation has been protected
under Supreme Court decision since Plessy.
Another important case is McLaurin v. Oklahoma.
McLaurin v. Oklahoma also 1950.
In this case we're talking not about law school we're talking about
a student who is seeking to get
an advanced degree, a PhD in education.
Has already gotten a Masters now seeks a PhD.
And so requests admission the University of Oklahoma.
Indeed this African-American student is granted admission
but will be segregated within
the University. That is to say this student will be given
a separate desk in a separate area of the class.
A separate place to eat in the cafeteria.
Will have to find separate restroom facilities.
Basically that the student can be in the midst of but not part
of the educational process.
And the result of that the court decides is
unacceptable that the result is inferior.
That the treatment is unequal.
So by 1950, right, by 1950
the NAACP and African Americans have
already established precedents in the United States and in the court system
that would challenge under particular circumstances namely professional schools
right?
Challenge the validity the doctrine established in Plessy v. Ferguson
Plessy v. Ferguson sorry separate but equal.
That helps I think to set the stage,
to set the stage for
what's gonna follow in the nineteen fifties and we will pick up the story there
in the next segment.