Professor Pamela Oliver Department of Sociology

Sociology 220 Prof. Pamela Oliver

An Outline of US/Af-Am History

1607 - 1776. Colonial period. Slaves imported. Plantation economy develops in the South. Free Blacks 5-10% of all AfAms.

1776-1795. Revolutionary period. Blacks support revolution. Whites argue about whether "equality" includes blacks. Slavery written into constitution. 1791: 59,000 free blacks vs 750,000 slaves (7%). 1793: Cotton gin invented. Large cotton plantations (slave labor) central to southern economy and northern textile mills.

1795-1815. Post-Revolutionary Period. slave importation to US ends 1808. Whites pass laws restricting citizenship of free blacks in north. Petitions, protests; small migration to Africa. Richard Allen, AME church; Absalom Jones, Free African Society.

1816-1850. European migration into US becomes heavy. Westward expansion. 200,000 free blacks 1830; 300,000 in 1850. Militant anti-slavery movement (abolitionism). Black nationalisms, separatism, emigrationism also voiced. Sojourner Truth. Frederick Douglas: "we're here and we want to stay." National conventions, caucuses, rising consciousness.

1860-65 Civil War. 500,000 free blacks, millions of slaves. 200,000 blacks join union army.

1865-1875. Reconstruction. South is devastated by war, union army occupies; promises of votes, land, education made for former-slaves, largely not fulfilled. 13th, 14th, 15th amendments outlaw slavery, guarantee civil rights to anyone born in US, and give right to vote to "all men." White Radical Republicans argue for black rights.

1876-1895. Compromise of 1875 ends Reconstruction to break election deadlock, elect Hayes. 90% of all blacks live in rural areas, 90% in south, most in cotton farming, dependent on landowners, subject to violent repression. Lynchings and KKK terrorism increase. "Jim Crow" segregation laws passed; US Supreme Court rules these legal. 14^th amendment gutted. Democratic Party = alliance of southern white planters and northern industrialists and working class. Republicans debate 1876-1891 whether to support black rights; abandon black rights entirely after 1891. Populist movement threatens trans-racial alliance among southern working class; elite whites work to disenfranchise blacks (and working class) to eliminate threat. Example: Louisiana, 130,344 blacks registered in 1895, only 5,000 in 1898 and 1,772 in 1916. Blacks lose all political power. Some black nationalists demand reparations for slavery. (Whites ignore.) Some emigrationism, 500+ actually emigrate to Liberia.

1895-1920 Things continue to get worse. Presidents Taft (1909-1913) and Wilson (1914-1918) explicitly oppose black equality; Taft & others call for disenfranchisement of blacks; Wilson uses executive authority to segregate federal services. Powerful people benefit from segregation and other whites unwilling to oppose them. More lynchings. Black immigration banned, intermarriage illegal. Supreme Court refuses to intervene. Booker T. Washington, accomodationist separatist. Thomas Fortune, militant egalitarian. W. E. B. Dubois, militant egalitarian, Niagara Movement 1905; NAACP 1909 to get white support. Ida Wells-Barnett, anti-lynching. Marcus Garvey, militant nationalist separatist, emigrationist; built black religion, black businesses, 1916-1925. Also period of last and most racist phase of woman suffrage movement, Progressive Era, and intense anti-immigrant feelings. National Origins Act 1920 sharply limits immigration.

Immigration and Migration Summary:

1. Europeans. From 1800-1914, tens of millions of Europeans migrated to the US, filling the lowest economic niches of the north. This flood made the proportion of African Americans in the population shrink from 20% in 1800 to 14% in 1900. (Continued immigration makes the black proportion about 12% today.) Immigration largely stopped with WWI and 1920 immigration law and did not pick up again until 1970.
2. African Americans. "The Great Migration." From WWI - 1970, large numbers of African Americans migrated from the rural south to the cities of the north and south. In 1890 blacks were 90% rural and 90% southern. By 1960, migration into seven key industrial states, black population grows 92% but black voters grow 800%. Become an important political force in key industrial cities. In 1990s, 55% live in the south (versus 33% of whites); 63% live in central cities of metropolitan areas (vs. only 37% of whites), 36% live in suburbs (vs. 63% of whites). Only 14% of blacks live in nonmetropolitan areas, versus 23% of whites.

1920s - 1940s. Tide starts to shift. Black migration from rural south to northern and southern cities; less repression, more education, more likely to be able to vote. 1930s Depression. Blacks part of 1930s New Deal coalition, get some (second-class) benefits, including money for schools. NAACP begins careful campaign of lawsuits, trains generation of black lawyers. NAACP also begins building as a mass black organization in the 1930s. Supreme Court decisions begin to require equality in "separate but equal." A. Philip Randolph, militant integrationist, socialist; paid leader of Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, a militant black union; 1941 organizes and threatens black march on Washington if FDR will not order integration of war industries, wins integration and calls off march. Mary McLeod Bethune, part of FDR administration. WWII internationalism, US race relations look bad. Federal government begins to ban discrimination. Becomes a national issue, bills debated in congress. Black urban life builds: better jobs, less violence against blacks; creation of organizations free of white domination. Urban black churches grow. Black colleges grow: increased money and enrollments as courts rule that "separate but equal" requires equal, e.g. funding for black education.

1940s - 1965. Civil Rights Era. Black organization, black votes begin to have impact as black votes increase 800% from 1900 to 1960. Black votes "swing" the 1960 election; both parties support civil rights. Mostly period of militant integrationism. Truman orders military desegregated 1948. Supreme Court decisions increasingly chip away at segregation, leading to Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954. Emmett Till (age 14) is murdered for saying hi to a white woman; widespread outrage and mobilization among blacks in both south and north. Montgomery Bus Boycott. Martin Luther King, Jr. becomes head of MIA in 1955; founds SCLC 1957. Desegregation Battles. Pres. Eisenhower forced to send army to Little Rock, Ark. to quell white riots around enrollment of nine black students in Central High. 1960 sit-ins, SNCC founded; 1961 Freedom Rides (organized by CORE), 1963-65 major civil rights marches, MLK the most visible civil rights leader, assassinated 1968. Malcolm X, militant Black Muslim separatist, is active in 1950s until assassinated in 1965.

1965 - early 1970s Shift to black power, militant separatism. Riots 1964-9. King assassinated 1968. Increasing cultural nationalism, black studies, black pride. Continuing battles, victories around voting rights and representation rules. White radicalism around Vietnam War; white riots, street protests as part of antiwar movement. Fear of revolution, fear of race war. White racists abandon Democratic Party, become Republicans; Republicans seek to keep white racist vote (through 1992 election). Mechanical harvesters displace black rural labor, force migration of impoverished unskilled black workers into northern cities.

1970s. Everything calms down on all fronts. Economic troubles: Energy crisis, "stagflation." Black advances in income, education. Welfare puts a "safety net" below the deepest levels of misery in most states. Blacks become significant political force in Democratic Party. Many black local officials elected in southern and northern cities. Some white accommodation, some white resistance in anti-bussing movements; anti-bussing riots. Blacks less optimistic than in 1960s. Immigration begins to be significant.

1980s. Reaganomics, massive cuts in social welfare, education support. Black college attendance declines while high school graduation continues to rise, as financial aid programs are cut. Return of absolute poverty, malnutrition, high infant mortality. 1980 Miami riot. Growing class differences among blacks: Black poverty grows again at the same time as a generation of blacks is reared with access to education, occupational opportunity. Republicans shore up margin of victory with racial appeals to white working class voters to form a voting alliance with white elites. Immigration becomes as major issue in urban areas. Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow Coalition are significant in both 1984 and 1988; "Willie Horton" the Republican symbol in 1988, coded racism. Increasing black interest in Afrocentrism, black middle class debates about education, nationalism, racism, self-help, etc. Growing despair among poor black youth.

1990s. ?? Clarence Thomas appointment 1991; black conservative appointed by Bush with goal of dividing liberals. Los Angeles riot 1992. X caps and shirts. Poverty, racial conflict, inner cities are on the agenda. Whites stereotype all blacks as poor, inner city, ill-educated gang members; black middle class divided and debating what to do. Clinton both gives integrationist speeches and explicitly rejects "race coding" but also criticizes Sister Souljah, angers Jesse Jackson, captures enough white working class vote to win 1992 election in 3-way race. 1964-1988 blacks vote 95%+ for Democrats. This weakens in 1992 election. Economy rebounds, unemployment low, stock market high, although income polarization continues to grow. 1996 Clinton reelected, has strong black support, calls for public debate on race; this & a lot of other stuff gets lost in scandal & impeachment. Where do we go from here? ??

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Questions or Comments? Email Oliver -at- ssc -dot- wisc -dot- edu. Last updated December 25, 2004 © University of Wisconsin.