Week 5-Thurs-Du Bois & Garvey- Blk Leaders

Black Leaders (19^th and 20^th Centuries)
W.E.B. Du Bois
and Marcus Garvey

n  How their writing helped shape very different points

n  of view and approaches

n  William Edward Burghardt
Du Bois (“Dew-boise”)

n  W. E. B. Du Bois

n  W. E. B. Du Bois was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, in 1868.

n  Mother-Mary Silvina Burghardt's family was part of the very small free black population of Great Barrington, having long owned land in the state; she was descended from Dutch, African and English, but she, herself was poor.

n  Father- Alfred, born in Haiti, left Mary in 1870, two years after William was born.

n  Du Bois was educated at Fisk University. In 1895, he became the first African American to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard University. He then studied at the University of Berlin.

n  Dissertation - The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America, 1638-1870 was Du Bois' first book. It was so good, it was published as Volume No. 1 in the Harvard Historical Studies (NY: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1896).

n  First efforts were intellectual- guided by the belief that a proper understanding of this situation would help eliminate racism:

n  If people only understood properly what African-Americans were going through, they would work toward full black liberation and flourishing. But not so- many (not all) whites would try to keep blacks down through Jim Crow laws and customs.

n  “Jim Crow” Segregation (keeping separate)

Ethnic discrimination especially against blacks and some ethnic groups of color by legal enforcement or traditional sanctions.

n  The name Jim Crow is often used to describe the segregation laws, rules, and customs which arose after Reconstruction ended in 1877 and continued until the mid-1960s.

n  Name become associated with these "Black Codes" which took away many of the rights which had been granted to blacks through the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments.

n  Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia-
Ferris State University, Big Rapids Michigan

n  Jim Crow -name of the racial caste system which operated primarily, but not exclusively in southern and border states, between 1877 and the mid-1960s.

n  More than a series of rigid anti-black laws. It was a way of life. Under Jim Crow, African Americans were relegated to the status of second class citizens.

n  Jim Crow represented the legitimization of anti-black racism. Many Christian ministers and theologians taught that whites were the Chosen people, blacks were cursed to be servants, and God supported racial segregation.

n  Craniologists, eugenicists, phrenologists, and Social Darwinists, at every educational level, buttressed the belief that blacks were innately intellectually and culturally inferior to whites.

n  Pro-segregation politicians gave eloquent speeches on the great danger of integration: the “mongrelization” of the white race.

n  “Jim Crow” History

n  "Come listen all you galls and boys, I'm going to sing a little song,
My name is Jim Crow. Weel about and turn about and do jis so,
Eb'ry time I weel about I jump Jim Crow."

n  (White actor) Thomas Dartmouth "Daddy" Rice was struggling. He happened upon a black person singing the above song.

n  In 1828 Rice appeared on stage as "Jim Crow" -- an exaggerated, highly stereotypical black character. Rice, a white man, was one of the first performers to wear blackface makeup -- his skin was darkened with burnt cork. His Jim Crow song-and-dance routine was an astounding success.

n  Rice's subsequent blackface characters were Sambos, Coons, and Dandies. White audiences were receptive to the portrayals of blacks as singing, dancing, grinning fools.

n  Whites in “Blackface”

- The postcard at the end, c. 1908, shows a white minstrel

team. While both are wearing wigs, the man on the left is in blackface and drag.

-As early as May 29, 1769, Lewis Hallam, Jr., a white actor using blackface makeup, played an inebriated black man in “The Padlock”, a British play that premiered in New York City at the John Street Theatre.

- In 1604 in Renaissance England, white actors portrayed Shakespeare’s Othello, but not for buffoonery.

n  Blacks in “Blackface”

n  Ironically, years later when blacks replaced white minstrels, the blacks also "blackened" their faces, thereby pretending to be whites pretending to be blacks.

n  They, too, performed the “Coon Shows” which dehumanized blacks and helped establish the desirability of racial segregation.

n  Bert Williams was the only black member of the Ziegfeld Follies when he joined them in 1910. Shown here in blackface, he was the highest-paid African American entertainer of his day.

n  Blacks and Jim Crow segregation
(even wealthy and black middle class blacks
were segregated)

n  Du Bois and Jim Crow segregation

                                                                Even though he was brilliant and                                                              had earned his Ph.D. from Harvard,                                                               Du Bois could not teach there                                                                    because he was not white.

                                                                Du Bois accepted appointments to                                                          teach at Wilberforce University                                                           (HBCU) and the University of                                                                     Pennsylvania before heading to                                                           Atlanta University in 1897, where he                                                       chaired the departments of history                                                                 and later economics.                      .

n  Du Bois- First Black Sociologist

n  With the publication of The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study (1899), the first case study of a black community in the United States, as well as papers on black farmers, businessmen, and black life in Southern communities, Du Bois established himself as the first great scholar of black life in America.

n  Du Bois –First Black Sociologist.

n  Du Bois became a professor of economics and history at Atlanta University where he conducted a series of sociological studies on the conditions of blacks in the South at the same time B.T. Washington was developing his program of industrial education.

n  Du Bois -The Souls of Black Folk (1903) –
Famous book of essays

n  The Souls of Black Folk explores a variety of subjects of black life, from the history of the Freedmen's Bureau and black music to Du Bois' experiences teaching in rural Georgia and Tennessee.

n  His brief "Forethought" includes one of his most famous lines: "The problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line."

n  He also writes about “double-consciousness” – “One ever feels his two-ness -- an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder."

n  Du Bois and “double consciousness”- Excerpts

n  “After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world,—a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world.”

n  Double consciousness (contd)

n  It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.  

n  Double consciousness (contd)

n  “The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife,—this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost.”

n  Double consciousness (contd)

n  “He would not Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in his face.”  

n  Double consciousness (contd)

n  “This, then, is the end of his striving: to be a co-worker in the kingdom of culture, to escape both death and isolation, to husband and use his best powers and his latent genius.”

n  Du Bois like B.T. Washington, grapples with segregation-
they initially agree on certain principles

n  At first---

n  Both strongly believed in racial solidarity and economic cooperation.

n  They encouraged the development of “Negro” business.

n  They agreed that the black “masses” should receive industrial training. In The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois said they should be led by a “talented tenth”, the most educated and elite blacks.

n  They both placed emphasis on self-help and moral improvement rather than on rights.

n  The professor and the principal were initially both willing to accept voting restrictions for black men based on education and property qualifications.

n  Du Bois critiques Washington in The Souls of Black Folk (1903)

n  Du Bois eventually changed his mind.

n  Wrote an essay critiquing Washington: “Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others,” in The Souls of Black Folk.

n  In it, Du Bois said that Washington’s accommodationist program asked blacks to give up political power, civil rights, and higher education for Negro youth for uncertain economic gains.

n  Du Bois also came to believe Washington was abusing his political, educational, and business power.

n  Du Bois’s argument against Washington

n  DuBois (following Frederick Douglass’s line of thinking) eventually argued against Washington—

n  that even if black people succeeded economically, without being freely able to vote, they would still be at the mer­cy of whites, without voting power to protect their wealth or families.

n  They could not vote in legislation to stop lynching, for example.

n  Whites were lynching well-to-do blacks whom they thought were too “uppity” in the south. Real reason, they were economic competition with white businessmen.

n  Du Bois critiques Washington contd

n  Du Bois came to believe that Washington’s policies had directly or indirectly resulted in three negative trends for blacks:

n  1. the disenfranchisement of African American males who had received the right to vote in the 15^th Amendment (1870),

n  2. the legal creation of a distinct status of civil inferiority for black Americans: “Jim Crow” and

n  3. steady withdrawal of financial aid for institutions of higher “intellectual” education for black people in favor of vocational training only.

n  Du Bois critique becomes more radical over time

n  Eventually Du Bois came to agree with some of the more radical civil rights advocates

n  Du Bois then demanded for all black citizens:

n  1) the right to vote,

n  2) civic equality, and

n  3) the education of all black youth according to ability.

n  We may take these for granted today, but in the early1900s, they seemed almost impossible.

n  Opposition leads to NAACP

n  Du Bois opposed Washington’s program because it was narrow in its scope and objectives, devalued the study of the liberal arts, and ignored civil, political, and social injustices and the economic exploitation of the black masses.

n  In 1905, Du Bois would join with other young progressives (white and black) to form the “Niagara Movement” (had to meet on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls to get hotel unsegregated accommodations).

n  In 1909, white liberals joined with the nucleus of Niagara "militants" and founded the NAACP- National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People.

n  NAACP
(Du Bois w/ hat in front)

n  Class Critique developed by Karl Marx influences Du Bois

1. Since the Industrial Revolution, the idea of a “class” may refer to an economic as well a social group
2. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels- The Communist Manifesto (1848)
3. Marx and Engels saw the history and future development of societies in terms of class struggle
4. Du Bois did his Ph.D. studies in Germany.
5. Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist.

n  Marcus Garvey- Advocate for
black economic freedom –
"Up You Mighty Race!"

n  Marcus Garvey

n  Marcus Garve Devotee of Booker T. Washington’s do for self concept                    concepts.

n  Garvey was an ardent black nationalist who advocated self-help and unity among black people everywhere.

n  Black Nationalism- a nation within a nation

n  Although born and raised in Jamaica, his greatest influence was in the United States.

n  Before he came to America, Garvey had learned the printing trade, traveled extensively throughout Central America, and lived and studied in England for several years.

n  He learned about African culture and the negative impact of colonialism on blacks.

n  Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA)

n  Convinced that the only way blacks could escape white exploitation and domination was through unity, Garvey launched the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League -- which became known as the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) -- in August of 1914 in Jamaica. With the motto "One God! One Aim! One Destiny!," the association sought to unite blacks around the world.

n  Garvey came to the U.S. in 1916, hoping to meet BT Washington, but he died in 1915 just before Garvey’s arrival. Garvey had wanted to raise funds to establish a school in Jamaica modeled after Washington's Tuskegee Institute.

n  To become known, Garvey gave fiery speeches nightly on a soap box on a Harlem street corner, as he had done in London. Later, national tour.

n  He arrived almost penniless but his UNIA grew rapidly. After World War I, it had dozens of chapters worldwide, and it was reputed to be the largest black organization in history. Hard to confirm because numbers of participants may have been inflated.

n  A photograph from late summer 1920 shows the elected leaders of the First International Convention of the Negro Peoples of the World convened by Garvey and the UNIA at Liberty Hall in New York.

n  Photograph (Sept. 1924) –UNIA members outside their headquarters at Liberty Hall in New York during a convention.

n  Black pride and economic hope among poor and working class African Americans

n  Sense of belonging in the world

n  A notice from the February 26, 1921 issue of The Negro World seeks investors in Garvey's Black Star Line

n  An illustration from a brochure advertising shares in the Black Star Line depicts an African American mother and children with a burning cross that references the Ku Klux Klan.

n  A marching band parades past a large crowd of people at one of the numerous Universal Negro Improvement Association parades

n  Marcus Garvey and other Universal Negro Improvement Association leaders on parade

n 
A parade photograph shows members of the Universal Negro Improvement Association mounted on horseback.

n  Uniformed members of the Universal Negro Improvement Association march in a parade

n  This notice from The Negro World seeks investors in Garvey's Black Star Line (shipping)

n  This announcement calls for members of the Universal Negro Improvement Association to settle in the American colony Liberia, West Africa

n  Leaders of the Universal Negro Improvement Association who traveled to Liberia in 1921

n  Back to Africa (repatriate)

n  In addition to being a staunch proponent of Black nationalism, Garvey also advocated Pan-Africanism, following earlier leaders like Prince Hall, Martin Delany, Edward Wilmot Blyden, and Henry Highland Garnet. They thought blacks should move back to Africa (repatriate) to regain power.

n  The Black Star Line, part of his Back-to-Africa movement, was supposed to take people back from the African diaspora to their ancestral lands.

n  Garvey goes too far

n  The most notable of Garvey's rivals, W.E.B. Du Bois, described him as "dictatorial, domineering, inordinately vain and very suspicious."

n  At one meeting Garvey shocked blacks by inviting the Ku Klux Klan to share the platform with him in order to communicate to his followers that as whites take pride in their race, so too should blacks.

n  In 1923, the U.S. authorities successfully prosecuted and convicted Garvey for mail fraud in connection with stock sales for the Black Star Line. Ships were not seaworthy; cargo lost. Investors money lost.

n  Garvey served a two-year sentence and was then immediately deported to England.

n  Garvey had inspiring ideas but was not a good businessman.

n  Garvey’s important legacy

n  Garveyism’s legacy- Promoted by the UNIA as a movement of African Redemption

n  Would eventually inspire others:

n  Nation of Islam

n  Rastafari movement in Jamaica (which proclaims Garvey as a prophet).

n  The intent of the Garvey movement was for those of African ancestry to "redeem" Africa and for the European colonial powers to leave it.