Obstacles to civil rights up to 1941: legal and political obstacles

• In 1896 the US Supreme Court stated blacks and whites could be 'separate but equal'.
• Many states in the US South instigated laws to segregate blacks and whites. The laws became known as Jim Crow laws.

Black Americans were controlled and discriminated against:

• They could be denied the vote.
• They could be assaulted and even killed by white mobs such as the Ku Klux Klan.
• They were denied the same quality of education as white counterparts.

From the early 1900s Black Americans began to leave the South and move to cities in the North in search of a better life. Between 1920 and 1930, 824,000 southern black Americans moved north.

Divisions in the black community prevented a unified front and may have acted as an obstacle to change.

For black Americans in the south there were many obstacles to achieving the same civil rights as whites. Find out more in this video.

Note: To reflect the time period and issues faced by black Americans this film features some language and opinions from the era that are considered inappropriate today.

After the end of the American Civil War in 1865, a series of amendments were made to the American Constitution that would affect the lives of black people in United States. They came to be known as the Reconstitution Amendments.

• 13th Amendment, 1865 – abolished slavery
• 14th Amendment, 1868 – granted all people born in the US citizenship and equal protection of the law
• 15th Amendment, 1870 – prohibited government and states from denying the right to vote based on "race, colour, or previous condition of servitude."

These important amendments freed black people from slavery, granted them citizenship, the right to vote, and gave them the expectation of full protection for their rights from the law.

Importantly, these amendments would play a crucial role in many of the civil rights campaigns of the 20th century.

In many Southern states where slavery had been defended, the amendments were contested and became a source of bitter resentment for some.

In 1892 a mixed-race man called Homer Plessy sat on a seat reserved for white people on a train in the Southern state of Louisiana. He was asked to move to the black section of the train. He refused and was arrested.

Eventually the case went to the US Supreme Court where Plessey argued that the State of Louisiana had broken the 14th Amendment that said that black people should have full civil liberties in the same way as whites.

However, the Supreme Court reached a decision that was to affect race relations in the USA for the next 60 years.

The Supreme Court agreed that the 14th Amendment was to make sure that blacks were treated by law in the same way as whites, but the Supreme Court said:

Laws which keep the races apart do not mean that one race is better or worse than the other.

The decision of the Supreme Court was called the 'separate but equal’ decision.

Following the ruling, many states in the South began to rewrite their constitutions by excluding black people from the political process. Measures included:

• Segregation – the separation of the races in public spaces
• Denying the right to vote – in Alabama in 1900, 180,000 black people were eligible to vote. In 1902 the number was only 3,000
• Violence and terror – lynching and beatings were widespread

The name given to all laws that were intended to keep blacks and whites separate was the 'Jim Crow’ laws.

The laws were named after a character created by a white theatre performer called Thomas D. Rice. On stage, Rice dressed as a black man and made fun of black people by portraying them as stupid, lazy and unreliable. Rice’s character was called Jim Crow.

After the Plessy case, Southern State governments could produce any Jim Crow law they wanted.

For example, the races should be separated :

• on railway trains
• in waiting rooms at railway stations
• on buses
• in schools and churches
• in hospitals
• even in segregated cemeteries.

In the 1920s racial tension increased and the state governments further extended the Jim Crow laws.

• South Carolina made it illegal for black and white textile workers to use the same doorways, bathrooms, or canteens.
• Mississippi criminalised the spreading of information calling for social equality between the races – this carried a six month prison sentence or a $500 fine.

Segregation was entering into all parts of life. Segregation was inevitably backed up by the use of force.

In the states which imposed segregated schools, schools designated for black students were underfunded, which had a severe impact on the quality of education the young people had whilst attending these schools.

In 1916, black protestors complained to President Woodrow Wilson about the segregation of toilets and eating facilities in Federal Government offices, and Jim Crow laws being used to make sure that black men only received the lowest paid jobs.

President Wilson said:

Segregation is not humiliating and is a benefit for you black gentlemen

As early as 1867 black men who had once been enslaved were allowed to vote.

By 1900, the Southern states had managed to stop most black people from voting. Without a vote, black people could not elect anyone who might oppose the Jim Crow laws.

The Southern states could not ban black people from voting just because they were black. In order to vote in the USA a person had to register. The Southern states made up a series of rules called voting qualifications that made it difficult for blacks people to vote:

• Eleven states charged a fee to anyone who wished to vote. This poll tax was something fewer black people could afford.
• Literacy tests suppressed black voting as black people had often had little or no education.

Seven states introduced a grandfather clause. This rule meant a adult man could vote only if his grandfather had voted before 1867. The result was that most white men in the South could vote and most black men could not. It also meant that black men who previously could vote lost that right.

Black men were also prevented from voting through intimidation and violence.

Voter supression in Southern states

The racial prejudice of white voters and politicians also acted against civil rights progress.

During this period, the Republican Party was generally more progressive and interested in the issues faced by black Americans.

The Democratic Party, particularly in the South, looked after the interest of white, largely Protestant voters.

Eleven Southern states were largely controlled by Democrats between the Civil War and World War II. Southern Democrats worked as a power block in Congress and the Senate, sometimes preventing the passing of legislation that went against the views and interests of prejudiced white Southern voters.

For example, in the 1920s, Republicans repeatedly tried to pass anti-lynching laws but the Southern Democrats fillibustered, preventing bills from passing through Senate and becoming law in 1922, 1923 and 1924.

Presidents from both parties tended to avoid pushing for civil rights improvements as they needed wide support from white voters to be elected and to pursue their wider political goals.

Democratic Presidents needed the support of the Southern Democrats and avoided introducing legislation that would be opposed by them. For example, Franklin D Roosevelt needed their support for his New Deal policies. He did not use his power to act on segregation or to support anti-lynching laws.

Some parts of the New Deal tended to support segregation, for example agricultural and domestic workers were excluded from some New Deal benefits, and some programs were administered by states, who could channel support to white Americans and refuse it to black Americans. Federal housing policy excluded people in black areas from accessing loans.

In the 1928 Presidential Election, Republican Herbert Hoover pursued a 'lily-white' strategy in an attempt to appeal to white Southern voters and won in five Southern states.

For black people, life in the Southern states was hard. The restrictions placed on them made living a good life hard:

• Limited job opportunities kept black people in poorly paid, unskilled jobs.
• Sharecropping trapped poor black farmers in ongoing debt, preventing them bettering their situation.
• Housing rules restricted where black people could live, resulting in overcrowding in poor quality housing.
• Education and healthcare for black people was poorly funded.
• The Ku Klux Klan and white mobs brought the threat of violence.

For those who dreamed of equality of opportunity, their hope lay in a move to the industrial cities of the north, or to the mid-west and west.

The movement of black people from the South began in 1915-1916 when the war industries were desperate for workers. Black people filled the gaps. In the period 1910-1920, the South lost 5% of its native black population. By 1930 a further 8% had moved north. By 1940 it was 22%.

• In 1896 the US Supreme Court stated blacks and whites could be 'separate but equal'.
• Many states in the US South instigated laws to segregate blacks and whites. The laws became known as Jim Crow laws.

Discrimination against black Americans meant:

• Black Americans could be denied the vote.
• Black Americans could be assaulted and even killed by white mobs such as the Ku Klux Klan.
• Black Americans were denied the same quality of education as white counterparts.

After WW1 many southern black Americans moved to northern cities for work and a better life.