Lecture 6 Notes

The Development of "Jim Crow"

Late 19th-Century Alternatives

• Populists (see previous lecture)
• Southern "conservatives" of the late 19th c. considered themselves moderates because they felt they were the ones who had the most realistic view of southern blacks.  They believed that Negrophiles were false friends of the freedmen, as they pushed blacks ahead of themselves to a position they were unable to competently fill, and they had ulterior motives and profited on black advancement.
• On the other end of the spectrum were the Negrophobes, who sought to wage an aggressive war against blacks, wanting to ostracize, humiliate, and rob them of elemental human dignity.
• Conservatives believed that every society had superiors and subordinates, and that each class should acknowledge its responsibilities and obligations, and that each should be guaranteed its status and protected in its rights.  They believed that blacks should be subordinate, but denied that subordinates had to be ostracized or oppressed; they believed that blacks were inferior, but denied that it followed that inferiors must be segregated or publicly humiliated.  In conservative ideology, African American degradation was not a necessary corollary of white supremacy.
• Gov. Thomas Jones, Alabama:  "the Negro race is under us.  He is in our power.  We are his custodians. . . .  We should extend to him, as far as possible, all the civil rights that will fit him to be a decent and self-respecting, law-abiding and intelligent citizen. . . .  If we do not lift them up, they will drag us down."  (Official Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of the State of Alabama, May 21st, 1901 to Sept. 3rd, 1901, 4:4303)
• Conservatism smacked of paternalism and noblesse oblige, and became laden with all kinds of class associations.  A Charleston newspaper in 1897 stated that what was needed was a first-class coach for first-class people, white and colored, and a separate car for drunken and ruffian whites and blacks.  The class connotations were unmistakable, and one reason why conservative proposals were not widely accepted.
• Blacks even appealed to conservatives for protection when violence against them became acute.  This was not as much a return to the "master" as it was a reaction to turn away from lower-class "fanaticism."  By then it was too late, however -- the two classes, upper and lower, had joined together.

Northern Backsliding

• The South's adoption of extreme racism was due not so much to a conversion as it was to a relaxation of the opposition.
• All the elements had been present for some time, so the question is what forces hindered the enactment of such laws and why they were removed.  Two important elements were the removal of armed forces following Pres. Hayes' election, and shifting opinions in the northern press which were less concerned with black rights than national reconciliation.
• A series of Supreme Court decisions also retreated from the federal government's earlier support of black rights.  Specifically, four cases, appealed from different circuit courts, involving the validity and interpretation of the Civil Rights Act of 1875.  In each case a black person had been denied some accommodation or privilege on account of color.  The opinion of the Court that the rights this law attempted to protect were social rather than civil rights, and that the federal government had no jurisdiction over these matters, practically put an end to the effort of the federal government to enforce the guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment.
  • Hall v. DeCuir (1877) - a state could not prohibit segregation on a common carrier
  • Louisville, New Orleans, and Texas Railroad v. Mississippi (1890) - a state could constitutionally require segregation on common carriers
  • Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) - "legislation is powerless to eradicate racial instincts," introduction of "separate but equal" doctrine as test for constitutionality
  • Williams v. Mississippi (1898) - approved the so-called Mississippi Plan for depriving blacks of the vote; states have the right to impose "reasonable" blockades to voting
• Jim Crow varied state to state, but was common in enforcing segregation via law and the courts
• Federal courts say they can rule on civil but not social issues, and segregation is deemed a social issue.

Lessening Influence of Southern Elite

• The paternalism of southern elites had such a class-based origin that poorer whites thought it was the provenance of wealthier whites to look out for blacks.
• Had their own financial scandals in the 1880s.
• Had used the black vote themselves in the 1880s.
• Antebellum stance had never been popular.  Seen as too tied to economic forces in the North, esp. the railroad.

Abandonment by Southern Radicals (Populists)

• Populists came to believe that blacks were responsible for their political defeat, and thus turned against them.
• The very group that attempted a class-based interracial coalition became the most virulent race-baiters.  The most obvious example is Tom Watson.

U.S. Foreign Interests

• In 1898, the U.S. plunged into imperialistic adventures overseas under the leadership of the Republican Party.  These adventures in the Pacific and the Caribbean suddenly brought under the jurisdiction of the U.S. some eight million additional people of color.  As the northern-based Nation reported, they "of course, could not be allowed to vote." (qtd. in C. Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow, 3rd rev. ed. [1974], 72)
• As America shouldered the White Man's Burden, to Christianize and uplift, we also took up at the same time many southern attitudes on the subject of race.  The imperialistic tendencies of the nation justified southern race practices, particularly in areas where non-whites outnumbered whites.  The preservation of Anglo-Saxon purity justified even violent suppression of non-white peoples.
• New York Times - "Northern men . . . no longer denounce the suppression of the Negro vote [in the South] as it used to be denounced in the Reconstruction days.  The necessity of it under the supreme law of self-preservation is candidly recognized." (qtd. in Woodward, Strange Career, 73)