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Troubling Times: African Americans at the Turn of the 20th Century
Teaching with Primary Sources
Illinois State University
Patrick Lawler
Normal Community High School
Summer 2012
Teaching with Primary Sources
Illinois State University
Booker T Washington standing on a sidewalk by an automobile
DN-0056935, Chicago Daily News negatives collection, Chicago History Museum
The period after the Civil War was very difficult for African Americans. Although slavery technically ended, they remained socially, politically, and economically oppressed. In addition, lynchings threatened those who tried to enact positive change. This lesson asks students to consider the different ideas of Booker T. Washington and WEB Dubois, and come to their own conclusion about whose approach would be the best for advancing the interests of African Americans in the South.
Overview/ Materials/Historical Background/LOC Resources/Standards/ Procedures/Evaluation/Rubric/Handouts/Extension
Overview Back to Navigation BarObjectives / Students will:
· Understand the role of lynching in maintaining the white power structure in the south.
· Critically analyze primary sources from around the turn of the 20th century and reach independent conclusions about the period based on the sources.
· Understand the approaches of Booker T. Washington and WEB Dubois in enacting social change.
· Develop empathy for the African American community at the turn of the 20th century.
· Conduct a reflective debate on which of the two approaches would better serve the African American community at the turn of the 20th century.
Recommended time frame / 6 Days
Grade level / 11-12
Curriculum fit / US History
Materials / · Access to Computer Lab
· Computer & projector to display internet site
· Primary Sources on Lynching Analysis Sheet
· Which Approach
· Atlanta Exposition Speech
· The Souls of Black Folks (Ch. 3)
· In Their Own Words
· Debate Sheet
· Debate Rubric
· Whose Approach Won Out
Illinois State Learning Standards Back to Navigation Bar
Language Arts:
GOAL 4: Listen and speak effectively in a variety of situations.
· 4.A. Listen effectively in formal and informal situations.
· 4.A.5b Use techniques for analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of oral messages.
Social Science:
GOAL 14: Understand political systems, with an emphasis on the United States
· 14.C. Understand election processes and responsibilities of citizens.
· 14.C.3 Compare historical issues involving rights, roles and status of individuals in relation to municipalities, states and the nation.
· 14.D. Understand the roles and influences of individuals and interest groups in the political systems of Illinois, the United States and other nations.
· 14.D.5 Interpret a variety of public policies and issues from the perspectives of different individuals and groups.
GOAL 16: Understand events, trends, individuals and movements shaping the history of Illinois, the United States and other nations.
· 16.A. Apply the skills of historical analysis and interpretation.
· 16.A.3b Make inferences about historical events and eras using historical maps and other historical sources.
· 16.D. Understand Illinois, United States and world social history.
· 16.D.5 (US) Analyze the relationship between an issue in United States social history and the related aspects of political, economic and environmental history.
GOAL 18: Understand social systems, with an emphasis on the United States.
· 18.B. Understand the roles and interactions of individuals and groups in society.
· 18.B.5 Use methods of social science inquiry (pose questions, collect and analyze data, make and support conclusions with evidence, report findings) to study the development and functions of social systems and report conclusions
Procedures Back to Navigation Bar
Day One-Two:
· Have a discussion with the class to review all of the problems that confronted African-Americans near the turn of the century. Record discussion notes and put up on the board and keep them there for the remainder of the unit: Problems confronting African Americans (around 1900)
· Sharecropping (economic inequality),
· Poll taxes/Grandfather Clauses/Literacy Tests (political inequality)
· Segregation (social inequality)
· Explain that we are going to try to put ourselves into the shoes of the African-American community around 1900. We are going to try to come up with the best possible approach to bring about social change, given these conditions that are holding us back. However, before we can grapple with that issue, you need to know what often times confronted individuals who tried to change these inequalities. We will be looking at lynching.
· Divide students into 5 groups and distribute the Primary Sources on Lynching Analysis Sheet. Have students go to a computer lab so that they can access the document that they will be analyzing. Have them complete the sheet and then share their source and their conclusions about lynchings with the class. As they share their sources, ensure that the following points are mentioned:
· Lynching was a fairly common form of justice with whites being lynched too. However, far more African-Americans suffered this fate.
· Lynchings were far more common in the South, where whites were trying to maintain their power structure.
· Lynchings were social events for the white community: often times you’d bring a date with you.
· The African-Americans were often tortured (burnt, had parts of their bodies cut off) before they were hung.
· There were many, even throughout the South, who opposed the practice of lynching and the mistreatment of African Americans.
· Police officers and other government officials would have taken part in these events as well. As such, African Americans would have found these events very intimidating and frightening.
· Often times white attendees took a piece of the lynched man’s clothing or his teeth with them as a souvenir.
· Make sure students understand just how hideous, disgusting, and intimidating these events were.
· If time remains, pull up the website http://withoutsanctuary.org/main.html in front of the class. This is an online exhibit of lynching photographs/postcards. As a class, flip through some of those pictures asking students:
· Why are so many white people smiling in these photographs? What does this tell us about these events?
· What can we infer about these events based on the fact that these are postcards?
· Explain to students that often times the white attendees took a piece of the lynched man’s clothing or his teeth with them as a souvenir (the same way your students might hang on to a ticket stub from a sporting event). These were truly hideous, disgusting events.
Day Three-Four:
· Review the inequalities facing African Americans and the threat of physical violence that confronted them and their families if they tried to stand up to the system.
· Distribute the handout entitled Which Approach and have students read over it and complete it. Poll the class and discuss the reasons behind their initial choices.
· Explain to the class that these approaches correspond to the views of two African-American civil rights leaders at the turn of the century. The left column represents the views of Booker T. Washington and the right column represents the views of W.E.B. Dubois.
· Distribute copies of the Atlanta Exposition Speech to the class. Have them read over the speech and complete the “Atlanta Exposition Speech-Booker T. Washington” portion of the In their Own Words Handout. Once students have completed this activity, discuss the meaning of “casting down your buckets” to both whites and blacks. Washington expected blacks to take the menial jobs that whites were offering all around them, and he expected whites to hire the impoverished blacks who had been loyal workers and surrounded them in the south.
· At the end of day 4, distribute copies of Chapter 3 from the Souls of Black Folks and have students read this and complete the portion of In their Own Words entitled “Souls of Black Folks- W.E.B. Dubois” for homework.
Day Five:
· Have students get with a partner and share their responses for the homework from the previous night. Proceed to then discuss the major disagreements and points that W.E.B. made in opposition to Booker T. Washington.
· Proceed to give students the Debate Sheet and give them the rest of the hour to prepare for the following day’s debate.
Day Six:
· Divide the desks in the class into 2 groupings and have students sit on sides according to whether they support Booker or W.E.B. Go over the debate rubric with students so that they know
Evaluation Back to Navigation Bar
Students will be asked to choose between the positions of Booker T. Washington and WEB Dubois. They will fill out a Debate Sheet prior to the debate to help organize their thoughts and arguments. The class will then have a debate on the final day of the Unit in which they will be graded by the Debate Rubric. If students are shy or unable to participate in the Debate, extra attention can be given to the ideas formulated in the Debate Sheet.
Extension Back to Navigation Bar
As an extension activity, students can write a 1-2 page handwritten paper on whose approach actually brought greater results for African Americans in the 20th Century. They can use Whose Approach Won Out to guide them in this process.
Historical Background
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Quite a few Americans have the mistaken belief that the end of the Civil War brought about equality for African Americans. The 13th Amendment ended slavery, the 14th Amendment promised equal rights, and the 15th Amendment gave them the vote. Unfortunately, the failure to redistribute land ownership to African Americans after the Civil War led to sharecropping, which subverted the aims of the 13th Amendment. The guarantees of the 14th Amendment were denied to African Americans by the Plessy v. Ferguson decision (1896), which legalized an inherently unequal system of segregation. Finally, southern whites sidestepped the 15th Amendment through the use of poll taxes, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses. Sadly, the conditions facing African Americans at the turn of the 1900 were virtually indistinguishable from those facing them prior to the Civil War. And for any African Americans threatening this social order or trying to bring about positive change, the Klu Klux Klan and threat of lynching presented scary obstacles.
It was against this backdrop that two prominent African Americans, Booker T. Washington and WEB Dubois, emerged with competing strategies to improve the lot of southern blacks. Booker T. Washington, who had been born into slavery before the civil war and rose to prominence through his hard work, advocated for a gradual approach to bringing about greater equality. He believed that blacks should take the jobs that were being offered to them by the whites. Through their accumulation of wealth, Washington believed, blacks would be able to attain houses and other commodities that would enable them to eventually gain the respect of whites. To help southern blacks learn these basic trades, Washington founded the Tuskegee Institute, which provided classes on agricultural techniques, carpentry, and other manual labor skills.
WEB Dubois, however, thought that this strategy was foolhardy. He argued that southern blacks had toiled under the thumbs of whites for forty years since the end of the Civil War, and their positions in society had deteriorated rather than improved. He believed that African Americans needed to demand immediate equality. This could be attained, he argued, through the higher education of those blacks who had access to such colleges and classes (“The Talented Tenth”). Black lawyers would be able to challenge unjust laws in court and offer legal defenses to blacks falsely charged with crimes. Thus, this talented tenth could improve conditions for all blacks at once. According to Dubois, economic equality could not be attained until the laws had changed to allow blacks to accumulate wealth and material possessions. This approach promised confrontation with southern whites and the specter of violence that it could lead to scared many southern blacks.
These two intellectual heavyweights spared many times at the turn of the 20th century. Their ideas seemed to be in direct opposition, and although they respected each other, they each believed that only their approach could bring about the improvement of the African American community throughout the South.
Primary Resources from the Library of Congress
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Image / Description / Citation / URL/ "Atlanta Exposition Speech," September 18, 1895. / Library of Congress, African American Odessey: A Quest for Full Citizenship / http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/aaodyssey:@field(NUMBER+@band(mssmisc+ody0605))
/ The souls of black folk : essays and sketches / by W.E. Burghardt Du Bois / University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Academic Affairs Library, The Church in the Southern Black Community / http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/uncall:@field(DOCID+@lit(BDP-1646))
/ Booker T. Washington standing on a sidewalk by an automobile / DN-0056935, Chicago Daily News negatives collection, Chicago History Museum / http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/cdn:@field(NUMBER+@band(ichicdn+n056935))
/ Lynchings in 1897 [from newspaper / Newspaper Roll#4431,
Cleveland Gazette 15, no. 23 (01/08/1898): 02, Ohio Historical Society / http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/aaeo:@field(DOCID+@lit(o18854))
/ Lynchings by states and counties in the United States, 1900-1931 : (data from Research Department, Tuskegee Institute) ; cleartype county outline map of the United States. / Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division / http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/gmd:@field(NUMBER+@band(g3701e+ct002012))
/ Lynching's Influence [from newspaper] / Newspaper Roll#4432,
Cleveland Gazette 19, no. 20 (12/21/1901): 03,
Ohio Historical Society / http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/aaeo:@field(DOCID+@lit(o19625))
/ Law or Lynching?. [The Century; a popular quarterly. / Volume 42, Issue 2, Jun 1891] / Library of Congress, The Nineteenth Century in Print: Periodicals / http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/ncpsbib:@field(DOCID+@lit(ABP2287-0042-69_bib))
/ Address on Lynching. [The American missionary. / Volume 49, Issue 12, Dec 1895] / Library of Congress, The Nineteenth Century in Print: Periodicals / http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/ncpsbib:@field(DOCID+@lit(ABK5794-0049-230_bib))
Rubric