Prejudice and intolerance against African Americans
Learn more about the experiences of African-Americans in this podcast.
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The African American experience
By the 1920s, there were around 12 million African Americans living in the USA, with the majority living in the southern states. After the American Civil WarA civil war fought between the northern and southern states in America between 1861 and 1865. It was over the question of whether slavery could be expanded from the South into newly acquired territories. formerly enslaved people and their descendants faced much discrimination from white southerners. segregationThis meant that white people and black people had to live separately. The areas of society affected by segregation included churches, hospitals, theatres and schools. and violence were used to restrict their freedom.
In the South, most were sharecroppersFarmers who had to pay to use land by giving a proportion of their produce to the owner. living in poverty, although many moved to the cities as farming became less profitable in this period. Around 750,000 African Americans also moved to the North in the 1920s. In the North there was no legal discrimination as in the segregated South. However, racism and social tensions existed through unofficial segregation.
The Jim Crow laws in the South
Life in the South was hard for the vast majority of African Americans. Legally enforced racism existed through the Jim Crow lawsThe laws that introduced segregation in the US South (the laws that kept black people and white people apart). passed by each state. These laws saw segregation applied in many areas of life, including in buses, schools, sports teams, theatres and parks. Separate facilities were provided for black people, and these were generally inferior to those provided for white people. Residential segregation was in place in southern cities.
This was accompanied by political discrimination. Most states passed laws that Disenfranchisement The removal of the right to vote. African Americans by preventing them from voting through literacy tests or by setting high poll taxA tax paid by all adults. The amount was the same for everyone, regardless of their income or occupation. requirements to be able to vote. As black people generally earned far less in wages, they could not meet these requirements. Poverty among African Americans was common, with few African Americans in the South able to access a good education or find well-paid jobs.
Explore divisions in 1920s American society through animation and archive footage.
Intimidation and violence
Segregation was used to keep African Americans apart from white southerners, and violence and intimidation were used to ensure that this did not change. lynchingExecuting someone (usually by hanging) without a legal trial. was extremely common. President Warren Harding spoke out against lynching in 1921 in Alabama and attempted to pass an anti-lynching law. However, around 400 African Americans were lynched during the 1920s.
Racists also attempted to intimidate African American by conducting race riotA violent disturbance of the peace that results from racial tension and hostility. Hundreds of people were killed. In 1921, the Tulsa race riot destroyed African American property worth almost $1.5 million when stores were looted. There were no convictions for any of this violence. In fact, it was extremely difficult for any African American to achieve justice in the South. This was because all-white juries were usual in criminal cases.
Ku Klux Klan
One group that was responsible for much of the intimidation and violence towards African Americans was the Ku Klux KlanA white supremacist organisation that used violence and intimidation to target black, immigrant, Jewish and Catholic people. Its members believe, based on incorrect and unscientific ideas about evolution, that white people are superior and should therefore hold the power in society. This was a racist group that had been founded in 1865. It was revived in 1915 after the release of the film Birth of a Nation, which glorified their past. It grew quickly and by 1921 it had 100,000 members. The people who joined were white Anglo-Saxon Protestants (often known as WASPs). In the mid-1920s, the KKK had around 5 million members, including politicians and judges.
The KKK started in the southern states but became a national organisation in the 1920s. As well as black Americans, its members attacked Catholics, Jews, immigrants and communistSupporters of the communist movement or party. They believed that they were protecting traditional American values and wanted absolute loyalty to the USA.
The group declined in membership after 1925, when one of the KKK leaders was convicted of murder. He became an informer to the authorities about corruption in the highest KKK offices. In the 1920s, the KKK used a variety of methods of intimidation that affected American society.
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Migration
One result of the problems facing African Americans in the South was the mass migration of around 750,000 black people to the North in the 1920s. By 1930, around 2 million black people lived in the northern states. The African American populations of cities such as New York, Chicago, Detroit and Philadelphia grew in the 1920s, with the promise of no Jim Crow laws and better wages.
Despite these apparent improvements, other problems were quick to emerge. White workers were angered by job competition. Unofficial segregation developed where white homeowners were unwilling to accept African American migrants into their communities.
