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Required reading:
"Clarksdale," Nicholas Lemann, Essay 16, Flyover
"A Texas Lynching," Essay 17, Flyover
"Against All Odds," Clarissa Myrick-Harris, Essay 18, Flyover
"Tulsa Burning," Jonathan Z. Larsen, Essay 19, Flyover
Quiz:
"Clarksdale"
1. What was the Mississippi Delta's great cultural art form?
A. jazz
B. ragtime
C. rock and roll
D. the blues
2. What "created an especially great demand for cotton"?
A. World War I
B. World War II
C. The Roaring '20's
D. The Great Depression
3. Why did blacks refer to Chicago as "the Promised Land"?
A. they saw it as one full of economic opportunities
B. they wanted to return home to their birthplace
C. they realized it was the best place to receive an education
D. they knew the urban north would be a life free of racism
4. What was the reality of a sharecropper's life in the Delta?
A. a time of quiet contemplation while working with family members
B. freedom to achieve whatever your slave ancestors could not
C. a destitute existence where it was nearly impossible to make money
D. a stepping stone to owning land and beginning your own business
5. What was the monthly stipend that was supposed to cover the living expenses until the crop came in the fall?
A. the furnish
B. seed money
C. the take up
D. the settle
6. What was provided to the sharecropper to cover for cotton seeds and roots for cultivation?
A. the furnish
B. cotton cash
C. root money
D. seed money
7. What did the sharecropper have to do to the cotton on a regular basis between planting and harvesting?
A. shade it
B. chop it
C. sanitize it
D. fallow it
8. What was the "take up"?
A. the sharecropper had to borrow money at the commissary
B. the planter repossessed the sharecropper's land
C. the planter replaced the sharecropper with a tractor
D. the sharecropper packed up and left for Chicago
9. What happened at "the settle"?
A. the sharecropper negotiated with the plantation manager for a fair cotton price
B. an outside arbitrator was brought in to negotiate cotton crop prices
C. the plantation manager paid the sharecropper for his share of crop
D. the sharecropper paid off all his debts to the plantation manager
10. What was one way planters cheated sharecroppers?
A. by leasing them over-cultivated land that resulted in a poor harvest
B. by forcing them off the land if the harvest was too bountiful
C. by renting them expensive apartments that contained no public utilities
D. by charging them exorbitant interest at the commissary and on the furnish
11. What the planter did to the sharecropper "by adding a lot of imaginary equipment repairs to the expense side of the settle statement"?
A. to furnish
B. to chop
C. to soak
D. to seed
12. How did planters explain the poverty experienced by sharecroppers?
A. it was their own fault
B. it was God's will
C. it was due to a lack of rain
D. it was due to poor soil
13. What happened to most black families in the Delta during the time after "the settle"?
A. they stayed put on their plantations
B. they moved to other plantations
C. they saved enough money to retire early
D. they re-located to western homestead land
"A Texas Lynching"
14. How was Abe Wilder killed?
A. He was hanged
B. He was burned
C. He was shot
D. He was buried alive
15. In the story A Texas Lynching, what did Abe Wildner receive?
A. trial by jury and acquittal
B. the right to tell his side of the story
C. consultation with a lawyer
D. mob justice
16. What physical evidence supposedly linked Wilder to the murder of Mrs. J.M. Caldwell?
A. Her ears
B. An old pocket watch
C. Articles of clothing
D. A photograph of her sister
"Against All Odds"
17. Define lynching:
A. to segregate people according to their skin color
B. to boycott segregated institutions in the South
C. to harass people because they speak Gullah
D. to kill a person without receiving a legal trial
18. What did Ida B. Wells do to the train conductor when he demanded she move to a car designated for black passengers?
A. she complied
B. she ignored him
C. she screamed
D. she bit his hand
19. What was enacted in southern states after slavery was abolished in 1865?
A. Jim Crow laws
B. desegregation
C. integration
D. anti-terrorism laws
20. In what atmosphere did a late nineteenth century lynching take place in the South?
A. under the supervisor of a federal marshal and armed guards
B. with a large crowd that brought along children and picnic baskets
C. outside the territorial domain and legal system of Dixie states
D. in a secluded place often near a swamp where few people attended
21. What taboo subject did Ida B. Wells suggest was consensual between black men and white women?
A. drinking
B. smoking pot
C. sex
D. co-habitation
21. How did Ida B. Wells attempt to change the way Americans viewed lynchings?
A. as an institution where whites were not guilty of crimes done against humanity
B. as a crime where whites could be rehabilitated through community service
C. as a historical tradition where blacks were helpless to change the prevailing system
D. as a practice where whites were the problem and blacks those in need of justice
22. Who emerged as "the leader" of black America at the turn of the twentieth century?
A. Ida B. Wells
B. Frederick Douglass
C. Booker T. Washington
D. W.E.B. DuBois
"Tulsa Burning"
23. Why is Tulsa Burning a case study in cultural amnesia?
A. older black residents of Tulsa don't tell the story to their younger kin
B. younger black residents of Tulsa ignore the city's past because it's boring
C. white residents of Tulsa deny the role of their ancestors in the riot
D. all residents of Tulsa want to forget the past and move forward
24. What caused resentment among poorer whites in early 20th century Tulsa?
A. welfare families
B. immigrant laborers
C. wildcatters of the oil fields
D. black prosperity
25. What group was strongest in Tulsa at the time of the riot?
A. the Oklahoma Republican Party
B. the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
C. the Ku Klux Klan
D. the United Negro Improvement Association
26. What was the initial impetus for the Tulsa Burning?
A. a protest movement by black civic leaders against segregation of the local schools
B. trumped up charges made by a white woman and a newspaper against a black man
C. lack of employment opportunities for charter members of the local Ku Klux Klan
D. the city’s sewer lines were not extended to the segregated black side of town
27. What happened in the aftermath of Tulsa Burning?
A. the city fathers tried to keep black Tulsans from rebuilding
B. the city asked charitable organizations to help rebuild the black community
C. white Tulsans were swindled out of their land by the city fathers
D. immediate restitution was made by the city to all who had relatives killed
A: Ida B. Wells was the most outspoken of African American critics of lynching. Yet few contemporary Americans have ever heard of her and what she attempted to do- end the terrorist murders committed primarily by southern white citizens on minorities. (View Without Sanctuary for photos of such atrocities.) However, with all that Ida B. Wells said, wrote, and did she has been relegated to the footnotes of American history. Read Wells's 1900 article, Lynch Law in America. What is her key message here? Why were the perpetrators not prosecuted? What role did law enforcement play in lynchings? How did the public in general view the practice?
B: W.E.B. DuBois predicted in his 1903 book Souls of Black Folk that the problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color-line. Based on the what you know about more recent historical events (e.g. Civil Rights struggles of the 1950's and 1960's), current events, and perhaps through personal experience, the twentieth century did not solve the problem. Write a brief essay explaining whether you agree or disagree with DuBois' statement. Include historical reasoning for your answer.
C: With the 1998 dragging death of James Byrd in Jasper, Texas, American citizens expressed their outrage that such a hate crime occurred in this day and age. View the site Without Sanctuary and consider the fact that hate crimes have been an intregal part of our past. The photographs and postcards of lynchings in America portray a history that has a ghastly past. Why is the website titled Without Sanctuary? Why were most of these photos made into postcards? What is the purpose of a postcard? What can we learn from that past? How has America changed? Where is there room for improvement? What suggestions do you have to insure that such a past is never repeated?
D: The Tulsa Race Riot Commission has actively been studying the Tulsa Burning incident over the past few years. Link to The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. What new information and evidence has been uncovered since Jonathan Z. Larsen wrote his article Tulsa Burning? View the Tulsa Race Riot Photos of 1921. Read the short article Tulsa race riot omitted from history books. Explain the reasons why this incident in American history has been covered up for so many years.
E: View the 1915 film Birth of a Nation. This D.W. Griffith film was one of the first full length feature films ever made. The plot surrounds the era of Reconstruction in the South (1865-1877). It's clear from the start that the former Confederate states were given a raw deal in the aftermath of the Civil War (1861-1865). According to the film, an organization of men rise to take the South back from Yankee carpetbaggers and freedmen (former slaves). This fraternal group is the Ku Klux Klan. What is the filmmmaker's intent? How might a 1915 audience react to Birth of a Nation? What does this film tell you about white America at the time? Why would President Woodrow Wilson say after seeing the film that: "It's like writing history with lightning. And my only regret is that it is all terribly true."? How did this film lay the groundwork for such "historically accurate" works like Gone With the Wind in 1939?
F: Why is Mark Twain's work The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn so influential? Huckleberry Finn has been debated, attacked and censored ever since its publication in 1885. Written in dialect, Huckleberry Finn’s power lies in the characters’ own "voices." As the story begins, Huck says:
You don’t know about me, without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly...
Set before the Civil War, it is the story of two runaways - a white boy, Tom’s friend Huckleberry Finn – who is fleeing civilization – and a black man, Jim, who is running away from slavery. Huck’s experiences with Jim make him question everything he has been taught about black people and slavery, about right and wrong, good and evil. When Huck awakens to hear Jim crying for his lost children, he realizes for the first time that I guess Jim misses his family the way white folk’d do their’n. Later, Huck feels he has been wrong to help Jim escape and writes a letter to Jim’s owner telling him where his fleeing property can be found. But before mailing it he hesitates, remembering Jim’s kindness on their trip on the river and how Jim had said that Huck was the best friend he’d ever had in the world, "and the only one he’s got now..."
Huck continues: ... and then I happened to look around and see that paper. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: "All right then, I’ll go to hell" - and tore it up.
What makes Huck change his mind about returning Jim to his "owner"?
What message was Mark Twain telling Americans in the post-Civil War
era? Did America understand Twain's message? Were the words Huck says
"All right then, I'll go to hell", a new awakening for the American people?
G: Jim Crow laws were in place throughout the nation until mid-twentieth century, enforcing segregation in every aspect of life imaginable. The Martin Luther King National Historic Site staff created this collection of Jim Crow laws from different states. While the site contains many laws you may be familiar with, were there any here that you hadn't heard of before? Choose two of the less familiar laws and imagine you are a black resident of the state, a black business owner, a white business owner and a white resident of the state. How would these laws look to these different groups of people? What would be some different reasons for approval or disapproval of the laws from each of these groups?