I.   BBK: BUILDING BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE

“Separate But Equal” was made the law of the land as a result of the Plessy v Ferguson decision. These “Jim Crow Laws” would separate everyone in public life on the basis of race. Although they were separate, there was definitely no equality. Often, it would be the black citizens who would have the least.

Check out this brief  introduction from Vision Chasers below to help  build your background knowledge.

 ANSWER THE QUESTIONS ON THE JimCrowWebQuestNoteCatcher WORKSHEET (Right Click and open in separate tab.)

 

II. PHOTOS – PRIMARY SOURCE ANALYSIS

Photos about racial segregation in the Southern United States during the 1920’s, 1930’s, 1940’s and 1950’s. In those days, white southern governments (local and state) established racist segregational laws. Blacks were not allowed to stay together with whites in public places such as lunch counters, restaurants, theaters, public transportation, schools, restrooms, pools, fountains, waiting rooms, libraries, some communities, etc. Ever since, most of the black community was Christian, and were known as the “black church” (African American Baptists, Episcopalians, Pentecostals, Methodists, etc). Many of them expressed their faith in the middle of these troubled times with public demonstrations known as “Prayer-ins”, which would also be used by Pastor Martin Luther King Jr. during the Civil Rights Movement.

VIEW Segregation in the southern USA (Jim Crow Laws period Photos) below or Right Click and open in separate tab.)

Note the “Negro Spiritual” as background music in this video. Of all the pictures, only one was taken in Boston; all the others were taken in Southern States such as Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Virginia, etc. Here you can see statements like “White only” or “Colored people only”.

AFTER VIEWING THE SLIDE SHOW, READ THE COMMENTS FROM OTHERS WHO HAVE VIEWED THE PHOTOS.  USE YOUR NOTE CATCHER TO CHOOSE ONE COMMENT, CITE IT (COPY THE COMMENT) AND RESPOND TO IT.

Q1. DO YOU AGREE/DISAGREE? DID IT SURPRISE YOU?

Q2. WHY/WHY NOT?

Q3. WHERE WERE THE PHOTOS TAKEN?

Q4. WHAT IS ATTITUDE OF THE AUTHOR WHO POSTED THE YOUTUBE PHOTOS TOWARDS THOSE WHO POSTED THE SEGREGATIONIST SIGNS?

 

III.      MEET “JIM CROW” – PRIMARY SOURCE ANALYSIS

Curators at the Library of Congress describe this image: “Jim Crow. Print shows African American man in tattered clothes walking or dancing as a couple of animals dressed as humans stroll alongside a river with a steamboat and sailboat.” The publication date of this illustration is uncertain, perhaps sometime between 1835-1845. The term “Jim Crow” was eventually used to describe American laws which permitted racial segregation.

Click on the image for a better view.

Task 1: AUDITORY/LITERAL PRIMARY SOURCE ANALYSIS

“JIM CROW” was an antebellum* character in a minstrel show.

Minstrel Shows were the most popular musical stage shows of the early and mid 19th Century. Minstrel shows embodied racial hatred. Both white and black performers donned blackface, and audiences of all colors loved it. Hateful as their content was, minstrel shows were the first form of musical theater that was 100% American-born and bred.

*Antebellum refers to the period BEFORE the Civil War which began in 1861 and ended in 1865

Thomas (“Daddy”) Rice created a character (“Jim Crow”) which he incorporated into his popular minstrel show.

He sang the following words, set to the music in this audio clip (from the Library of Congress) Use your  PrimarySong Analysis worksheet to analyze this primary source (text below):

For audio file –  (Right Click the following link and open in separate tab.) https://www.awesomestories.com/asset/view/Jump-Jim-Crow-Music-from-Library-of-Congress

Come listen all you galls and boys,

I’m going to sing a little song,
My name is Jim Crow.

Chorus:  Weel about and turn about and do jis so
Eb’ry time I weel about I jump Jim Crow.

I went down to de river, I didn’t mean to stay,
But there I see so many gals, I couldn’t get away.

I’m rorer on de fiddle, an‘ down in ole Virginny,
Dey say I play de skientific, like massa Paganini.

I cut so many munky shines, I dance de galloppade;
An‘ w’en I done, I res‘ my head, on shubble, hoe or spade.

I met Miss Dina Scrub one day, I gib her sich a buss;
An‘ den she turn an’ slap my face, an’ make a mighty fuss.

De udder gals dey ‘gin to fight, I tel’d dem wait a bit;
I’d hab dem all, jis one by one, as I tourt fit.

I wip de lion ob de west, I eat de alligator;
I put more water in my mouf, den boil ten load ob ‘tator.

De way dey bake de hoe cake, Virginny nebber tire;
Dey put de doe upon de foot, an‘ stick ’em in de fire.

Task 2: PRIMARY SOURCE ANALYSIS – CARTOON

White Car and Jim Crow Car

John Tinney McCutcheon was a famous cartoonist in the early 1900s.  Many of his political cartoons were published in newspapers, especially the Chicago Tribune, and in subsequent books.

This image, depicting the real (not theoretical) impact of “Jim Crow” laws in public transportation, is cropped from a larger political cartoon entitled “Mississippi at the St. Louis Fair.“

McCutcheon included that cartoon in his book The Mysterious Stranger and other Cartoons (published in 1905).

You can view the book and all the cartoons using this link  (Right Click and open in separate tab.) or the one above.

For this task however, let’s ZOOM IN and focus on the image above and analyze using your cartoon_analysis_worksheet

 

IV.     BBK: ORAL HISTORY – VISUAL INTERPRETATION

When Theresa Burroughs came of voting age, she was ready to cast her ballot—but she had a long fight ahead of her. During the Jim Crow era, the board of registrars at Alabama’s Hale County Courthouse (a 3 1/2 hour drive from Brighten) prevented African Americans from registering to vote. Undeterred, Theresa remembers venturing to the courthouse on the first and third Monday of each month, in pursuit of her right to vote. The link below will take you to an animation based on Ms. Burroughs’ recollections as recorded by StoryCorp  (which is worth checking out and will expose you to a wide variety of oral histories and topics.)

You can record your own story at the Atlanta Story Corp booth at the Atlanta History Center

See and hear Theresa Burroughs’ story – A More Perfect Union (Right Click and open in separate tab.)

 

 

V. LITERAL/ORAL HISTORY PRIMARY SOURCE TRANSCRIPT

Briggs v. Elliott

In the heart of the cotton belt, where white landowners and business leaders had ruled Clarendon County, South Carolina (a 5-hour drive from Brighten) for generations, poor rural African Americans made a stand. They asked for a school bus for their children, and the county denied their request. Risking retaliation, they raised the stakes and demanded that their children have the right to attend white schools.

The case began in 1947 as a request to provide bus transportation. In addition to having separate and very inferior facilities, black children had to walk to school, sometimes many miles. In the neighboring Jordan community, some children walked as many as 18 miles round-trip to school each day, and children had to frequently gather wood for heaters within schools. Knowing this, Summerton residents Harry and Eliza Briggs joined a petition with 21 other families to find a school bus suitable for their children, but frequent maintenance led them to ask the local school superintendent, R.M. Elliott, for their own bus. Surmising that the white children rode buses—the white schools in Clarendon County used 33 buses at the time for white students—the Briggs family and many others contended black students could have at least one. Elliott refused, saying black citizens did not pay enough taxes to warrant a bus and that asking white taxpayers to fund that burden would be unfair.

The link below will take you to the transcript of the interview with Harry and Eliza Briggs. Read the 39 question interview and use the Comparing Concepts – SegragatedSchools graphic organizer to record the comparative details.

Read the interview here – Interview with Harry Briggs, Sr. and Eliza Briggs (Right Click and open in separate 

COMPARE AND CONTRAST – LIBERTY HILL VS SUMMERTON

“Colored” School

Because the school board refused to fund buses for black students, the county’s 61 “colored” schools were scattered throughout the region. Most, like Liberty Hill Colored School, were small wooden structures that accommodated one or two classrooms. In the 1949-50 school year, for every dollar spent on a white child, only 24 cents was allotted for a black student. Not surprisingly, black adults in the county averaged just over four years of education.

(Source: South Carolina Department of Archives and History)

 

White school in Summerton

The county provided 30 buses to bring white children to larger and better-equipped facilities. White children from the Summerton area attended this red brick building with a separate lunchroom and science laboratories. Most rural black schools had neither electricity nor running water.

(Source: South Carolina Department of Archives and History)

 

VI. STRANGE FRUIT

For many African Americans growing up in the South in the 19th and 20th centuries, the threat of lynching was commonplace. The popular image of an angry white mob stringing a black man up to a tree is only half the story. Lynching, an act of terror meant to spread fear among blacks, served the broad social purpose of maintaining white supremacy in the economic, social and political spheres.

Jazz singer Billy Holiday made a song about the horrors of lynching famous. When Holiday decided to sing “Strange Fruit,” the song reached millions of people. While the lyrics never mention lynching, the metaphor is painfully clear:

Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black body swinging in the Southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant South,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh,
And the sudden smell of burning flesh!

Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for a tree to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

Use your StrangeFruit Note-Catcher to answer the following questions:

Q1. What connections can you make between the photograph of the tree and the lyrics of “Strange Fruit”?

Q2. How does the lyric make use of figurative language? Cite any examples of figurative language you can identify in the lyrics and explain how it is being used.

You can hear and watch the singer sing the song below: