White Terror Black Fear

Jim Crow laws and segregation were ways of keeping Black people under the control of Whites Another method of controlling the Black people was through fear and terror A Negro in the South who tried to vote might lost his job or be beaten up. When a man was asked why he didn’t vote he said, ‘I don’t want my throat cut.’

Fear and terror was created in the Southern States through beating, torturing and lynching. What was lynching? Originally a system of punishment used by whites against African American slaves Meant being whipped, hanged, or even burned alive by a white mob This would usually be watched by a white crowd It involved ‘Lynch law’ meaning a group of people, usually White would decide if a person was guilty of a crime

Who was lynched? Any Black person who was suspected or accused of a crime, and who was often in custody awaiting trial Very often the evidence was flimsy or non existent Or a black person who was regarded as ‘an uppity nigger’ (a black person who was doing well or spoke up for his/herself) People were often lynched for looking at a white person the wrong way or whistling at a white woman

What did the law do about lynching? Lynching was illegal There was no trial, no defence and judge Little was done to stop lynching Local police were powerless to stop lynch mobs

How many people were lynched? Estimated between 1880 -1919, an average 2 Black people a week were lynched in the US 90% of those lynched were Black In the period before 1918, over 50 women were lynched

How many people were lynched? An investigation into lynching in 1930 revealed that 3,724 people were lynched in the United States from 1889 – 1930 Practically all of the lynchers were whites Of tens of thousands of lynchers and onlookers, only 49 were arrested and only 4 sentenced

An anti-lynching campaign by the NAACP Do not look at the Negro his early problems are ended. Instead, look at the seven WHITE children who gaze at this gruesome spectacle. Is it horror or gloating on the face of the neatly dressed seven year old girl on the right? Is the tiny four year old on the left old enough, one wonders, to comprehend the barbarism her elders have perpetrated? Rubin Stacey, the Negro, who was lynched at Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on July 19, 1935, for ‘threatening and frightening a white woman,’ suffered PHYSICAL torture for a few short hours. But what psychological havoc is being wrought in the minds of the white children?

Group Task Source A is an extract from a textbook published in 1999. In 1892, a 30-year old shoemaker named Homer Plessy was arrested for sitting in a car for only white people on the East Louisiana Railroad. He had refused to move to a black car. Even though he was seven-eighths white and only one-eighth black, he was put in jail. The Louisiana law stated that if you had any black ancestors, you were considered black. Because of this, Plessy was required to sit in the "colored" or "black" car. How useful is Source A as evidence of the treatment of Black Americans in Southern America during the late 19th century? 4 marks

Source A is a photograph showing a lynching taken in a Southern State in the 1930s How useful is Source A as evidence about the treatment of black people in the early 20th America? 4 marks