To what extent was American society racist in the 1920s?

GCSE Religious Studies (Philosophy & Ethics)

Mamoon Ahmad Bradford Grammar School 4DRo

Black people have always been a part of America’s history. They were brought to America in the seventeenth century as slaves by white settlers. Slavery ended by the nineteenth century, and by this time there were more black Americans than white Americans in the southern states. However, Blacks always had a tough time, this is due to the stereotypical view that the people had of them. The whites believed that the Blacks were primitive, illiterate and criminals. However, this view was not true, a good example would be Paul Robeson who was the son of a former slave and passed his law exams with honours from Columbia University in 1923. White governments feared that the Blacks would take power, and so introduced many laws which took away their freedom (they were not given Civil rights). A good example here is the Jim Crow laws in the southern states which promised that Blacks should be ‘separate but equal.’ This actually meant that at railway stations, bus stops and even drinking fountains Blacks could not mix with Whites. They were also denied access to decent jobs, to worthwhile education and the right to vote. Also, they suffered great poverty well into the twentieth century.

It may seem that this was already a great oppression against the Black Americans, yet White supremacist organisations such as the Ku Klux Klan that had faded away in the late nineteenth century, had suddenly reappeared to abuse and in some cases, murder Blacks. The Klan became a powerful political force in the 1920s. It used parades, beatings, lynching and other violent methods to intimidate Blacks. It also attacked Jews, Catholics and immigrants. It was strongest in the rural south where working-class whites competed with Blacks for unskilled jobs. It spread rapidly in the 1920s, managing to get Klansmen elected to positions of power. In some areas, whole towns were members of the Klan. The Klan’s favourite method of dealing with black men and women they considered ‘troublesome’ was harassing, whipping, branding and lashing. Thousands of black Americans were hung by Klansmen without trial, while others were castrated. A good example of this is Abram Smith and Thomas Shipp who were immediately lynched on the mere suspicion of murdering someone. The flaming cross became the symbol of their terrorist activities, which the police and courts usually ignored. Faced by such intimidation, discrimination and poverty, many Blacks left the rural south and moved to the cities of northern USA.

This is a preview of the whole essay

Through the 1920s the black population of both Chicago and New York more than doubled. Chicago’s from 110,000 to 230,000 and New York’s from 150,000 to 330,000. However, even in the northern states the racist feelings were still very visible. For example, Henry Ford attempted to only employ White Caucasians. The most famous example of discrimination was against Paul Robeson as shown in the previous paragraph. After passing his law exams with honours, as a Black, he found it almost impossible to find a job as a lawyer. He went into acting and singing and his big break was in the hit musical Showboat. He visited Moscow on a world tour and declared his approval of Communism saying, “Here, for the first time in my life I walk in dignity.” As a Black Communist sympathiser, Robeson suffered a lot in the USA. He had his passport confiscated, was banned from performing and suffered death threats. He eventually left the USA to seek work and artistic fulfilment in England and the Soviet Union.

However, there were some improvements for black people. For example, Howard University was an exclusively Black institution for higher education. In both Chicago and New York there was a small but growing Black middle-class. Also, there was a successful ‘Black capitalist’ movement which encouraged Blacks to set up their own businesses. In Chicago, Blacks ran a boycott on chain-stores protesting that they would not shop there unless black staff were employed, this proved to be successful. By 1930, almost all shops in the South Side belt where Blacks lived had Black employees. Jazz was very popular and this made many Blacks into high-profile media figures and the Black neighbourhood of Harlem in New York became a centre of musical creativity. Also, as explained previously, Paul Robeson fought back against racial prejudice to become one of America’s most celebrated entertainers (even though he soon left due to the treatment towards Blacks such as himself). Also, the profile of Black writers was raised by Black poets such as Sterling Brown and Lanston Brown.

The ‘Universal Negro Improvement Association’ in New York was founded by Marcus Garvey which spread to most American cities. The UNIA encouraged Blacks to take pride in being Black and helped Blacks to set up their own businesses. By the mid 1920s there were UNIA grocery stores, laundries, restaurants and even a printing workshop. Also, between 1920 and 1930 average life expectancy for Blacks increased from 45 to 48. However, this was still no where near the life expectancy of Whites, which increased from 54 to 59 over the same period of time. This lower life expectancy was due to the conditions in which Blacks had to live.

However, not all Blacks were allowed to share in this new found ‘freedom.’ Many Blacks in the northern cities lived great poverty. In Harlem in New York Blacks lived in much poorer housing than Whites, yet had to pay higher rents. They also had much poorer education and health service compared to the Whites. In Chicago, Blacks suffered much prejudice from longer-established white residents. If they attempted to leave the Black belt to adjacent neighbourhoods they got a very hostile reception. For example, in the Chicago Property Owners’ Journal of 1920, it tells White residents that Blacks are not acceptable neighbours and that they are very vicious and irresponsible. It also goes on to talk about their ‘pride like a peacock’ and degrades them by saying that ruin follows in their footsteps and that the best of them are ‘unsanitary.’ They got a similarly hostile reception from the poorer whites. In Chicago, when Blacks attempted to use parks, playgrounds and beaches in the Irish and Polish areas they became targets of white gangs who called themselves ‘athletic clubs.’ The result was that Black communities in northern cities were ghetto areas where on racial group was concentrated and others excluded.

Prejudice was also evident in the Black communities themselves. Middle-class Blacks who were not finding it easy to get along in the ghettos blamed newly arrived lower-class migrant Blacks from the south for stirring white racism. Also, in Harlem, there was some 50,000 West Indian Blacks which caused more inter-racial tension. Many of them were better educated, more militant and prouder of their colour than the newly arrived Blacks from the south.

To conclude, I believe that American society was very racist in the 1920s. This started off with the Jim Crow Laws in the southern states and then the ‘resurrection’ of the Ku Klux Klan. The treatment towards the Black American degraded at a very fast rate and so they decided to move to the northern states where there was a less concentration of them. However, the Americans there were racist as well and the police and courts didn’t do anything about it as they too were racist. Even though treatment towards Blacks slightly improved due to organisations such as the UNIA, overall, they were seen as ‘an inferior race’ and it would be a while until treatment towards Blacks greatly improved.

Mr. Reed-Purvis GCSE History