WEBVTT 00:00:01.377 --> 00:00:04.627 (dramatic blues music) 00:00:17.910 --> 00:00:21.940 - [Man] Major funding for The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow 00:00:21.940 --> 00:00:26.250 is provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, 00:00:26.250 --> 00:00:31.250 expanding America's understanding for more that 30 years 00:00:31.320 --> 00:00:36.233 of who we were, who we are, and who we will be. 00:00:38.856 --> 00:00:42.960 And by support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, 00:00:42.960 --> 00:00:47.123 a private corporation funded by the American people. 00:00:50.820 --> 00:00:54.390 Additional funding is provided by the John D. 00:00:54.390 --> 00:00:56.943 and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. 00:01:00.610 --> 00:01:04.030 Corporate support is made possible by New York Life. 00:01:04.030 --> 00:01:06.360 - [Woman] With vision and determination, 00:01:06.360 --> 00:01:09.580 one generation dreamed of creating a better world 00:01:09.580 --> 00:01:10.540 for the next. 00:01:10.540 --> 00:01:14.250 New York Life is proud to bring you remarkable stories 00:01:14.250 --> 00:01:17.093 of dedication, struggle, and triumph. 00:01:18.227 --> 00:01:21.644 (grand orchestral music) 00:01:24.797 --> 00:01:26.673 ♪ Come listen all you gals and boy ♪ 00:01:26.673 --> 00:01:28.480 ♪ I'm just from Tuckahoe ♪ 00:01:28.480 --> 00:01:30.109 ♪ I'm going to sing a little song ♪ 00:01:30.109 --> 00:01:31.592 ♪ My name's Jim Crow ♪ 00:01:31.592 --> 00:01:35.535 ♪ Wheel about and turn about and do just so ♪ 00:01:35.535 --> 00:01:38.831 ♪ Every time I wheel about, I jump Jim Crow ♪ 00:01:38.831 --> 00:01:39.780 ♪ I went down to the river ♪ 00:01:39.780 --> 00:01:42.833 - [Narrator] In 1836, Jim Crow was born. 00:01:43.790 --> 00:01:45.883 He begins his strange career as a malicious 00:01:45.883 --> 00:01:48.870 minstrel caricature of a black man, 00:01:48.870 --> 00:01:52.403 created by a white man to amuse white audiences. 00:01:53.324 --> 00:01:56.110 (laughing) (applause) 00:01:56.110 --> 00:01:59.250 Jim Crow would come to symbolize one of the most 00:01:59.250 --> 00:02:03.090 tragic eras of race relations in American history. 00:02:03.090 --> 00:02:06.983 A time deeply rooted in promise and contradiction. 00:02:08.487 --> 00:02:13.487 1865, four million Americans, slaves simply because they 00:02:13.780 --> 00:02:16.263 were born black, were now free. 00:02:17.800 --> 00:02:20.050 But in little over a decade, 00:02:20.050 --> 00:02:22.340 that promise was gone. 00:02:22.340 --> 00:02:25.300 Replaced by a rigid system of laws designed to keep 00:02:25.300 --> 00:02:27.150 blacks from experiencing any of their 00:02:27.150 --> 00:02:28.623 newly achieved rights. 00:02:29.570 --> 00:02:33.480 It would be known as the era of Jim Crow, 00:02:33.480 --> 00:02:35.863 the American form of racial apartheid. 00:02:37.440 --> 00:02:40.083 - I tried to lean inside and get me a cup of water. 00:02:42.207 --> 00:02:46.533 And those white people beat me until I was unconscious. 00:02:47.800 --> 00:02:49.200 They thought I was dead. 00:02:50.080 --> 00:02:52.947 - My dad said, "As long as you are living 00:02:52.947 --> 00:02:56.158 "in this South, you're going to have to go 00:02:56.158 --> 00:02:58.540 "through the back door, in this South. 00:02:58.540 --> 00:03:00.090 "And you just settle for that." 00:03:01.050 --> 00:03:03.457 He said, "Well one thing I want you to swear 00:03:03.457 --> 00:03:07.438 "and promise to me, is that you will never 00:03:07.438 --> 00:03:08.288 "get used to it." 00:03:10.240 --> 00:03:15.240 - I'm not ashamed of the segregated and Jim Crow experience. 00:03:15.310 --> 00:03:20.310 All because, we were able to devise techniques 00:03:21.510 --> 00:03:22.440 for survival 00:03:24.290 --> 00:03:28.270 that permitted us to bide our time 00:03:28.270 --> 00:03:31.253 and to wait until our change comes. 00:03:32.540 --> 00:03:33.680 - [Narrator] As most blacks were willing 00:03:33.680 --> 00:03:37.740 to bide their time, some began to fight back. 00:03:37.740 --> 00:03:41.260 In the last 1880s and 90s, they embarked on an 00:03:41.260 --> 00:03:44.600 uncertain campaign to secure voting rights, 00:03:44.600 --> 00:03:47.550 build their own communities, schools, businesses, 00:03:47.550 --> 00:03:50.630 and churches, and to demand redress against 00:03:50.630 --> 00:03:52.163 mob violence and lynching. 00:03:54.100 --> 00:03:56.470 The white supremacists fought back. 00:03:56.470 --> 00:03:59.560 By 1919, the Ku Klux Klan, which had been 00:03:59.560 --> 00:04:03.203 a southern idiosyncrasy, became a national ideology. 00:04:04.350 --> 00:04:07.420 White supremacy, the power behind Jim Crow, 00:04:07.420 --> 00:04:08.763 appeared invincible. 00:04:10.010 --> 00:04:12.620 And over the next decade, the violence against blacks 00:04:12.620 --> 00:04:14.203 would grow even more horrific. 00:04:16.399 --> 00:04:18.959 But black Americans continued to battle, 00:04:18.959 --> 00:04:21.850 using the power of the press, and ultimately 00:04:21.850 --> 00:04:24.670 the power of the courts to pursue their quest 00:04:24.670 --> 00:04:27.700 for freedom and equality against racism. 00:04:27.700 --> 00:04:31.070 The rise and fall of Jim Crow is their story. 00:04:31.070 --> 00:04:33.780 The story of strong men and women who would never 00:04:33.780 --> 00:04:36.890 accept the demeaning, threatening, and perilous world 00:04:36.890 --> 00:04:38.380 of Jim Crow. 00:04:38.380 --> 00:04:42.570 The rise and fall of Jim Crow is a story of those who, 00:04:42.570 --> 00:04:47.450 in the face of unending terror, achieved triumphs. 00:04:47.450 --> 00:04:50.960 Triumphs that would in time make America a better place. 00:04:50.960 --> 00:04:54.053 Not just for themselves, but for all of us. 00:04:58.925 --> 00:05:03.374 (gun fire) (dramatic music) 00:05:03.374 --> 00:05:05.120 Conflict over black emancipation is as 00:05:05.120 --> 00:05:06.213 old as the nation. 00:05:07.543 --> 00:05:10.690 In 1861, the south left the Union 00:05:10.690 --> 00:05:12.990 rather than remain part of a country that restricted 00:05:12.990 --> 00:05:14.403 the expansion of slavery. 00:05:15.330 --> 00:05:18.270 At first, Abraham Lincoln saw the struggle 00:05:18.270 --> 00:05:21.140 as simply a war to save the nation, 00:05:21.140 --> 00:05:24.480 but in time, he would recast the Civil War 00:05:24.480 --> 00:05:26.680 as a war to end slavery. 00:05:26.680 --> 00:05:31.680 On January 1, 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation 00:05:32.470 --> 00:05:35.880 freeing all slaves in the Confederate states. 00:05:35.880 --> 00:05:38.580 Six months after the south surrendered, 00:05:38.580 --> 00:05:40.810 Congress ratified the 13th Amendment, 00:05:40.810 --> 00:05:42.043 abolishing slavery. 00:05:43.060 --> 00:05:44.830 The federal government had made a promise 00:05:44.830 --> 00:05:46.410 to the former slaves. 00:05:46.410 --> 00:05:50.000 These newly freed men and women, who knew what they wanted, 00:05:50.000 --> 00:05:52.940 education, and a right to vote, 00:05:52.940 --> 00:05:56.573 equal rights in the courts, and mostly, land. 00:05:57.500 --> 00:05:59.220 - What is it that your people need 00:05:59.220 --> 00:06:01.100 now that you're free? 00:06:01.100 --> 00:06:03.460 Our people need land. 00:06:03.460 --> 00:06:06.150 And they need tools to work the land. 00:06:06.150 --> 00:06:09.950 So there we began to see the priority to own 00:06:10.890 --> 00:06:12.133 our own land. 00:06:13.017 --> 00:06:16.247 - [Man] "Every colored man would be a slave 00:06:16.247 --> 00:06:19.377 "and feel himself a slave, until he can raise 00:06:19.377 --> 00:06:23.247 "his own bale of cotton and put his own 00:06:23.247 --> 00:06:27.727 "mark upon it and says, 'This is mine.' 00:06:28.577 --> 00:06:31.677 "With our independence, and self employment, 00:06:31.677 --> 00:06:34.870 "freedom would be meaningless." 00:06:34.870 --> 00:06:35.803 Peter Hall. 00:06:36.710 --> 00:06:38.450 - [Narrator] On Edisto Island, off the coast 00:06:38.450 --> 00:06:41.460 of South Carolina, thousands of newly freed 00:06:41.460 --> 00:06:44.370 blacks were making that dream come true 00:06:44.370 --> 00:06:46.580 on land abandoned by their former masters, 00:06:46.580 --> 00:06:49.040 and given to them by the Union army. 00:06:49.040 --> 00:06:51.410 They had built schools and churches. 00:06:51.410 --> 00:06:54.383 Established family, and community life. 00:06:55.440 --> 00:06:58.680 But they had heard rumors that their future was at risk. 00:06:58.680 --> 00:07:01.120 Lincoln had been assassinated and a southerner, 00:07:01.120 --> 00:07:03.600 Andrew Johnson, was president. 00:07:03.600 --> 00:07:05.610 Johnson fought to save the Union, 00:07:05.610 --> 00:07:07.417 but not to free slaves. 00:07:07.417 --> 00:07:10.627 "This is a country for white men," he said. 00:07:10.627 --> 00:07:12.727 "And as long as I'm president, it will be 00:07:12.727 --> 00:07:14.387 "a government for white men." 00:07:16.637 --> 00:07:20.526 ♪ Sometimes ♪ 00:07:20.526 --> 00:07:24.904 ♪ I feel ♪ 00:07:24.904 --> 00:07:29.904 ♪ Like a motherless ♪ 00:07:29.942 --> 00:07:31.942 ♪ Child ♪ 00:07:34.050 --> 00:07:38.960 On October 19, 1865, a board carrying a deeply 00:07:38.960 --> 00:07:42.300 troubled Union general, Oliver O. Howard, 00:07:42.300 --> 00:07:44.363 slowly made its way toward Edisto. 00:07:45.690 --> 00:07:48.360 Howard was know as the Christian general. 00:07:48.360 --> 00:07:51.140 A deeply religious man who hated slavery. 00:07:51.140 --> 00:07:53.720 He was in charge of the new Freedman's Bureau, 00:07:53.720 --> 00:07:55.760 established by Congress that year, 00:07:55.760 --> 00:07:57.790 to protect the confiscated lands given 00:07:57.790 --> 00:07:59.610 to the former slaves. 00:07:59.610 --> 00:08:01.730 Howard was revered second only to Lincoln 00:08:01.730 --> 00:08:02.773 by freed blacks. 00:08:04.000 --> 00:08:07.020 - They got the message from the Freedman's Bureau that 00:08:07.020 --> 00:08:10.870 the general was coming back, General Olive O. Howard, 00:08:10.870 --> 00:08:13.990 who, they were expecting to hear nothing but good news 00:08:13.990 --> 00:08:16.680 from him because was the man who had told them 00:08:16.680 --> 00:08:19.960 about how this land, now, was transferred to them 00:08:19.960 --> 00:08:21.850 and that they owned it and that they didn't 00:08:21.850 --> 00:08:25.230 have to worry about "massa" no more and everything. 00:08:25.230 --> 00:08:28.130 He asked them to gather together at their church 00:08:28.130 --> 00:08:29.220 on Edisto. 00:08:29.220 --> 00:08:34.220 So over 2,000 people came from all amongst the oak trees 00:08:34.520 --> 00:08:37.817 and all back off in the woods and from their shacks 00:08:37.817 --> 00:08:40.770 and their dirt roads to meet there at the church 00:08:40.770 --> 00:08:44.573 to hear this new discussion about their land. 00:08:45.437 --> 00:08:47.487 - [Man] "I have been sent by the president to tell you 00:08:47.487 --> 00:08:49.860 "that your old masters have been pardoned 00:08:51.007 --> 00:08:53.793 "and their plantations are to be given back to them. 00:08:55.084 --> 00:08:57.384 "That they would hire blacks to work for them. 00:08:58.697 --> 00:09:02.930 "Lay aside your bitter feelings, and be reconciled to them." 00:09:02.930 --> 00:09:05.090 General Oliver O. Howard. 00:09:05.090 --> 00:09:07.537 - So people were enraged and people started hollering out, 00:09:07.537 --> 00:09:09.187 "No, no, it aint no way. 00:09:09.187 --> 00:09:11.479 "No, no, that aint what you tell us before. 00:09:11.479 --> 00:09:13.317 "No, sir, no, sir." 00:09:13.317 --> 00:09:14.637 - [Man] "General Howard? 00:09:14.637 --> 00:09:17.087 "Why'd he take away our lands? 00:09:17.087 --> 00:09:19.787 "You take them from us who are true, 00:09:19.787 --> 00:09:21.637 "always true to the government. 00:09:21.637 --> 00:09:24.717 "You give them to our all time enemies. 00:09:24.717 --> 00:09:27.437 "The man who gave me 39 lashes 00:09:27.437 --> 00:09:30.973 "and who stripped and flogged my mother and sister. 00:09:32.140 --> 00:09:33.747 "Who keeps land from me well knowing 00:09:33.747 --> 00:09:35.967 "I would not have anything to do with him 00:09:35.967 --> 00:09:38.007 "if I had land of my own. 00:09:38.007 --> 00:09:41.630 "That man I cannot well forgive." 00:09:41.630 --> 00:09:43.180 A Freedman. 00:09:43.180 --> 00:09:44.130 - Some went into 00:09:45.167 --> 00:09:47.467 ♪ Nobody know ♪ 00:09:47.467 --> 00:09:49.980 ♪ The trouble we see ♪ 00:09:49.980 --> 00:09:52.000 And some went into "Motherless Child," 00:09:52.000 --> 00:09:55.490 and all those things rippled off the sea. 00:09:55.490 --> 00:09:58.323 ♪ Feel ♪ 00:09:58.323 --> 00:10:01.823 ♪ Like a motherless child ♪ 00:10:09.011 --> 00:10:14.011 ♪ A long way ♪ 00:10:16.190 --> 00:10:18.523 ♪ From home ♪ 00:10:25.583 --> 00:10:26.850 - [Narrator] One year later in 1866, 00:10:26.850 --> 00:10:30.400 Congress, recognizing continued southern resistance 00:10:30.400 --> 00:10:35.320 to black emancipation, passed the 14th and 15th amendments, 00:10:35.320 --> 00:10:37.520 guaranteeing blacks the right to vote 00:10:37.520 --> 00:10:39.820 in due process of law. 00:10:39.820 --> 00:10:42.683 The time of reconstruction had begun. 00:10:43.600 --> 00:10:45.820 But many whites did not plan on fulfilling 00:10:45.820 --> 00:10:47.750 the intentions of the new laws. 00:10:47.750 --> 00:10:50.410 Mississippi passed their Black Code, giving courts 00:10:50.410 --> 00:10:53.070 the right to apprentice former slaves, 00:10:53.070 --> 00:10:55.793 with preference to their former owners. 00:10:57.551 --> 00:11:00.201 - [Man] "The negro is free whether we like it or not. 00:11:01.111 --> 00:11:03.127 "For the purity and progress of both races, 00:11:03.127 --> 00:11:04.927 "They must accept their place in the 00:11:04.927 --> 00:11:06.543 "lower order of things. 00:11:07.891 --> 00:11:10.947 "That place is the cotton fields of the south. 00:11:10.947 --> 00:11:13.847 "Such is the rule of the plantation, 00:11:13.847 --> 00:11:15.317 "and the law of God." 00:11:16.460 --> 00:11:18.063 Governor Benjamin Humphreys. 00:11:20.700 --> 00:11:22.440 - [Narrator] But blacks did not see themselves trapped 00:11:22.440 --> 00:11:24.260 in the cotton fields. 00:11:24.260 --> 00:11:26.910 They used their vote to elect black representatives, 00:11:26.910 --> 00:11:29.623 sat on juries, and sent their children to school. 00:11:30.560 --> 00:11:32.110 - What had alarmed the white south during 00:11:32.110 --> 00:11:35.690 reconstruction was not evidence of black failure, 00:11:35.690 --> 00:11:37.940 but evidence of black success. 00:11:37.940 --> 00:11:39.870 Evidence of black assertion. 00:11:39.870 --> 00:11:41.920 Evidence of black independence. 00:11:41.920 --> 00:11:44.380 Evidence of black advancement. 00:11:44.380 --> 00:11:46.390 And evidence that black men were learning. 00:11:46.390 --> 00:11:48.090 They used this as political power. 00:11:49.169 --> 00:11:50.460 - [Narrator] If intimidation would not keep blacks in 00:11:50.460 --> 00:11:53.263 their place, then violence might. 00:11:54.868 --> 00:11:56.960 In the same year that reconstruction began, 00:11:56.960 --> 00:12:00.510 Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general, 00:12:00.510 --> 00:12:02.213 founded the Ku Klux Klan. 00:12:03.774 --> 00:12:05.450 The image of the Klan in white hoods killing 00:12:05.450 --> 00:12:08.240 blacks by the lights of burning crosses 00:12:08.240 --> 00:12:10.963 would forever be etched in the American mind. 00:12:12.359 --> 00:12:14.770 - The way white supremacists made sure 00:12:14.770 --> 00:12:17.340 that ex slaves would fall back into place, 00:12:17.340 --> 00:12:20.713 or nearly back into place, was terror. 00:12:23.580 --> 00:12:25.150 Beating people up, 00:12:25.150 --> 00:12:27.120 burning down their houses, 00:12:27.120 --> 00:12:28.710 shooting them, 00:12:28.710 --> 00:12:32.653 just the usual physical mayhem of personal violence. 00:12:34.717 --> 00:12:37.967 (slow, dramatic music) 00:12:42.045 --> 00:12:42.878 - [Narrator] Although they were beaten into 00:12:42.878 --> 00:12:47.830 submission and retreat, 1869 offered a glimmer of hope 00:12:47.830 --> 00:12:50.070 with the election of Civil War hero, 00:12:50.070 --> 00:12:52.490 Ulysses S. Grant to the presidency. 00:12:52.490 --> 00:12:54.360 And Grant delivered. 00:12:54.360 --> 00:12:55.880 He sent federal troops to the south 00:12:55.880 --> 00:12:57.563 to counter groups like the Klan. 00:12:58.470 --> 00:13:02.130 But for the black community, even federal intervention 00:13:02.130 --> 00:13:03.123 was not enough. 00:13:04.680 --> 00:13:09.497 - The question of, "Should we stay at home in the south, 00:13:09.497 --> 00:13:12.777 "should we stay at home in the United States, 00:13:12.777 --> 00:13:16.669 "should we move somewhere else to the north, 00:13:16.669 --> 00:13:17.917 "should we move to the west, 00:13:17.917 --> 00:13:21.057 "or should we leave the United States entirely?" 00:13:25.740 --> 00:13:27.510 - [Narrator] Feeling trapped and helpless, 00:13:27.510 --> 00:13:31.830 and in need of answers, some turned to an unlikely source, 00:13:31.830 --> 00:13:34.623 an old man who had been born in slavery. 00:13:37.217 --> 00:13:39.517 - [Man] "We needed land for our children. 00:13:39.517 --> 00:13:41.893 "That caused my heart to grieve in sorrow. 00:13:43.138 --> 00:13:45.607 "Pity for my race caused me to work for them. 00:13:45.607 --> 00:13:48.093 "Confidence is perished and faded away. 00:13:48.987 --> 00:13:51.417 "We are going to leave the south." 00:13:52.510 --> 00:13:53.343 Pap Singleton. 00:13:56.225 --> 00:14:01.225 (soft gospel music) (water wading) 00:14:07.750 --> 00:14:12.050 - [Narrator] In 1874, Pap Singleton, a former slave, 00:14:12.050 --> 00:14:15.260 would lead a group of 300 blacks through Kansas. 00:14:15.260 --> 00:14:18.640 John Brown struck his first blow against slavery there. 00:14:18.640 --> 00:14:20.720 God must be in Kansas, 00:14:20.720 --> 00:14:22.953 and black people wanted to go where God was. 00:14:23.820 --> 00:14:25.870 No one spoke this cause stronger 00:14:25.870 --> 00:14:26.973 than Sojourner Truth. 00:14:28.627 --> 00:14:30.487 - [Woman] "I have prayed so long that my people 00:14:30.487 --> 00:14:34.017 "would go to Kansas, and that God would make straight 00:14:34.017 --> 00:14:35.393 "the way before them. 00:14:36.897 --> 00:14:39.814 "This colored people is going to be a people. 00:14:39.814 --> 00:14:41.897 "Do you think God has them robbed and scourged 00:14:41.897 --> 00:14:44.267 "all the days of their life for nothing?" 00:14:45.420 --> 00:14:48.100 - Many of the people saw their promise land. 00:14:48.100 --> 00:14:50.910 They saw their Jordan River, being those places 00:14:50.910 --> 00:14:53.090 that they had to cross over into 00:14:53.090 --> 00:14:55.440 where freedom would be away from those 00:14:55.440 --> 00:14:57.590 who had basically had their feet on their necks 00:14:57.590 --> 00:15:00.040 all this time, just like the Pharaoh had done 00:15:00.040 --> 00:15:01.090 in the Bible. 00:15:01.090 --> 00:15:03.880 So many of them followed their leaders so that 00:15:03.880 --> 00:15:06.660 they could have their life to themselves 00:15:06.660 --> 00:15:09.100 however they wanted that to be built. 00:15:09.100 --> 00:15:12.100 - They also believed in the god of Daniel 00:15:12.100 --> 00:15:13.800 who was an avenging god. 00:15:13.800 --> 00:15:15.320 This is the god of the apocalypse, 00:15:15.320 --> 00:15:16.750 the god of the second coming, 00:15:16.750 --> 00:15:19.460 the god of the decision of who was going to 00:15:19.460 --> 00:15:21.710 go to heaven and who was going to go to hell. 00:15:24.970 --> 00:15:26.660 - [Narrator] But as much as Kansas loomed as a 00:15:26.660 --> 00:15:29.760 promise land for many blacks, getting there could 00:15:29.760 --> 00:15:31.483 become a journey through hell. 00:15:32.520 --> 00:15:35.430 Many would perish from starvation and exposure. 00:15:35.430 --> 00:15:37.443 One group fell victim to Yellow Fever, 00:15:38.340 --> 00:15:41.333 and there was always the fear of murderous whites. 00:15:43.550 --> 00:15:45.327 - [Man] "I saw colored men and women cast themselves 00:15:45.327 --> 00:15:47.003 "to the ground in despair. 00:15:47.897 --> 00:15:50.787 "Heard them grown and shout their lamentations. 00:15:51.767 --> 00:15:53.957 "What is to become of these wretched people? 00:15:53.957 --> 00:15:55.423 "God only knows. 00:15:56.367 --> 00:15:59.849 "There were nearly half a thousand scattered all 00:15:59.849 --> 00:16:02.087 "along the banks of the mighty Mississippi. 00:16:02.087 --> 00:16:05.417 "Without shelter, without food. 00:16:05.417 --> 00:16:09.317 "With no hope of escaping from their present surrounding, 00:16:09.317 --> 00:16:12.407 "and hardly a chance of returning from whence they came." 00:16:14.030 --> 00:16:14.933 Riverboat captain. 00:16:16.833 --> 00:16:17.666 - [Narrator] For those who survived to make it 00:16:17.666 --> 00:16:20.820 to Kansas, they found a land of hard winters, 00:16:20.820 --> 00:16:24.480 torrential rains, and violent tornados. 00:16:24.480 --> 00:16:27.260 But through spiritual and emotional conviction, 00:16:27.260 --> 00:16:30.960 they sustained themselves and within a few years, 00:16:30.960 --> 00:16:32.743 over 20 towns would be built. 00:16:33.790 --> 00:16:35.250 But not all blacks thought the answer 00:16:35.250 --> 00:16:37.010 was to leave the south. 00:16:37.010 --> 00:16:39.370 Frederick Douglass, a former slave who had become 00:16:39.370 --> 00:16:42.080 the leading black voice for abolition, 00:16:42.080 --> 00:16:44.033 opposed any mass exodus. 00:16:45.627 --> 00:16:47.697 - [Man] "The country will be told of the hundreds 00:16:47.697 --> 00:16:50.307 "who go to Kansas, but not of the thousands 00:16:50.307 --> 00:16:52.577 "who stay in Mississippi. 00:16:52.577 --> 00:16:55.127 "They will be told of the destitute who require 00:16:55.127 --> 00:16:57.737 "material aid but not of the multitude 00:16:57.737 --> 00:17:00.823 "who are bravely sustaining themselves where they are. 00:17:02.164 --> 00:17:03.997 "If the people of this country cannot be protected 00:17:03.997 --> 00:17:05.857 "in every state of the Union, 00:17:05.857 --> 00:17:08.666 "the sovereignty of the nation is an empty one 00:17:08.666 --> 00:17:12.351 "and the power in individual states is greater than 00:17:12.351 --> 00:17:14.146 "the power of the United States." 00:17:15.640 --> 00:17:16.772 Frederick Douglass. 00:17:20.619 --> 00:17:23.359 - [Narrator] In 1877, Republican president 00:17:23.359 --> 00:17:26.369 Rutherford B. Hayes, who had won the election 00:17:26.369 --> 00:17:28.620 by making a deal for electoral votes 00:17:28.620 --> 00:17:30.230 from southern Democrats, 00:17:30.230 --> 00:17:32.830 pulled federal troops from the south. 00:17:32.830 --> 00:17:36.460 The party of Lincoln had betrayed the former slaves. 00:17:36.460 --> 00:17:38.713 Reconstruction was over. 00:17:40.180 --> 00:17:42.980 Whites began to reassert their power over blacks, 00:17:42.980 --> 00:17:45.870 politically, legally, and economically. 00:17:45.870 --> 00:17:49.340 And no where was this change more crushing 00:17:49.340 --> 00:17:52.080 than for those blacks who were farmers, 00:17:52.080 --> 00:17:53.893 most of whom were sharecroppers. 00:17:55.470 --> 00:17:59.090 - Owners controlled their little worlds. 00:17:59.090 --> 00:18:01.440 So there was no police power, 00:18:01.440 --> 00:18:04.460 there was no federal power, there was no state power 00:18:04.460 --> 00:18:07.560 that actually made a difference on the ground. 00:18:07.560 --> 00:18:10.130 So you had relations of dependency 00:18:10.130 --> 00:18:13.233 built around obedience and submission. 00:18:14.078 --> 00:18:17.470 That was the ideology of the culture of slavery. 00:18:17.470 --> 00:18:19.920 Obedience and submission. 00:18:19.920 --> 00:18:23.500 - Here was the black man, having very limited education, 00:18:23.500 --> 00:18:26.770 not knowing how to figure and to read. 00:18:26.770 --> 00:18:30.820 With the books being kept by the white man 00:18:30.820 --> 00:18:32.770 who is giving him his supplies 00:18:32.770 --> 00:18:36.610 to start a crop, and likewise, own the land. 00:18:36.610 --> 00:18:39.800 When the black man ended up at the end of the year, 00:18:39.800 --> 00:18:42.043 and brought his crop in, 00:18:43.330 --> 00:18:47.463 the white man immediately arranged to out figure him, 00:18:49.364 --> 00:18:51.100 - The man would take your cotton, 00:18:51.100 --> 00:18:53.310 and then the man that had stole you had credit, 00:18:53.310 --> 00:18:54.420 he'll run the books up on you, 00:18:54.420 --> 00:18:56.166 so you didn't have nothin'. 00:18:56.166 --> 00:18:59.630 You work a whole year and handpick 40 bales of cotton, 00:18:59.630 --> 00:19:00.930 and come out with nothin'. 00:19:02.900 --> 00:19:04.830 - [Narrator] Frustrated by the unfulfilled promise 00:19:04.830 --> 00:19:08.400 of emancipation, blacks turned to the next generation. 00:19:08.400 --> 00:19:09.313 To their children. 00:19:10.240 --> 00:19:12.870 They believed education would be the key to overcome 00:19:12.870 --> 00:19:14.600 white dominance. 00:19:14.600 --> 00:19:17.810 One man would come to symbolize this hope. 00:19:17.810 --> 00:19:19.093 Booker T. Washington. 00:19:19.950 --> 00:19:23.290 Born into slavery, Washington has managed to learn 00:19:23.290 --> 00:19:26.913 to read and write and at nine he worked in salt mine. 00:19:28.260 --> 00:19:31.270 But within in 25 years, Washington had been a student 00:19:31.270 --> 00:19:34.090 and a teacher at the Hampton Institute, 00:19:34.090 --> 00:19:36.450 and was invited to be principal of a new school 00:19:36.450 --> 00:19:37.363 in Alabama. 00:19:38.690 --> 00:19:41.113 That school, was Tuskegee. 00:19:45.922 --> 00:19:48.240 Arriving in a community of farms and sharecroppers, 00:19:48.240 --> 00:19:50.423 where attending school was rare, if at all, 00:19:51.368 --> 00:19:53.470 Washington faced a great challenge: 00:19:53.470 --> 00:19:57.113 to build a school, attract students, recruit teachers. 00:19:59.020 --> 00:20:02.900 Only July 4, 1881, in the Zion Hill Baptist Church, 00:20:02.900 --> 00:20:05.253 the Tuskegee Institute was born. 00:20:06.440 --> 00:20:08.270 Washington and his 30 recruits 00:20:08.270 --> 00:20:11.660 believed the only way to one day have their own buildings, 00:20:11.660 --> 00:20:13.703 would be to build them themselves. 00:20:14.960 --> 00:20:18.730 - The reason that it started as an industrial school 00:20:18.730 --> 00:20:20.290 was because they had nothing, 00:20:20.290 --> 00:20:23.460 and so they had to build, grow, and make everything. 00:20:23.460 --> 00:20:25.410 Like harness making, because they needed 00:20:25.410 --> 00:20:28.570 to have harnesses for the farm animals. 00:20:28.570 --> 00:20:30.780 Carpentry because they needed to build the building. 00:20:30.780 --> 00:20:33.850 Brick masonry because they needed to make the bricks. 00:20:33.850 --> 00:20:35.630 These kinds of trades, 00:20:35.630 --> 00:20:39.370 printing, shoemaking, tailoring, carpentry, 00:20:39.370 --> 00:20:42.640 all of these things were things that they could use 00:20:42.640 --> 00:20:44.660 to build a business. 00:20:44.660 --> 00:20:47.650 - [Narrator] One student who found opportunity at Tuskegee, 00:20:47.650 --> 00:20:49.653 was a young man named William Holtzclaw. 00:20:50.710 --> 00:20:53.710 His parents, especially his mother, Addie, 00:20:53.710 --> 00:20:55.660 were passionate about getting an education 00:20:55.660 --> 00:20:56.610 for their children. 00:20:57.690 --> 00:20:59.340 They even built their own school. 00:21:02.049 --> 00:21:04.334 (hitting) 00:21:04.334 --> 00:21:06.467 - [Man] "I remember my parents went into the forest 00:21:06.467 --> 00:21:09.747 "and cut pine poles eight inches in diameter. 00:21:09.747 --> 00:21:12.437 "Split them in half, carried them on their shoulders, 00:21:12.437 --> 00:21:15.783 "to a nice, shady spot, and built a schoolhouse, 00:21:16.916 --> 00:21:18.317 "There were no floors, no chimneys, 00:21:18.317 --> 00:21:21.087 "and the benches were made of the same material." 00:21:22.820 --> 00:21:25.850 - [Narrator] Addie Holtzclaw would provide schemes 00:21:25.850 --> 00:21:28.990 that allowed William and his brother to get an education 00:21:28.990 --> 00:21:30.957 for most of the year. 00:21:30.957 --> 00:21:33.673 - [Man] "The landlord wanted us to pick cotton, 00:21:34.636 --> 00:21:36.107 "but mother wanted me to remain in school. 00:21:36.107 --> 00:21:38.767 "So she used to out general him by hiding me 00:21:38.767 --> 00:21:41.907 "behind skillets, ovens, and pots. 00:21:41.907 --> 00:21:44.177 "Then she would slip me to school the back way, 00:21:44.177 --> 00:21:46.647 "pushing me through the woods and underbrush 00:21:46.647 --> 00:21:48.927 "until it was safe for me to travel alone." 00:21:51.540 --> 00:21:54.770 - Whenever someone had wanted to go to school, 00:21:54.770 --> 00:21:57.262 they would make sure that one of them went 00:21:57.262 --> 00:21:58.095 and that one stayed at home. 00:21:58.095 --> 00:22:00.610 Because if they didn't, if both of them were gone, 00:22:00.610 --> 00:22:03.682 the overseer would come around and would say, 00:22:03.682 --> 00:22:04.515 "Where are those boys?" 00:22:04.515 --> 00:22:06.830 And he would get upset, so, in order to make sure 00:22:06.830 --> 00:22:09.340 that didn't happen, she'd sent one to school 00:22:09.340 --> 00:22:11.030 and leave one at home to do the work 00:22:11.030 --> 00:22:13.670 so when the overseer came around and needed someone, 00:22:13.670 --> 00:22:15.820 he would call 'em, and they would be there. 00:22:17.848 --> 00:22:21.265 (thunder and lightening) 00:22:23.535 --> 00:22:27.380 (disembodied chattering) 00:22:27.380 --> 00:22:29.160 - [Narrator] But the limited education was never 00:22:29.160 --> 00:22:31.460 going to propel the Holtzclaw children 00:22:31.460 --> 00:22:33.790 beyond the bondage of sharecropping, 00:22:33.790 --> 00:22:36.350 where if the land owner didn't teach you, 00:22:36.350 --> 00:22:37.250 the weather might. 00:22:41.867 --> 00:22:44.590 (disembodied chattering) 00:22:44.590 --> 00:22:47.200 William Holtzclaw heard about Tuskegee. 00:22:47.200 --> 00:22:49.150 He wrote Booker T. Washington a letter. 00:22:52.311 --> 00:22:53.144 - [Man] "Dear Book, 00:22:53.144 --> 00:22:56.063 "I want to go to Tuskegee to get an education. 00:22:57.551 --> 00:22:58.384 "Can I come?" 00:23:00.410 --> 00:23:02.197 - [Narrator] The letter found its way. 00:23:02.197 --> 00:23:04.433 "Come," Washington replied. 00:23:06.417 --> 00:23:08.733 - [Man] "When I walked out on campus, 00:23:10.172 --> 00:23:11.672 "I was startled at what I saw. 00:23:13.213 --> 00:23:15.793 "There before my eyes was a huge pair of mules, 00:23:17.298 --> 00:23:20.277 "drawin' a machine plow which, to me, at the time, 00:23:20.277 --> 00:23:21.233 "was a mystery. 00:23:22.087 --> 00:23:25.347 "There were girls cultivating flowers, 00:23:25.347 --> 00:23:28.717 "and boys erecting huge brick buildings. 00:23:28.717 --> 00:23:32.157 "Some were hitching horses and driving carriages, 00:23:32.157 --> 00:23:36.217 "while others were milking cows and making cheese. 00:23:36.217 --> 00:23:39.147 "I found some boys studying drawings 00:23:39.147 --> 00:23:40.703 "and others hammering irons. 00:23:41.917 --> 00:23:44.647 "Each with an intense earnestness that I had 00:23:44.647 --> 00:23:47.090 "never seen in young men." 00:23:52.385 --> 00:23:54.750 - When he first got to Tuskegee, he was really amazed 00:23:54.750 --> 00:23:57.550 that there were so many things that he didn't know. 00:23:57.550 --> 00:24:01.070 He was also amazed as to how they organized 00:24:02.238 --> 00:24:03.820 the students in the dormitory setting, 00:24:03.820 --> 00:24:07.090 particularly himself, because he had never slept 00:24:07.090 --> 00:24:09.205 between two sheets. 00:24:09.205 --> 00:24:11.640 And when he went to the dorm, he was sleeping, 00:24:11.640 --> 00:24:13.563 as they say, ready roll. 00:24:14.459 --> 00:24:17.180 He had all of his clothes on and someone had to come in 00:24:17.180 --> 00:24:20.590 and tell him that you have such a thing as a night shirt 00:24:20.590 --> 00:24:23.003 and a shirt that you wear during the day. 00:24:24.646 --> 00:24:25.627 - [Man] "My plan was for them to see not only 00:24:25.627 --> 00:24:29.057 "the utility of labor, but its beauty and dignity. 00:24:29.057 --> 00:24:30.897 "They will be taught how to lift labor up 00:24:30.897 --> 00:24:33.117 "from drudgery and toil, and they will learn 00:24:33.117 --> 00:24:34.667 "to love work for its own sake. 00:24:35.737 --> 00:24:38.617 "We wanted them to return to the plantation districts 00:24:38.617 --> 00:24:41.437 "and show people there how to put new energy 00:24:41.437 --> 00:24:45.117 "and new ideas into farming, as well as the intellectual, 00:24:45.117 --> 00:24:47.407 "and moral and religious life of the people." 00:24:48.699 --> 00:24:50.000 Booker T. Washington. 00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:52.490 - [Narrator] Washington's vision would bear fruit. 00:24:52.490 --> 00:24:55.570 In less than a decade, Tuskegee had over a thousand 00:24:55.570 --> 00:24:58.850 acres of land, 14 buildings, 00:24:58.850 --> 00:25:03.410 a farm, and a dozen shops, from a laundry to a blacksmith, 00:25:03.410 --> 00:25:06.570 with enrollment of 400 students 00:25:06.570 --> 00:25:08.530 and 28 teachers. 00:25:08.530 --> 00:25:11.000 Washington wanted his students at Tuskegee to learn 00:25:11.000 --> 00:25:15.340 to work and work hard, no matter how menial the task. 00:25:15.340 --> 00:25:17.100 He also wanted to keep southern whites 00:25:17.100 --> 00:25:19.110 from feeling threatened. 00:25:19.110 --> 00:25:20.890 - That's why they thought Booker T. Washington was 00:25:20.890 --> 00:25:22.774 the great godsend. 00:25:22.774 --> 00:25:23.610 That somehow he'd come forward with an 00:25:23.610 --> 00:25:25.800 educational philosophy which said said in the fact 00:25:25.800 --> 00:25:28.780 that you can educate a people and still keep 00:25:28.780 --> 00:25:29.810 them subordinate. 00:25:29.810 --> 00:25:32.520 And he once gave a talk and a speech, and I think it's 00:25:32.520 --> 00:25:34.350 the most concrete example. 00:25:34.350 --> 00:25:36.530 While he was giving the talk, 00:25:36.530 --> 00:25:41.360 and actually he was asked this question by a white farmer. 00:25:41.360 --> 00:25:44.698 He says, "Why should I sent Mandy to Tuskegee to 00:25:44.698 --> 00:25:48.693 "learn how to cook when she can spit in a skillet 00:25:48.693 --> 00:25:50.187 "and know when it's hot?" 00:25:51.090 --> 00:25:53.147 And Washington's response was, 00:25:53.147 --> 00:25:55.667 "The purpose of industrial education is to teach her 00:25:55.667 --> 00:25:57.083 "not to spit in the skillet. 00:25:58.042 --> 00:26:00.417 "Not to teach her to be something other than a cook, 00:26:00.417 --> 00:26:01.987 "but to be a better cook. 00:26:01.987 --> 00:26:03.707 "To be a better sharecropper. 00:26:03.707 --> 00:26:05.500 "To be a better mind worker." 00:26:05.500 --> 00:26:09.993 And so whites really thought, "This is a god send. 00:26:10.940 --> 00:26:13.057 "We've now come up with a philosophy of education 00:26:13.057 --> 00:26:14.627 "that can keep people in their place 00:26:14.627 --> 00:26:17.650 "and even teach them to be better within their place." 00:26:17.650 --> 00:26:19.633 And they thought that that was possible. 00:26:20.552 --> 00:26:23.980 They learned very quickly that that was not possible. 00:26:23.980 --> 00:26:26.320 - [Narrator] At the Haines School in Augusta, Georgia, 00:26:26.320 --> 00:26:29.550 its founder, Lucy Laney, would expand Washington's 00:26:29.550 --> 00:26:33.570 philosophy of teaching and take it in a different direction. 00:26:33.570 --> 00:26:37.063 She insisted upon developing her children's full potential. 00:26:38.240 --> 00:26:42.240 Her students studied English, mathematics, history, 00:26:42.240 --> 00:26:47.040 chemistry, physics, psychology, sociology, French, 00:26:47.040 --> 00:26:47.883 and German. 00:26:48.877 --> 00:26:51.467 "What we need to develop," Laney said, 00:26:51.467 --> 00:26:53.383 "Is mind is not hands. 00:26:54.362 --> 00:26:56.540 "Race leaders, not followers." 00:26:56.540 --> 00:26:58.530 Laney was especially interested in training 00:26:58.530 --> 00:27:00.513 young black women to be teachers. 00:27:01.487 --> 00:27:03.737 - [Woman] "The educated negro woman is needed 00:27:03.737 --> 00:27:05.852 "in the schoolroom. 00:27:05.852 --> 00:27:08.397 "Not only in the kindergarten and primary school, 00:27:08.397 --> 00:27:10.743 "but in the high school and the college. 00:27:11.821 --> 00:27:13.547 "She may give advice and knowledge that will change 00:27:13.547 --> 00:27:15.957 "a whole community and start its people 00:27:15.957 --> 00:27:17.280 "on the upward way." 00:27:19.930 --> 00:27:21.380 - African American women were playing 00:27:21.380 --> 00:27:24.990 a much more critical role than what was common 00:27:24.990 --> 00:27:26.460 in American education generally. 00:27:26.460 --> 00:27:29.160 They were critical as educational leaders, 00:27:29.160 --> 00:27:32.230 but even within the trenches of local communities, 00:27:32.230 --> 00:27:35.710 in terms of fundraising and teaching and support groups, 00:27:35.710 --> 00:27:38.630 that you cannot really understand the development 00:27:38.630 --> 00:27:41.390 of African American education without really appreciating 00:27:41.390 --> 00:27:43.330 the leadership of African American women. 00:27:43.330 --> 00:27:45.440 - Teaching was a very important profession 00:27:45.440 --> 00:27:47.410 for black women in this period of time. 00:27:47.410 --> 00:27:49.060 It was not just a profession, 00:27:49.060 --> 00:27:52.210 but it was a mission to uplift African Americans, 00:27:52.210 --> 00:27:54.740 to teach people to read. 00:27:54.740 --> 00:27:59.286 To also teach them the ways of this world 00:27:59.286 --> 00:28:01.510 as free people. 00:28:01.510 --> 00:28:02.910 - [Narrator] But black teachers had to show 00:28:02.910 --> 00:28:04.570 real ingenuity. 00:28:04.570 --> 00:28:08.070 Black schools were often barren affairs with few books, 00:28:08.070 --> 00:28:10.063 maps, pencils, or pens. 00:28:11.837 --> 00:28:14.167 - [Woman] "We had students draw the national flag 00:28:14.167 --> 00:28:15.877 "on the blackboard. 00:28:15.877 --> 00:28:19.267 "These flags were assigned a place of honor on the board 00:28:19.267 --> 00:28:22.967 "and became a permanent picture in the room for years. 00:28:22.967 --> 00:28:25.847 "Pupils were careful not to erase the flag when 00:28:25.847 --> 00:28:27.577 "they erased the blackboard." 00:28:31.596 --> 00:28:34.596 (soft gospel music) 00:28:41.001 --> 00:28:41.930 - [Narrator] The positive image of Laney and others 00:28:41.930 --> 00:28:45.270 was hopeful, but the reality for most blacks 00:28:45.270 --> 00:28:48.103 was hard, back breaking work and servitude. 00:28:50.727 --> 00:28:52.712 - [Man] "I've been a factory hand, janitor, 00:28:52.712 --> 00:28:54.357 "importer, and butler, and wiping engines 00:28:54.357 --> 00:28:55.533 "on the railroad. 00:28:56.662 --> 00:28:57.807 "I worked as a helper for a carpenter 00:28:57.807 --> 00:28:59.763 "laying bricks for masons. 00:29:00.707 --> 00:29:02.454 "I've been a driver of teams, 00:29:02.454 --> 00:29:03.597 "a pick and shovel man, 00:29:03.597 --> 00:29:05.903 "and drove steel for a section boss. 00:29:07.220 --> 00:29:08.777 "I was a hand on the Mississippi, and working in 00:29:08.777 --> 00:29:11.367 "a steel foundry, and it seemed like I did a hundred 00:29:11.367 --> 00:29:12.517 "more jobs." 00:29:15.610 --> 00:29:19.022 - My grandma would work in the tub washing the 00:29:19.022 --> 00:29:23.481 clothes of the prominent white people of our city. 00:29:23.481 --> 00:29:28.481 And for all of that washing, for the whole white family, 00:29:28.950 --> 00:29:32.650 washing, and then ironing, she got a dollar and a half 00:29:33.899 --> 00:29:36.860 for the whole family laundry, at the end of it. 00:29:36.860 --> 00:29:39.550 So there was several families that she had, 00:29:39.550 --> 00:29:41.900 but it was just a dollar and a half 00:29:41.900 --> 00:29:43.953 for all of that work. 00:29:45.130 --> 00:29:47.294 - [Woman] "White folks didn't have no feelin' for ya. 00:29:47.294 --> 00:29:49.033 "They pretended they did. 00:29:49.033 --> 00:29:51.625 "They had nannies to give they child comfort. 00:29:51.625 --> 00:29:53.257 "That was my name, nanny. 00:29:53.257 --> 00:29:55.747 "They would teach their children they were better than you. 00:29:55.747 --> 00:29:58.517 "You was giving them all that love, and you'd hear 00:29:58.517 --> 00:30:01.207 "them say, 'You're not supposed to love nanny. 00:30:01.207 --> 00:30:02.367 "'Nanny's a nigger.' 00:30:03.235 --> 00:30:05.017 "And they would say it so nasty, until it cut 00:30:05.017 --> 00:30:06.347 "your heart out almost, 00:30:06.347 --> 00:30:08.493 "and you couldn't say a mumbling word. 00:30:09.655 --> 00:30:10.727 "A woman knows how to shift a smile 00:30:10.727 --> 00:30:12.337 "when the burden is so heavy. 00:30:12.337 --> 00:30:14.467 "Know how to smile when she want to cry. 00:30:14.467 --> 00:30:17.817 "Smile when sorrow done touched her so deeply. 00:30:17.817 --> 00:30:19.957 "So that's I feel black women in the field 00:30:19.957 --> 00:30:24.037 "had to pray and had to moan and had to cry. 00:30:24.037 --> 00:30:26.664 "Them prayers went a long way 00:30:26.664 --> 00:30:27.757 "and protected a lot of people. 00:30:27.757 --> 00:30:30.053 "And God wiped away those tears. 00:30:31.177 --> 00:30:34.430 "And the next morning, we had the strength to go on." 00:30:34.430 --> 00:30:35.483 Dorothy Bolden. 00:30:36.940 --> 00:30:38.610 - [Narrator] But despite all the obstacles, 00:30:38.610 --> 00:30:40.420 blacks began to rise. 00:30:40.420 --> 00:30:42.410 More blacks were being educated. 00:30:42.410 --> 00:30:45.330 There was now a growing black middle class. 00:30:45.330 --> 00:30:47.000 And the children of the former slaves 00:30:47.000 --> 00:30:49.770 were not to quick to bow down to the white man 00:30:49.770 --> 00:30:50.993 as their parents had. 00:30:52.910 --> 00:30:57.910 - Whites perceived a new generation of black southerners. 00:30:58.200 --> 00:31:00.970 The sons and the daughters and the grandsons 00:31:00.970 --> 00:31:03.800 and granddaughters of the former slaves, 00:31:03.800 --> 00:31:05.600 who had not been disciplined by slavery, 00:31:05.600 --> 00:31:07.163 who had never known slavery, 00:31:08.300 --> 00:31:12.260 who were perceived as much more restless and obviously 00:31:12.260 --> 00:31:15.430 much more threatening because unlike some of their 00:31:15.430 --> 00:31:19.073 parents and grandparents, they seemed less afraid of whites. 00:31:20.541 --> 00:31:21.477 - [Man] "We are not the negro from whom 00:31:21.477 --> 00:31:24.723 "the chains of slavery fell a quarter of a century ago. 00:31:25.626 --> 00:31:27.259 "Most assuredly not. 00:31:27.259 --> 00:31:30.037 "We are now qualified as being the equal of whites, 00:31:30.037 --> 00:31:32.257 "and should be treated as such. 00:31:32.257 --> 00:31:36.647 "Every time we see a negro physician, it does us good. 00:31:36.647 --> 00:31:39.180 "When we see a negro pharmacist, 00:31:39.180 --> 00:31:40.177 "it goes still better. 00:31:40.177 --> 00:31:43.117 "When we see the lawyers, professors, 00:31:43.117 --> 00:31:47.287 "bank presidents, inventors, machinists, mechanics, 00:31:47.287 --> 00:31:49.957 "we grin as much as our mouth will allow, 00:31:49.957 --> 00:31:53.460 "and shout, 'The negro is coming!'" 00:31:53.460 --> 00:31:55.503 Editor, Richmond Planter. 00:32:00.572 --> 00:32:02.280 - [Narrator] Many whites feared, since the end of slavery, 00:32:02.280 --> 00:32:03.980 that blacks would come to feel they were 00:32:03.980 --> 00:32:05.810 equal to whites. 00:32:05.810 --> 00:32:07.963 Now that fear seemed realized. 00:32:09.128 --> 00:32:12.215 - [Man] "The colored race is getting more unreliable. 00:32:12.215 --> 00:32:14.497 "Freedom has ruined them in every way. 00:32:14.497 --> 00:32:17.323 "Only the old timey darkies can be trusted. 00:32:18.183 --> 00:32:20.507 "The young ones are sullen and grow more insolent 00:32:20.507 --> 00:32:21.557 "every day." 00:32:22.582 --> 00:32:24.887 - [Woman] "They don't sing as they used to. 00:32:24.887 --> 00:32:28.173 "You should've known the old days of the plantation. 00:32:29.719 --> 00:32:31.527 "Every year it seems they're losing more and more 00:32:31.527 --> 00:32:33.713 "of their own confessed good humor. 00:32:35.338 --> 00:32:37.877 "I sometimes feel I don't know 'em anymore. 00:32:37.877 --> 00:32:40.257 "They've grown so glum and serious. 00:32:40.257 --> 00:32:42.777 "I'm free to say, I'm scared of 'em." 00:32:44.235 --> 00:32:46.030 - [Narrator] Nowhere was this fear more pronounced 00:32:46.030 --> 00:32:48.000 than in Memphis, Tennessee, 00:32:48.000 --> 00:32:52.270 where in the 1880s, 40% of the population was black. 00:32:52.270 --> 00:32:54.500 Faced with this growing black presence, 00:32:54.500 --> 00:32:57.130 whites demanded that the informal practices, 00:32:57.130 --> 00:33:00.640 which has segregated the races since 1865, 00:33:00.640 --> 00:33:04.290 became legalized and strictly enforced. 00:33:04.290 --> 00:33:06.040 - The laws were intended to accomplish 00:33:06.040 --> 00:33:07.860 what is was clear the conventions were not 00:33:07.860 --> 00:33:09.860 going to accomplish, which was again, 00:33:09.860 --> 00:33:13.270 to make African American act inferior. 00:33:13.270 --> 00:33:15.840 Again, if white people couldn't make African Americans 00:33:15.840 --> 00:33:18.190 be inferior, they couldn't prevent some of them 00:33:18.190 --> 00:33:20.580 from attaining a kind of middle class status 00:33:20.580 --> 00:33:23.030 despite the violence and despite the discrimination, 00:33:23.030 --> 00:33:24.980 then they could make them act inferior. 00:33:26.439 --> 00:33:28.982 (train whistle blowing) 00:33:28.982 --> 00:33:30.990 - [Narrator] These forced acts of humiliation 00:33:30.990 --> 00:33:32.640 began to manifest themselves on 00:33:32.640 --> 00:33:34.730 the southern railroad lines. 00:33:34.730 --> 00:33:38.060 Special Jim Crow cars were set aside on trains, 00:33:38.060 --> 00:33:39.790 for black men and women, 00:33:39.790 --> 00:33:43.150 and for those white men who wanted to smoke and drink. 00:33:43.150 --> 00:33:48.150 In 1884, Ida B. Wells, a young teacher from Memphis, 00:33:48.855 --> 00:33:51.170 was quietly reading in a first class car 00:33:51.170 --> 00:33:53.090 when a conductor ordered her to move 00:33:53.090 --> 00:33:54.090 to the Jim Crow car. 00:33:56.504 --> 00:33:59.087 - [Woman] "I refuse, saying the forward car was a smoker, 00:33:59.087 --> 00:34:00.693 "and I was in the ladies' car. 00:34:02.024 --> 00:34:03.327 "I proposed to stay. 00:34:03.327 --> 00:34:05.597 "He tried to drag me out of my seat, 00:34:05.597 --> 00:34:08.027 "but the moment he caught hold of my arm, 00:34:08.027 --> 00:34:11.550 "I fastened my teeth on the back of his hand." 00:34:11.550 --> 00:34:12.887 Ida B. Wells. 00:34:14.199 --> 00:34:15.880 - They are able to get her out of the seat, 00:34:15.880 --> 00:34:19.600 but she refuses to go into the accommodation car. 00:34:19.600 --> 00:34:21.172 And she gets off the train, 00:34:22.050 --> 00:34:26.080 walks back to town with her dress torn, 00:34:26.080 --> 00:34:27.600 with her hat now askew. 00:34:27.600 --> 00:34:30.757 She will sue the Chesapeake and Ohio railway. 00:34:30.757 --> 00:34:33.251 She takes this mighty corporation to court, 00:34:33.251 --> 00:34:34.860 and she does prevail in the end 00:34:34.860 --> 00:34:37.730 because the judge does say that indeed she was a lady. 00:34:37.730 --> 00:34:39.409 She's a school teacher, 00:34:39.409 --> 00:34:42.293 she was dressed the way she was supposed to dress, 00:34:42.293 --> 00:34:43.393 she acted accordingly. 00:34:44.351 --> 00:34:45.840 - [Narrator] But the victory was short lived. 00:34:45.840 --> 00:34:48.239 The verdict was overturned 00:34:48.239 --> 00:34:49.713 by a Tennessee appeals court. 00:34:51.315 --> 00:34:52.317 - [Woman] "I had firmly believed all along 00:34:52.317 --> 00:34:55.463 "that the law was on our side and would give us justice. 00:34:57.249 --> 00:34:59.899 "I feel shorn of that belief and utterly discouraged. 00:35:01.575 --> 00:35:03.937 "If it were possible, I would gather the race is my arms 00:35:03.937 --> 00:35:05.403 "and fly away with them. 00:35:06.987 --> 00:35:11.593 "God, is there no redress, no peace nor justice, for us? 00:35:12.437 --> 00:35:17.307 "Teach us what to do, for I am sorely, bitterly, disgusted." 00:35:18.780 --> 00:35:21.217 - She said, "I wanted so badly to do something 00:35:21.217 --> 00:35:24.527 "great for people, and I thought I had. 00:35:24.527 --> 00:35:28.137 "But now with this, I feel that justice 00:35:28.137 --> 00:35:30.057 "is no longer on our side." 00:35:31.328 --> 00:35:32.720 - [Narrator] Inspired by her personal confrontation 00:35:32.720 --> 00:35:36.210 with Jim Crow, Wells decided to fight for the rights 00:35:36.210 --> 00:35:37.513 of all black people. 00:35:38.350 --> 00:35:41.490 She taught school by day, and at night, 00:35:41.490 --> 00:35:44.393 wrote newspaper articles under the pen name Iola. 00:35:45.350 --> 00:35:48.350 In the late 1880s, when the Tennessee legislature 00:35:48.350 --> 00:35:51.080 ruled to take the vote away from blacks, 00:35:51.080 --> 00:35:52.363 Wells attacked. 00:35:53.840 --> 00:35:56.297 - [Woman] "The dailies of our city say that whites 00:35:56.297 --> 00:35:58.113 "must rule this country, 00:35:59.538 --> 00:36:02.557 "but this is an expression without a thought. 00:36:02.557 --> 00:36:06.327 "The old southern voice that made the negros jump 00:36:06.327 --> 00:36:08.683 "and run to their holes like rats, 00:36:09.664 --> 00:36:13.137 "is told to shut up, for the negro of today 00:36:13.137 --> 00:36:17.110 "is not the same as negros were 30 years ago." 00:36:18.337 --> 00:36:22.319 ♪ Swing low ♪ 00:36:22.319 --> 00:36:27.319 ♪ Sweet chariot ♪ 00:36:27.539 --> 00:36:32.539 ♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪ 00:36:33.009 --> 00:36:36.797 ♪ Swing low ♪ 00:36:36.797 --> 00:36:37.873 ♪ Sweet ♪ 00:36:37.873 --> 00:36:39.328 - [Narrator] But a black man, or woman, 00:36:39.328 --> 00:36:41.800 standing up for equal justice in 1892, was taking 00:36:41.800 --> 00:36:43.133 a serious risk. 00:36:46.015 --> 00:36:49.298 On the night of March 9, when Wells was out of town, 00:36:49.298 --> 00:36:51.089 her friend, Tom Moss, and two others, 00:36:51.089 --> 00:36:52.780 were jailed for defending themselves against 00:36:52.780 --> 00:36:56.093 several white men who had attacked Moss' grocery store. 00:36:59.954 --> 00:37:01.930 Masked vigilantes dragged Moss and his two friends 00:37:01.930 --> 00:37:05.013 from their cells to a deserted railroad yard. 00:37:05.996 --> 00:37:10.580 (gunshots) (dramatic music) 00:37:10.580 --> 00:37:12.893 Before he died, Moss cried out, 00:37:14.166 --> 00:37:16.131 "Tell my people to flee. 00:37:16.131 --> 00:37:17.431 "There is no justice here. 00:37:19.278 --> 00:37:21.360 This lynching, a term that came to be applied 00:37:21.360 --> 00:37:23.940 to any mob killing of blacks, 00:37:23.940 --> 00:37:25.313 disheartened Wells. 00:37:26.400 --> 00:37:28.110 - When she had come back to Memphis, 00:37:28.110 --> 00:37:30.480 she saw that the community was absolutely devastated, 00:37:30.480 --> 00:37:32.130 and so was she. 00:37:32.130 --> 00:37:33.080 No one knew quite what to do. 00:37:33.080 --> 00:37:35.410 But when she read those words, 00:37:35.410 --> 00:37:38.390 she said this is going to be her mission as well. 00:37:38.390 --> 00:37:41.650 And she begins to talk, begins to tell black Memphians, 00:37:41.650 --> 00:37:43.810 there is no justice for you here. 00:37:43.810 --> 00:37:46.370 This system is not working for us. 00:37:46.370 --> 00:37:51.160 No one is trying to get these killers of our young men, 00:37:51.160 --> 00:37:53.603 and we should go. 00:37:54.690 --> 00:37:56.580 - [Narrator] And go they did. 00:37:56.580 --> 00:38:00.160 At least 6,000 black Memphis residents would heed 00:38:00.160 --> 00:38:01.593 Wells' call to leave. 00:38:03.250 --> 00:38:04.870 It was the beginning of an exodus that in 00:38:04.870 --> 00:38:07.963 the coming decade, would number in the millions. 00:38:09.633 --> 00:38:11.600 The murder of her friend also opened her eyes 00:38:11.600 --> 00:38:15.380 to who the true targets of the lynch mob were. 00:38:15.380 --> 00:38:19.740 - When her three friends were lynched, 00:38:19.740 --> 00:38:23.300 she began to realize that even middle class black people 00:38:24.550 --> 00:38:26.782 could be victims of that. 00:38:26.782 --> 00:38:28.840 And she talks about how, until that happened, 00:38:28.840 --> 00:38:31.570 she had believed that, what she had called 00:38:31.570 --> 00:38:34.600 excesses against the race, were only directed against 00:38:34.600 --> 00:38:36.150 those people who had perhaps done something 00:38:36.150 --> 00:38:36.983 to deserve it. 00:38:38.891 --> 00:38:41.677 - [Woman] "This opened my eyes to what lynching really was: 00:38:41.677 --> 00:38:44.337 "an excuse to get rid of negros who were 00:38:44.337 --> 00:38:47.327 "acquiring wealth and property, and thus, 00:38:47.327 --> 00:38:51.267 "keep the race terrorized, and keep the niggas down." 00:38:52.300 --> 00:38:56.600 - Ida Wells is one voice that says that 00:38:56.600 --> 00:38:58.300 these assumptions of black people, 00:38:59.220 --> 00:39:03.160 that we can actually come to some negotiated settlement 00:39:03.160 --> 00:39:06.700 with whites in this period, is a false assumption. 00:39:06.700 --> 00:39:08.420 And that you have to fight. 00:39:08.420 --> 00:39:10.820 That the only way we're going to do it is to fight. 00:39:11.860 --> 00:39:13.960 - [Narrator] Ida B. Wells would eventually leave 00:39:13.960 --> 00:39:15.233 Memphis for Chicago. 00:39:16.200 --> 00:39:18.240 There she began her crusade against the murder 00:39:18.240 --> 00:39:20.370 of southern blacks which she would continue 00:39:20.370 --> 00:39:21.693 for the rest of her life. 00:39:23.323 --> 00:39:24.510 But across the south, 00:39:24.510 --> 00:39:25.763 lynching continued. 00:39:28.061 --> 00:39:29.180 Edward White, 00:39:29.180 --> 00:39:31.070 Vance McClure, 00:39:31.070 --> 00:39:33.030 Link Wagner, 00:39:33.030 --> 00:39:35.080 Robert Williams, 00:39:35.080 --> 00:39:36.810 George King, 00:39:36.810 --> 00:39:38.830 Scott Sherman, 00:39:38.830 --> 00:39:40.730 John Fry, 00:39:40.730 --> 00:39:41.963 Ovard Belzer, 00:39:42.830 --> 00:39:44.790 William Smith, 00:39:44.790 --> 00:39:46.750 Felican Francis, 00:39:46.750 --> 00:39:47.923 A.L. Smart, 00:39:49.529 --> 00:39:50.633 Mr. And Mrs. Morris, 00:39:51.863 --> 00:39:52.920 Patrick Morris, 00:39:52.920 --> 00:39:54.163 Gilbert Francis, 00:39:55.470 --> 00:39:57.210 Bird Love, 00:39:57.210 --> 00:39:58.283 Isaac Pizer, 00:39:59.140 --> 00:40:00.633 Louis Senagall, 00:40:01.832 --> 00:40:02.970 Joeseph Dizel, 00:40:02.970 --> 00:40:04.930 Frank James, 00:40:04.930 --> 00:40:06.243 Louis Munn, 00:40:07.720 --> 00:40:09.203 Hyram Whiteman, 00:40:11.310 --> 00:40:12.143 Desano Luciano, 00:40:13.547 --> 00:40:14.797 Angelo Mongoso. 00:40:15.927 --> 00:40:17.738 - The tragedy today I think is a lot of people 00:40:17.738 --> 00:40:19.230 think they just hung somebody. 00:40:19.230 --> 00:40:24.230 But a ritualized lynching was a part of the culture 00:40:25.820 --> 00:40:27.730 of the south with even religious 00:40:27.730 --> 00:40:30.120 and patriotic connotations. 00:40:30.120 --> 00:40:31.193 Think about this: 00:40:32.520 --> 00:40:35.520 some white folk, if they had the time, 00:40:35.520 --> 00:40:40.108 dressed up in their old army garb, 00:40:40.108 --> 00:40:41.303 their old army uniform, 00:40:42.160 --> 00:40:43.843 to come out to a lynching. 00:40:44.891 --> 00:40:47.000 Racism reached a point it was so dramatized, 00:40:47.000 --> 00:40:49.793 and so ritualized and codified in the laws, 00:40:50.650 --> 00:40:55.150 in the practices, that it was a most normal, 00:40:55.150 --> 00:40:57.800 patriotic, and most religious thing 00:40:57.800 --> 00:41:01.553 that you could do, is to worship segregation. 00:41:07.598 --> 00:41:10.681 (slow country music) 00:41:17.825 --> 00:41:19.530 - [Narrator] But in the sea of violence, 00:41:19.530 --> 00:41:20.963 there were islands of hope. 00:41:22.705 --> 00:41:25.085 One was in the Mississippi Delta, 00:41:25.085 --> 00:41:26.385 a town called Mound Bayou. 00:41:28.383 --> 00:41:30.252 - There was no other place for me 00:41:30.252 --> 00:41:31.970 other than Mound Bayou. 00:41:31.970 --> 00:41:33.920 To me it was the greatest place around. 00:41:37.733 --> 00:41:39.203 We had our own officers. 00:41:40.148 --> 00:41:42.453 I didn't have to walk down the street afraid. 00:41:43.445 --> 00:41:45.300 - This was something that was unbelievable 00:41:45.300 --> 00:41:49.180 and that was a very racial conscious era. 00:41:49.180 --> 00:41:52.550 Where there was so few opportunities other than 00:41:52.550 --> 00:41:55.723 manual labor for black people. 00:41:56.716 --> 00:41:57.549 - We had everything in Mound Bayou 00:41:57.549 --> 00:41:59.342 that a heart could desire. 00:41:59.342 --> 00:42:01.023 We had oil, meals, we had stores, 00:42:02.108 --> 00:42:03.108 we had bottle works. 00:42:04.711 --> 00:42:07.975 We had hospitals, we had zoos, 00:42:07.975 --> 00:42:09.000 we had swimming pools. 00:42:09.000 --> 00:42:13.210 We had a lot of things that people would enjoy. 00:42:13.210 --> 00:42:16.580 - [Narrator] Mound Bayou was founded in 1887 00:42:16.580 --> 00:42:20.170 by black businessman Isaiah T. Montgomery, 00:42:20.170 --> 00:42:22.473 a southern man with a simple philosophy: 00:42:23.510 --> 00:42:24.963 it's a white man's country. 00:42:25.970 --> 00:42:27.490 Let them run it. 00:42:27.490 --> 00:42:32.150 - Isaiah Montgomery is a true American 00:42:32.150 --> 00:42:35.970 in the sense he was extraordinarily opportunistic. 00:42:35.970 --> 00:42:38.570 Isaiah Montgomery had the ability to identify 00:42:38.570 --> 00:42:41.400 those individuals who had goods and services 00:42:41.400 --> 00:42:45.880 and political power and esteem in the community and 00:42:46.910 --> 00:42:48.993 ingratiate himself with those persons. 00:42:50.312 --> 00:42:52.790 - [Narrator] Following the lead of men like Pap Singleton, 00:42:52.790 --> 00:42:55.823 Montgomery planned to create a safe harbor for blacks. 00:42:57.271 --> 00:43:00.952 - [Man] "It was not easy to find settlers in the early days. 00:43:00.952 --> 00:43:03.977 "The task of clearing a wild country seemed hopeless 00:43:03.977 --> 00:43:08.370 "to men with so few resources and so little experience." 00:43:08.370 --> 00:43:09.683 Isaiah Montgomery. 00:43:10.870 --> 00:43:15.370 - The Delta of Mississippi in the mid 1880s 00:43:16.579 --> 00:43:18.645 was nothing more than a wilderness. 00:43:18.645 --> 00:43:21.460 These black people who came to the Mound Bayou area 00:43:22.379 --> 00:43:25.980 had to cut down trees, had to drain bayous, 00:43:25.980 --> 00:43:28.600 had to build up the land, 00:43:28.600 --> 00:43:31.790 had to fight off wild animals and snakes 00:43:31.790 --> 00:43:35.080 and they lived as frontiersmen lived throughout 00:43:37.722 --> 00:43:38.650 the world. 00:43:38.650 --> 00:43:42.020 - [Narrator] Day by day, a town began to take shape. 00:43:42.020 --> 00:43:44.300 Churches, a post office, and schools 00:43:44.300 --> 00:43:46.280 replaced the forest. 00:43:46.280 --> 00:43:48.940 - My grandmother was Aida Simmons. 00:43:48.940 --> 00:43:51.150 She came here from Virginia. 00:43:51.150 --> 00:43:55.393 She wanted other than what she had been doing, the slavery. 00:43:56.310 --> 00:44:00.480 And the people telling them what to do. 00:44:00.480 --> 00:44:04.463 She had in her mind that there must be something else. 00:44:05.380 --> 00:44:08.290 There must be something that was better than 00:44:08.290 --> 00:44:09.790 what she was living under. 00:44:09.790 --> 00:44:12.750 - Unlike some black communities, 00:44:12.750 --> 00:44:16.330 the whites did not come in and destroy the community 00:44:17.321 --> 00:44:19.810 like some instances of other black communities. 00:44:19.810 --> 00:44:22.420 I believe, because there was a notion 00:44:23.420 --> 00:44:26.686 that a separation of the races, 00:44:26.686 --> 00:44:28.153 was an answer to the race problem. 00:44:29.613 --> 00:44:32.180 - [Narrator] By 1890, Mound Bayou was on its way to becoming 00:44:32.180 --> 00:44:35.180 one of the most prosperous black communities in the country. 00:44:36.508 --> 00:44:39.208 "The jewel of the Delta," as it would later be called. 00:44:40.990 --> 00:44:43.410 That year, Mississippi assembled a convention to pass 00:44:43.410 --> 00:44:45.403 its new Jim Crow constitution. 00:44:47.228 --> 00:44:50.520 The only black delegate was Isaiah T. Montgomery. 00:44:50.520 --> 00:44:52.330 - Black people were looking for somebody 00:44:52.330 --> 00:44:56.621 that whites would accept and so they elected Isaiah 00:44:56.621 --> 00:44:57.593 to go to this convention. 00:44:59.949 --> 00:45:02.445 (soft piano music) 00:45:02.445 --> 00:45:04.247 - [Man] "My mission is to offer an olive branch of peace 00:45:04.247 --> 00:45:07.017 "to bridge a chasm that has been developing 00:45:07.017 --> 00:45:09.607 "and widening for a generation that threatens 00:45:09.607 --> 00:45:11.787 "destruction to you and yours 00:45:11.787 --> 00:45:14.477 "while it promises no enduring prosperity 00:45:14.477 --> 00:45:15.907 "to me and mine." 00:45:19.072 --> 00:45:20.690 - [Narrator] Isaiah Montgomery, burning with desire 00:45:20.690 --> 00:45:23.880 to protect Mound Bayou from white intervention, 00:45:23.880 --> 00:45:25.970 agreed to vote in favor of an amendment 00:45:25.970 --> 00:45:27.683 to keep illiterates from voting. 00:45:28.650 --> 00:45:30.913 The law's real meaning was clear. 00:45:32.763 --> 00:45:34.407 - [Man] "There is no use to equivocate or lie 00:45:34.407 --> 00:45:35.543 "about the matter. 00:45:36.589 --> 00:45:38.407 "Mississippi's constitutional convention was held 00:45:38.407 --> 00:45:41.237 "for no other purpose than to eliminate the nigger 00:45:41.237 --> 00:45:42.453 "from politics. 00:45:43.965 --> 00:45:45.857 "Not the ignorant, but the nigger." 00:45:47.050 --> 00:45:48.343 James Vardaman. 00:45:49.852 --> 00:45:51.220 - [Narrator] Mississippi whites cheered, 00:45:51.220 --> 00:45:54.480 but to black leaders, Montgomery was a traitor 00:45:54.480 --> 00:45:55.513 and a turn coat. 00:45:57.918 --> 00:45:59.447 - [Man] "He has virtually said to the nation, 00:45:59.447 --> 00:46:04.327 "'You have done wrong in giving is this great liberty.' 00:46:04.327 --> 00:46:07.337 "He has surrendered part of his rights to an enemy 00:46:07.337 --> 00:46:10.158 "who will make this surrender a reason 00:46:10.158 --> 00:46:11.808 "for demanding all of his rights. 00:46:13.258 --> 00:46:15.521 "He is not a conscious traitor, 00:46:15.521 --> 00:46:17.363 "but his act is an act of treason. 00:46:18.874 --> 00:46:20.761 "Treason for the cause of the colored people 00:46:20.761 --> 00:46:24.187 "not only of his own state, but of the United States." 00:46:25.030 --> 00:46:26.123 Frederick Douglass. 00:46:28.522 --> 00:46:29.500 - [Narrator] Montgomery claimed the black vote 00:46:29.500 --> 00:46:30.333 was lost anyway. 00:46:31.760 --> 00:46:34.510 He hoped he had won a measure of safety for his people. 00:46:36.022 --> 00:46:38.553 "Mound Bayou is the ship," he said. 00:46:38.553 --> 00:46:42.470 "All else is an open, raging, tempestuous sea." 00:46:42.470 --> 00:46:45.090 While many black leaders, like Douglass, 00:46:45.090 --> 00:46:48.220 were outraged by Montgomery's vote, 00:46:48.220 --> 00:46:49.903 Booker T. Washington was not. 00:46:51.321 --> 00:46:54.700 By the 1890s, Washington's reputation as a spokesperson 00:46:54.700 --> 00:46:58.250 and fundraiser for Tuskegee was growing. 00:46:58.250 --> 00:47:00.790 - Booker T. Washington spoke in a language 00:47:00.790 --> 00:47:02.623 that everyone could understand. 00:47:03.579 --> 00:47:04.710 He had something for working class blacks, 00:47:04.710 --> 00:47:07.523 he had something for middle class blacks. 00:47:08.360 --> 00:47:11.649 He was able to therefore control black businessmen. 00:47:11.649 --> 00:47:14.050 He was able to control black churchmen 00:47:14.050 --> 00:47:18.020 who admired the gospel success that he was articulating. 00:47:18.020 --> 00:47:20.500 And he was able to win the admiration of 00:47:20.500 --> 00:47:23.030 working class blacks who 00:47:23.930 --> 00:47:27.050 saw that other alternatives had now been 00:47:27.050 --> 00:47:28.891 essentially exhausted. 00:47:28.891 --> 00:47:30.241 - Booker was nobody's fool. 00:47:31.130 --> 00:47:35.080 The Carnegies and the other benefactors 00:47:35.080 --> 00:47:38.630 of Tuskegee would not have contributed a dime 00:47:39.640 --> 00:47:43.370 if he, at that moment, had offered a threat 00:47:44.300 --> 00:47:49.300 to the existence that these wealthy white men 00:47:49.410 --> 00:47:51.380 were perpetuating. 00:47:51.380 --> 00:47:53.740 - [Narrator] Across the south, black improvement seemed 00:47:53.740 --> 00:47:55.870 to be thwarted at every turn, 00:47:55.870 --> 00:47:59.170 and violence continued as a daily threat. 00:47:59.170 --> 00:48:01.580 Booker T. Washington's searched for a compromise 00:48:01.580 --> 00:48:03.263 that might bring racial peace. 00:48:06.277 --> 00:48:09.310 His opportunity came in 1895 when he was invited 00:48:09.310 --> 00:48:12.473 to speak at the Cotton Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia. 00:48:14.520 --> 00:48:17.490 September 25 was proclaimed Negro Day, 00:48:17.490 --> 00:48:19.550 but the black press tried to discourage blacks 00:48:19.550 --> 00:48:20.383 from attending. 00:48:22.445 --> 00:48:23.847 - [Man] "If negros wish to feel that they are inferior 00:48:23.847 --> 00:48:25.653 "to other American citizens, 00:48:26.812 --> 00:48:28.137 "if they want to see all signs, 00:48:28.137 --> 00:48:30.627 "signs that say, 'For Whites Only,' 00:48:30.627 --> 00:48:33.407 "or, 'No Niggers Or Dogs Allowed.' 00:48:33.407 --> 00:48:36.117 "If they want to be humiliated and have their man 00:48:36.117 --> 00:48:38.617 "and womanhood crushed out, then come." 00:48:39.930 --> 00:48:41.313 Editor, Atlanta Voice. 00:48:44.842 --> 00:48:46.380 - [Narrator] James Creelman, a correspondent 00:48:46.380 --> 00:48:49.256 for the New York World, observed the crowd 00:48:49.256 --> 00:48:51.117 turned hostile when Washington mounted 00:48:51.117 --> 00:48:52.023 the speaker's platform. 00:48:54.093 --> 00:48:56.893 - [Man] "When a colored man appeared on stage, 00:48:56.893 --> 00:48:59.193 "a sudden chill fell on the whole assemblage. 00:49:00.170 --> 00:49:02.567 "One after another asked, 'What's that nigger doing 00:49:02.567 --> 00:49:04.780 "'on the stage?'" 00:49:04.780 --> 00:49:06.960 James Creelman. 00:49:06.960 --> 00:49:08.270 - [Narrator] But when Booker T. Washington 00:49:08.270 --> 00:49:11.670 criticized his own people for seeking political 00:49:11.670 --> 00:49:14.490 and economic power during reconstruction, 00:49:14.490 --> 00:49:15.733 the crowd listened. 00:49:17.069 --> 00:49:18.187 - [Man] "Our greatest danger is that in the great 00:49:18.187 --> 00:49:19.947 "leap from slavery to freedom, 00:49:19.947 --> 00:49:23.057 "we may overlook the fact that the masses of us 00:49:23.057 --> 00:49:25.423 "are to live by the production of our hands. 00:49:27.035 --> 00:49:28.567 "The opportunity to earn a dollar in a factory 00:49:28.567 --> 00:49:30.640 "just now is worth infinitely more 00:49:31.629 --> 00:49:33.978 "than to spend a dollar in an opera house." 00:49:33.978 --> 00:49:35.452 Booker T. Washington. 00:49:35.452 --> 00:49:36.727 - [Man] "And when he held his dusky hand 00:49:36.727 --> 00:49:40.413 "high above his head with the fingers stretched apart, 00:49:40.413 --> 00:49:42.247 "and said to the white people of the south, 00:49:42.247 --> 00:49:45.597 "on behalf of his race, 'In all things that are 00:49:45.597 --> 00:49:49.367 "'purely social, we can be as separate as the finger, 00:49:49.367 --> 00:49:50.797 "'yet one as the hand. 00:49:50.797 --> 00:49:54.017 "In all things essential to mutual progress, 00:49:54.017 --> 00:49:57.457 "a great sound wave resounded from the walls, 00:49:57.457 --> 00:49:59.747 "and the whole audience was on its feet 00:49:59.747 --> 00:50:01.733 "in a delirium of applause. 00:50:03.265 --> 00:50:06.474 "When the negro finished, such an ovation followed 00:50:06.474 --> 00:50:08.137 "as I had never seen before, 00:50:08.137 --> 00:50:10.827 "and never expect to see again. 00:50:10.827 --> 00:50:13.457 "White southern women pulled flowers from 00:50:13.457 --> 00:50:16.167 "the bosom of their dresses and rained them 00:50:16.167 --> 00:50:18.017 "upon the stage. 00:50:18.017 --> 00:50:21.847 "Tears ran down the face of the many blacks 00:50:21.847 --> 00:50:23.287 "in the audience." 00:50:24.380 --> 00:50:25.770 - [Narrator] As news of Washington's speech 00:50:25.770 --> 00:50:28.970 began to spread, many in the black community wondered, 00:50:28.970 --> 00:50:32.090 had Washington chosen to compromise their human rights 00:50:32.090 --> 00:50:35.173 in exchange for racial peace and economic stability? 00:50:37.309 --> 00:50:40.130 This generated overwhelming feelings of confusion, 00:50:40.130 --> 00:50:40.963 disappointment, 00:50:41.820 --> 00:50:42.723 even anger. 00:50:44.400 --> 00:50:47.080 But the white press across America rushed to embrace 00:50:47.080 --> 00:50:48.800 Washington's views. 00:50:48.800 --> 00:50:51.270 Former abolitionists, railroad tycoons, 00:50:51.270 --> 00:50:54.600 political leaders, even President Grover Cleveland, 00:50:54.600 --> 00:50:56.443 wired their congratulations. 00:50:58.063 --> 00:51:00.830 No black leader had ever before so eloquently 00:51:00.830 --> 00:51:02.223 defended Jim Crow. 00:51:03.400 --> 00:51:06.883 The speech would be celebrated as the Atlanta Compromise. 00:51:10.270 --> 00:51:13.230 - I think Booker Washington's idea of 00:51:13.230 --> 00:51:17.360 getting civil rights was if you look, act like, 00:51:17.360 --> 00:51:21.257 achieve like, work like, own businesses like, 00:51:21.257 --> 00:51:22.090 support the government like, 00:51:22.090 --> 00:51:25.000 pay taxes like everybody else, 00:51:25.000 --> 00:51:29.330 that the civil rights that you 00:51:29.330 --> 00:51:32.513 are entitled to will be given to you. 00:51:33.630 --> 00:51:35.090 - [Narrator] The south had demonstrated this 00:51:35.090 --> 00:51:36.270 was not the case. 00:51:38.456 --> 00:51:40.070 Only 12 months after the Atlanta Compromise, 00:51:40.070 --> 00:51:42.170 the highest court in the land would agree. 00:51:43.950 --> 00:51:46.260 Three years before the Washington speech, 00:51:46.260 --> 00:51:49.000 a Louisiana shoemaker named Homar Plessy 00:51:49.000 --> 00:51:51.890 was fined $25 for refusing to leave 00:51:51.890 --> 00:51:56.210 a whites only car, on the Louisiana railway. 00:51:56.210 --> 00:51:58.173 Plessy was only one eighth black, 00:51:59.082 --> 00:52:01.660 but under Louisiana law, he was black. 00:52:01.660 --> 00:52:04.080 By 1896, the case appeared before 00:52:04.080 --> 00:52:05.863 the United States Supreme Court. 00:52:07.829 --> 00:52:11.145 The court upheld the Louisiana law stating that, 00:52:11.145 --> 00:52:12.837 "Separate but equal facilities for blacks and whites 00:52:12.837 --> 00:52:17.024 "did not violate the constitutions new guarantee 00:52:17.024 --> 00:52:18.536 "of equal protection." 00:52:18.536 --> 00:52:21.453 ♪ Sometimes I feel ♪ 00:52:23.409 --> 00:52:25.580 Only three decades earlier, the end of slavery 00:52:25.580 --> 00:52:29.050 had been the promise of a new day for black Americans, 00:52:29.050 --> 00:52:30.740 in which they could earn their livelihood 00:52:30.740 --> 00:52:33.540 by their own freely chosen labor. 00:52:33.540 --> 00:52:35.030 Educate their children, 00:52:35.030 --> 00:52:36.260 participate in government, 00:52:36.260 --> 00:52:38.723 and receive equal justice under the law. 00:52:40.230 --> 00:52:42.563 But despite the remarkable advances, 00:52:43.922 --> 00:52:45.790 those hopes were now dashed. 00:52:45.790 --> 00:52:48.020 Jim Crow was the law of the land, 00:52:48.020 --> 00:52:49.303 north and south. 00:52:50.642 --> 00:52:52.742 And so it would remain for half a century. 00:52:53.661 --> 00:52:56.860 Abandoned by the north, without allies in the south, 00:52:56.860 --> 00:52:59.323 blacks continued to struggle for their freedom, 00:53:00.190 --> 00:53:03.560 relying on their families, churches, schools, 00:53:03.560 --> 00:53:05.713 and other organizations to sustain them. 00:53:07.616 --> 00:53:11.220 For black Americans, no time since the end of slavery 00:53:11.220 --> 00:53:12.583 seemed so dark. 00:53:18.640 --> 00:53:20.973 ♪ From home ♪ 00:53:28.660 --> 00:53:30.910 - [Man] The tragic era of Jim Crow comes to life 00:53:30.910 --> 00:53:33.600 at PBS Online, with interactive activities 00:53:33.600 --> 00:53:34.860 and firsthand accounts. 00:53:34.860 --> 00:53:37.060 Find details on key people, events, and more 00:53:38.075 --> 00:53:38.908 at PBS.org. 00:54:21.157 --> 00:54:23.740 (upbeat music) 00:54:24.652 --> 00:54:28.080 Major funding for The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow 00:54:28.080 --> 00:54:32.400 is provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, 00:54:32.400 --> 00:54:37.400 expanding America's understanding for more than 30 years 00:54:37.470 --> 00:54:42.403 of who we were, who we are, and who we will be. 00:54:45.420 --> 00:54:49.120 And by support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, 00:54:49.120 --> 00:54:52.893 a private corporation funded by the American people. 00:54:57.821 --> 00:54:59.580 Additional funding is provided by 00:54:59.580 --> 00:55:03.113 the John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. 00:55:07.567 --> 00:55:10.200 Corporate support is made possible by New York Life. 00:55:10.200 --> 00:55:12.640 - [Woman] Today should be better than yesterday. 00:55:12.640 --> 00:55:14.680 Tomorrow should be even greater. 00:55:14.680 --> 00:55:17.080 This idea inspired a movement, 00:55:17.080 --> 00:55:20.330 and New York Life salutes the vision and bravery 00:55:20.330 --> 00:55:22.953 of those who improved our nation, and our world.