The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow | PBS | ep 1 of 4 Promises Betrayed

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The premiere episode begins with the end of the Civil War and Reconstruction, periods that held so much promise for free black men and women. But as the North gradually withdrew its support for black aspirations for land, civil and political rights, and legal due process, Southern whites succeeded in passing laws that segregated and disfranchised African Americans, laws that were reinforced with violence and terror tactics. By 1876, Reconstruction was over. "Promises Betrayed" recounts black response by documenting the work of such leaders as activist/separatist Benjamin "Pap" Singleton, anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells, as well as the emergence of Booker T. Washington as a national figure.

(dramatic blues music)

- [Man] Major funding for
The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow

is provided by the National
Endowment for the Humanities,

expanding America's understanding
for more that 30 years

of who we were, who we
are, and who we will be.

And by support from the Corporation
for Public Broadcasting,

a private corporation funded
by the American people.

Additional funding is
provided by the John D.

and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Corporate support is made
possible by New York Life.

- [Woman] With vision and determination,

one generation dreamed of
creating a better world

for the next.

New York Life is proud to
bring you remarkable stories

of dedication, struggle, and triumph.

(grand orchestral music)

♪ Come listen all you gals and boy ♪

♪ I'm just from Tuckahoe ♪

♪ I'm going to sing a little song ♪

♪ My name's Jim Crow ♪

♪ Wheel about and turn
about and do just so ♪

♪ Every time I wheel
about, I jump Jim Crow ♪

♪ I went down to the river ♪

- [Narrator] In 1836, Jim Crow was born.

He begins his strange
career as a malicious

minstrel caricature of a black man,

created by a white man
to amuse white audiences.

(laughing)
(applause)

Jim Crow would come to
symbolize one of the most

tragic eras of race relations
in American history.

A time deeply rooted in
promise and contradiction.

1865, four million Americans,
slaves simply because they

were born black, were now free.

But in little over a decade,

that promise was gone.

Replaced by a rigid system
of laws designed to keep

blacks from experiencing any of their

newly achieved rights.

It would be known as the era of Jim Crow,

the American form of racial apartheid.

- I tried to lean inside
and get me a cup of water.

And those white people beat
me until I was unconscious.

They thought I was dead.

- My dad said, "As long as you are living

"in this South, you're going to have to go

"through the back door, in this South.

"And you just settle for that."

He said, "Well one thing
I want you to swear

"and promise to me, is that you will never

"get used to it."

- I'm not ashamed of the
segregated and Jim Crow experience.

All because, we were
able to devise techniques

for survival

that permitted us to bide our time

and to wait until our change comes.

- [Narrator] As most blacks were willing

to bide their time, some
began to fight back.

In the last 1880s and
90s, they embarked on an

uncertain campaign to
secure voting rights,

build their own communities,
schools, businesses,

and churches, and to
demand redress against

mob violence and lynching.

The white supremacists fought back.

By 1919, the Ku Klux Klan, which had been

a southern idiosyncrasy,
became a national ideology.

White supremacy, the
power behind Jim Crow,

appeared invincible.

And over the next decade,
the violence against blacks

would grow even more horrific.

But black Americans continued to battle,

using the power of the
press, and ultimately

the power of the courts
to pursue their quest

for freedom and equality against racism.

The rise and fall of
Jim Crow is their story.

The story of strong men
and women who would never

accept the demeaning,
threatening, and perilous world

of Jim Crow.

The rise and fall of Jim
Crow is a story of those who,

in the face of unending
terror, achieved triumphs.

Triumphs that would in time
make America a better place.

Not just for themselves,
but for all of us.

(gun fire)
(dramatic music)

Conflict over black emancipation is as

old as the nation.

In 1861, the south left the Union

rather than remain part of
a country that restricted

the expansion of slavery.

At first, Abraham Lincoln saw the struggle

as simply a war to save the nation,

but in time, he would recast the Civil War

as a war to end slavery.

On January 1, 1863, he issued
the Emancipation Proclamation

freeing all slaves in
the Confederate states.

Six months after the south surrendered,

Congress ratified the 13th Amendment,

abolishing slavery.

The federal government had made a promise

to the former slaves.

These newly freed men and women,
who knew what they wanted,

education, and a right to vote,

equal rights in the
courts, and mostly, land.

- What is it that your people need

now that you're free?

Our people need land.

And they need tools to work the land.

So there we began to
see the priority to own

our own land.

- [Man] "Every colored
man would be a slave

"and feel himself a
slave, until he can raise

"his own bale of cotton and put his own

"mark upon it and says, 'This is mine.'

"With our independence,
and self employment,

"freedom would be meaningless."

Peter Hall.

- [Narrator] On Edisto
Island, off the coast

of South Carolina,
thousands of newly freed

blacks were making that dream come true

on land abandoned by their former masters,

and given to them by the Union army.

They had built schools and churches.

Established family, and community life.

But they had heard rumors
that their future was at risk.

Lincoln had been assassinated
and a southerner,

Andrew Johnson, was president.

Johnson fought to save the Union,

but not to free slaves.

"This is a country for
white men," he said.

"And as long as I'm president, it will be

"a government for white men."

♪ Sometimes ♪

♪ I feel ♪

♪ Like a motherless ♪

♪ Child ♪

On October 19, 1865, a
board carrying a deeply

troubled Union general, Oliver O. Howard,

slowly made its way toward Edisto.

Howard was know as the Christian general.

A deeply religious man who hated slavery.

He was in charge of the
new Freedman's Bureau,

established by Congress that year,

to protect the confiscated lands given

to the former slaves.

Howard was revered second only to Lincoln

by freed blacks.

- They got the message from
the Freedman's Bureau that

the general was coming back,
General Olive O. Howard,

who, they were expecting to
hear nothing but good news

from him because was the
man who had told them

about how this land, now,
was transferred to them

and that they owned it
and that they didn't

have to worry about "massa"
no more and everything.

He asked them to gather
together at their church

on Edisto.

So over 2,000 people came
from all amongst the oak trees

and all back off in the
woods and from their shacks

and their dirt roads to
meet there at the church

to hear this new discussion
about their land.

- [Man] "I have been sent
by the president to tell you

"that your old masters have been pardoned

"and their plantations are
to be given back to them.

"That they would hire
blacks to work for them.

"Lay aside your bitter feelings,
and be reconciled to them."

General Oliver O. Howard.

- So people were enraged and
people started hollering out,

"No, no, it aint no way.

"No, no, that aint what
you tell us before.

"No, sir, no, sir."

- [Man] "General Howard?

"Why'd he take away our lands?

"You take them from us who are true,

"always true to the government.

"You give them to our all time enemies.

"The man who gave me 39 lashes

"and who stripped and
flogged my mother and sister.

"Who keeps land from me well knowing

"I would not have anything to do with him

"if I had land of my own.

"That man I cannot well forgive."

A Freedman.

- Some went into

♪ Nobody know ♪

♪ The trouble we see ♪

And some went into "Motherless Child,"

and all those things rippled off the sea.

♪ Feel ♪

♪ Like a motherless child ♪

♪ A long way ♪

♪ From home ♪

- [Narrator] One year later in 1866,

Congress, recognizing
continued southern resistance

to black emancipation, passed
the 14th and 15th amendments,

guaranteeing blacks the right to vote

in due process of law.

The time of reconstruction had begun.

But many whites did not plan on fulfilling

the intentions of the new laws.

Mississippi passed their
Black Code, giving courts

the right to apprentice former slaves,

with preference to their former owners.

- [Man] "The negro is free
whether we like it or not.

"For the purity and
progress of both races,

"They must accept their place in the

"lower order of things.

"That place is the cotton
fields of the south.

"Such is the rule of the plantation,

"and the law of God."

Governor Benjamin Humphreys.

- [Narrator] But blacks did
not see themselves trapped

in the cotton fields.

They used their vote to
elect black representatives,

sat on juries, and sent
their children to school.

- What had alarmed the white south during

reconstruction was not
evidence of black failure,

but evidence of black success.

Evidence of black assertion.

Evidence of black independence.

Evidence of black advancement.

And evidence that black men were learning.

They used this as political power.

- [Narrator] If intimidation
would not keep blacks in

their place, then violence might.

In the same year that
reconstruction began,

Nathan Bedford Forrest,
a Confederate general,

founded the Ku Klux Klan.

The image of the Klan
in white hoods killing

blacks by the lights of burning crosses

would forever be etched
in the American mind.

- The way white supremacists made sure

that ex slaves would fall back into place,

or nearly back into place, was terror.

Beating people up,

burning down their houses,

shooting them,

just the usual physical
mayhem of personal violence.

(slow, dramatic music)

- [Narrator] Although
they were beaten into

submission and retreat, 1869
offered a glimmer of hope

with the election of Civil War hero,

Ulysses S. Grant to the presidency.

And Grant delivered.

He sent federal troops to the south

to counter groups like the Klan.

But for the black community,
even federal intervention

was not enough.

- The question of, "Should
we stay at home in the south,

"should we stay at home
in the United States,

"should we move somewhere
else to the north,

"should we move to the west,

"or should we leave the
United States entirely?"

- [Narrator] Feeling trapped and helpless,

and in need of answers, some
turned to an unlikely source,

an old man who had been born in slavery.

- [Man] "We needed land for our children.

"That caused my heart to grieve in sorrow.

"Pity for my race caused
me to work for them.

"Confidence is perished and faded away.

"We are going to leave the south."

Pap Singleton.

(soft gospel music)
(water wading)

- [Narrator] In 1874, Pap
Singleton, a former slave,

would lead a group of 300
blacks through Kansas.

John Brown struck his first
blow against slavery there.

God must be in Kansas,

and black people wanted
to go where God was.

No one spoke this cause stronger

than Sojourner Truth.

- [Woman] "I have prayed
so long that my people

"would go to Kansas, and
that God would make straight

"the way before them.

"This colored people is
going to be a people.

"Do you think God has
them robbed and scourged

"all the days of their life for nothing?"

- Many of the people
saw their promise land.

They saw their Jordan
River, being those places

that they had to cross over into

where freedom would be away from those

who had basically had
their feet on their necks

all this time, just like
the Pharaoh had done

in the Bible.

So many of them followed
their leaders so that

they could have their life to themselves

however they wanted that to be built.

- They also believed in the god of Daniel

who was an avenging god.

This is the god of the apocalypse,

the god of the second coming,

the god of the decision
of who was going to

go to heaven and who
was going to go to hell.

- [Narrator] But as much
as Kansas loomed as a

promise land for many
blacks, getting there could

become a journey through hell.

Many would perish from
starvation and exposure.

One group fell victim to Yellow Fever,

and there was always the
fear of murderous whites.

- [Man] "I saw colored men
and women cast themselves

"to the ground in despair.

"Heard them grown and
shout their lamentations.

"What is to become of
these wretched people?

"God only knows.

"There were nearly half
a thousand scattered all

"along the banks of
the mighty Mississippi.

"Without shelter, without food.

"With no hope of escaping from
their present surrounding,

"and hardly a chance of
returning from whence they came."

Riverboat captain.

- [Narrator] For those
who survived to make it

to Kansas, they found
a land of hard winters,

torrential rains, and violent tornados.

But through spiritual
and emotional conviction,

they sustained themselves
and within a few years,

over 20 towns would be built.

But not all blacks thought the answer

was to leave the south.

Frederick Douglass, a
former slave who had become

the leading black voice for abolition,

opposed any mass exodus.

- [Man] "The country will
be told of the hundreds

"who go to Kansas, but
not of the thousands

"who stay in Mississippi.

"They will be told of
the destitute who require

"material aid but not of the multitude

"who are bravely sustaining
themselves where they are.

"If the people of this
country cannot be protected

"in every state of the Union,

"the sovereignty of the
nation is an empty one

"and the power in individual
states is greater than

"the power of the United States."

Frederick Douglass.

- [Narrator] In 1877, Republican president

Rutherford B. Hayes,
who had won the election

by making a deal for electoral votes

from southern Democrats,

pulled federal troops from the south.

The party of Lincoln had
betrayed the former slaves.

Reconstruction was over.

Whites began to reassert
their power over blacks,

politically, legally, and economically.

And no where was this change more crushing

than for those blacks who were farmers,

most of whom were sharecroppers.

- Owners controlled their little worlds.

So there was no police power,

there was no federal power,
there was no state power

that actually made a
difference on the ground.

So you had relations of dependency

built around obedience and submission.

That was the ideology of
the culture of slavery.

Obedience and submission.

- Here was the black man,
having very limited education,

not knowing how to figure and to read.

With the books being kept by the white man

who is giving him his supplies

to start a crop, and
likewise, own the land.

When the black man ended
up at the end of the year,

and brought his crop in,

the white man immediately
arranged to out figure him,

- The man would take your cotton,

and then the man that
had stole you had credit,

he'll run the books up on you,

so you didn't have nothin'.

You work a whole year and
handpick 40 bales of cotton,

and come out with nothin'.

- [Narrator] Frustrated
by the unfulfilled promise

of emancipation, blacks
turned to the next generation.

To their children.

They believed education
would be the key to overcome

white dominance.

One man would come to symbolize this hope.

Booker T. Washington.

Born into slavery, Washington
has managed to learn

to read and write and at
nine he worked in salt mine.

But within in 25 years,
Washington had been a student

and a teacher at the Hampton Institute,

and was invited to be
principal of a new school

in Alabama.

That school, was Tuskegee.

Arriving in a community of
farms and sharecroppers,

where attending school
was rare, if at all,

Washington faced a great challenge:

to build a school, attract
students, recruit teachers.

Only July 4, 1881, in the
Zion Hill Baptist Church,

the Tuskegee Institute was born.

Washington and his 30 recruits

believed the only way to one
day have their own buildings,

would be to build them themselves.

- The reason that it started
as an industrial school

was because they had nothing,

and so they had to build,
grow, and make everything.

Like harness making, because they needed

to have harnesses for the farm animals.

Carpentry because they
needed to build the building.

Brick masonry because they
needed to make the bricks.

These kinds of trades,

printing, shoemaking,
tailoring, carpentry,

all of these things were
things that they could use

to build a business.

- [Narrator] One student who
found opportunity at Tuskegee,

was a young man named William Holtzclaw.

His parents, especially his mother, Addie,

were passionate about getting an education

for their children.

They even built their own school.

(hitting)

- [Man] "I remember my
parents went into the forest

"and cut pine poles
eight inches in diameter.

"Split them in half, carried
them on their shoulders,

"to a nice, shady spot,
and built a schoolhouse,

"There were no floors, no chimneys,

"and the benches were made
of the same material."

- [Narrator] Addie Holtzclaw
would provide schemes

that allowed William and his
brother to get an education

for most of the year.

- [Man] "The landlord
wanted us to pick cotton,

"but mother wanted me to remain in school.

"So she used to out
general him by hiding me

"behind skillets, ovens, and pots.

"Then she would slip me
to school the back way,

"pushing me through the
woods and underbrush

"until it was safe for
me to travel alone."

- Whenever someone had
wanted to go to school,

they would make sure that one of them went

and that one stayed at home.

Because if they didn't,
if both of them were gone,

the overseer would come
around and would say,

"Where are those boys?"

And he would get upset,
so, in order to make sure

that didn't happen,
she'd sent one to school

and leave one at home to do the work

so when the overseer came
around and needed someone,

he would call 'em, and
they would be there.

(thunder and lightening)

(disembodied chattering)

- [Narrator] But the
limited education was never

going to propel the Holtzclaw children

beyond the bondage of sharecropping,

where if the land owner didn't teach you,

the weather might.

(disembodied chattering)

William Holtzclaw heard about Tuskegee.

He wrote Booker T. Washington a letter.

- [Man] "Dear Book,

"I want to go to Tuskegee
to get an education.

"Can I come?"

- [Narrator] The letter found its way.

"Come," Washington replied.

- [Man] "When I walked out on campus,

"I was startled at what I saw.

"There before my eyes
was a huge pair of mules,

"drawin' a machine plow
which, to me, at the time,

"was a mystery.

"There were girls cultivating flowers,

"and boys erecting huge brick buildings.

"Some were hitching horses
and driving carriages,

"while others were milking
cows and making cheese.

"I found some boys studying drawings

"and others hammering irons.

"Each with an intense
earnestness that I had

"never seen in young men."

- When he first got to
Tuskegee, he was really amazed

that there were so many
things that he didn't know.

He was also amazed as
to how they organized

the students in the dormitory setting,

particularly himself,
because he had never slept

between two sheets.

And when he went to the
dorm, he was sleeping,

as they say, ready roll.

He had all of his clothes on
and someone had to come in

and tell him that you have
such a thing as a night shirt

and a shirt that you wear during the day.

- [Man] "My plan was
for them to see not only

"the utility of labor, but
its beauty and dignity.

"They will be taught how to lift labor up

"from drudgery and toil,
and they will learn

"to love work for its own sake.

"We wanted them to return
to the plantation districts

"and show people there
how to put new energy

"and new ideas into farming,
as well as the intellectual,

"and moral and religious
life of the people."

Booker T. Washington.

- [Narrator] Washington's
vision would bear fruit.

In less than a decade,
Tuskegee had over a thousand

acres of land, 14 buildings,

a farm, and a dozen shops,
from a laundry to a blacksmith,

with enrollment of 400 students

and 28 teachers.

Washington wanted his
students at Tuskegee to learn

to work and work hard, no
matter how menial the task.

He also wanted to keep southern whites

from feeling threatened.

- That's why they thought
Booker T. Washington was

the great godsend.

That somehow he'd come forward with an

educational philosophy
which said said in the fact

that you can educate a
people and still keep

them subordinate.

And he once gave a talk and
a speech, and I think it's

the most concrete example.

While he was giving the talk,

and actually he was asked this
question by a white farmer.

He says, "Why should I
sent Mandy to Tuskegee to

"learn how to cook when
she can spit in a skillet

"and know when it's hot?"

And Washington's response was,

"The purpose of industrial
education is to teach her

"not to spit in the skillet.

"Not to teach her to be
something other than a cook,

"but to be a better cook.

"To be a better sharecropper.

"To be a better mind worker."

And so whites really
thought, "This is a god send.

"We've now come up with
a philosophy of education

"that can keep people in their place

"and even teach them to be
better within their place."

And they thought that that was possible.

They learned very quickly
that that was not possible.

- [Narrator] At the Haines
School in Augusta, Georgia,

its founder, Lucy Laney,
would expand Washington's

philosophy of teaching and take
it in a different direction.

She insisted upon developing
her children's full potential.

Her students studied English,
mathematics, history,

chemistry, physics,
psychology, sociology, French,

and German.

"What we need to develop," Laney said,

"Is mind is not hands.

"Race leaders, not followers."

Laney was especially
interested in training

young black women to be teachers.

- [Woman] "The educated
negro woman is needed

"in the schoolroom.

"Not only in the kindergarten
and primary school,

"but in the high school and the college.

"She may give advice and
knowledge that will change

"a whole community and start its people

"on the upward way."

- African American women were playing

a much more critical
role than what was common

in American education generally.

They were critical as educational leaders,

but even within the trenches
of local communities,

in terms of fundraising and
teaching and support groups,

that you cannot really
understand the development

of African American education
without really appreciating

the leadership of African American women.

- Teaching was a very important profession

for black women in this period of time.

It was not just a profession,

but it was a mission to
uplift African Americans,

to teach people to read.

To also teach them the ways of this world

as free people.

- [Narrator] But black
teachers had to show

real ingenuity.

Black schools were often
barren affairs with few books,

maps, pencils, or pens.

- [Woman] "We had students
draw the national flag

"on the blackboard.

"These flags were assigned a
place of honor on the board

"and became a permanent
picture in the room for years.

"Pupils were careful not
to erase the flag when

"they erased the blackboard."

(soft gospel music)

- [Narrator] The positive
image of Laney and others

was hopeful, but the
reality for most blacks

was hard, back breaking
work and servitude.

- [Man] "I've been a
factory hand, janitor,

"importer, and butler, and wiping engines

"on the railroad.

"I worked as a helper for a carpenter

"laying bricks for masons.

"I've been a driver of teams,

"a pick and shovel man,

"and drove steel for a section boss.

"I was a hand on the
Mississippi, and working in

"a steel foundry, and it
seemed like I did a hundred

"more jobs."

- My grandma would work
in the tub washing the

clothes of the prominent
white people of our city.

And for all of that washing,
for the whole white family,

washing, and then ironing,
she got a dollar and a half

for the whole family
laundry, at the end of it.

So there was several
families that she had,

but it was just a dollar and a half

for all of that work.

- [Woman] "White folks didn't
have no feelin' for ya.

"They pretended they did.

"They had nannies to
give they child comfort.

"That was my name, nanny.

"They would teach their children
they were better than you.

"You was giving them all
that love, and you'd hear

"them say, 'You're not
supposed to love nanny.

"'Nanny's a nigger.'

"And they would say it
so nasty, until it cut

"your heart out almost,

"and you couldn't say a mumbling word.

"A woman knows how to shift a smile

"when the burden is so heavy.

"Know how to smile when she want to cry.

"Smile when sorrow done
touched her so deeply.

"So that's I feel black women in the field

"had to pray and had
to moan and had to cry.

"Them prayers went a long way

"and protected a lot of people.

"And God wiped away those tears.

"And the next morning, we
had the strength to go on."

Dorothy Bolden.

- [Narrator] But despite
all the obstacles,

blacks began to rise.

More blacks were being educated.

There was now a growing
black middle class.

And the children of the former slaves

were not to quick to bow
down to the white man

as their parents had.

- Whites perceived a new
generation of black southerners.

The sons and the daughters
and the grandsons

and granddaughters of the former slaves,

who had not been disciplined by slavery,

who had never known slavery,

who were perceived as much
more restless and obviously

much more threatening
because unlike some of their

parents and grandparents, they
seemed less afraid of whites.

- [Man] "We are not the negro from whom

"the chains of slavery fell
a quarter of a century ago.

"Most assuredly not.

"We are now qualified as
being the equal of whites,

"and should be treated as such.

"Every time we see a negro
physician, it does us good.

"When we see a negro pharmacist,

"it goes still better.

"When we see the lawyers, professors,

"bank presidents, inventors,
machinists, mechanics,

"we grin as much as our mouth will allow,

"and shout, 'The negro is coming!'"

Editor, Richmond Planter.

- [Narrator] Many whites feared,
since the end of slavery,

that blacks would come to feel they were

equal to whites.

Now that fear seemed realized.

- [Man] "The colored race
is getting more unreliable.

"Freedom has ruined them in every way.

"Only the old timey
darkies can be trusted.

"The young ones are sullen
and grow more insolent

"every day."

- [Woman] "They don't
sing as they used to.

"You should've known the
old days of the plantation.

"Every year it seems
they're losing more and more

"of their own confessed good humor.

"I sometimes feel I
don't know 'em anymore.

"They've grown so glum and serious.

"I'm free to say, I'm scared of 'em."

- [Narrator] Nowhere was
this fear more pronounced

than in Memphis, Tennessee,

where in the 1880s, 40% of
the population was black.

Faced with this growing black presence,

whites demanded that
the informal practices,

which has segregated the races since 1865,

became legalized and strictly enforced.

- The laws were intended to accomplish

what is was clear the conventions were not

going to accomplish, which was again,

to make African American act inferior.

Again, if white people
couldn't make African Americans

be inferior, they couldn't
prevent some of them

from attaining a kind
of middle class status

despite the violence and
despite the discrimination,

then they could make them act inferior.

(train whistle blowing)

- [Narrator] These forced
acts of humiliation

began to manifest themselves on

the southern railroad lines.

Special Jim Crow cars
were set aside on trains,

for black men and women,

and for those white men who
wanted to smoke and drink.

In 1884, Ida B. Wells, a
young teacher from Memphis,

was quietly reading in a first class car

when a conductor ordered her to move

to the Jim Crow car.

- [Woman] "I refuse, saying
the forward car was a smoker,

"and I was in the ladies' car.

"I proposed to stay.

"He tried to drag me out of my seat,

"but the moment he caught hold of my arm,

"I fastened my teeth on
the back of his hand."

Ida B. Wells.

- They are able to get
her out of the seat,

but she refuses to go into
the accommodation car.

And she gets off the train,

walks back to town with her dress torn,

with her hat now askew.

She will sue the Chesapeake
and Ohio railway.

She takes this mighty
corporation to court,

and she does prevail in the end

because the judge does say
that indeed she was a lady.

She's a school teacher,

she was dressed the way
she was supposed to dress,

she acted accordingly.

- [Narrator] But the
victory was short lived.

The verdict was overturned

by a Tennessee appeals court.

- [Woman] "I had firmly believed all along

"that the law was on our side
and would give us justice.

"I feel shorn of that belief
and utterly discouraged.

"If it were possible, I would
gather the race is my arms

"and fly away with them.

"God, is there no redress,
no peace nor justice, for us?

"Teach us what to do, for I am
sorely, bitterly, disgusted."

- She said, "I wanted
so badly to do something

"great for people, and I thought I had.

"But now with this, I feel that justice

"is no longer on our side."

- [Narrator] Inspired by
her personal confrontation

with Jim Crow, Wells decided
to fight for the rights

of all black people.

She taught school by day, and at night,

wrote newspaper articles
under the pen name Iola.

In the late 1880s, when
the Tennessee legislature

ruled to take the vote away from blacks,

Wells attacked.

- [Woman] "The dailies of
our city say that whites

"must rule this country,

"but this is an expression
without a thought.

"The old southern voice
that made the negros jump

"and run to their holes like rats,

"is told to shut up,
for the negro of today

"is not the same as
negros were 30 years ago."

♪ Swing low ♪

♪ Sweet chariot ♪

♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪

♪ Swing low ♪

♪ Sweet ♪

- [Narrator] But a black man, or woman,

standing up for equal
justice in 1892, was taking

a serious risk.

On the night of March 9,
when Wells was out of town,

her friend, Tom Moss, and two others,

were jailed for defending
themselves against

several white men who had
attacked Moss' grocery store.

Masked vigilantes dragged
Moss and his two friends

from their cells to a
deserted railroad yard.

(gunshots)
(dramatic music)

Before he died, Moss cried out,

"Tell my people to flee.

"There is no justice here.

This lynching, a term
that came to be applied

to any mob killing of blacks,

disheartened Wells.

- When she had come back to Memphis,

she saw that the community
was absolutely devastated,

and so was she.

No one knew quite what to do.

But when she read those words,

she said this is going to
be her mission as well.

And she begins to talk, begins
to tell black Memphians,

there is no justice for you here.

This system is not working for us.

No one is trying to get these
killers of our young men,

and we should go.

- [Narrator] And go they did.

At least 6,000 black
Memphis residents would heed

Wells' call to leave.

It was the beginning of an exodus that in

the coming decade, would
number in the millions.

The murder of her friend
also opened her eyes

to who the true targets
of the lynch mob were.

- When her three friends were lynched,

she began to realize that
even middle class black people

could be victims of that.

And she talks about how,
until that happened,

she had believed that, what she had called

excesses against the race,
were only directed against

those people who had
perhaps done something

to deserve it.

- [Woman] "This opened my eyes
to what lynching really was:

"an excuse to get rid of negros who were

"acquiring wealth and property, and thus,

"keep the race terrorized,
and keep the niggas down."

- Ida Wells is one voice that says that

these assumptions of black people,

that we can actually come to
some negotiated settlement

with whites in this period,
is a false assumption.

And that you have to fight.

That the only way we're
going to do it is to fight.

- [Narrator] Ida B. Wells
would eventually leave

Memphis for Chicago.

There she began her
crusade against the murder

of southern blacks
which she would continue

for the rest of her life.

But across the south,

lynching continued.

Edward White,

Vance McClure,

Link Wagner,

Robert Williams,

George King,

Scott Sherman,

John Fry,

Ovard Belzer,

William Smith,

Felican Francis,

A.L. Smart,

Mr. And Mrs. Morris,

Patrick Morris,

Gilbert Francis,

Bird Love,

Isaac Pizer,

Louis Senagall,

Joeseph Dizel,

Frank James,

Louis Munn,

Hyram Whiteman,

Desano Luciano,

Angelo Mongoso.

- The tragedy today I
think is a lot of people

think they just hung somebody.

But a ritualized lynching
was a part of the culture

of the south with even religious

and patriotic connotations.

Think about this:

some white folk, if they had the time,

dressed up in their old army garb,

their old army uniform,

to come out to a lynching.

Racism reached a point
it was so dramatized,

and so ritualized and
codified in the laws,

in the practices, that
it was a most normal,

patriotic, and most religious thing

that you could do, is
to worship segregation.

(slow country music)

- [Narrator] But in the sea of violence,

there were islands of hope.

One was in the Mississippi Delta,

a town called Mound Bayou.

- There was no other place for me

other than Mound Bayou.

To me it was the greatest place around.

We had our own officers.

I didn't have to walk
down the street afraid.

- This was something that was unbelievable

and that was a very racial conscious era.

Where there was so few
opportunities other than

manual labor for black people.

- We had everything in Mound Bayou

that a heart could desire.

We had oil, meals, we had stores,

we had bottle works.

We had hospitals, we had zoos,

we had swimming pools.

We had a lot of things
that people would enjoy.

- [Narrator] Mound Bayou
was founded in 1887

by black businessman Isaiah T. Montgomery,

a southern man with a simple philosophy:

it's a white man's country.

Let them run it.

- Isaiah Montgomery is a true American

in the sense he was
extraordinarily opportunistic.

Isaiah Montgomery had
the ability to identify

those individuals who
had goods and services

and political power and
esteem in the community and

ingratiate himself with those persons.

- [Narrator] Following the
lead of men like Pap Singleton,

Montgomery planned to create
a safe harbor for blacks.

- [Man] "It was not easy to
find settlers in the early days.

"The task of clearing a
wild country seemed hopeless

"to men with so few resources
and so little experience."

Isaiah Montgomery.

- The Delta of Mississippi
in the mid 1880s

was nothing more than a wilderness.

These black people who came
to the Mound Bayou area

had to cut down trees,
had to drain bayous,

had to build up the land,

had to fight off wild animals and snakes

and they lived as
frontiersmen lived throughout

the world.

- [Narrator] Day by day, a
town began to take shape.

Churches, a post office, and schools

replaced the forest.

- My grandmother was Aida Simmons.

She came here from Virginia.

She wanted other than what she
had been doing, the slavery.

And the people telling them what to do.

She had in her mind that
there must be something else.

There must be something
that was better than

what she was living under.

- Unlike some black communities,

the whites did not come in
and destroy the community

like some instances of
other black communities.

I believe, because there was a notion

that a separation of the races,

was an answer to the race problem.

- [Narrator] By 1890, Mound
Bayou was on its way to becoming

one of the most prosperous black
communities in the country.

"The jewel of the Delta,"
as it would later be called.

That year, Mississippi
assembled a convention to pass

its new Jim Crow constitution.

The only black delegate
was Isaiah T. Montgomery.

- Black people were looking for somebody

that whites would accept
and so they elected Isaiah

to go to this convention.

(soft piano music)

- [Man] "My mission is to
offer an olive branch of peace

"to bridge a chasm that
has been developing

"and widening for a
generation that threatens

"destruction to you and yours

"while it promises no enduring prosperity

"to me and mine."

- [Narrator] Isaiah
Montgomery, burning with desire

to protect Mound Bayou
from white intervention,

agreed to vote in favor of an amendment

to keep illiterates from voting.

The law's real meaning was clear.

- [Man] "There is no
use to equivocate or lie

"about the matter.

"Mississippi's constitutional
convention was held

"for no other purpose than
to eliminate the nigger

"from politics.

"Not the ignorant, but the nigger."

James Vardaman.

- [Narrator] Mississippi whites cheered,

but to black leaders,
Montgomery was a traitor

and a turn coat.

- [Man] "He has virtually
said to the nation,

"'You have done wrong in
giving is this great liberty.'

"He has surrendered part
of his rights to an enemy

"who will make this surrender a reason

"for demanding all of his rights.

"He is not a conscious traitor,

"but his act is an act of treason.

"Treason for the cause
of the colored people

"not only of his own state,
but of the United States."

Frederick Douglass.

- [Narrator] Montgomery
claimed the black vote

was lost anyway.

He hoped he had won a measure
of safety for his people.

"Mound Bayou is the ship," he said.

"All else is an open,
raging, tempestuous sea."

While many black leaders, like Douglass,

were outraged by Montgomery's vote,

Booker T. Washington was not.

By the 1890s, Washington's
reputation as a spokesperson

and fundraiser for Tuskegee was growing.

- Booker T. Washington spoke in a language

that everyone could understand.

He had something for working class blacks,

he had something for middle class blacks.

He was able to therefore
control black businessmen.

He was able to control black churchmen

who admired the gospel success
that he was articulating.

And he was able to win the admiration of

working class blacks who

saw that other alternatives had now been

essentially exhausted.

- Booker was nobody's fool.

The Carnegies and the other benefactors

of Tuskegee would not
have contributed a dime

if he, at that moment,
had offered a threat

to the existence that
these wealthy white men

were perpetuating.

- [Narrator] Across the south,
black improvement seemed

to be thwarted at every turn,

and violence continued as a daily threat.

Booker T. Washington's
searched for a compromise

that might bring racial peace.

His opportunity came in
1895 when he was invited

to speak at the Cotton
Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia.

September 25 was proclaimed Negro Day,

but the black press tried
to discourage blacks

from attending.

- [Man] "If negros wish to
feel that they are inferior

"to other American citizens,

"if they want to see all signs,

"signs that say, 'For Whites Only,'

"or, 'No Niggers Or Dogs Allowed.'

"If they want to be
humiliated and have their man

"and womanhood crushed out, then come."

Editor, Atlanta Voice.

- [Narrator] James
Creelman, a correspondent

for the New York World, observed the crowd

turned hostile when Washington mounted

the speaker's platform.

- [Man] "When a colored
man appeared on stage,

"a sudden chill fell on
the whole assemblage.

"One after another asked,
'What's that nigger doing

"'on the stage?'"

James Creelman.

- [Narrator] But when Booker T. Washington

criticized his own people
for seeking political

and economic power during reconstruction,

the crowd listened.

- [Man] "Our greatest
danger is that in the great

"leap from slavery to freedom,

"we may overlook the fact
that the masses of us

"are to live by the
production of our hands.

"The opportunity to earn
a dollar in a factory

"just now is worth infinitely more

"than to spend a dollar
in an opera house."

Booker T. Washington.

- [Man] "And when he held his dusky hand

"high above his head with
the fingers stretched apart,

"and said to the white
people of the south,

"on behalf of his race,
'In all things that are

"'purely social, we can be
as separate as the finger,

"'yet one as the hand.

"In all things essential
to mutual progress,

"a great sound wave
resounded from the walls,

"and the whole audience was on its feet

"in a delirium of applause.

"When the negro finished,
such an ovation followed

"as I had never seen before,

"and never expect to see again.

"White southern women pulled flowers from

"the bosom of their
dresses and rained them

"upon the stage.

"Tears ran down the
face of the many blacks

"in the audience."

- [Narrator] As news
of Washington's speech

began to spread, many in the
black community wondered,

had Washington chosen to
compromise their human rights

in exchange for racial peace
and economic stability?

This generated overwhelming
feelings of confusion,

disappointment,

even anger.

But the white press across
America rushed to embrace

Washington's views.

Former abolitionists, railroad tycoons,

political leaders, even
President Grover Cleveland,

wired their congratulations.

No black leader had ever
before so eloquently

defended Jim Crow.

The speech would be celebrated
as the Atlanta Compromise.

- I think Booker Washington's idea of

getting civil rights was
if you look, act like,

achieve like, work like,
own businesses like,

support the government like,

pay taxes like everybody else,

that the civil rights that you

are entitled to will be given to you.

- [Narrator] The south
had demonstrated this

was not the case.

Only 12 months after
the Atlanta Compromise,

the highest court in the land would agree.

Three years before the Washington speech,

a Louisiana shoemaker named Homar Plessy

was fined $25 for refusing to leave

a whites only car, on
the Louisiana railway.

Plessy was only one eighth black,

but under Louisiana law, he was black.

By 1896, the case appeared before

the United States Supreme Court.

The court upheld the
Louisiana law stating that,

"Separate but equal facilities
for blacks and whites

"did not violate the
constitutions new guarantee

"of equal protection."

♪ Sometimes I feel ♪

Only three decades
earlier, the end of slavery

had been the promise of a
new day for black Americans,

in which they could earn their livelihood

by their own freely chosen labor.

Educate their children,

participate in government,

and receive equal justice under the law.

But despite the remarkable advances,

those hopes were now dashed.

Jim Crow was the law of the land,

north and south.

And so it would remain for half a century.

Abandoned by the north,
without allies in the south,

blacks continued to
struggle for their freedom,

relying on their families,
churches, schools,

and other organizations to sustain them.

For black Americans, no time
since the end of slavery

seemed so dark.

♪ From home ♪

- [Man] The tragic era
of Jim Crow comes to life

at PBS Online, with interactive activities

and firsthand accounts.

Find details on key
people, events, and more

at PBS.org.

(upbeat music)

Major funding for The
Rise and Fall of Jim Crow

is provided by the National
Endowment for the Humanities,

expanding America's understanding
for more than 30 years

of who we were, who we
are, and who we will be.

And by support from the Corporation
for Public Broadcasting,

a private corporation funded
by the American people.

Additional funding is provided by

the John D. And Catherine
T. MacArthur Foundation.

Corporate support is made
possible by New York Life.

- [Woman] Today should
be better than yesterday.

Tomorrow should be even greater.

This idea inspired a movement,

and New York Life salutes
the vision and bravery

of those who improved our
nation, and our world.