W.E.B. Du Bois founds the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Among its early crusades is a movement for anti-lynching legislation. Using graphic leaflets, the NAACP highlights the proliferation of lynchings in the early years of the twentieth century, exposing their racial motivations and condemning authorities for failing to investigate them.
Thurgood Marshall is born in Baltimore on July 2nd.
November
In Berea College v. Kentucky, 211 U.S. 45 (1908), the Supreme Court upholds a Kentucky state law forbidding interracial instruction at all schools and colleges in the state.
School boards in East Orange, New Jersey and Wichita, Kansas pass school segregation ordinances as part of a general trend at the turn of the century. The San Francisco city council orders segregation of the Japanese in public schools.
Black disenfranchisement unfolds through a typical pattern in many states at the turn of the century. Black participation in elections is reduced through force and fraud. Legislatures controlled by Democrats enact complex voter registration requirements that reduce the number of black votes. Amendments to state constitutions impose poll taxes and literacy tests.
Black disenfranchisement unfolds through a typical pattern in many states at the turn of the century. Black participation in elections is reduced through force and fraud. Legislatures controlled by Democrats enact complex voter registration requirements that reduce the number of black votes. Amendments to state constitutions impose poll taxes and literacy tests.
In Giles v. Harris, 189 U.S. 475 (1903), the so-called “black disenfranchisement” case, the Supreme Court effectively acquiesces in these practices and upholds Alabama’s voter registration scheme. Justice Holmes rejects the claim that the state is trying to prevent blacks from registering to vote. More importantly, even if that was the goal, Holmes argues, there is nothing that the Supreme Court can do to prevent it: “Apart from damages to the individual, relief from a great political wrong, if done, as alleged, by the people of a state and the state itself, must be given by them or by the legislative and political department of the government of the United States.”
School boards in East Orange, New Jersey and Wichita, Kansas pass school segregation ordinances as part of a general trend at the turn of the century. The San Francisco city council orders segregation of the Japanese in public schools.
Thurgood Marshall is born in Baltimore on July 2nd.
November
In Berea College v. Kentucky, 211 U.S. 45 (1908), the Supreme Court upholds a Kentucky state law forbidding interracial instruction at all schools and colleges in the state.
W.E.B. Du Bois founds the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Among its early crusades is a movement for anti-lynching legislation. Using graphic leaflets, the NAACP highlights the proliferation of lynchings in the early years of the twentieth century, exposing their racial motivations and condemning authorities for failing to investigate them.
