Hayes-Tilden election
In 1876, the two major candidates running for President were Rutherford B. Hayes, a Republican, and Samuel J. Tilden, a Democrat. The first returns indicated a victory for Tilden, who had won the popular vote with 4,284,020 votes to Hayes' 4,036,572. But Tilden's 184 electoral votes -- the votes that would decide the Presidency -- were still one short of a majority, while Hayes' 165 electoral votes left him 20 ballots away. The votes of three Southern states and one western state still had not been counted. The 20 electoral votes remaining in dispute were one from Oregon and 19 from the three Southern states that still retained Republican-controlled electoral boards -- Florida (4), Louisiana (8), and South Carolina (7). What complicated the matter was that Democrats in these states had won the state elections, mostly by violence and fraud. Both parties claimed victory.
Spanish-American war
As wave after wave of racial fury inundated the South at the end of the nineteenth century, a flicker of hope suddenly seemed to appear. America declared war on Spain in 1898, and black soldiers were needed to fight for their country. Out of America's 25,000-man standing army, 2,500 were experienced black veterans. For over twenty years, they had been fighting America's Indian wars on the deserts and plains of the West. The Cheyenne called them "Buffalo Soldiers" for their courage in battle and their rough, shaggy appearance.
Wilmington Riots
In 1898, Wilmington, North Carolina, located in eastern Carolina, where the Cape Fear River enters into the Atlantic Ocean, was a prosperous port town. Almost two-thirds of its population was black, with a small but significant middle class. Black businessmen dominated the restaurant and barbershop trade and owned tailor shops and drug stores. Many black people held jobs as firemen, policemen and civil servants. A good feeling between the races existed as long as white Democrats controlled the state politically. But when a coalition of predominately white Populists and black Republicans defeated the Democrats in 1896, and won political control of the state, Democrats vowed revenge in 1898.
Niagra movement
In 1905, W.E.B. Du Bois, a professor at Atlanta University, exasperated by Booker T. Washington's continued conciliatory policies towards whites and his enormous power within the black community, called for a meeting of Washington's critics of at Niagara Falls, New York. The purpose of the meeting was to form an organization that would offer a militant alternative to Washington. Du Bois called his organization the Niagara Movement, named after the falls where the first meeting was held. The group was representative of some of the intellectual elite of the African-American community. The meeting had originally been planned to take place on the American side of the falls, but the delegates were denied accommodations by racially prejudiced hotel managers.
The Brownsville affair
The Brownsville Affair was a racial incident that grew out of tensions between whites in Brownsville, Texas and black infantrymen stationed at nearby Fort Brown. The infantrymen had been subjected to racial discrimination since they arrived. A shooting incident in town on the night of August 13 left a white bartender dead and a police officer wounded. Although white commanders at Fort Brown affirmed that all black soldiers were in their barracks at the time of the shooting, local whites claimed that black soldiers had been seen firing. They produced spent shells from army rifles to allegedly support their statements.
The Birth of a Nation
On the evening of March 21, 1915, President Woodrow Wilson attended a special screening at the White House of THE BIRTH OF A NATION, a film directed by D.W. Griffith and based on THE CLANSMAN, a novel written by Wilson's good friend Thomas Dixon. The film presented a distorted portrait of the South after the Civil War, glorifying the Ku Klux Klan and denigrating blacks. It falsified the period of Reconstruction by presenting blacks as dominating Southern whites (almost all of whom are noble in the film) and sexually forcing themselves upon white women.
Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance was the name given to the cultural, social, and artistic explosion that took place in Harlem between the end of World War I and the middle of the 1930s. During this period Harlem was a cultural center, drawing black writers, artists, musicians, photographers, poets, and scholars. Many had come from the South, fleeing its oppressive caste system in order to find a place where they could freely express their talents.
Moore vs. Dempsy
The case known as Moore v. Dempsey was a major legal victory for the NAACP in 1923. The case involved twelve black farmers in Arkansas who were sentenced to death for allegedly killing whites during a riot. Five white men had been killed during the Elaine, Arkansas, riot of 1919, some probably shot accidentally by other whites. Over 700 blacks had been arrested, sixty-seven sent to prison, and twelve farmers tried by an all-white jury for the murder of whites. During the trial a mob surrounded the court building, shouting that if the accused black men were not sentenced to death, the mob would lynch them. Prisoners were tortured to confess or testify against others.
Fisk University protests
At the end of May in 1925, a deeply troubled W.E.B. Du Bois boarded a train to visit Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, his alma mater. He had been disturbed by reports that Fayette McKenzie, the autocratic white president of the university, had instituted a dictatorial rule on campus. Magazines were censored, dating and dancing forbidden, and conversations between male and female students restricted. McKenzie had been seeking a million-dollar endowment from Northern foundations that were sympathetic to his request -- provided that McKenzie suppress any militancy on campus. The foundation wanted black schools to teach their students to accommodate to Jim Crow as Booker T. Washington had preached, and not to challenge it, as Du Bois was suggesting. On June 2, with the president of the university, the trustees, students, and alumni packing the chapel, Du Bois attacked McKenzie
Scottsboro case
During the 1930s, much of the world's attention was riveted on the "Scottsboro Boys," nine black youths falsely charged with raping two white women in Alabama. This case, more than any other event in the South during the 1930s, revealed the barbarous treatment of blacks. The case began on March 25, 1931, when a number of white and black youths were riding on a freight train, traveling to see if they could find work. A fight broke out between a group of black and white hobos, and the whites were thrown off the train. They reported the incident to a stationmaster, who wired ahead for officials to stop the train at a town called Paint Rock. Dozens of armed men rounded up nine black youths and took them to jail. They were about to be charged with assault when two white women, dressed in boys clothing, were discovered hiding on the train. Although there was no evidence connecting the youth to the women, the nine youths were charged with raping the women. Gaines vs Canada
In the mid 1930s, Charles Hamilton Houston, one of the few African Americans to graduate from Harvard Law School, joined the NAACP to head its legal attack on Jim Crow. As the United States Supreme Court began to make decisions favorable to black rights regarding criminal procedures, Houston felt the time was right to challenge Jim Crow in other areas. He understood that judges would not overturn previous constitutional interpretations unless absolutely necessary. If he confronted the "separate but equal" doctrine laid down in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, the Court would most likely reject the challenge. But if Houston insisted that Plessy be enforced -- that is, if the NAACP sued a state to make its schools for black children equal to those for whites -- which Plessy did require -- then he could undermine segregation.