Stereotypes Of African Americans In The 1900's

During the late 1800’s and the early 1900’s, African Americans worked and fought to receive what they deserved, civil rights, political power and basically freedom from stereotypes. There were several leaders who helped forge the path to start the movement, including W.E.B Dubois, Oscar Micheaux, and Marcus Garvey. W.E.B Dubois was adamant on creating black culture without having a white culture influence. He believed that 1900 was a great time to reverse stereotypes against African Americans. Dubois also was a co-founder of the NAACP and a leader in the black literary movement. Oscar Micheaux used film to portray the brutality that whites had against blacks. Marcus Garvey led a movement to unite all blacks, regardless of where you are from, because they are all descendants of Africa. These people established 3 of the 5 social institutions, education through the literary movement, media through Oscar’s movies, and family through Garvey’s movement. With these social institutions being set up, it helped forge the path for Black Freedom.

Higginbotham stated that everyone understands what race is, but everyone struggles to define it.

Race is a defining factor when one talks about culture. In the 1900’s, race would define someone before even talking to him or her, and it still does in modern society. Media portrayed blacks to be the lowest social class who were on welfare, or pictured a black individual heavily involved with drugs. Higginbotham had 3 interrelated strategies of understanding race; Define the construction and tech of race, expose the role of race as a metalanguage, and recognize race as providing sites of dialogic exchange and contestation. With these strategies, one could break down a culture and expose how race affects

it.
Post slavery, there were a lot of separate conditions economically and socially between blacks and whites. Separation on trains caused a lot of problems for society. Arthur W. Mitchell, a black congressman, was forced to a segregated train, despite his political status. Ida B. Wells started a court case against the segregated trains, which thereafter started more court cases. Another social issue is that blacks were treated as lab rats. They would not be treated for syphilis so that doctors can see the effects. In the South, African American women would not be considered women at all, and rape of a black lady would be ok, but a black man raping a white lady would end in death.
Booker T. Washington was a strong believer that whites and blacks could live together in the south, and that in order for the southern economy to thrive, they needed blacks to be there. He wanted blacks to stay in the south to encourage a culture that blacks and whites could live together, eventually reforming things such as the Jim Crowe laws and segregation. Having African Americans leave would have ruined the Southern economy, making whites hates blacks even more. This movement to stay, in Washington’s eyes, would help to establish a relationship between the different races, eventually establishing a society where both can live without problem.