William M. Brewer

The Poll Tax and Poll Taxers

The recent movement to repeal southern poll taxes stems from Reconstruction history in general and specifically from the period of depression. Some of the historical background of the present conflicting and opposing forces is pertinent to an understanding of the issues which are involved in the proposed legislation. The decision of the United States Supreme Court on October 15, 1883, in the Civil Rights Cases nullified the Civil Rights Bill which guaranteed accommodations in inns, places of amusement, and on public conveyances regardless of class or race. Mr. Justice Bradley in the majority decree -said: On the whole we are of opinion that no countenance of authority for the passage of the law in question can be found in either the Thirteenth or Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution; and no other ground of authority for its passage being suggested, it must necessarily be declared void, at least so far as its operation in the several States is concerned.1 The significance of this decree does not consist as much in its fundamental principles as in the actuality which it accomplished. Within the first generation after the Civil War Calhouns theory that the States rather than the central government should handle the ubiquitous race problem received sanction. This significant decision contained incidentally suggestions which were used in developing a frame of reference in which legislation could be designed to restrict southern suffrage and eliminate the participation of the Negro in politics. In the following twenty-five years the various southern disfranchisement measures, which reflect similarity in their purposes, were passed in the Solid South. These statutes conformed ingeniously to a pattern whose constitutionality

The Historiography of Frederick Jackson Turner

Frederick Jackson Turner was born at Portage, Wisconsin, November 14, 1861, and spent his childhood and youth in an environment which was a typical example of the theory of American history to which he devoted his life. This community was not unlike thousands of pioneer areas of America which were settled by adventurers who blazed their way through the wilderness and established homes. Turners was a frontier settlement in the truest sense of the word. Indians and the descendants of immigrants were there following the wilderness trails which were so famous in early American history. The children of these frontiersmen were the chums and associates of

The Teaching of Negro History in Secondary Schools

The teaching of Negro history in secondary schools demands systematic organization and planning. Emphasis upon English form and structure, therefore, is fundamental and should have priority. This is the weakest link in the chain of teachinig in colored schools from the kindergarten through the college because of background, association, and environment in which technical English has always been neglected. With some exceptions, we simply do not correctly stress English usage which impairs the quality of instruction in practically all fields of learning. Casual observation reveals this regrettable defect which prevents rigor and weakens the entire program that all teaching which deserves the name must have. History and social studies teachers have joint responsibility in remedying this weakness. They employ spoken and written English in every step of their instruction. Hence these classes may well be periods also in English if we would teach accurate and critical thinking. Something of the architects blueprint and specific patterns of planning should be used in preparing units, lessons, problems, topics, and special papers to prevent wandering and loose teaching. Issues on the race problem rise like Banquos ghost too frequently whenever the Negro is approached in history and social studies instruction. Unless teachers plan and carefully organize work, an atmosphere charged with emotionalism develops and the class period becomes a forum of incoherent discussion in which the truths of history will be overlooked. Discriminations and grievances which colored people suffer everywhere often restrain the calm in which historical facts can be dispassionately considered. Colored adolescents as well as adults have more disorganized information than they readily assemble in logical fashion wben it is most needed. This lack of ability to concentrate upon the stubborn facts of history is

Poor Whites and Negroes in the South Since the Civil War

The relations of the poor whites and Negroes in the South since the Civil War, are an outgrowth of attitudes and conditions which originated in slavery. There was a groping class consciousness among the poor whites of ante-bellum days, which was based upon instructive self interest. The enslavement of the Negro determined the position of the poor whites in the old South. To these lowly people slavery offered what they considered a defense of their self respect.2 On the other hand, this class was literally excluded from the labor market. A few poor whites of ability might rise to the exalted position of overseer.3 The plantation organization overshadowed everything else in the South, and Negroes, in monopolizing skilled and unskilled occupations, deprived the poor whites of industrial opportunity.4 This class might resign itself to a sordid existence in the slave regions, or migrate to the frontier and the Ohio Valley as the ancestors of Lincoln did. These refugees from the plantation regions carried with them a deep and abiding hatred of Negroes.5 The institution of slavery deprived the majority of the poor whites of wealth, culture, and political power.6 Race relations in the South since the Civil War reflect clearly this unfortunate experience. The poor whites understood that slavery was responsible for their hopeless economic condition.7 Slavery imposed upon this class nearly three hundred years of ignorance, inertia, and peculiar prejudice which

Fiftieth Anniversary of The Journal of Negro History

This is the fiftieth anniversary of The Journal of Negro History which originated in the creative and seminal mind of Carter Godwin Woodson. His preparation for this adventure was unique; he trained at the University of Chicago, Harvard, and the Sorbonne at a time when African and American Negro Studies were not offered in any American institution. Woodson secured the best available foundation in history and political science to which he added travel around the world where he learned to speak French and Spanish nearly as fluently as he spoke English. Since there were no authorities on the Negro in America, Woodson concentrated in history and political theory and never touched the Negro until he had completed his formal studies with a doctoral dissertation on the Disruption of Virginia which remains unpublished. Burgess, Dunning, and their numerous disciples were writing the history of the Civil War and Reconstruction from the point of view of the South which did not really lose the war except on the battlefields! Reconstruction historians and Southern politicians repudiated the Civil War Amendments to the U.S. Constitution while segregation and disfranchisement restored the essence of slavery which was to last for a 6entury! Woodson saw more clearly than anyone of record that unless the records of Negroes were found and published, the Negro would become increasingly, after the nadirregime, a negligible factor in the history and thought of the world! With this vision, Carter Godwin Woodson founded The Journal of Negro History in 1916 with the financial resources of a Washington, D.C. high school salary and great