Attacking Jim Crow: Black Activism in New Orleans 1925-1941

Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2009 Attacking Jim Crow: black activism in New Orleans 1925-1941 Sharlene Sinegal DeCuir Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation DeCuir, Sharlene Sinegal, "Attacking Jim Crow: black activism in New Orleans 1925-1941" (2009). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 1869. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/1869 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. ATTACKING JIM CROW: BLACK ACTIVISM IN NEW ORLEANS, 1925-1941 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agriculture and Mechanical College In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of History by Sharlene Sinegal DeCuir B.A., Xavier University, New Orleans, 1999 M.A., Louisiana State University, 2001 May 2009 Acknowledgements I received a tremendous amount of support in writing this dissertation. The staff of the following research facilities were very helpful, often offering knowledge of my subject: the Amistad Research Center, University of New Orleans Special Collections, and New Orleans Public Library Louisiana Division: City Archives & Special Collections. Many people assisted me in my project. My advisor Dr. Gaines Foster gave me a great deal of critical encouragement and support at various stages of my work. I would also like to thank my family and friends for being there every step of the way while I was writing this dissertation. My sisters Shannon, Dametria, and Laura thanks for listening and only being a phone call away. My parents Betty and Joseph Sinegal thanks for all of the sacrifices you made to get me where I am today. To my grandparents Hilda Foster, and Rita Sinegal thanks for your prayers. Barbara and Winston DeCuir thanks for keeping me focused and for being my second parents. My husband Brandon DeCuir thanks for patiently sharing my dream through this long process and making sure that I always saw the light at the end of the tunnel. ii Table of Contents Acknowledgments………………………………………………………………………...…….ii Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………….……iv Introduction……………………………...…………………………………………………........1 Chapter 1 New Orleans‟s Caste System………….………………………………………………11 2 Formation of the Racial Progressionist Leadership…..…………………………….45 3 Federation of Civic Leagues………………………………………………..…….…...94 4 New Orleans Branch NAACP…………………………………………….…………123 5 Louisiana Weekly………………….……………………………………………………156 Conclusion: Reaching the Masses……………………………………………………...……174 References……………………………………………………………………………………..189 Vita……………………………………………………………………………………….…….198 iii Abstract After the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision, blacks in the South lost most of the rights achieved during Reconstruction and for over half a century lived in a system defined by disfranchisement and segregation. Plessy promised a “separate but equal” society but by 1920 it was evident that separate was fulfilled but equal fell short in facilities. At about the same time, a three-tiered racial hierarchy, rooted in New Orleans long and distinctive racial history, returned. New Orleans‟ black community was split into two groups, American blacks and Creoles. The two groups rarely interacted. As the black community developed its own economy, independent of white control, however, interactions between elite members of each group began to take place. By 1925, elite members of each group came together to provide the black community in New Orleans with its first racial progressionist leaders. Racial progressionists used a gradual and moderate approach centered on attacking Jim Crow from within. They practiced a restrained, modest and reasonable leadership style in which they carefully and slowly petitioned whites for concessions within the system while not posing a threat to the white power structure. They chose to work primarily through two organizations, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Federation of Civic Leagues. Through these organizations racial progressionists strove to make separate better in New Orleans‟ black community by petitioning for better schools and more recreational facilities. This study thereby iv examines, what might be considered, the first phase of the civil rights movement, in one southern city, New Orleans. By the mid-thirties, the black community, led by the Louisiana Weekly, began to question the gradual and moderate approach of racial progressionists. The Weekly argued that the community needed new leaders who offered an active, aggressive and inclusive approach to obtaining civil rights. In 1941, a group of young men who called themselves “The Group” took over the leadership role in the New Orleans‟ NAACP. They provided the community with the aggressive leadership it needed to continue the attack on the Jim Crow system that racial progressionists had begun in 1925. v Introduction In the last decade of the nineteenth century, blacks in the South experienced the lowest point in their pursuit of social, political and economic equality. Most of the rights achieved during Reconstruction, including citizenship and suffrage, were infringed upon by a system of segregation and intimidation. The struggle for civil rights in the twentieth century was a fight to gain back what was lost after Reconstruction. Traditionally scholars of civil rights history begin analyzing the movement after the 1954 Brown v. Board of Topeka decision or the Montgomery Bus boycott. Some have emphasized the impact of World War II. They have focused on national leaders, the non-violent approach that led the movement, and legal challenges within the judicial system to change the laws. They often have over looked the local leaders and their part in the movement as well as the approach those leaders took in the years before World War II. This study examines what might be considered the first phase of the civil rights movement, in a southern city, New Orleans. It focuses on the style and approach that emerged within a newly unified economic elite leadership in New Orleans, Louisiana in the years from 1925 to 1941. August Meier in Negro Thought in America argues that between 1880 and 1915, African American thought on racial views changed in response to white opinion. During this time hostility and the adoption of racist legislation forced blacks to think of themselves as a group apart from white American society. The exclusion of blacks from 1 mainstream America led them to focus on improving their own society. In Uplifting the Race: Black, Leadership, Politics and Culture in the Twentieth Century, Kevin Gaines argues that educated blacks, who made up the black elite, responded to the burdens of Jim Crow by focusing on uplifting themselves to white America‟s standards. Black elites, according to Gaines, claimed class distinctions because they were the “better class,” whose very existence was evidence of race progress. The black elite wanted to prove to whites that through self-help they had acquired “respectable” values that should allow them a different status from other blacks. The strength of white supremacy and the notions of black inferiority kept the black elite from obtaining their desired status as first-class citizens. Gaines‟ study focuses on the years between 1890 and 1920, when the black elite are developing a class identity that allows them to be representatives of the race‟s potential. Yet by 1914, Gaines argues, the uplift ideology started to experience difficulty because it could not keep up with the changing times, the war and a period of black militancy, which lasted from 1914-1925. After 1925 both the uplift ideology and the brief militancy fade. Gaines does not examine what happens to elite black leadership after 1925. In New Orleans the uplift ideology is very important. During these years, New Orleans was divided based on cultural divisions from slavery and the revival of New Orleans‟ three-tiered racial hierarchy. New Orleans‟ black community consisted of two 2 groups, American blacks and Creoles. Through the uplift ideology, the black community began to develop its own economy independent of white control. That economy in turn allowed elite blacks from both the American black and Creole groups to begin to repair the division within the black community. Once the elite black leadership formed it took on an additional approach that was realistic in the context of the times and centered on attacking Jim Crow from within. In New Orleans, 1925 is an important year because it was the first year in which the black elite united to ask for concessions. Elite black leaders in New Orleans from 1925 to 1940 reinvented themselves as racial progressionist (Pro`gres‟sion`ist) --“one who holds to a belief in the progression of society towards perfection.”1 The approach racial progressionists took towards advancing black society was gradual and moderate. It represented a restrained, modest and reasonable leadership style in which they carefully and slowly petitioned whites for concessions within the system while not threatening the white power structure.

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