University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 12-2007 Slipping Backwards: The Supreme Court, Segregation Legislation, and the African American Press, 1877-1920 Kathryn St.Clair Ellis University of Tennessee - Knoxville Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Part of the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Ellis, Kathryn St.Clair, "Slipping Backwards: The Supreme Court, Segregation Legislation, and the African American Press, 1877-1920. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2007. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/160 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Kathryn St.Clair Ellis entitled "Slipping Backwards: The Supreme Court, Segregation Legislation, and the African American Press, 1877-1920." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in History. W. Bruce Wheeler, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Ernest Freeberg, Stephen V. Ash, Fran Ansley Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Kathryn St.Clair Ellis entitled “Slipping Backwards: The Supreme Court, Segregation Legislation, and the African American Press, 1877-1920.” I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in History. __________________________ W. Bruce Wheeler, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance. Ernest Freeberg __________________________ Stephen V. Ash __________________________ Fran Ansley __________________________ Acceptance for the Council: __________________________ Carolyn R. Hodges, Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official student records.) Slipping Backwards: The Supreme Court, Segregation Legislation, and the African American Press, 1877-1920 A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Kathryn St.Clair Ellis December 2007 ii Copyright © 2007 by Kathryn St.Clair Ellis All rights reserved. iii DEDICATION To Gram and Grump for teaching me the importance of learning. To Mom and Dad for encouraging and supporting me in everything I choose to pursue. To Darren for motivating me, encouraging me, and loving me throughout this entire process – this is as much your accomplishment as it is mine. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to thank everyone who has helped me complete me Doctor of Philosophy degree in History. I would like to thank Dr. Bruce Wheeler for his guidance, his support, and his motivation to complete this endeavor. I would also like to thank Dr. Stephen Ash for supporting my efforts, Dr. Ernest Freeberg for stepping in at what most people would consider the last second, and Professor Fran Ansley for offering me a different perspective. Many members of the University of Tennessee Department of History, past and present, who did not serve on my committee also deserve thanks for their continued support, their suggestions, and their advice – Dr. George White, Kim Harrison, Dr. Jeff Sahadeo, Dr. Kathy Brosnan, Dr. Tom Burman. Lastly, I would like to thank my family and friends . Cinnamon, thank you for the encouragement on our drives to and from Maryville. Lisa, thank you for understanding and for sharing your gummi bears. Julie, thank you for your insights, support, and rides. Doug and Cheryl, thanks for “being there” when you were really needed. v ABSTRACT This study discusses the role of Supreme Court decisions in shaping the evolution of Jim Crow and African American newspapers’ reactions to these decisions. The study focuses on the period between the end of Reconstruction and the United States’ entrance into World War I. It looks at several Supreme Court decisions to demonstrate how the Court failed to act as a check on state legislatures’ reactionary undertakings and how these legislatures interpreted the Court’s judgments. Several of the Supreme Court’s decisions served to alert white legislators to the federal government’s limited actions to protect the rights of African American citizens. The cases included represent most areas of discrimination faced by African Americans during this period including participation in the court system, Fourteenth Amendment protections, the Fifteenth Amendment, public versus private segregation, transportation segregation, education segregation, and housing segregation. White legislators viewed the Supreme Court as an indicator of the state segregation that the federal government would allow. African American newspapers failed to offer a significant response to many key decisions. As the Court limited the protections of Reconstruction legislation, black newspapers offered little guidance to the black community about how to salvage their equal rights. The newspapers had the opportunity to reach large portions of the African American community and to lead efforts to protest the Court’s potentially detrimental decisions, but the press failed to bring attention to the cases white legislators viewed as signals that the federal government would not interfere with state and local segregation. Through the study of approximately twenty black newspapers, it becomes clear that the newspapers’ editors often misread the importance of the Supreme Court’s holdings. Cases that historians now recognize as key turning points in the status of African Americans went virtually ignored by the press and cases that receive little more than a footnote garnered extended attention from newspapers for being either a significant blow to the black community or for being cause for hope. It is apparent that the Supreme Court played a significant role in enabling Jim Crow to expand and the African American press did little to counter its effects. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction..............................................................................................................1 Chapter One: African American and White Struggles to Define Their Position in Post-Reconstruction Society..................................................................6 Chapter Two: Privileges, Enforcement, and Juries................................................51 Chapter Three: Civil Rights and the Ku Klux Klan...............................................84 Chapter Four: Railways and Schools...................................................................136 Chapter Five: “A Law Which Forbids a Negro to Rise is Not Made Just because It Forbids a White Man to Fall”......................................................198 Conclusion: A Look Forward ..............................................................................235 Bibliography ........................................................................................................236 Vita.......................................................................................................................266 1 Introduction And thus goes segregation which is the most far-reaching development in the history of the Negro since the enslavement of the race. ~ Carter G. Woodson The Mis-Education of the Negro (1933) In his 1933 work, The Mis-Education of the Negro, Carter G. Woodson discussed what he viewed as the indoctrination of African Americans in public schools. Woodson believed that African Americans had become too dependant on white America and too accepting of inferior positions in society. The status of black Americans in the 1930s did not reflect the expectations of the African American community following the ratification of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments during Reconstruction. Rather, there had been a sense of excitement about the promise of equality that went unattained by the majority of black Americans in Woodson’s generation. Woodson stood out as a success among a generation of blacks who faced increased challenges and increased segregation throughout their lifetimes. Born in 1875, Woodson lived through the peak years of Jim Crowism and observed its effects on blacks in both the South and the North. A graduate of Berea College, which later became the focus of a key Supreme Court case about the segregation of whites and blacks in private colleges, the University of Chicago, and Harvard University, Woodson wanted the role of his people to be acknowledged and respected. Towards this goal, he co-founded the 2 Association for the Study of African American Life and History in 1915 and began publishing The Journal of Negro History in 1916.1 He also participated in the Washington, D.C. branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Despite his education and his political activism, however, his belief that African- American history was unique