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Robert
Russa Moton
and
The
Commission on Interracial Cooperation:
Finding a Way
Out of
Lynching & Racial Violence
The Commission on Interracial
Cooperation was formed in the South in
1919.It did some remarkable work in adjusting racial contacts.
It prevented some race riots and provided the Negro population
of the South with parks and schools; and ameliorated the
social condition of black people in that part of the country
where they were most populous.
Formed in 1919 by whites and Negroes, fearful
that the changed demeanor of returning Negro soldiers would
provoke massacres all over the land, the commission worked
intelligently, efficiently and quietly.
When the interracial body was formed, there
were eighty-three lynchings; ten years later in 1929 there were
ten. Aided by preponderant Southern opinion, national newspaper
support, many Southern governors and by other associations, the
commission made a continuous drive against mob execution. When,
in 1926, the number rose from seventeen the previous year to
twenty-nine, the drive was maintained with added fervor.
Through the work of the commission, whites and
Negroes met in conference to discuss the Negro's problems, a
gradually increasing group on both sides learned to know the
aims and sympathies of one another. It was believed that
goodwill spread in a community like oil on the water.
The personnel of the
commission included R.R.
Moton, George Foster Peabody,Harry F. Byrd, William
Louis Poteat, and John J. Eagan of Georgia.
Dr.
Robert Russa Moton (1867-1940), was
the principal
and president (1915-1935) of Tuskegee Institute. Moton was
viewed as "the sanest force seeking social and economic
progress for his race." Moton also
published Finding a Way Out: An
Autobiography (1921).
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George Foster Peabody
(1852–1938) was a highly successful New York investment
banker and devoted much of his fortune to education and
social enterprise. He stood for the most sympathetic of
white cooperation.
Long concerned with the
education of African-Americans, Peabody served as a
trustee )1884-1930) of Hampton University, a historically
black university. In the Hampton University Library he
established the Peabody Collection of rare materials on
African-American history, now one of the largest such
collections in the country. |
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The CIC also included Harry
F. Byrd (1887-1966), who was governor (1926-1930) of
Virginia He held what some referred to as "the
merciful viewpoint of the dominant Southern aristocrats to
whom the Negroes long were slaves and upon whom they still
are, in a large degree, dependent." As
Governor, he reorganized the state bureaucracy, reformed
the tax structure and set the Commonwealth on a course of
fiscal responsibility. After completing his term as
Governor, Byrd served 32 years in the U.S. Senate. |
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William
Louis Poteat (1856-1938),
a native of Caswell County, North Carolina, was president
(1905-1927) of Wake Forest College. As president of the
Baptist State Convention of North Carolina , he defended
the teaching of evolution as the "divine method of
creation" and believed that this perspective was in
harmony with the fundamental tenets of the Baptists. |
Progressive
industrialist John J. Eagan of Georgia was named the Commission's
first president. He appointed a staff of one white and one black
man in each Southern state "as mediators and organizers of
concerned citizens willing to work for improved race
relations." Mr. Eagen represented the Christian pity of
eminent Southern churchmen for the lowly man and brother, helpless
in the white man's land.
Anson Phelps
Stokes of a family which for generations
has sought and striven to help the Negro was also on the
commission. There were many other shining names on the list; so
officered and manned, the commission's intelligent and effective
direction was assured from the beginning.
Six white Southern men
met in Atlanta to discuss ways in which the South might try to
avoid misunderstanding between the races. From this initial
gathering, the CIC eventually included men and women, black and
white, from throughout the South, whose early intention was to
create state and local committees that would promote interracial
cooperation at the local level.
In about 1924, when the
local committees were organized, the CIC shifted its emphasis to
research, publicity, and education on the achievements of blacks
and on the need for cooperation between the races. Programs were
established to improve schools, health facilities, and general
living conditions for African Americans, to provide legal aid, to
eliminate lynching, and to study segregation in the South. Early
Commission work includes campaign led by sociologist and CIC
Education Director Robert Eleazer to reshape the coverage of
African Americans in the media.
The work of the CIC
was supplemented by a copious publication program that distributed
pamphlets, reports, periodicals, books, and press releases. The
Commission kept abreast of developments at the local level through
The Southern Frontier, its longest-running regular
publication. In 1944, in response to many members wanting a
broader scope for the organization, the final meeting of the CIC
convened and merged with the newly-formed Southern Regional
Council.
Works published by the Commission
Charles S. Johnson's
Collapse of Cotton Tenancy (1930)
Ira De A. Reid and Arthur Raper's
Sharecroppers All (1930).
Their work had an impact Roosevelt administration rural
policy.
Sociologist Arthur Raper's
The Tragedy of Lynching (1930)
Sources:
New
York Times, Sunday, March 16, 1930 /
Southern
Council /
wfu.edu
/
wfu.edu poteat
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Mockingbirds at Jerusalem
(poetry
Manuscript)
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Blacks in Hispanic Literature: Critical Essays
Edited by
Miriam DeCosta-Willis
Blacks in Hispanic Literature is a
collection of fourteen essays by scholars and
creative writers from Africa and the Americas.
Called one of two significant critical works on
Afro-Hispanic literature to appear in the late
1970s, it includes the pioneering studies of
Carter G. Woodson and
Valaurez B. Spratlin, published in the 1930s, as
well as the essays of scholars whose interpretations
were shaped by the Black aesthetic. The early
essays, primarily of the Black-as-subject in Spanish
medieval and Golden Age literature, provide an
historical context for understanding 20th-century
creative works by African-descended, Hispanophone
writers, such as Cuban
Nicolás Guillén and Ecuadorean poet, novelist,
and scholar
Adalberto Ortiz, whose essay analyzes the
significance of Negritude in Latin America. This
collaborative text set the tone for later
conferences in which writers and scholars worked
together to promote, disseminate, and critique the
literature of Spanish-speaking people of African
descent. . . .
Cited by a
literary critic in 2004 as "the seminal study in the
field of Afro-Hispanic Literature . . . on which
most scholars in the field 'cut their teeth'."
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Greenback Planet: How the Dollar Conquered
the World and Threatened Civilization as We Know It
By H. W. Brands
In Greenback Planet, acclaimed historian H. W. Brands charts the dollar's astonishing rise to become the world's principal currency. Telling the story with the verve of a novelist, he recounts key episodes in U.S. monetary history, from the Civil War debate over fiat money (greenbacks) to the recent worldwide financial crisis. Brands explores the dollar's changing relations to gold and silver and to other currencies and cogently explains how America's economic might made the dollar the fundamental standard of value in world finance. He vividly describes the 1869 Black Friday attempt to corner the gold market, banker J. P. Morgan's bailout of the U.S. treasury, the creation of the Federal Reserve, and President Franklin Roosevelt's handling of the bank panic of 1933. Brands shows how lessons learned (and not learned) in the Great Depression have influenced subsequent U.S. monetary policy, and how the dollar's dominance helped transform economies in countries ranging from Germany and Japan after World War II to Russia and China today. He concludes with a sobering dissection of the 2008 world financial debacle, which exposed the power--and the enormous risks--of the dollar's worldwide reign. The Economy |
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
/
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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update 15 December 2011
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