69 cities in the decade which included World War I " began to have a significant effect on political life in those communities. When Oscar DePriest, a Chicago Negro, was elected alderman from the densely populated South Side in 1915, political leaders there realized that the Negro vote had become potent. In New York, Negroes had gained sufficient strength by 1917 to send Edward A. Johnson to the State assembly. In other cities where Negro strength was not reflected in the election of Negroes to office, both major parties nonetheless recognized the importance of the Negro vote. Many of these communities began to enact ordinances looking toward protecting the civil rights of Negroes and guaranteeing equal protection of the laws." Increased Federal Concern 99 71 In the 1st session of the 67th Congress in 1921, Representative L. C. Dyer of Missouri introduced a bill "to assure to persons within the jurisdiction of every State the equal protection of the laws and to punish the crime of lynching." The passage of this bill was intended to give the U.S. Department of Justice clear authority to investigate and prosecute participants in mob action and lynching. The introduction of the bill set off an extended debate in the House and evoked widespread comment and reaction in many parts of the country. The NAACP, under its secretary James Weldon Johnson, threw its full weight behind the bill. More than 2,000 public meetings were held during 1921 and the press, both white and Negro, did much to underscore the need for the legislation." *9 The percentage of Negroes living in the North increased from 10.5 percent in 1910 to 14.1 percent in 1920 (20.3 percent in 1930). 70 Drake and Clayton, Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City 105-16 (1945). 71 61 Cong. Rec. 81 (1921). 72 Johnson, Along This Way 362-75 (1933). See also Letter from John R. Shillady of the National Conference on Lynching to Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, Sept. 26, 1919, on file in National Archives (Dept. of Justice, File No. 203477). After extended debate, the bill was passed in the House of Representatives by a vote of 231-119. Action in the Senate was blocked by filibuster and Congress adjourned before further action was taken." Attempts were made in the 68th Congress to win passage of the anti-lynching bill, but they were not successful." The need for increased Federal action in the area of civil rights was also noted by the executive branch. In 1921, in a special message to an extraordinary session of Congress, President Warren G. Harding said: 75 Congress ought to wipe the stain of barbaric lynching from the banners of a free and orderly, representative democracy. We face the fact that millions of people of African descent are numbered among our population, and that in a number of states they constitute a very large proportion of the total population. It is unnecessary to recount the difficulties incident to this condition, nor to emphasize the fact that it is a condition which cannot be removed. . . . I am convinced that in mutual tolerance, understanding, charity, recognition of the interdependence of the races, and the maintenance of the rights of citizenship lies the road to righteous adjustment. In his annual message of December 1923, President Calvin Coolidge struck the same note. He asserted that under the Constitution of the United States, the rights of Negroes were "just as sacred as those of any other citizen," and it was "both a public and private duty to protect those rights." The President called upon Congress "to exercise all its powers of of pre 73 61 Cong. Rec. 13142 (1921); Johnson, op. cit. supra note 72, at 366-73. 74 The first House bill proposed during this anti-lynching. 65 Cong. Rec. 25 (1923) (H.R. 1). Rec. 26, 1180, 10538 (1923) for subsequent bills. 15 61 Cong. Rec. 169, 170 (1921). session concerned See also 65 Cong. vention and punishment against the hideous crime of lynching." 99 76 Federal officials were again beginning to take notice of the Negro's aspiration for political and civil equality; but by the end of the first three decades of the 20th century there had been little tangible progress. Continued Negro efforts and growing support by other citizens in both North and South had nurtured the seeds of equality, but the long process of breaking down the rigid attitudes of Federal, State, and local officials had hardly begun. Americans sensitive to civil rights problems had little objective basis for optimism and few, if any, anticipated the steady acceleration of progress which would characterize the next three decades. T HE stock market plunge of 1929 set off a chain reaction that produced one of the most serious crises in the Nation's history. By March 1931, 8 million workers were unemployed. "Through the winter of 1931-32," as bread lines grew, "relief resources, public and private, dwindled toward the vanishing point." 1 With the fall of the economy, President Hoover's hope that government could be "an umpire instead of a player in the economic game" was dashed.2 1 The great depression had a broad impact on people at every economic level. Especially hurt, however, were those engaged in low-income, usually unskilled, jobs. A disproportionate number of Negroes could qualify only for such jobs. The toll on Negroes was, in consequence, especially heavy. Largely concentrated in hard-hit agricultural, domestic, and personal service occupations -the first areas of employment to feel the effects of reduced purchasing power-Negroes stood to suffer severely from a prolonged depression. 3 By 1932, unemployment had reached 12 million. Wages had declined sharply. The Hoover administration took one step toward recovery with the establishment of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) which was authorized to make loans to banks and railroads. Since capital was the real need, however, and since RFC provided no direct aid to segments of the economy other than banking and railroads, its influence was small. 11 Schlesinger, The Age of Roosevelt: The Crisis of the Old Order 174 (1957). 2 The New Day, Campaign Speeches of Herbert Hoover 155 (1928). 3 U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States 1920-1932 at 289 (1935). |