Chapter Overview

Upon return from the World War I European battlefront, African Americans did not fail to do their part in the pursuit of rights they felt they had clearly earned through military service. Many black men and women had spoken forcefully against the lingering problems of Jim Crow and racial discrimination before the war, and would continue to do so afterwards. Some protesters remained in all-black organizations, while others joined with whites in new organizations of the Progressive-era reform movement. As World War I ended, the older call for equal civil rights was challenged by important new voices of diverse ideological positions such as socialists, black nationalists, and feminists. African Americans protested racial oppression through an ongoing literary tradition that when viewed as a whole presents a wide spectrum of opinion about what should happen next in the pursuit of equality.

Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter you should understand the following:

• The term "progressivism" and how African Americans of the post-war era made their own contributions to this cause
• The various groups of ultra-racists that reawakened, often in the South, after the end of World War I (such as the Ku Klux Klan) and the severity of racial riots throughout the country in this era
• The impact of Progressive-era African American institutions such as the NAACP
• The African American "migration" of the World War I years, and its causations
• The diverse leaders of African American organizations that formed in the post-war years, especially the example of Marcus Garvey and Father Divine
• The importance of the "New Negro Woman" in this Progressive era of change