C E L E B R AT I O N ! BLACK HISTORY MONTH 2014
Celebrating Civil Rights Milestones: From Emancipation to Administration in Prince George’s County, 1864-1994
Celebrating Civil Rights Milestones: From Emancipation to Administration in Prince George’s County, 1864-1994
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rince George’s County, Maryland, has been home to African Americans since the County’s founding in 1696. By 1770, the County’s prime industry was tobacco farming and African Americans, mostly enslaved, totaled more than half of the County’s population. African Americans remained in the majority until the 1860s when economic changes, along with the Civil War, began a series of demographic shifts and the proportion of African Americans in the County began a steady decline. By the 1950s, the black population was approximately 10%. During the 1960s, the County saw the passage of civil rights laws which promised new opportunities for African Americans. The result was the growth of the black middle class, made up of federal government workers, professionals and entrepreneurs. Many of these families moved into Prince George’s County, and in the following decades their numbers grew. In 1970, African Americans were 14% of the County’s population; by 1990 the County became majority black for the first time since the 19th century. Four years later, in 1994, Wayne K. Curry received the plurality of the vote and became the County’s first African American County Executive. The population shifts since the 19th century reflect the increased opportunities for African Americans throughout the County. Prince George’s County’s African Americans have had their share of battles at home and on the state and national level. From the Emancipation Proclamation, Maryland’s Constitution and Brown v. the Board of Education to the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960s, African Americans received their opportunities by fighting for them, sometimes as partners but often as adversaries of courts and legislatures. The transition of Prince George’s County was from a majority slave county to its current standing as a national model of African American middle class leadership and success.
March to end segregation in Glen Echo Park, 1960. Former Maryland State Senator, Gwendolyn Britt was among those arrested for participating in the 1960 demonstration to desegregate the amusement park. Britt is pictured here with civil rights activists Roy Wilkins and A. Philip Randolph. Courtesy of the National Park Service
Wayne K. Curry, Prince George’s County’s first African American County Executive. Courtesy of Wayne K. Curry
We Shall All Be Free: The Emancipation Proclamation
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or African Americans, the march to freedom began but did not end, with the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862. Lincoln’s wartime document freed slaves who resided in rebelling states. According to the Proclamation “all persons held as slaves within any State… the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free...” The measure had the unintended consequence of linking the preservation of the Union to the destruction of slavery. Taking advantage of the chaos and confusion that accompanies any conflict, thousands of slaves escaped from plantations, seeking safety behind the Union lines. They were said to have “voted for freedom with their feet.”
Freedom in the Free State: Emancipation in Maryland
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hen President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emanicpation Proclamation, it freed only those slaves in areas that rebelled against the United States. In November 1864, nearly two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, Maryland’s new state constitution finally abolished slavery in the state. In 2014, we celebrate Maryland Emancipation Day, the sesquicentennial of slavery’s end in Maryland. Many Maryland slaveholders had the children of their former slaves apprenticed to them. This meant that while adults were free, many of their children remained in partial slavery. When the new state restored the right to vote to returning Confederate soldiers, but denied the vote to African American males, it was a signal that continued abuse of African Americans would remain the law of the land. It was not until the passage of the 15th Amendment in 1870 that African American males were allowed to vote.
African American soldier reading the Emancipation Proclamation by candlelight, 1863. Courtesy of the Library of Congress
Slavery’s Sequel: Jim Crow and Segregation
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he end of the Civil War marked the beginning of a dark era known as “Jim Crow” when African Americans survived under segregation, intimidation, and violence. Laws and informal customs were imposed to restrict their rights and movements. Limited access to public and private places such as schools, transportation, and restaurants was designed to enforce African Americans’ subordinate status. The Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson declared that “separate but equal” accommodations provided for African Americans were constitutional. Although the 1886 decision applied to segregated railway cars, the principle of “separate but equal” became the basis for discriminatory laws throughout the nation. White citizens associations such as the White Liners and the Ku Klux Klan became vehicles to control African Americans. These associations were known for extreme measures of mob violence, lynching, and intimidation.
An Organizing Principle: The NAACP and Early Protest Movements
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ollowing emancipation, African American men gained the right to vote under the 15th Amendment. This declared that voting rights could not be denied because of race. Efforts to disenfranchise African Americans began almost immediately after federal troops were pulled from the South in 1874. Many of these efforts included the use of violence. To ensure that African Americans would not vote, many states began to pass laws that restricted voting rights. These laws put into place restrictions on voting that did not explicitly mention race but effectively excluded African Americans. These restrictions included the poll tax, the grandfather clause and the literacy test. When combined, these restrictions effectively excluded African Americans from the elections. Those who did vote risked their jobs and often their lives. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded in 1909 to combat discrimination against African Americans. Among its earliest campaigns was support for universal manhood suffrage and stemming the increasing violence against African Americans. The NAACP began a national campaign against violence and lynching, sponsoring marches and rallies, and lobbying for passage of federal
NAACP lawyers Charles Hamilton Houston, Thurgood Marshall and Edward P. Lovett, 1935. Courtesy of the Maryland State Archives
legislation against lynching. Nationally, high profile cases such as the Scottsboro Boys--nine young boys who were falsely accused and imprisoned for raping two white women--sparked early protests from around the nation. Although no federal anti-lynching laws were passed during this period, the NAACP’s educational campaign brought public attention to these brutal crimes. Soon after its establishment, the NAACP noted the steady rise of violence against African Americans developing parallel to the disenfranchisement of black voters. It began to lobby and aggressively campaign for African Americans’ right to vote. To date, securing the right to vote has remained the NAACP’s most sustained effort.
Schoolhouse to Courthouse: Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas
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rown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas is the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision that was meant to end segregation in public schools. It was followed shortly after by Brown II, which called for schools to be desegregated “with all deliberate speed.” The battle for school desegregation was led by the NAACP and its chief legal strategist, Charles Hamilton Houston. After Houston’s death in 1950, future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall became the organization’s legal advisor and continued the battle. Through a series of court cases, the NAACP challenged the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision which established the “separate but equal” doctrine. In the period between 1896 and 1950, the NAACP mounted several legal challenges to the doctrine. They based their challenges on the poor treatment that African Americans, particularly children, received at the hands of local and state governments. In school districts across the nation, African American children were provided with substandard schoolhouses, books, and other materials. Often, black students would receive secondhand school supplies and furniture from white schools. As a result of the inequality between white and black schools, the NAACP challenged discrimination. Their battle culminated in the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas case. Marshall secured this legal victory that overturned the “separate but equal” doctrine of segregation in America. However, the battle was far from over.
NAACP picketing at the Crime Conference in Washington, D.C. encouraging passage of the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, 1934.
African American child wearing a placard that reads “I’m too young to vote. What is your excuse?” at an NAACP voter registration drive, ca. 1954.
Courtesy of the Library of Congress
Courtesy of the Library of Congress
And Justice for All: The Fight for Civil Rights
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he period after Brown v. Board of Education saw a continuation of the fight for full equal rights for people of color. Civil rights organizations such as the NAACP, Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC) led the way. These organizations sponsored sit-ins, marches, voter registration drives, and mounted legal battles against Jim Crow. They also sponsored the Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-1956), the March on Washington (1963), and the March from Selma to Montgomery (1965). Another major development was the election of John F. Kennedy as President of the United States. Throughout his campaign for President, John F. Kennedy regarded himself as an avid supporter of civil rights for African Americans and his endorsement of a civil rights bill was a boon to African Americans. However, Kennedy’s assassination in November of 1963 threw the bill’s passage into jeopardy. Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, was a Southerner and many African Americans feared that he would close ranks with the other Southern politicians who were staunchly against any improvement in the condition of African Americans. Surprisingly, four days after his inauguration Johnson announced his support of a civil rights bill. With President Lyndon Johnson’s support, the fight for civil rights saw many positive developments in 1964. In January, the enactment of the 24th Amendment to the Contituion outlawed the poll tax. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 survived a marathon filibuster in the Senate and was enacted on July 2. The Act banned discrimination in many areas, including public accommodations, restaurants, hotels, gas stations, and entertainment facilities, as well as schools, parks, playgrounds, libraries, and swimming pools. It also banned discrimination by employers and labor unions and created an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to monitor employment discrimination. Progress continued with the enactment of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which ended restrictions on African American voting.
Coca-Cola machine for “White Customers Only!” ca. 1954.
Hester V. King. Ms. King led the struggle for equal accommodations in Prince George’s County, ca. 1959.
Courtesy of the Library of Congress
Courtesy of M-NCPPC
Hard Lessons: School Desegregation in Prince George’s County
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n order to comply with the Brown v. Board of Education decision, as well as other civil rights statutes, many states “involuntarily” began busing in the 1970s. School districts decided to transport some children from their zoned school district and place them into a school in another district. Since many Americans lived in segregated neighborhoods, children often went to segregated schools. Busing was a way to work around the segregated neighborhoods and integrate schools. This action caused controversy throughout the nation. Prince George’s County was the nation’s tenth largest school district and per court order, ended up with the largest busing fleet in the country. Vaughns v. Board of Education of Prince George’s County occupied the nation’s attention and the County’s resources from 1970 to the 1990s.
Homegrown Hero: The Election of Wayne K. Curry as Prince George’s County Executive
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he 1990s ushered in a new era for African Americans in Prince George’s County. For the first time since the 1860s, African Americans accounted for more than half of the County’s population; however, African Americans represented less than 30 percent of elected officials on the County Council, Board of Education, and Delegation to the State Legislature. In 1994, Wayne K. Curry was elected as the County’s first African American County Executive, a signal of the County’s shift to a haven of economic prosperity for African Americans throughout the country. His biography represents and coincides with the history of Prince George’s County in the last half of the 20th century. Wayne K. Curry was a trailblazer.
Conclusion
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his exhibit covers over 130 years. In each section we have noted that once African Americans began to envision their own distinctive future, whether personal autonomy or civil liberties, trouble ensued. To secure their rights, it was often the actions and sacrifice of an individual that prompted local and national efforts to organize, protest, and agitate. That is the story of the past. It is still of obvious significance today, for it is also the story of the future as African Americans continue to work for full equality and as other groups utilize the lessons that these historical struggles provide.
Wayne K. Curry, Prince George’s County’s first African American County Executive. Courtesy of Wayne K. Curry
Presented by The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, Department of Parks and Recreation, Prince George’s County, Arts and Cultural Heritage Division, Black History Program 7833 Walker Drive, Suite 430 • Greenbelt, Maryland 20770 301-446-3232; TTY 301-446-6802 Visit blackhistory.pgparks.com
Visit blackhistory.pgparks.com to learn about events and programs honoring Black History Month and to view the 2014 Black History Month Student Poster.
Visit our YouTube Channel,
www.youtube.com/user/pgparksandrecreation, to view a video recounting the life and experiences of Wayne K. Curry, Prince George’s County’s first African American County Executive.
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