Convict Leasing Analysis

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Black codes were a set of legal and social laws legally enforced in the south and west, and socially accepted in the north. Equally important, these “codes” ranging from being on the wrong side of town at night to looking a white woman in the eye, gave the system reason to subject you to forced labor. Yes, one could be walking home from work, and immediately thrown in prison for “vagrancy”, forced back into bondage; this practice was known as convict leasing. Convict leasing, because Black labor was moving from the south to the urban west and north, is a prime example of how far white counter resistance will keep turning around until it has done a 360. Moreover, the system of convict leasing -as it stood- was met with an outcry among Black …show more content…
Whereas Booker T. Washington is noted for having kept the company of rich white men, often being called an Uncle Tom by many of his critiques in the Black activist community of the time.
Differently Dr. W.E.B. DuBois is also noted for associating with the notion of the Talented Tenth, which stems from the concept of the privileged and educated, or “best of the race, that teaches the rest”. Although Black leaders such as Ida B. Wells, Mary Church Terrell, Booker T. Washington, DuBois, etc. all had far reaching political and intellectual philosophies that were altered- some more subtly than others- with
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Washington’s most famous appeal to racial pride among the uneducated, but gifted Black southern populace, was his famous “Atlanta Compromise”. In this memorable speech, Washington calls on Black men in the south the “cast down your bucket where you are”. Originally a plea to the white business elite of the south to offer the now destitute Black people a living wage, many of those Black intellectuals- including the vocal DuBois- and lesser known West Indian radical race and class conscious political activist and writer, Hubert Harrison saw it as an appeal to the white man’s conscience. Meaning, DuBois as a member of the talented tenth, would call out, “The power of the Ballot we need in sheer defense, else what shall save us from a second slavery”. This was the stance of DuBois and countless other northern Black intellectuals, who valued personal education over physical labor to survive white supremacy.
Lastly, this new Black radical intellectualism and activism that is fueled by Ida B. Wells’ fierceness, exposing the lies perpetuated by Jim Crow America that Black men are lynched because they rape white women, refusing to wait on help from leftist white activists who take over the movement. Into the 1910’s, we see a flame re-lit, new forms of Black Nationalism forcing its way into the minds of the young men of Alpha Phi Alpha, taking root in Tuskegee, and flying off into Harlem to be reflected in the voice of Billy