poet, lawyer and executive secretary of the naacp who fought to anti-lynching laws

by Trystan Sanford 10 min read

A key figure of the Harlem Renaissance, James Weldon Johnson was a man of many talents. Not only was he a distinguished lawyer and diplomat who served as executive secretary at NAACP for a decade, he was also a composer who wrote the lyrics for "Lift Every Voice and Sing," known as the Black national anthem.

What did the NAACP do in the Civil Rights Movement?

a poet, lawyer, and NAACP executive secretary. Under Johnson's leadership, the organization (NAACP) fought for legislation to protect African-American rights. Anti-lynching laws were one of its priorities. The NAACP provided defense for accused African-American victims. Marcus Garvey

Why did the NAACP join the anti-lynching movement?

poet, lawyer, and NAACP executive secretary—the organiza-tion fought for legislation to protect African-American rights. It made antilynching laws one of its main priorities. In 1919, three antilynching bills were introduced in Congress, although none was passed. The NAACP continued its cam-paign through antilynching organizations that had been

What did Andrew Johnson do for the NAACP?

poet, lawyer, and executive secretary (leader) of the NAACP who fought for legislation to protect African American rights; made anti lynching laws top priority Zora Neale Hurston African American writer and folklore scholar who played a key role in the Harlem Renaissance

What did the NAACP do in the election of 1890?

Poet, lawyer, and NAACP executive secretary. Under his leadership, organization fought for legislation to protect AA rights (anti-lynching laws). Marcus Garvey. Jamaican immigrant, called for a separate African American society and to promote AA businesses. Eventually discredited and arrested in the mid-20s.

Who was the secretary of the NAACP?

Walter Francis WhiteWalter Whitec. 1950 photograph by Clara SipprellExecutive Secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored PeopleIn office 1929–1955Preceded byJames Weldon Johnson10 more rows

What action did the NAACP take against lynching in the 1920s?

Anti-lynching demonstrations by the NAACP challenged the American people and government to face the violence of lynching. Approximately 8,000 black Americans marched down Fifth Avenue in New York City in a silent protest against ongoing murder, violence, and racial discrimination on July 28, 1917.

What did James Weldon do?

James Weldon Johnson was a civil rights activist, writer, composer, politician, educator and lawyer, as well as one of the leading figures in the creation and development of the Harlem Renaissance.Apr 2, 2014

Who was involved in the NAACP?

The NAACP was created in 1909 by an interracial group consisting of W.E.B. Du Bois, Ida Bell Wells-Barnett, Mary White Ovington, and others concerned with the challenges facing African Americans, especially in the wake of the 1908 Springfield (Illinois) Race Riot.Mar 30, 2022

What action did the NAACP take against lynching in the 1920s quizlet?

What action did the NAACP take against lynching in the 1920s? They tried to make it a federal crime.

How did the NAACP fight segregation answer?

During this era, the NAACP also successfully lobbied for the passage of landmark legislation including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, barring racial discrimination in voting.Jan 25, 2021

What is the NAACP do?

Accordingly, the NAACP's mission is to ensure the political, educational, equality of minority group citizens of States and eliminate race prejudice. The NAACP works to remove all barriers of racial discrimination through democratic processes.

When was black national anthem created?

1900Often referred to as "The Black National Anthem," Lift Every Voice and Sing was a hymn written as a poem by NAACP leader James Weldon Johnson in 1900. His brother, John Rosamond Johnson (1873-1954), composed the music for the lyrics.

What did James Weldon Johnson study at Atlanta?

James Weldon Johnson, (born June 17, 1871, Jacksonville, Fla., U.S.—died June 26, 1938, Wiscasset, Maine), poet, diplomat, and anthologist of black culture. Trained in music and other subjects by his mother, a schoolteacher, Johnson graduated from Atlanta University with A.B. (1894) and M.A.

Who fought for African American rights?

Civil rights activists, known for their fight against social injustice and their lasting impact on the lives of all oppressed people, include Martin Luther King Jr., Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Rosa Parks, W.E.B. Du Bois and Malcolm X.

Who were involved in the civil rights movement?

The civil rights movement was a struggle for justice and equality for African Americans that took place mainly in the 1950s and 1960s. It was led by people like Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, the Little Rock Nine and many others.

When did Rosa Parks say no?

December 1, 1955On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama.

What did Claude McKay's poems express?

His poems also expressed the pain of life in the black ghettos and the strain of being black in a world dominated by whites.

Who said "The wind said North"?

The wind said North.”. —quoted in Sorrow’s Kitchen: The Life and Folklore of Zora Neale Hurston . However, Northern cities in general had not welcomed the massive influx of African Americans. Tensions had escalated in the years prior to 1920, culminating, in the summer of 1919, in approximately 25 urban race riots.

How many followers did Garvey have?

In 1918, he moved the UNIA to New York City and opened offices in urban ghettos in order to recruit followers. By the mid-1920s, Garvey claimed he had a million followers. He appealed to African Americans with a combination of spellbinding oratory, mass meetings, parades, and a message of pride.

What was Garvey's legacy?

Although the movement dwindled, Garvey left behind a powerful legacy of newly awakened black pride, economic independence, and reverence for Africa.

What was the Cotton Club in the 1920s?

In the mid 1920s, the Cotton Club was one of a number of fashionable entertainment clubs in Harlem. Although many venues like the Cotton Club were segregated, white audiences packed the clubs to hear the new music styles of black performers such as Duke Ellington and Bessie Smith. The Roaring Life of the 1920s455.

Where did African Americans move to in the 1920s?

Many African Americans who migrated north moved to Harlem, a neighborhood on the Upper West Side of New York’s Manhattan Island. In the 1920s, Harlem became the world’s largest black urban community, with res- idents from the South, the West Indies, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Haiti.

Who was Marcus Garvey?

Marcus Garvey, an immigrant from Jamaica, believed that African Americans should build a separate society. His different, more radical message of black pride aroused the hopes of many. In 1914, Garvey founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA).

Who wrote the lyrics to the Harlem Renaissance?

James Weldon Johnson. A key figure of the Harlem Renaissance, James Weldon Johnson was a man of many talents. Not only was he a distinguished lawyer and diplomat who served as executive secretary at NAACP for a decade, he was also a composer who wrote the lyrics for " Lift Every Voice and Sing ," known as the Black national anthem.

When was the book of American Negro Poetry published?

He had established his place within the Harlem Renaissance with The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, republished in 1927, his poetry collection God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse (1927), and the anthology he compiled and edited, The Book of American Negro Poetry (1922).

Who was the NAACP executive secretary?

Image courtesy of the Library of Congress A civil rights pioneer, James Weldon Johnson was the NAACP’s executive secretary and the chief congressional anti-lynching lobbyist. Statistics supported the NAACP’s increased urgency in the anti-lynching campaign. Thousands of southern African Americans had been murdered in the 1890s, ...

Who opposed anti-lynching laws?

Image courtesy of the Library of Congress Hatton W. Sumners of Texas opposed anti-lynching laws during his 17 terms in the House of Representatives, arguing that the individual states could handle the problem of mob violence against African Americans. African Americans packed the House Gallery, intensely monitoring the debate, ...

What was the purpose of H.R. 11279?

11279 on April 18, 1918, “to protect citizens of the United States against lynching in default of protection by the States.”.

What was the fine for the Dyer bill?

The Dyer bill also mandated jail time and imposed a fine of up to $5,000 on state and local law enforcement officials who refused to make a reasonable effort to prevent a lynching or surrendered a prisoner in their custody to a lynch mob.

How many African Americans were lynched in the South?

Between 1901 and 1929, more than 1,200 African Americans were lynched in the South. Forty-one percent of these lynchings occurred in two exceptionally violent states: Georgia (250) and Mississippi (245). 122 The NAACP report, Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States, 1889–1919, created momentum for congressional action.

What was the NAACP's main goal?

Anti-Lynching Legislation Renewed. The passage of anti-lynching legislation became one of the NAACP’s central goals. Although slow to join the cause because its leaders worried about the constitutionality of imposing such a federal law on the states, the NAACP eventually embraced the anti-lynching movement, using it to educate ...

Who was the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee?

Hatton W. Sumners of Texas, a Dallas attorney who later served 16 years as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, led the opposition. In two lengthy debates, Sumners compared the bill itself to an act of legislative “mob” violence and suggested Congress let southern states resolve the lynching issue on their own.

What was the NAACP's anti-lynching campaign?

NAACP's Anti-Lynching Campaigns: The Quest for Social Justice in the Interwar Years. Ida B. Wells Barnett, in a photograph by Mary Garrity (c. 1893). In the twenty-first century, American citizens expect the federal government to protect their civil rights if the states fail to do so. This expectation is a consequence of ...

Who challenged the prevailing assumption during their anti-lynching campaign?

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) aggressively challenged this prevailing assumption during their anti-lynching campaign.

What was the role of the police in the early 20th century?

laws that govern safety, health, welfare, and morals) were reserved to the individual states and saw little, if any, role for the federal government in protecting the health and safety of individuals.

When was the Civil Rights Movement a consequence of the Civil Rights Movement?

This expectation is a consequence of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s and was not engrained in the political and constitutional history of the United States for most of the twentieth century.

Did the NAACP become law in the 1920s?

Unfortunately, this important chapter in the history of the NAACP has largely been forgotten or, at best, relegated to a footnote in most American history textbooks. In part, this can be explained by the fact that in both the 1920s and the 1930s proposed bills failed to become law.

Dual Career in Education and Law

  • Born in 1871 in Jacksonville, Florida, Johnson was heavily influenced by his mother, who passed on her love of music and literature, interests that would follow him throughout his multifaceted career. After graduating in 1894 from Atlanta University, a historically Black college, Johnson returned to Jacksonville and taught at the Stanton elementary school for Black students. Once h…
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Songwriter and Diplomat

  • In 1901, Johnson moved with his brother, a composer, to New York City to write for musical theater. Together, they composed about 200 songs for Broadway. In New York, Johnson began making connections to influential members of the Black community, leading to the next stage of his career in diplomacy. After serving as treasurer for the Colored Republican Club, Johnson wa…
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Civil Rights Leader

  • Johnson left the diplomatic world to join the civil rights movement in 1916 as a field secretary for NAACP, where he helped open new branches and expand membership. He also campaigned for a federal anti-lynching billand spoke at the 1919 National Conference on Lynching. In 1920, Johnson became NAACP executive secretary, a position he used to fight ...
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Harlem Renaissance Figure

  • Through the course of his wide-ranging career, Johnson developed a unique philosophy on achieving equality for Blacks and combating racism, one that stood in contrast with views espoused by W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington. While Du Bois argued for steeping oneself in a liberal arts education and Booker T. Washington advocated for industrial training, Johnson b…
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