Commission on Interracial Cooperation
The Commission on Interracial Cooperation (1918–1944) was an organization founded in
History
In spite of its official "interracial" title, the commission was formed primarily by liberal white Southerners. It was formed in response to the increasing unrest amongst black Americans during the post World War I period. According to internal documents the CIC believed that WWI had "changed the whole status of race relationships," and that blacks had grown resolved to obtain "things hitherto not hoped for".[3]
They identified three types of Southern Blacks—leaders who were "openly rebellious, defiant and contemptuous", leaders who were "thoughtful educated Negro leaders", and the "great mass of uneducated Negroes". They wanted to increase the popularity of the "thoughtful" leaders who advocated for "patience" by reducing some of the most aggravating features of white supremacy.[3]
The organization worked to oppose
Results and final years
Before the Commission was created, there were 83 lynchings; ten years later (1929) this number dropped to ten. Through the work of this commission, African Americans and whites had meetings to confer about African Americans' problems, a gradually increasing group on both sides learned to know the goals and sympathies of each other. In 1930, financial troubles attributable to the Great Depression led the commission leaders to rethink the programs that were in effect. They chose to abandon much of their fieldwork to concentrate more heavily on research. In 1944, a number of conferences led to the establishment of the Southern Regional Council. Many interracial movement leaders agreed that the Commission on Interracial Cooperation programs were out of date, and they supported the commission's merger with the Southern Regional Council. The Commission on Interracial Cooperation had clearly helped prepare the South to enter a new phase in the movement towards racial justice in the United States.[5]
References
- ^ Newman, Harvey K.; Crunk, Glenda (2008). "Religious Leaders in the Aftermath of Atlanta's 1906 Race Riot". Georgia Historical Quarterly. 92 (4): 460–485. Retrieved 14 February 2018.
- ISBN 978-1-57859-192-3.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-19-509836-5.
- ISBN 978-0-86554-758-2.
- ISBN 978-1-56000-857-6.
Sources
- Edward Flud Burrows, "The Commission on Interracial Cooperation, 1919–1944: A Case Study in the History of the Interracial Movement in the South," (PhD. diss., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1954).
- Commission on Interracial Cooperation in The New Georgia Encyclopedia
Further reading
- John Egerton, Speak Now against the Day: The Generation before the Civil Rights Movement in the South (New York: Knopf, 1994).
- Ann Wells Ellis, "A Crusade against 'Wretched Attitudes': The Commission on Interracial Cooperation's Activities in Atlanta," Atlanta Historical Journal 23 (spring 1979).
- Ann Wells Ellis, "'Uncle Sam Is My Shepherd': The Commission on Interracial Cooperation and the New Deal in Georgia," Atlanta Historical Journal 30 (spring 1986).
- Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, Revolt against Chivalry: Jessie Daniel Ames and the Women's Campaign against Lynching, rev. ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993).
- Julia Anne McDonough, "Men and Women of Good Will: A History of the Commission on Interracial Cooperation and the Southern Regional Council, 1919–1954," (PhD. diss., University of Virginia, 1993).
- North Carolina Commission on Interracial Cooperation Records, 1922–1949 in the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
- The Southern Frontier (January 1940 - April 1941), in the Social Welfare History Image Portal, Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries.
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