What was it like in Arkansas in 1903 for people of color?

Question

I am writing a paper and I am not sure what type of opportunities were available for blacks at the time. What was the workforce like? How were they treated by whites?

Answer 1

DuBois published "Souls of Black Folk" in 1903 it would be good reading overall for how Blacks were treated in America. Basically property rights were not enforced. Blacks who owned property lived in constant fear that they would lose it. It was illegal in Arkansas, an most of the south, at this time, for a Black person to testify against a white person in court. So there was really no forum for any greviance a black person had against a white person. It goes without saying that under these types of conditions Blacks were continually victimized, robbed of their property and forced to work under the most heinous conditions. Most worked in agriculture or domestic services.

Black professionals (doctors, lawyers, teachers etc.) served the black community. they were the Black upper class and because they were educated they faired better than the average Black person but they also had basically no legal rights. You can look at the Elaine Race riots -- that was in Northern Arkansas. It was the white reaction to Blacks workers attempts to organize. Ida B. Wells Barrnet spend a great deal of time in Arkansas and Tenn. responding to the large number of lynchings.

All of this said ironically Arkansas was one of the more progressive Southern states. By comparison to Mississippi -- it's close neighbor Arkansas was a bastion of liberty for Blacks.

There was a process in the south during this time of arresting Black men and forcing them to work on work gangs. It was free labor of the excuse for reinslaving variety. This process was prevelant through out the south. However, it did not occur in Arkansas, Missouri, Tenn as often as in other southern states. It was a process that DuBois claimed in 1903 was creating a prison culture among African Americans and created a condition were blacks had so little trust for law enforcement. DuBois believed Blacks would soon refuse to sanction the criminals within their community because "they will look upon them all as being crucified rather than hanged." -- he believed that the greatest deteriant to crime is community censure and African Americans, due to this system, would lose the means to censure criminals because they would "refuse to believe the evidence of white witnesses or the verdicts of white courts."

Answer 2

Look up sharecropping and tenant farming. They were usually treated poorly by whites.

Answer 3

I don't know , but i think you look like me!!