Final Pages Making Black History This page intentionally left blank Final Pages Making Black History THE COLOR LINE, CULTURE, AND RACE IN THE AGE OF JIM CROW Jeffrey Aaron Snyder The University of Georgia Press Athens Final Pages A Sarah Mills Hodge Fund Publication This publication is made possible in part through a grant from the Hodge Foundation in memory of its founder, Sarah Mills Hodge, who devoted her life to the relief and education of African Americans in Savannah, Georgia. © 2018 by the University of Georgia Press Athens, Georgia 30602 www.ugapress.org All rights reserved Set in 9.5/13.5 Miller Text by Kaelin Chappell Broaddus Most University of Georgia Press titles are available from popular e-book vendors. Printed digitally Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Snyder, Jeffrey Aaron, author. Title: Making black history : the color line, culture, and race in the age of Jim Crow / Jeffrey Aaron Snyder. Description: Athens, Georgia : University of Georgia Press, [2018] | “A Sarah Mills Hodge Fund Publication.” | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: lccn 2017024960| isbn 9780820351834 (hardback : alk. paper) | isbn 9780820352831 (pbk. : alk. paper) | isbn 9780820351841 (ebook) Subjects: lcsh: African Americans—Segregation—History. | Woodson, Carter Godwin, 1875–1950. | Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, inc. Classification: lcc e185.61 .s658 2018 | ddc 323.1196/073—dc23 lc record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017024960 Final Pages For my father, Melvin Leroy Snyder (1946–1990) This page intentionally left blank Final Pages CONTENTS Acknowledgments ix A Note on Racial Terminology xi Introduction 1 PART 1: THE COLOR LINE, 1915–1926 chapter one “The Cause” 19 chapter two “Reverse the Stage” 46 PART 2: CULTURE, 1922–1941 chapter three Heritage: Anthologies and the Negro Renaissance 73 chapter four The New Negro Goes to School 94 PART 3: RACE, 1942–1956 chapter five “A Revision of the Concept of Race and of Racism” 123 chapter six “Look to the Roots”: History Lessons for the Present 147 Epilogue 165 Notes 171 Bibliography 209 Index 233 This page intentionally left blank Final Pages ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The origins of this book reach back to the spring of 2005, when Julie Reuben introduced me to the wonders of the history of American education. I was a graduate student enrolled in an educational psychology program. Julie’s sem- inar “The Elusive Quest for Equality: Historical Perspectives on American Education” turned me into a budding historian. Soon after, Ellen Condliffe Lagemann convinced me that I could take my interest in educational history and turn it into a career. My experience as her research and then teaching as- sistant was a tour-de-force introduction to the rigorous, invigorating work of top-notch scholarship and teaching. Ellen, who has been both an outstanding mentor and dear friend, intro- duced me to Jonathan Zimmerman. Jon would become my thesis adviser, and without his generous and unflagging support, this book would not have been possible. (Like many history monographs, this book started out as a dis- sertation.) Over the past decade, through graduate school and beyond, Jon has been helpful, kind, and upstanding—in short, a real mensch. I have ben- efited enormously from his incisive feedback on my work. I consider myself lucky to have been one of his students. At New York University, professors James Fraser, Joan Malczewski, Mi- chele Mitchell, Jeffrey Sammons, Nikhil Singh, and Harold Wechsler pro- vided valuable guidance on my research project. I am also indebted to my peers in the NYU History of Education Writing Group—Zoë Burkholder, Diana D’Amico, Erich Dietrich, Ansley Erickson, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, John Press, and Afrah Richmond—all of whom offered constructive criticism on my dissertation chapters. I received vital financial support to fund archival research from Emory University’s Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library (MARBL) and the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. A Faculty Development Endowment grant from Carleton College afforded me the time to revise and prepare my manuscript for publication. I was fortu- ix