The “New Negro” and the Great Depression 1900–1939


1900		First Pan-African Congress convenes in London to promote the liberation of colonized people; W.E.B. Du Bois serves as secretary

		Composers Scott Joplin and Eubie Blake pioneer ragtime music

1901		Booker T. Washington organizes the National Negro Business League

1903		W.E.B. Du Bois publishes The Souls of Black Folk

1905		Robert S. Abbott publishes the Chicago Defender,which becomes a major newspaper for African American current events and opinion; it reaches a national circulation of 250,000 by 1929

1906		State Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs incorporates Alpha Phi Alpha as the first black Greek letter fraternity, for undergraduates at Cornell University

1907		Alain Locke becomes the first African American to receive a Rhodes Scholarship

1909		National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is created under the direction of W.E.B. Du Bois

1910		NAACP begins publishing Crisis magazine

1911		National Urban League is founded to train young African American men and women as social workers and provide fellowships to students

c. 1915		Great Migration begins as African Americans in large numbers begin to flee the socially repressive South in search of jobs in wartime industries and better social conditions in the North; between 1910 and 1930, one million blacks settle in Washington, D.C.; Philadelphia; and New York City

1917		300,000 African Americans serve in the U.S. armed forces in World War I

1918		Cyril Briggs founds the African Blood Brotherhood, a radical black nationalist organization

1919		“Red Summer” in which race riots occur in twenty-six U.S. cities

		Marcus Garvey organizes and leads the first major black nationalist movement in the U.S., advocating separatism and racial purity

1920s		Decade of the Harlem Renaissance, a cultural flourishing of African American visual artists, writers, musicians, and performers who garner recognition and access to white cultural institutions and patronage; the renaissance, also called the New Negro Movement, develops in Harlem, a neighborhood in New York City, and extends nationally

1923		Blues singer Bessie Smith records the hit song “Down Hearted Blues,” which sells 800,000 copies

1924		U.S. Immigration Act restricts the number of persons of African descent, mainly from the West Indies, permitted to enter the country in favor of immigrants from Western Europe

1926		Historian Carter G. Woodson establishes “Negro History Week” to commemorate the achievements of African Americans

		Arthur Schomburg donates his personal collection of black literature to the New York Public Library’s Division of Negro Literature; renamed the Schomburg Collection of Black Culture, it is considered one of the foremost repositories of black literary artifacts in the world

1930s		Economic effects of the Great Depression devastate the nation and African Americans in particular

1931		Nine African American men, known as the Scottsboro Boys, are falsely accused and convicted of rape in Alabama

		Jazz composer and pianist Duke Ellington records “Creole Rhapsody,” marking the beginning of his experimentation with new jazz forms

1933		President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal allows many black artists to benefit from federal arts projects and establishes dialogue between the federal government and African American officials

1936		African American track-and-field athlete Jesse Owens challenges Nazi myths of white superiority by winning four gold medals at the Olympic Games in Berlin

		Reelection of President Franklin D. Roosevelt marks the first time a large majority of African Americans vote for a Democratic candidate

		Roosevelt appoints Mary McLeod Bethune to the newly established Office of Minority Affairs

1938		NAACP appoints Thurgood Marshall as a special counsel responsible for all cases; he remains in this capacity until 1961, when he serves as a federal judge in the circuit court of appeals

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