January 1916
After the Supreme Court struck down Oklahoma's grandfather clause in Guinn v. United States (1915), the Oklahoma legislature immediately passed a new law giving all persons who had voted in 1914 (under the unconstitutional system) permanent registration, while requiring all others — effectively all Black voters — to register within a 12-day window or be permanently disenfranchised. The Supreme Court struck this down in Lane v. Wilson (1939), but Black voters had been effectively denied the franchise in Oklahoma for 24 more years in the interim.
The 'New Negro' as a political and cultural concept emerged in the mid-1910s, crystallized by the Red Summer of 1919 and the Great Migration. Unlike the accommodationist model associated with Booker T. Washington (who died in 1915), the New Negro demanded full and immediate civil and political rights, embraced armed self-defense, articulated Black pride and Pan-African identity, and rejected the idea that Black Americans should earn rights through respectability or deference. The term appeared in A. Philip Randolph's The Messenger, Marcus Garvey's Negro World, and W.E.B. Du Bois's The Crisis.
Events
- 1916New Negro Movement Rejects Accommodation, Demands Full Citizenship Rights
The 'New Negro' as a political and cultural concept emerged in the mid-1910s, crystallized by the Red Summer of 1919 and the Great Migration. Unlike the accommodationist model associated with Booker T. Washington (who died in 1915), the New Negro demanded full and immediate civil and political rights, embraced armed self-defense, articulated Black pride and Pan-African identity, and rejected the idea that Black Americans should earn rights through respectability or deference. The term appeared in A. Philip Randolph's The Messenger, Marcus Garvey's Negro World, and W.E.B. Du Bois's The Crisis.
- 1916New Negro Movement Rejects Accommodation, Demands Full Citizenship Rights
The 'New Negro' political and cultural concept emerged in the mid-1910s, crystallized by the Red Summer of 1919 and the Great Migration. Unlike the accommodationist model associated with Booker T. Washington, the New Negro demanded full and immediate civil and political rights, embraced armed self-defense, and articulated Black pride. The term appeared in The Messenger, Negro World, and The Crisis.
- 1916Chicago Black Population Triples During WWI as Great Migration Transforms the City
Chicago's Black population grew from 44,000 in 1910 to 109,000 by 1920, a 148% increase driven by the Great Migration. Migrants were recruited by Chicago meatpacking companies and steel mills facing labor shortages due to WWI cutting off European immigration. Black newcomers were crowded into the South Side 'Black Belt' through a combination of restrictive covenants, real estate steering, and violence against those who moved outside designated areas. The spatial concentration of Black poverty and opportunity in the Black Belt created both vibrant cultural institutions and conditions for the 1919 riot.
- 1916Chicago Black Population Triples During WWI as Great Migration Transforms the City
Chicago's Black population grew from 44,000 in 1910 to 109,000 by 1920, a 148% increase driven by the Great Migration. Migrants were recruited by meatpacking companies and steel mills facing labor shortages due to WWI. Black newcomers were crowded into the South Side 'Black Belt' through restrictive covenants and violence against those who moved outside designated areas.
- 1916Oklahoma Circumvents Guinn Ruling With New Voter Registration Law
After the Supreme Court struck down Oklahoma's grandfather clause in Guinn v. United States (1915), the Oklahoma legislature immediately passed a new law giving all persons who had voted in 1914 (under the unconstitutional system) permanent registration, while requiring all others — effectively all Black voters — to register within a 12-day window or be permanently disenfranchised. The Supreme Court struck this down in Lane v. Wilson (1939), but Black voters had been effectively denied the franchise in Oklahoma for 24 more years in the interim.
- 1916The Great Migration begins
Millions of Black Southerners begin moving north and west, fleeing terror and seeking opportunity.