osity
against Catholics, Jews, and Negroes, but its own vitriolic crusade swung
segments of that same public opinion in favor of its victims. The Klan
revival was particularly disheartening to Negroes, who had assumed that
the Klan was dead. While slavery was gone, brutality and intimidation
remained. Half a century after the demise of the original Klan, it had
risen again and, this time, had become a nationwide phenomenon. Jim Crow
was the law in the South, and racism had become rampant in the North.
Slavery had been abolished, but Negroes were aware that they still were
not free.

PART THREE The Search For Equality

CHAPTER 8

The Crisis of Leadership

The Debate over Means and Ends

In the nineteenth century the problem that faced the Afro-American
community was how to destroy the institution of slavery. In the
twentieth century the question was how to achieve equality. Frederick
Douglass had been in the vanguard of the fight to overthrow the peculiar
institution. Later, he was among the first to realize that Emancipation
had not solved all the problems. It was his belief that the forces of
racism and indifference were responsible for relegating the ex-slave to a
second-class status. When the Federal Government terminated
Reconstruction without providing his people with the tools for competing
in American society, Douglass's disappointment was severe.

At the turn of the century the focus of the problems facing
Afro-Americans had changed. Slavery had been abolished, but not race
prejudice. The elimination of this scourge became the basis for a new
drive. Douglass, who for a half century had been looked upon as the
spokesman for his people, was too old to tackle the task of ending
segregation and prejudice based on race. When he died early in 1895, the
Afro-American community was left without leadership capable of uniting
the diverse elements within the movement. The pressing need was for black
men and women to escape physical violence and to find acceptance with
dignity, and it couldn't wait.

However, within this community there were many who were capable of
leadership. What was lacking were the instruments of leadership. Money,
power, and the press, for the most part, were in the hands of whites who
had concluded that the ex-slave would have to solve his own problems.
What this meant was that the Whites wanted to be left in peace. Dozens of
Afro-Americans, however, were not content to accept t