Commission on Interracial Cooperation
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The Commission on Interracial Cooperation (1918–1944) was an organization founded in
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, December 18, 1918, and officially incorporated in 1929. Will W. Alexander, pastor of a local white Methodist church, was head of the organization. It was formed in the aftermath of violent
race riot This is a list of ethnic riots by country, and includes riots based on ethnic, sectarian, xenophobic, and racial conflict. Some of these riots can also be classified as pogroms. Africa Americas United States Nativist period: 1700sâ ...
s that occurred in 1917 in several southern cities. In 1944 it merged with the
Southern Regional Council The Southern Regional Council (SRC) is a reform-oriented organization created in 1944 to avoid racial violence and promote racial equality in the Southern United States. Voter registration and political-awareness campaigns are used toward this en ...
.


History

In spite of its official "interracial" title, the commission was formed primarily by liberal white Southerners. It was formed in response to the increasing unrest amongst black Americans during the post
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
period. According to internal documents the CIC believed that WWI had "changed the whole status of race relationships," and that blacks had grown resolved to obtain "things hitherto not hoped for". They identified three types of Southern Blacks—leaders who were "openly rebellious, defiant and contemptuous", leaders who were "thoughtful educated Negro leaders", and the "great mass of uneducated Negroes". They wanted to increase the popularity of the "thoughtful" leaders who advocated for "patience" by reducing some of the most aggravating features of
white supremacy White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White su ...
. The organization worked to oppose
lynching Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged transgressor, punish a convicted transgressor, or intimidate people. It can also be an ex ...
,
mob violence A riot is a form of civil disorder commonly characterized by a group lashing out in a violent public disturbance against authority, property, or people. Riots typically involve destruction of property, public or private. The property targete ...
, and
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and to educate white southerners concerning the worst aspects of racial abuse. The key leaders of the commission included
Tuskegee Institute Tuskegee University (Tuskegee or TU), formerly known as the Tuskegee Institute, is a private, historically black land-grant university in Tuskegee, Alabama. It was founded on Independence Day in 1881 by the state legislature. The campus was de ...
president Robert R. Moton, New York investment banker
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, Virginia governor
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,
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president
William Louis Poteat William Louis Poteat (1856–1938), also known as "Doctor Billy", was a professor (–1905) and then the seventh president (1905–1927) of Wake Forest College (today, Wake Forest University). Poteat was conspicuous in many civic roles becoming a ...
, and Georgia industrialist John J. Eagan.
Belle Harris Bennett Belle Harris Bennett (December 3, 1852 – July 20, 1922), led the struggle for and won laity rights for women in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. She was the founding president of the Woman's Missionary Council of the Southern Methodist Chur ...
, leader of the Southern Methodist Women's Missionary Council, created the CIC's Woman's Work Department. The commission was based in Atlanta but had other committees throughout the South. By the 1920s there were some eight hundred local interracial committees associated with this commission. The Commission did some prominent work in modifying racial contacts by preventing race riots and providing the
African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
population of the South with schools. However, the commission did not directly address segregation and its
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results.


Results and final years

Before the Commission was created, there were 83 lynchings; ten years later (1929) this number dropped to ten. Through the work of this commission, African Americans and whites had meetings to confer about African Americans' problems, a gradually increasing group on both sides learned to know the goals and sympathies of each other. In 1930, financial troubles attributable to the
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led the commission leaders to rethink the programs that were in effect. They chose to abandon much of their fieldwork to concentrate more heavily on research. In 1944, a number of conferences led to the establishment of the
Southern Regional Council The Southern Regional Council (SRC) is a reform-oriented organization created in 1944 to avoid racial violence and promote racial equality in the Southern United States. Voter registration and political-awareness campaigns are used toward this en ...
. Many interracial movement leaders agreed that the Commission on Interracial Cooperation programs were out of date, and they supported the commission's merger with the Southern Regional Council. The Commission on Interracial Cooperation had clearly helped prepare the South to enter a new phase in the movement towards racial justice in the United States.


References


Sources

*Edward Flud Burrows,
The Commission on Interracial Cooperation, 1919–1944: A Case Study in the History of the Interracial Movement in the South,"
(PhD. diss., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1954).
Commission on Interracial Cooperation
in ''
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''


Further reading

*John Egerton, Speak Now against the Day: The Generation before the Civil Rights Movement in the South (New York: Knopf, 1994). *Ann Wells Ellis, "A Crusade against 'Wretched Attitudes': The Commission on Interracial Cooperation's Activities in Atlanta," Atlanta Historical Journal 23 (spring 1979). *Ann Wells Ellis, "'Uncle Sam Is My Shepherd': The Commission on Interracial Cooperation and the New Deal in Georgia," Atlanta Historical Journal 30 (spring 1986). *Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, Revolt against Chivalry: Jessie Daniel Ames and the Women's Campaign against Lynching, rev. ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993). *Julia Anne McDonough, " Men and Women of Good Will: A History of the Commission on Interracial Cooperation and the Southern Regional Council, 1919–1954," (PhD. diss., University of Virginia, 1993).
North Carolina Commission on Interracial Cooperation Records, 1922–1949
in the
Southern Historical Collection The Southern Historical Collection is a repository of distinct archival collections at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill which document the culture and history of the American South. These collections are made up of unique primary mat ...
at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
''The Southern Frontier (''January 1940 - April 1941)
in th
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Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries. {{DEFAULTSORT:Commission On Interracial Cooperation Politics and race in the United States History of African-American civil rights Anti-racist organizations in the United States Organizations established in 1919