1.2-The Quest For Civil Rights 1917-18

Question 1

What was the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendement?

Answer 1

• Jan 1865= 13th Amendment which abolished all slavery in the USA
• July 1868= 14th Amendment which made all people born and naturalised in the USA, including those that had been slaves, US citizens
• Feb 1870= 15th Amendment which declared that all US citizens had the same voting rights

Question 2

Give an example of how these were not met:

Answer 2

-1962-Fannie Lou Hamer went to register to vote in Ruleville Mississippi she was sacked from her job and told that people weren’t ready for her to do this

Question 3

When was the first red scare and ‘Red summer’ race riots?

Answer 3

• 1919-20- First Red Scare

- 1919-Red Summer Riots

Question 4

When was and what was the ‘Scottsboro Case’?

Answer 4

-The Scottsboro Boys were nine African-American teenagers, ages 12 to 19, accused in Alabama of raping two white women in 1931. The landmark set of legal cases from this incident dealt with racism and the right to a fair trial. The cases included a lynch mob before the suspects had been indicted, all-white juries, rushed trials, and disruptive mobs. It is commonly cited as an example of a miscarriage of justice in the United States legal system

Question 5

Why fight for civil rights?

Answer 5

• After FWW black people found still had to struggle for equality, faced discrimination, segregation and violence
• common in Deep South
• worst schools, homes, part of town, infrastructure, lowest paid jobs…- cycle of poverty
• In 1913 President Wilson introduced segregation in government offices and the White House
• in 1919 25 anti-black race riots

Question 6

What was life like in the south?

Answer 6

• Booker T Washington was a famous African American who advocated for accepting segregation- good following esp amongst better off Black Americans and white support
• argued even under segregation at least had education, employment, lawyers… even if poorly equipped snd dilapidated

Question 7

What was the impact of the Jim Crow Laws?

Answer 7

• 1896 Plessy v Ferguson- ‘separate but equal’
• Called ‘the final settlement’
• rules where could live, sit on transport, marry, schools, leisure…
• voters had to pass a literacy qualification (which they deliberately made harder for black people)

Question 8

Why else was voting hard for black Americans?

Answer 8

• in some states had to be home owners (most not)
• all-white elections
• many polling stations guarded by whites and any black who came to vote risked violence
• dropped eg: in Louisiana fell from 130,334 in 1896 to 1,342 in 1904

Question 9

-Lynching and the Klu Klux Klan:

Answer 9

• some white people felt needed to be terrorised into obedience
• Between 1915-30 there were lynchings of 65 white men and 579 black men
• 1955 case of Emmet Till (14years old)- lots of publicity and shock even in south
• KKK revived in 1915 after the film ‘A Birth of a Nation’
• by 1925 membership was 3-8 million
• in south a lot of members were governors, state police or army meaning they had political power
• created such as hostile environment that even non-klansman felt too imitated to reject
• women took part in more violent events eg: lynchings and brought children with them ingrains by a white supremacists viewpoint

Question 10

Did the federal government intervene in the south?

Answer 10

• No introduced Jim Crow Laws
• no black votes- position couldn’t change
• President Wilson was a southerner and had no problem with segregation
• President Harding spoke out against lynching and broadly in favour of civil rights- addresses 30,000 (segregated) people at University of Alabama on evils of segregation
• Harding and Coolidge committed to policy of laissez-fair (non-government intervention) so could express opinion and try influence behaviour but not enforce any legislation or federal action
• when Great Depression hit in 1929 issues of Civil Rights took a back seat

Question 11

What was the impact of moving North (Great Migration) 1917-32?

Answer 11

• going to north and East mainly to cities
• By 1920 40% of AA in North living in Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Ohio…
• biggest in east eg: New York, Philadelphia…
• drawn to industrial towns for work and to escape South (less hostile in north and big towns than small rural communities)
• Started due to FWW- needed workers- advertised in newspapers- offered housing, free transport, wages, encouraged to join friends and family members who had already moved
• Black population in New York in 1910 was 91,709 by 1930 was 327,706

Question 12

What was their lifestyle like after moving?

Answer 12

• many disappointed- was the same, worst parts of town, lowest paid jobs, poor facilities and no room for progression
• however, segregation did vary, some black people did well for themselves, some voted and elected to local and federal government, not all landlords exploited migrants, some in reach of white suburbs where there was a need for nannies and domestic servants
• BUT for majority the pattern showed the worst that could happen, happened a lot

Question 13

What was the impact of the migration on the north?

Answer 13

• populations of cities rose sharply
• cities where black people settled coincided with voting wards eg: Chicago- became more important to listen to black demands, more powerful business- orientated black elite grew with vested interests in segregation
• more of a political influence as it was likely that black American campaigning in a black Ward was likely to sweep whole black vote
• however in larger cities like New York where the black population was more evenly distributed they did not have such a big influence
• churches became a significant base for civil rights movements and preachers
• dislodged white workers as did same job just as good and could be paid les, also many white workers becoming part of unions pushing for better conditions- enabled businesses to make them either leave unions or loose jobs

Question 14

What was the impact on the south?

Answer 14

• labour force shrank
• farmers struggled to get by
• poorest farmers, most black suffered the most
• saw black people “voting with their feet” over Jim Crow Laws
• misleading assumption those staying accepted Jim Crow

Question 15

What was the impact of the New Deal?

Answer 15

• shifted from mainly voting Republican (abolished slavery) to voting Democrat (promising New Deal)- significant in Roosevelt’s landslide
• Roosevelt did appoint women black advisers but needed support of people against civil rights so did little to advance it- often restricted the number of black people on work projects
• issued Executive order 8802 which banned racial discrimination in the defence industry- get as many people to work as possible regardless
• New Deal measures were colour blind
• agencies he set up to provide relief and work said they put people by ‘merit’ alone but most moved off to make way for whites
• Black farmers sacked in their thousands during agricultural reforms
• social security provisions of New Deal did not apply to farm workers or domestic work- many were black
• Black officials tried to get some results eg: persuaded National Recovery Administration to set a minimum wage for black and white people at the same rate (most of time ignored)
• some measures helped black Americans simply because of their situation eg: 1/3rd of low income housing had black tenants because many of the poorest people eligible for this housing were black

Question 16

Extract- impact of New Deal:

Answer 16

• pushed 100,000 black tenants off the land- Agricultural Adjustment Act
• half a million black workers lost their jobs altogether to unemployed white men and women
• some called for the Negro Removal Act or Negroes a Roasted Again
• a lot of emergency relief lost in transmission especially in the south
• no New Deal measures contained anti-discriminatory enforcement provisions
• Federal Housing Loans were required to preserve composition of neighbourhoods, built walls around black slums
• ignored calls for anti-lynching legislation, to terminate poll tax and to end segregation

Question 17

Protesting against the New Deal:

Answer 17

• protested about lack of change under New Deal, had more support from communism and other left wing groups
• 1931-NAACP turned down case of 9 black men framed for raping two white girls. Instead communist lawyers took the case and uncovered a conspiracy, men found not guilty
• In 1930s, Birmingham, Alabama had 6 black American members of NAACP (established 1910) and over 3000 black communists
• communism championed in northern cities too workers demanding relief funds to be allocated equally between black and whites
• Black press applauded these cases but association with communism created even less support
• Black church organisations set up support systems for black citizens during the Depression eg: In Harlem, Father Divine of the Peace Mission ☮️✌️set up restaurants and shops that sold food and supplies to black people at a lower cost than white run stores
• women’s organisations also set up eg: Housewives League in Detroit which spread- “Don’t but where you can’t work”- boycott stores in black districts until hired black workers
• activism within segregation

Question 18

What happened in 1937 which hit black Americans hard again?

Answer 18

• another Depression, lack of equality in provisions again
• BUT
• Resettlement Administration was set up by Executive Order 7027 (May 1935) to resettle low income families in new housing and to lend money if needed, gave black farmers who lost homes a fair share of loans (BUT still only helped 3,400 out of 200,000 farmers)
• got so bad in 1939 2 million people signed a petition asking for federal aid to move to Africa

Question 19

What was the impact of the Second World War?

Answer 19

• pushed a conscription bill through Congress in 1940 and federal money into research projects
• 7th December 1941- Peal Harbor- Joined War

Question 20

What gains (or limit) were there for black Americans?

Answer 20

• did not benefit much from war induced boom in 1939- white workers given preference
• 1941 A Philip Randolph led a successful protest by railway workers, threatened 100,000 strong all black march on Washington unless Roosevelt banned discrimination in army and defence factories
• passed executive order 8802- non- discrimination in defence work which would be overseen by Fair Employment Practices Committee
• order did not deal with any military segregation but as war went in needed more people so black people could start to push for greater equality
• 1942- only 3% of defence workers were black, by 1944 risen to 8%
• wartime migration- even higher than in 1920s
• influx of black workers was resented and pressure from opponents-1943 outbreaks of racist violence and strikes by white peoples over having to work for them (strikes and riots damaging war effort)
• set up race relations committees to investigate improvements
• white skillet workers had to allow black people to be trained in same skills
• worked side by side- some attitudes started to changed, could do work, could be friendly. But an end of war survey showed many white Americans were still racist, supporting housing segregation and saying that jobs should go to white people before blacks

Question 21

What impact did President Truman have?

Answer 21

• supported civil rights
• proposed anti-lynching, anti-segregation and fair employment laws 1954
• had to pass civil rights measures through congress, blocked often by southern delegates
• 1946 set up the President’s committee on civil rights which called for equal opportunities in work and housing
• urged strong federal support for civil rights and tried to keep wartime gains
• BUT Cold War focus meant he concentrated more on fighting communism
• earlier collaboration between black people and communism eg: National Negro Congress ended up in the governments list of suspect organisations
• 1948 Truman issued executive orders desegregating the military and all work done by businesses for the government
• aware of the value of black vote and shocked by outbreaks of racist violence against returning black soldiers- fought for country

Question 22

The United Nations and civil rights:

Answer 22

• set up in 1945
• invited three delegates from the NAACP
• said supported decolonisation and human rights and racial theories of white supremacy were wrong
• but had to tone down judgements in debates due to opposition from other members
• opposition eg: South African representatives that had its own segregation system- Apartheid
• NAACP continued to petition the UN to involve itself in the struggle of black Americans for civil rights, despite gaining no positive action

Question 23

• Legal challenge to direct action, 1917-55?

- what tactics did they use?

Answer 23

• variety eg:
• non-violent protest
• picketing
• boycotting
• sit ins
• went to the law eg: using NAACP and National Urban League

Question 24

What were some smaller local organisations? How did membership of the NAACP change after the world wars?

Answer 24

• often based around church groups
• eg: MLK started as churchman
• leaped:
• went from 9000 in 1917 to 90,000 in 1919 to 600,000 in 1946

Question 25

What was the separatist movement?

Answer 25

• felt never going to have true equality with white people
• should stop fighting for it
• embrace segregation and fight for equal conditions within it- more feasible
• Black people would be able to grow up without being made to feel inferior all the time- proud
• One called Marcus Garvey in early 1920s even suggested to just do what white people telling them to (go back to Africa)

Question 26

Who was Thurgood Marshall?

Answer 26

• 1908-93
• first black American ever to serve in the Supreme Court
• trained as a lawyer, worked for NAACP and became its chief legal counsel in 1940
• argued Brown v Board of Education case
• during 1940s and 50s took 32 segregation cases to Supreme Court and won 29 of them
• nominated to important legal positions by 2 presidents:
  1) Kennedy nominated him as Marshall to the US court of Appeals Second Circuit in 1961
  2) Johnson appointed him solicitor general in 1965 and then to Supreme Court in 1967

Question 27

Legal challenges

-what did NAACP do/ aim in 1910? What were some of it’s successes/ failures?

Answer 27

• gain black Americans their legal rights
• campaigns against lynching especially in south
• published pamphlets
• held marches
• petitioned congress
• took issues of segregation to court (tough due to Plessy v Ferguson that said segregation was permissible if separate but equal)
• provided lawyers to defend black people on trial who felt had been unjustly accused

✅won some cases in 1930s and 40s and EVERY case in 1950
❌Didn’t enforce rulings eg: no setting time limits for desegregation or vague phrases “with deliberate speed”, took long time especially in Deep South
❌10 years after Brown V Board 1 black child in every 100 in south was in an integrated school (useless unless worked in practice)
❌Creation of White Citizens Council in 1954 to fight desgeetajib and civil rights, by 1956 had 250,000 members
❌Integrating schools was less than helpful if families were still living in secreted neighbourhoods
✅Set up National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing in 1950

Question 28

Name some successful NAACP legal cases:

• one in 1920s
• one in 1930s
• one in 1940s
• one in 1950s

Answer 28

• 1926= Sweet Trial:
• Sweet and his family move it a predominantly white area in Detroit- house surrounded by angry mob two nights running
• on second night windows broken and fearing an attack Sweet’s friend fires a gun and shoots a young man
• all put on trial for murder
• NAACP took and won
• set up legal defence fund to fight segregation
• 1936 Murray V Maryland:
• University of Maryland’s law school is desegregated
• 1948 Shelley V Kraemer:
• bans regulations that bar black people from buying houses in an area in any state
• 1950 Sweatt V Painter:
• desegregates graduate and professional schools in Texas and Oklahoma

-1954 Brown V Board of Education of Topeka

Question 29

-name some early direct action techniques used:

Answer 29

• March of over 10,000 black people in New York (28 June 1917) called Silent Protest Parade= response to lynching and anti-black riots that year
• more local protests
• inspired by Gandhi- targeted segregation and deliberately challenged ‘illegal’ state legislation
• boycotts and picketing of shoos that wouldn’t serve black people
• CORE held a series of sit ins in Northern cities of Chicago (1942) Set Louis (1949) and Baltimore (1952)
• 1947-Fellowship for Reconciliation- rode interstate buses through southern states like Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky to desegregate them
• moves to all- white housing blocks or business districts putting themselves in danger

Question 30

What was CORE?

Answer 30

• set up 1942
• campaigned non-violent
• pioneered sits ins, jail ins and freedom rides

Question 31

What was Fellowship for Reconciliation?

Answer 31

• peace based
• founded 1914
• members- Quakers (majority)

Question 32

What were the rules for non-violet protest?

Answer 32

• dress well- look respectable
• not loud or abusive
• did not fight back if attacked
• tried to show that they supported the government and looked for governmental support
• collected petitions and took to local and federal government representatives
• show evils of segregation and persuade white people both ordinary and important in government to change views, share outrage and fight for change
• all ages but predominantly black
• CORE unusual in deliberately having black and white members working together

Question 33

Black Militancy:

Who was Malcolm X?

Answer 33

• 1925-65
• terrorised by KKK in childhood
• 1952-joined Nation of Islam
• believed that non-violent protests were not working and called for “ballot or the bullet”
• didn’t advocate violence except self defence but slogan that held people’s attention
• believed white people should not be involved in civil rights, believed white politicians would never do more than forced to in advance
• saw King’s efforts as useless
• assassinated in 1965 just as radicalism started to soften-several meetings with King

Question 34

What was the SNCC?

Answer 34

• student non violent co-ordinating committee
• most members young and intellectual
• some white

Question 35

Black militancy and black power:

• Who was Stokely Carmichael? What did they do to gain civil rights?

Answer 35

• 1965-Stokely Carmichael leader of SNCC set up Lowndes County Freedom Organisation
• used panther symbol and slogan “Vote for the panther, then go home”
• June 1966-James Meredith (integrated the University of Mississippi as a student in 1962) led March Against Fear through Mississippi- shot on second day
• King took over for multiracial non-violent behaviour
• Carmichael wanted SNCC and CRM to radicalise and exclude white campaigners, instead of ‘Freedom!’, wanted ‘Black Power!’- symbol of raised arm and a clenched fist
• symbol famously used in 1968 by some black American athletes- Tommie Smith and John Carlos who won medals at the Olympics

Question 36

What happened in 1965? What did the black power movement do?

Answer 36

• 1965-movement split, no longer marches where all worked together
• Black Power Movement was not a coherent force, other groups eg: Black Panthers in 1966
• Panthers worked to keep order in black communities and organise community projects eg: free breakfast for school children, the ten point programme= decent housing and black history courses at university
• wore uniform and carried guns, attracted gov attention
• Also things such as Back To Africa’s wanted separation either in USA or leaving country altogether

Question 37

What other community projects and gains did Black Power Movement achieve?

Answer 37

• worked best at local level
• Black Power students pressed for more black staff and courses on Black history
• Black Power worker’s set up radical trade unions to push for Black jobs, equal pay and equal job opportunities
• radicalised many of long established civil rights groups in long term, even NAACP or more pragmatic eg: Leader of the NAACP in Atlanta accepted the slowing of segregation in 1973 in return for more control over Black schooling

Question 38

What were some of the problems to these long term solutions?

Answer 38

• need to improve things in present, action then
• eg: white attitudes to integrated schools meant although schools integrated many black children not getting education- terrorised, bullied, discrimination

Question 39

What were the 1960s race riots?

Answer 39

• in 1964 major riots in cities such as New York, Chicago and Philadelphia, set off by police brutality and long term problems of city life for blacks
• took place in summary when poor facilities at their worst
• Government intervention to calm the violence seen as acceptable where as violence by state police and guardsmen had been seen by many as excessive
• media coverage= images of non-violent black people assaulting whites, burning cities and a young black man with a petrol bomb
• hastened civil rights legislation
• white backlash- riots torn areas given federal government aid (in 1965 Watts District of Los Angeles got $18 million after August riots there)

Question 40

What was the Northern Crusade?

Answer 40

• 1966
• After 1964 King focused in North visiting black ghettos
• 1966-20 major riots in city slums all over USA
• announced a ‘Northern crusade’ to improve slums by setting up tenant unions, improving working conditions and teaching young people about non-violent protest
• began with Chicago where over 800,000 black Americans lived in ghettos (Mayor Daley denied existed in 1963)
• focused on Birmingham in 1963
• most saw as failure as brought no permanent change
• harder to get political support for social issues than it was for segregation- would have to change for everyone
• King’s relationship with media also turning sour eg: accused them of trying to make non-violent campaigning militant and not reporting on positive things doing
• 1967 took up issues of poverty in general, started Poor People’s Campaign with a march and a camp in Washington
• supported a strike of Memphis station workers and assassinated while on this campaign in April 1968

Question 41

Name some significant civil rights events, 1955-65:

-varied in date

Answer 41

• Feb-March 1956:
• Autherine Lucy becomes first black student to go to University of Mississippi but white riots so bad she is expelled
• March 1956:
• 102 southern congressmen sign southern manifesto condemning a Brown v Board of Education
• Sept 1962:
• James Meredith integrates University of Mississippi only with help of 3000 federal troops
• June 1963:
• Medgar Evans, leader of Mississippi NAACP is shot
• Aug 1963:
• March on Washington- ‘I have a dream speech’, numbers 200,000-500,000
• Sept 1963:
• Black Church Sunday School is bombed in Birmingham, 4 girls are killed (21st bombing in 8 years)
• July 1964:
• Civil Rights Act passes
• Jan-Feb 1965:
• Voting Rights Act passes
• March 1965:
• Selma to Montgomery March which finished with federal troops escort

Question 42

The impact of civil rights legislation:

What was passed? How well was this implemented and enforced?

Answer 42

• 1964 Civil Rights Act
• 1965 Voting Rights Act

-many extensions made to make the laws work in practice

Question 43

After 1955 what changed?

Answer 43

• became more likely that civil rights campaigners would be arrested, beaten up or even killed
• those in Deep South expect to have their homes, offices and churches firebombed
• Black children and adults integrated into schools, colleges and work faced hatred and violence, didn’t get a ‘normal’ education
• violently resisted desegregation eg: in 1965 the NAACP took the town of Charlotte to court because its school reorganisation meant black people lived in poorest areas- ‘informal segregation’
• NAACP tried to push for busing black children to schools in other areas to integrate them, turned down up but in 1971 Supreme Court upheld idea of busing

Question 44

What other civil rights legislation was passed, 1917-80?

Answer 44

• August 1957:
• Civil Rights Commission ans gives the federal justice department more rights to supervise voter registration
• May 1960:
• crime to obstruct federal orders such as school desegregation by threat or force and authorises federal ‘referees’ for voting
• Nov 1962:
• President Kennedy passes executive order 1106 which bans discrimination in the allocation of federal housing
• May 1970:
• Emergency School Aid Act
• gives funding to schools that are desegregating or struggling to desegregate
• April 1971:
• Swann V Charlotte- policy of busing children out of poor areas to desegregate schools
• June 1972:
• Education Amendments Act:
• restricts busing by giving more money to inner city schools for improvements

Question 45

What were the achievements of these legislation and federal actions?

Answer 45

• legally by 1989s black Americans were full citizens and more pressure on government to make equality actually happen
• affirmative action taken eg: preference for black interviewees and in businesses generally
• a black American upper and middle class had developed. Upper classes tended to be based in cities such as New York and Washington, more access time work in higher levels of businesses, education, government and law
• increase in number of black politicians at local, state and federal Level
• more black Americans voted. In 1966 58.2% of black Americans registered to vote, by 1980 this was 60%
• on a socio-economic employment score that runs from 7 for a servant to day labourer 75, moved from an average of 16 in 1940 to 21 in 1960 and 31 in 1980
• score for black women went from 13 to 21 to 36
• several routes to success eg: through sport or entertainment, featured more on television and cinema, books and magazines
• home ownership among blacks increased and number of black graduates went up

Question 46

What were the limits to success even after this legislation was passed?

Answer 46

• creates illusion that it was a post-racial society when wasn’t- passing of Civil Rights Act- dealt with
• able to reach for American Dream but not doing on same level with white Americans
• even if part of black upper class made to feel unequal and not part of same social sphere
• not all felt affirmative action was an advancement- resulted in a ‘minority quota’ some felt insulting- didn’t get job by own merits but need for minorities
• radicalisation or movements and rioting in cities made people less sympathetic to rights of black Americans
• death of MLK made people turn from black civil rights to other issues eg: War in Vietnam became bigger issue
• poor getting poorer, most below poverty line than in 1959, poor schools, living conditions and black schoolchildren less likely to succeed- more likely to drop out of education which created a gang culture and more prejudice against black people as druggies and criminals
• rise of ghettos especially eg: Los Angeles crime rates went higher
• In 1980, 75% of black high school drop outs, aged 25-34 had criminal records

Question 47

What is a good phrase to use when talking about increasing radicalisation or creating change generally?

Answer 47

-how far de jure change (legislation) could bring out de facto change (societies attitude)

Question 48

What other black organisations were there? Who were leaders?

Answer 48

• Black Panthers- Huey Newton 1966-82
• Revolutionary Action Movement- 1962-69, Ahmad Muhammad (formerly known as Max Stanford) Donald Freeman
• Organisation of African American Unity- founded by Malcolm X, John Henrik Clarke, and other black nationalist leaders on June 24, 1964 in Harlem, New York
• Stokely Carmichael- first while leading the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), then as the “Honorary Prime Minister” of the Black Panther Party (BPP), and last as a leader of the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (A-APRP).