2. Religion and Race Flashcards
Bible Belt
Southern USA with fundementalists
Religious Fundementalists
- everything in Bible is true + must be taken literally
- scientific theories not accepted
- in 1920s
Butler Act
- 1924 Tennesse
- scientific theories banned in schools if opposing bible Divine Creation
Scopes Trial/Monket Trial: why?
- Biology teacher John Scopes challenges Butler Act by deliberately teaching Evolution theory
- did this to intentionally get arrested and have a trial
Trial- what?
- 1925
- Scopes Defender= Clarence Darrow + Americal Civil Liberties Union support
- Prosecutor= Jennings Bryan- fundementalist
Trial Result:
- Scopes fined $100 and loses
- fundementalists image destroyed- ignorant + media mocking them + seen as restriting freedom of thought
Native Americans Treatment
They’re being Americanised + kept away from culture
Indian Citizenship Act
- 1924
- Native Americans given American citizenship
Eugenics Project (Americanisation + assimilaion attempt)
manages Native Americans lives + other ‘undesirables’:
- reject own culture
- special boarding schools taking children away from culture + family
- Christianity conversion attempts (no tribe identity)
Meriam Report
- 1928
- Exposed boarding schools as too harsh
- showed assimilation attempt failed
- recommended to drop Western cultural education
- Native Americans should get skills for their own society + American society
Jim Crow Laws
segregation of black and white Americans in many states:
- segregation in all public areas
- denial of access to good jobs for Black Americans
- 1915-1922= 450 black Americans lynched
KKK- Ku Klux Klan
- white + protestant supremacy (other groups attakced too e.g Jews foreigners)
KKK Origins
- South USA by ex-Confederate soldiers in 1860s after American Civil War
- They’re war veterans afraid of freed slaves
members + support + identity
- WASPs
- white robes + white hoods
- leader= Hiram Wesley Evans (Imperial Wizard)
- officers knows as Kluds, Klaliffs, Klabees
- American flags + burning crosses at night meetings
size + reasons to join
- 1920= 100000
- by 1925= 5 million+
- more immigration= more anti-foreigners
- after 1910= industrialisation means more workers so they expanded
methods
- beating up enemies
- lynching
- mutilating
- srip victims then put tar and feathers on body
decline
- illegal activities
- Great Wizard Stephenson convicted of rape and mutilation of a woman
—> reputation ruined as pardon refused
reasons why they previously weren’t stopped for methods they did
- racism in South
- Politicians don’t want to lose votes for congress election for speaking out (fear)
- police force/authorities dominated by KKK
- overall fear and intimidation
NAACP
- National Association of the Advancement of Coloured People
- 1909= by W.E.B De Bois
- by 1919= 90000 members in 300 branches
Aims
- no cruelty against Black People
- everyone has equal opportunities
- no discrimintion
Actions + result
- marches, demomnstartions, petitions
- making black pople aware of their rights
- Success; rights made aware + less lynching from publicity
- Failure: lynching not officially banned
UNIA
- Universal Negro Improvement Association
- 1914= by Marcus Garvey
- 1920=2000 members
- peak= 250000 members
aims
- balck people success + their own identity without assimilating
actions and result
- militant tactics
- ‘back to Africa’ slogan + encouraging setting up own businesses with black employees
- Success: Black Power movement uses Garvey’s ideas
- Failure: 1925=sent to prison for ‘postal fraud + deported to Jamaica
—>UNIA falls apart
