AA exam questions

Question 1

Was Reconstruction a turning point for civil rights - voting rights and political participation - yes

Answer 1

• 15th amendment in 1870s guaranteed the right of AA men to vote and over 700,000 registered to vote during the Reconstruction era
• 1870 15% of public officeholders in the South were black, a higher proportion than in 1990, 22 AAs were elected to Congress in 1870s

Question 2

Was Reconstruction a turning point for civil rights - voting rights and political participation - no

Answer 2

There was intimidation which prevented many AAs from voting even before 1877, resulting in the Democrats regaining control of several southern states (EG Mississippi in 1875) even before Reconstruction officially ended

Question 3

Was Reconstruction a turning point for civil rights - social equality - yes

Answer 3

• Civil Rights Act 1866, confirmed by 14th amendment in 1867, theoretically gave AAs equal civil rights to whites
• Further Civil Rights Act passed in 1975 (though not enforced and most declared unconstitutional by Supreme Court in 1883 so never had much impact)

Question 4

Was Reconstruction a turning point for civil rights - social equality - no

Answer 4

• Constant threat of violence from KKK and other white supremacist groups - 150 AAs killed in the Colfax Massacre in Louisiana in 1873
• WEB Du Bois wrote that AA - ‘stood for a brief moment in the sun’ before the suppression of their civil rights which started even before Reconstruction officially ended in 1877
• Black Codes repealed in 1867, they anticipated post 1877 measures - EG barring AAs from juries or testifying agst whites
• Segregation (education) was widespread de facto even before 1877
• Educational progress limited bc most AA invariably educated in seperate and inferior schools and funding was bad - 1890, 65% still couldn’t write compared to 15% of whites

Question 5

Gilded Age (1877-96) a disaster for AA - convict leasing and peonage

Answer 5

• Southern states exploited 13th amendment which allowed ‘involuntary servitude… as punishment for a crime’ charges resulting to a prison sentence leading to ‘convict leasing’ - over vagrancy (unemployment), rape, testifying in court against a white man (90% AA - could lead to peonage (debt slavery)
• Number of criminals convicted were intristically criminal - not worthy to have equal civil rights as whites
• Profitable - Alabama introduced it in 1874 (even before Reconstruction) and by 1890 was earning $164K, more than x10 as much as in 1874
• Worse than slavery, unlike slave owners, could work them to death - death rate 40% a year, 9$ a month
• Children targeted - 1/3 aged under 16
• Legal system discriminated against AAs - only 10% arrested in the South were white

Question 6

Gilded Age (1877-96) Sharecropping

Answer 6

White landlord invariably controlled financial records, enabling them to ‘fiddle’ so sharecroppers never got out of debt

Sometimes debt invented - in one case white constable falsely alleged an AA owed money and had him sentenced to being forced to work for him for non-payment by a corrupt Justice of the Peace

Question 7

Segregation Gilded Age (1877-96)

Answer 7

• Railroad companies in South segregated their trains in 1880s - Ida B Wells sued the company for being ejected from first class compartment of a train in Tennessee in 1884 - lost on appeal. Destroyed faith in justice system
• ‘Separate but equal’ doctrine - Plessy v Fergurson judgement by Supreme Court in 1896 led to principle of social segregation being extended into every area of southern life including recreations, black facilities always inferior

Question 8

Lynching (1877-96) Gilded Age

Answer 8

• Economically successful in competition with whites or tried to defend themselves against racial violence were lynched - such as 3 AA men in Memphis, Tennessee in 1892
• Ida B Wells showed 2/3 of lynchings rape or assault on white women by black men weren’t even alleged, never mind proved
• Rose steadily throughout 1880s and peaked in 1890s - number off AA victims first topped 100 in 1891, peaked in 1892 at 161, and for 3 years that decade with a lynching on average every 2 days

Question 9

Disenfranchisement Gilded Age (1877-96)

Answer 9

• Georgia in 1877, Florida in 1885 and Tennessee in 1888 restricted the vote who paid the poll tax
• 1890 - S Carolina, Louisiana and Mississipi adopted literacy tests
• 1908 virtually every other state adopted - S Carolina 60% of the population was AA but by 1896 less than 1% could vote

Question 10

Gilded Age (1877-96) Other Issues

Answer 10

• Bad conditions in Exodus of 1879 - 40K AA left for Midwest. Ida B Wells had to move to Chicago dangerous to stay in Memphis with her campaign. Migration broke up families
• Booker T Washington accomodationalism - simply trained to be better sharecroppers not rise above the position, AAs educated without threatening white supremacy
• Win support of whites businessman Andrew Carnegie and President Grover Cleveland, Washington had to accept segregation and disenfranchisement , like in Atlanta Compromise 1895: - whites did not keep promise continued racial violence and underfund seg schools

Question 11

Gilded Age (1877-96) was GOOD for AAs

Answer 11

• Tuskegee College founded in Alabama in 1881, later headed by Booker T Wash gave determination to AA to better themselves and learnt practical skills to succeed agriculture - led to 7 black uni founded during Reconstruction which continued after 1877
• AA alliance with Populist Party - called for nationalisation of public services like business monopolies. Electoral pacts between them and the Republicans got 1000 blacks elected to office in N Carolina in 1894 - ‘biracial democracy’ DIDNT LAST BEYOND 1898 DUE TO VEHEMENCE OF WHITE DEMOCRAT BACKLASH
• Blacks sat in state legislature of S Carolina until 1900 and Georgia until 1908 - with the South sent black congressmen to Washington in every election until 1900
• Georgia - 1544 schools, 11K students, literacy rate risen to 42% - important - assertive educated middle class

Question 12

How important was federal government as opposed to other factors in the improvement of AA civil rights - alternative factors

Answer 12

• AA leadership
• AA activism
• Media and the white public opinion
• Circumstances: war and economic booms or busts

Question 13

How important was federal government as opposed to other factors in the improvement of AA civil rights - POLITICAL - ACHIEVING VOTING RIGHTS

Answer 13

• Reconstruction Congress passed 15th amendment - theoretically gave AA equal voting rights
• LBJ’s Voting Rights Act of 1965 ensured rights of 15th amendment enforced - state imposed voting restrictions like literacy tests removed
• Supreme Court occassionally overturned voting restrictions - Guinn v USA (1915) overturned grandfather clause and Smith v Allwright (1944) banned all white primary

Question 14

How important was federal government as opposed to other factors in the improvement of AA civil rights - NEGATIVE POLITICAL DID NOT HELP VOTING RIGHTS

Answer 14

• State gov bypassed 15th amendments - literacy tests remained till 1965. Legitimised through Williams v Mississipi (1898)
• It was King Selma’s campaign that forced Jackson to pass Voting Rights Act of 1965 so arguably black activism more important - white violence also made Johnson act - through Edmund Pettus bridge during ‘Bloody Sunday’ 1965

Question 15

How important was federal government as opposed to other factors in the improvement of AA civil rights - SOCIAL - EQUALITY AND DESEGREGATION

Answer 15

• Reconstruction Congress 13th and 14th amendment - theoretically ended slavery and made AA equal citizens
• 1948 Truman desegregated army
• Brown judgement 1954 ended segregation in schools and laid foundations for subsequent non violent civil right campaigns. Nixon presidency saw introduction of busing to enforce this too and legitimised in Swann v Charlotte Mecklenburg Board of Education 1971
• LBJ Civil Rights Act 1964 ended segregation across country

Question 16

How important was federal government as opposed to other factors in the improvement of AA civil rights - NEGATIVE SOCIAL - NO DESEGREGATION

Answer 16

• Congress passed no civil rights legislation 1875-1957 and no effective legislation after 1965
• Supreme Court legalised segregation through Plessy v Ferguson 1896 - ‘separate but equal’ doctrine
• Court undermined busing through a series of decisions from San Antonio v Rodriguez 1973 onwards
• Reagan and Bush tried to veto CR legislation
• Fed gov only responded to CR campaigns and leadership - Brown decision a result from NAACP activism in Little Rock, Civil Rights Act 1964 response to King’s campaign in Birmingham and Washington

Question 17

How important was federal government as opposed to other factors in the improvement of AA civil rights - ECONOMIC POSITION POSITIVE

Answer 17

• Freedmen’s Bureau 1865-72, New Deal and New Frontier and Great Society in 1960s
• Affirmative action in 1970s under Nixon made progress against discrimination in workplace

Question 18

How important was federal government as opposed to other factors in the improvement of AA civil rights - NEGATIVE ECONOMIC POSITION

Answer 18

• New Deal negatives - fed gov did little to help AAs between 1872 and ND, tolerating exploitation of AAs through sharecropping, convict leasing and patronage - not banned till 1941
• Reagan’s freezing of minimum wage and welfare cuts in 1980s disproportionatley hurt AAs
• Washington, Garvey, Malcolm X and Black Panthers tried to build AA economic self suffiency rather than relying on fed gov support
• Econ position more affected by 2 WWs and booms of 1920s than fed policy - AAs migrated to low paid agricultural or domestic work in the South to better paid industrial or office

Question 19

How important was federal government as opposed to other factors in the improvement of AA civil rights - BAD CULTURAL

Answer 19

• No fed gov took any interest in AA cultural roots so left to them:
• Garvey’s ‘Back to Africa’ movement in 1920s
• Nation of Islam led by Elijah Muhammed but galvanised by Malcolm x in 1950s and 60s
• Growing popularity of the afro
• Olympic protest and formation of the Black Panthers 1968

Question 20

Black power on the civil rights movement - social and economic achievements

Answer 20

• The Black Muslims under Malcolm X did a lot of good work in rehabilitating black youth from drug addiction, crime, prostitution etc and restoring their self respect
• Working with local churches, SNCC raised 1.5M from churches and fed gov despite strong opposition from governer and local senator to establish the Child Development Group centres to support young children, improving the lives of 1000s 1965-7
• Black Panthers set up 49 clinics across the USA - the Illinois People’s Free Medical Care Centre treated 2000 people in the first 2 months alone, impactful on the sickle cell anaemia campaign

Question 21

Black power on the civil rights movement - achievements on the impact of black identity

Answer 21

• Black power influenced King into talking about ‘black’ people rather than ‘negros’ - encouraging blacks to be proud of their race. ‘Negros and ‘coloured’ fell into disuse being associated with slavery and segregation 1965 onwards
• Stokely Carmichael and Huey Newton emphasised the study of black history to connect with their past, SNCC stressed need to look at heritage
• Afro hairstyle became a popular symbol of black identity, and a new pride in history, lit, music, etc - made them more assertive and less dependent on white favour

Question 22

Black power on the civil rights movement - achievements on cultural impacts

Answer 22

• Black power emphasis on black identity affected black music - Miles Davis’s albums used African instruments and musical styles, and African imagery and pictures of black women on his album covers
• TV also affected - powerful black roles like Lieutenant Uhuru (a Swahili speaking character with an African name) in Star Trek
• Black power salute in the 1968 Olympic games - Tommy Smith (wore a black scarf representing black pride) and John Carlos (wore a bead necklace commemorating the blacks murdered by racists) both were barefoot to show the poverty in Africa

Question 23

Black power on the civil rights movement - limitations - dividing the movement

Answer 23

• Groups like SNCC broken by stress it caused
• BP divided civil rights movement - making it less effective in trying to build on the 1964-5 civil rights legislation
• Divisions within the BPP between Huey Newton (wanted to emphasise welfare rather than violence) and Eldridge Cleaver, who stood for President in 1968 and got 0.15% of the vote

Malcolm X envied King bc of the insistence of Elijah Muhammed that the Nation of Islam was a purely religious and not a political movement preventing him from getting involved in the civil right campaigns

Question 24

Black power on the civil rights movement - limitations - alienating the liberal whites

Answer 24

• Combination of riots (remember) and Black Power made previously liberal whites feel threatened and undermine the ‘moral high ground’ for the CRM that MLK had worked so hard to establish
• Black Panthers associated black power with violence, shown by the shoot outs between panthers and police in 1967 and 1968 and the unjust conviction of Newton for the manslaughter of a policeman

Question 25

Black power on the civil rights - limitations - incoherent and unrealistic ideas

Answer 25

• Foolish to talk about black supremacy and separation and to expel whites from the SNCC and CORE in a predominantly white society where majority of blacks were economically dependant on whites and nothing could be achieved politically without the help of white politicians
• Black leaders knew what they were up against but never able to specify exactly what they were for - eg whether to return to africa or to revolutionise america - in many ways a kneejerk reaction lacking clarity or coherence

Question 26

Opposition to African Americans civil rights remained strong throughout the period of 1865-1992 - violence

Answer 26

• Terrorists group like KKK and Knights of White Camelia were especially active at times where AA CR were progressing - during Reconstruction or the Birmingham church bombing in 1963
• Lynching peaked in 1890s and was used from the 1880s until ww2 to restore AA to the subserviant position they had been under slavery
• murder of 3 cr activists in mississipi 1964 showed willingness of southern racists to use violence

Question 27

Opposition to African Americans civil rights remained strong throughout the period of 1865-1992 - white public opinion

Answer 27

• ‘Social Darwinsim’ - provided a pseudo-scientific basis for racism in the late 19th and early 20th century
• Brown judgement 1954 provoked ‘massive resistance’ from the south - including southern manifesto and white citizen’s councils
• Media coverage of events like march on washington in 1963 - never again could overt racism be publicly acceptable

Question 28

Opposition to African Americans civil rights remained strong throughout the period of 1865-1992 - the federal government

Answer 28

• SC consistently hostile to AA CR in the 19th century - notably Plessy v Fergurson - green light - but 20th favourable - Brown, Smith v Allwright, conservative in later years, undermining affirmative action with judgements like Milliken v Bradely in 1974 and Freeman v pitts 1992
• Most presidents after Licoln lukewarm or indifferent towards AA Cr - Andrew Johnson with his ‘presidential reconstruction’ and no president between Grant and FDR publicly condmened lynching, reagan and bush vetoed cr leg
• Disenfranchisement removed AA from political office from 1900-1970s - slowed de facto progress

Question 29

Opposition to African Americans civil rights remained strong throughout the period of 1865-1992 - state government, local authorities

Answer 29

• During Recon and Gilded age, state gov consistently hostile to improvement for AA - imposition of black codes 1866-67, jim crow laws 1887
• 20th century - southern state governers did everything to resist or delay integration (Orval Faubus in Arkansas (Little Rock 1957) Ross Barnett in Mississipi (James meredith Case, 1962) and George Wallace in Alabama (stand in schoolhouse door, 1963) resisted education integration so strongley that in each case the president had to intervene militarily to enforce it

Question 30

Progress in AA civil rights 1960-1992

Answer 30

• seg in public places dissapeared
• aa equal voting rights - voting rights act - immediate and dramatic increase in black vote - 1964 6.7% of blacks mississipi registered to vote - by 1968 rose to 67.5%
• more aa in public office - 1964 - 100 blacks, 1992 - over 8000, 36 aa elected to the house of rep in that year
• all political figures in main parties accepted principle of racial equality
• middle class grow more prom in aa business life - many aa were now taking econ advantage of opportuities they had becoming civil servant bankers, publishers, lawyers, teachers and ministers. mid 1980s - 40% black fam middle class
• violent opp to cr leg largely disappeared - kkk fringe group with no support
• educational attainment vastly improved - 76% blacks graduated from high school only 6% lower than whites

Question 31

Lack of progress in AA civil rights 1960-1992

Answer 31

• political involvement did not necessarily greatly improve conditions for aa - mayors in large cities had to avoid alieniataing their white liberal coalition partners
• turnout low, suggesting poor blacks remained alienated from political systems
• unemployment high - 14.2% twice national average - black male teenagers 50%
• econ gap between poor and upwardly mobile black middle class widened between 1960 and 1992 - bifurcation. socially detached, mid 1980s 30% aa declined into deeper poverty
• 23% aa men prison or probation
• signs of re-seg - sc still ruling on educ deseg - freeman v pitts 1992 relating to schools in atlanta court confirmed they could not do anything more to aid deseg bc of house ownership patterns

Question 32

AA civil rights 1960-1992 key points

Answer 32

• by 1990s - de jure seg passed and aa equal in voting rights
• but de facto econ and residential seg remained - whilst ‘black revolution’ in terms of political participation had occured, did not extend to entire aa community, leaving a substantial proportion of the black population alienated and impoverished

Question 33

Which leader was the most successful in the development of AA civil rights in the period from 1865-1992? -

Question 34

Which leader was the most successful in the development of AA civil rights in the period from 1865-1992?

Question 35

Which leader was the most successful in the development of AA civil rights in the period from 1865-1992?

Question 36

MLK successes over 1865-1992

Question 37

MLK failures over 1865-1992

Question 38

Malcolm X successes over 1865-1992

Question 39

Malcolm X failures over 1865-1992

Question 40

Stokely Carmichael successes over 1865-1992

Question 41

Stokely Carmichael failures over 1865-1992

Question 42

Jesse Jackson successes over 1865-1992

Question 43

Jesse Jackson failures over 1865-1992

Question 44

A. Phillip Randolph successes over 1865-1992

Question 45

A. Philip Randolph failures over 1865-1992

Question 46

Migration - Gilded Age