Black Americans In The 1950's

Question 1

What is segregation?

Answer 1

Separating groups of people, usually by race or religion.

Question 2

What are the Jim Crow laws?

Answer 2

Jim Crow was a lazy, stupid black character played by a white man. The ‘black code’ laws enforcing segregation was nicknamed this.

Question 3

What was Segregation in the North like?

Answer 3

Segregation in the North was produced by discrimination.

Question 4

What was life like for black people in the North?

Answer 4

-Usually had worst-paid jobs. Had to live in poorest parts of towns/cities called ‘ghettos’. Workers in school/hospital deal with old buildings/old equipment.

Question 5

What was Segregation in the South like?

Answer 5

Segregation was different. Racist state laws, often called Jim Crow laws, enforced Segregation.

Question 6

What were living in the South like for black people?

Answer 6

-Can’t eat in ‘white’ restaurants. -Thrown off bus or arrested if not in coloured section. -Black children couldn’t go to nearest school if it was a ‘white school’.

Question 7

How did many Southern white people see black people as?

Answer 7

Racially inferior: ‘childlike’, lazy and unintelligent.

Question 8

What were jobs in the South like for black people?

Answer 8

Many worked on farms as domestic servants. Few in Southern towns could find work in factories, even the lowest-paid jobs.

Question 9

What was law like in the South?

Answer 9

Police/law courts were full of racist officials who didn’t support complaints by black people.

Question 10

What was law like in the Deep South?

Answer 10

Many policemen and judges were members of Ku Klux Klan. Black people regularly beaten up to get them to confess crimes they didn’t do.

Question 11

What is Negro crime?

Answer 11

If a black person killed a black person it often was not investigated.

Question 12

Effect of WW2 on black and white people relations?

Answer 12

Some white people after working with black people in WW2 were more open to civil rights.

Question 13

What were the benefits for black people having voting rights?

Answer 13

Politicians would need to make policies which are accepted by black people to gain their votes.

Question 14

What were the reaction in the South of black people voting rights?

Answer 14

In many Southern states, white people stopped black people from voting by both official and unofficial methods.

Question 15

What methods did white people do to prevent black people voting?

Answer 15

Employers threatened to sack black people. Made literacy qualifications to register harder so couldn’t vote. White gangs physically stopped black people from voting.

Question 16

Factors that contributed to growth of civil rights movement?

Answer 16

Cold War. Television. WW2. New ideas. Education. Migration. Southern cities grew.

Question 17

What civil rights organisations were made?

Answer 17

NAACP and CORE. These groups had more members in the North.

Question 18

What is NAACP? When was it set up?

Answer 18

National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People. Set up in 1909.

Question 19

What is CORE?

Answer 19

Congress of Racial Equality. Set up in 1942.

Question 20

Why were so many black clergyman involved in civil rights movement?

Answer 20

Because: most were paid by church so wouldn’t lose job. Were educated and effective speakers.

Question 21

What were black churches often used for?

Answer 21

Meetings and gathering points for marches and protests.

Question 22

What was some white people views on church organisations?

Answer 22

Some approved as it urged non-violence. Other whites were suspicious. They thought they were too organised and might become a threat.

Question 23

Who was Emmett Till?

Answer 23

He was a 14 year old who was visiting relatives. He was murdered horribly by the husband of the woman Till apparently grabbed. Media outrage of his murder was huge.