Ch. 3 Civil RIghts Flashcards
Plessy V. Ferguson
The most famous case to challenge Jim Crow laws in the Supreme court 1896. Homer Plessy, ⅛ black, sat in the whites-only section of a train, arrested, case taken to court because his arrest violated 14th amendment, court interpreted Amendment as political, not social rights; states could follow their own customs. Segregation was determined to be “separate but equal.”
Disenfranchisment
losing the right to vote. When blacks were disenfranchised in the south, the Republican power there collapsed, and Democrats dominated the South.
De facto
segregation by fact of social pressure. Seen more in the north: black population forced to stay out of white areas.
De jure
segregation by law, seen most strongly in the South
Booker T. Washington
principal of a college called the Tuskegee Institute. Believed that black schools should teach blacks skills to become economically independent; did not believe in political agitation. Focus on political equality was not as effective as hard work and monetary gains. Washington favored “accommodationism” policy- blacks proving through their work that they were not inferior.
Tuskegee
Washington’s college that was wholly staffed and run by blacks, becoming a symbol of black achievement. The most successful black college in America.
Atlantic Compromise
Booker T. Washington’s speech to a white audience. It praised the South for emancipation and asked whites to trust blacks with opportunities in agriculture and industry. The idea was that blacks needed to work from the bottom to the top to achieve equality.
WEB Du Bois
A northern black who criticized Washington’s policies as submissive and became a founding member of the NAACP. First black man to gain a PhD from harvard. A professor at Atlanta university. Advocated for blacks to take their equality through violence if necessary
NAACP
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, both black and white members, set out to publicize injustice, for example, by having white members investigate lynchings. It developed a legal tactic of employing black layers and carefully choosing cases of discrimination to present to the Supreme court
The Crisis
The magazine that De Bois edited for the NAACP. It reported atrocities like lynchings, but it also showed black achievements in history and literature. Du Bois’ goal was to reach a large number of black people and appeal to their emotions through the covers and political cartoons. It had a circulation of over 100,000 by 1919.
Birth of a Nation
A silent film based on a white supremacist novel. It showed blacks as rapists and glorified the KKK as the saviors of civilization. It prompted the revival of the KKK and became the most successful silent film ever. It was captivating and cinematic, and unfortunately, the NAACP was unable to ban or censor it.
Woodrow Wilson
the president during World War I who gave a private screening of Birth of a Nation in the White House.
Great Migration
During the first World War, between 1914 and 1918, over 350K black Americans migrated to the North. The main factors were the offer of better jobs in the North and the wave of black Americans who wanted to join the army in WWI in the hopes that the war would lead to more equality.
Marcus Garvey
A Jamaican who came to the US in 1916 and founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association. He called on all Africans to unite and fight for freedom. He instilled racial pride, saying that they were blacks first, Americans second.
Black Star Line
Garvey’s shipping line organized to take black Americans back to Africa. However, it was badly run and his American career ended when he was found guilty of fraud, then jailed and deported.
