Popular prejudice and racism Flashcards
Topic sentence
Other historians argue that popular prejudice and racism was the key reason in preventing black people from achieving civil rights by 1941.
Evidence 1
A great majority of white people believed in white supremacy and wanted to remove the rights that black people had been given after the American civil war
Analysis 1
This was an important obstacle in preventing black people from achieving civil rights because these white suprematist views were held by many people on the USA, including those with a lot of power, for example President Roosevelt said, “a perfectly stupid race can never rise to a very high plane”.
Evidence 2
Additionally, over 400, 000 Southern black people moved Northwards during WW1 to work and find job opportunities in the Northern states, however this demographic change led to racial tension between black and white people.
Analysis 2
This was a huge obstacle in preventing black people from achieving civil rights as a great number of white workers resented black people and this sparked racial riots across the USA. For example, in 1917 over 40 black people and 9 whites were killed during riots over employment in a defence plant in St Louis.
Counter analysis
However, although racism was severely prominent in the Northern states, black people suffered from de facto segregation, which is segregation not in law. This meant that the discrimination was not enforced by law, so prejudice and racism was less of an obstacle in the Northern states than in the Southern states.
Evaluation
To evaluate, it is clear that popular prejudice and racism was the most important obstacle in preventing black peoples from achieving civil rights as racism was deeply rooted in American society up to 1941. For example, Willoughby and Willoughby argue “this incident clearly indicates the depth and extent of the hatred and prejudice” after the death of a black boy, which led to a week of violence. It is also clear the white suprematist organisations like the KKK wouldn’t exist if popular prejudice and racism didn’t exist.
