popular prejudice and racism paragraph

Question 1

Topic sentence

Answer 1

Other historians argue that popular prejudice and racism was the key reason in preventing black people from achieving civil rights.

Question 2

Evidence 1

Answer 2

A great majority of white people believed in white supremacy and sought to remove the right that black people had been granted after the American civil war.

Question 3

Analysis 1

Answer 3

This was an important obstacle in preventing black people from achieving civil rights because these white suprematist views were held by many people, including those with a lot of power. example President Roosevelt said “a perfectly stupid race can never rise to a very high plane.

Question 4

Evidence 2

Answer 4

Additionally, during WW1 the “Great Migration” had begun which led to over 400 000 Southern Black people moving Northerward to work in the industrial Northern States. However, the demographic change led to long established racial tension between black and white people.

Question 5

Analysis 2

Answer 5

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. For example in 1917 over 40 black people and 9 whites were killed during riots over employment in a defence plant in St Louis.

Question 6

Counter analysis

Answer 6

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 inforced by law, so prejudice and racism was less of an obstacle in the Northern states.

Question 7

Evaluation

Answer 7

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 by 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.