Segregation & Discrimination (Context)

Question 1

Why was the Supreme Court crucial to desegregation?

Answer 1

Had the power and authority to declare racist legislation unconstitutional

Question 2

Why was white racist exploitation of the state government ineffective?

Answer 2

Federal legislation trumped state legislation

Question 3

What was the limitation of the Supreme Court?

Answer 3

• It could not enforce federal law
• Needed the executive branch of government to order enforcement

Question 4

What key laws did the Congress pass during the 1950s?

Answer 4

• 1957 Civil Rights Act
• 1964 Civil Rights Act
• 1965 Voting Rights Act

Question 5

What did the Congress passing laws prove?

Answer 5

• Willing to pass civil rights legislation
• Despite the opposition of many Southern congressmen

Question 6

What was the limitation of Congressional action?

Answer 6

• One thing to pass a law, another to make people obey it
• No changing attitudes = laws would not be obeyed

Question 7

What pressure was put to other governmental branches when laws were passed?

Answer 7

• Judicial: declaring them constitutional
• Executive: to take action to make sure they were obeyed
  (latter could not happen without the former)

Question 8

What did segregational laws mean?

Answer 8

Black people and white people had to use different facilities

Question 9

Where were segregational laws most strictly enforced?

Answer 9

In the South (had to be applied to almost all aspects of life)

Question 10

What were ‘Jim Crow’ laws?

Answer 10

• Legalise segregation of African Americans
• Passed by state legislatures
• Approved by state courts
• End of 19th century

Question 11

What were the barriers to equality in the North?

Answer 11

• African Americans mostly lived separately from White people
• Facilities often segregated without need for laws
• Greater unemployment, lower wage = segregated facilities without need for laws

Question 12

Although the Constitution said that all US citizens had the right to vote…

Answer 12

in the 1950s, very few African Americans in the South were able to vote

Question 13

Why was it hard for Blacks to register to vote?

Answer 13

• Making people pass a difficulty literacy test (they had little education)
• Making people pay a poll tax (they could not afford)
• Using violence or threats against African Americans who tired to register to vote

Question 14

What happened to Black men who were suspected of crimes in the South?

Answer 14

• Faced violence
• Frequently attacked by white mobs, who took the law into their own hands
• Lynching declined by the 1950s still greatly feared
• Police racist themselves, did not prevent attacks, and even took part
• Whites suspected of attacking were found ‘not guilty’ by all white, all male juries

Question 15

Why didn’t presidents improve civil rights?

Answer 15

Needed the support of Southern politicians for other policies

Question 16

What was ruled in the Plessy v Ferguson case, how was this used in the future?

Answer 16

• Separate facilities were allowed if they were equal (but they rarely were)
• Civil rights groups tried to challenge segregation through the courts using this legal precedent