U1 - Civil Rights to 1941 Flashcards
1
Q
What began in 1861?
A
The American Civil war
2
Q
What was one of the reasons for the American Civil war?
A
The question of slavery
3
Q
What did President Abraham Lincoln campaign against?
A
The spread of slavery
4
Q
Who was fighting in the American Civil War?
A
Battle between the north and the southern confederacy
5
Q
What did President Abraham Lincoln issue?
A
Emancipation Proclamation on January 1st 1863
6
Q
How did the 14 Amendment change the lives of the blacks?
A
Despite the freedom from slavery, the life for black Americans, especially in the southern states was extremely difficult
7
Q
Who appeared on stage as ‘Jim Crow’ in 1828
A
Thomas Dartmouth Rice - wearing blackface makeup
8
Q
What did ‘Jim Crow’ portray black people as?
A
- Stupid
- Lazy
- Unreliable
9
Q
When were most Jim Crow laws passed?
A
Between 1870 and 1900
10
Q
What did Jim Crow laws do towards Blacks?
A
Separated Black people from White people
11
Q
Separate Examples
Nurses
A
No white female nurse to nurse in wards in which negro men are placed - Alabama
12
Q
Separate Examples
Restaurants
A
Separate eating facilities for black and white people - Alabama
13
Q
Segregation
A
- Separate churches
- Public transport
- Restrictions in careers in Law, Medicine and Education
- Separate schools
- Blacks had inferior education
- Stand in election (some states)
14
Q
Separate but equal case
What did they supreme court decide on Jim Crow laws?
A
- In 1896 reached the decision to make the laws fully legal and made life even worse for Blacks
15
Q
Separate but equal case
Plessey v Ferguson
A
- Homer Plessey was a Black man who lived in Southern state of Louisiana
- In 1892 he challenged a 2 year old streetcar law that separated passengers travelling on trains in Louisiana
- The case was taking to the supreme court
16
Q
Separate but equal case
What did Homer Plessey argue?
A
- That the state of Louisiana had broken the 14th Amendment (that Jim Crow Laws broke federal laws)
- 14th Amendment is that everyone should be treated equally no matter what colour
17
Q
Separate but equal case
Supreme court decision on H v F
A
- Decision that would effect race relations for the next 60 years
- They agreed that the 14th Amendment was to make sure that Black people were treated by law in the same way as white people
- Said it was perfectly acceptable to keep separate as long as equal facilities were provided for each race
18
Q
Separate but equal case
H v F outcome
A
- Segregation OK!
- Jim Crow Laws OK!
- Law kept the races apart but no race was better or worse than the other
19
Q
Separate but equal case
What happen after 1896 with the Jim Crow Laws?
A
- More Jim Crow laws spread across the south
- In almost every case, Blacks had to make do with inferior facilities
- Black life = got worse after the case
20
Q
Separate but equal case
The effect of the decison
A
- Segregation reached the white house
- Black protesters complained to President Wilson in 1916 about -
Segregation in toilets and eating facilities in Federal government offices
Jim Crow laws being used against black men (lower paid jobs)
21
Q
Separate but equal case
President Wilson’s response towards Black protesters complaining about segregation
A
“Segregation is not humiliating and a benefit for you Black gentlemen”
22
Q
Lack of Political Influence
The right to vote
A
- 15th Amendment to the Constitution (1870): Gave black american adults males the right to vote
- Also said that nobody should lose their right to vote because of their colour or race
23
Q
Lack of Political Influence
The right to vote - By 1890s
A
- Loopholes in the 15th Amendment were exploited
24
Q
Lack of Political Influence
Voting Qualification - Pay a poll tax
A
- The tax rate was set so high that most blacks could not afford to pay it.
- Since they did not pay the tax, they couldn’t vote
25
Lack of Political Influence
Voting Qualification - Residency Qualification
- In Mississippi, Blacks had to prove that they had lived 2 years in he state and 1 year in the election district
- This affected black tenant farmers who were in the habit of moving yearly in search of better chance
26
Lack of Political Influence
Grandfather Clause
- Invented in Louisiana in 1898
- Allowed illiterates to qualify to vote if their fathers or grandfathers had been eligible to vote on January 1st 1867
- Blacks didn't have the vote at this time
27
Lack of Political Influence
Literacy Test
- Black men had to take literacy tests
| - Meant reading out a difficult document in front of a white listener who judged if it had been read well enough
28
Lack of Political Influence
Understanding Clause
- Designed as a loophole for illiterate whites who could not read the constitution
- Could qualify by showing that they could 'understand it'
- Fraud was institutionalised
29
Lack of Political Influence
Questions
- Some states, Blacks could only register to vote if they could answer a series of questions correctly
- e.g. "How many bubbles does a bar of soap make?" : they couldn't answer so couldn't vote
- Any blacks that did qualify to vote were often threatened and beaten up
30
Lack of Political Influence
Result of voting restrictions
- If blacks couldn't vote they could not elect anyone who could change their circumstances and get rid of Jim Crow laws
- It made it easier for laws to be passed on segregation on all public facilities
31
Lack of Political Influence
Result of voting restrictions - Stats
- Of the 130,344 black voters registered in Louisiana in 1896 only 5320 remained by 1900
- In 1900 two and a half million blacks in the south were illiterate
- In 1900 180,000 blacks were registered to vote in Alabama
- By 1902, only 3,000 were registered
- By 1915 after the voting qualification only 3% of Blacks could vote
32
Lack of Political Influence
Attitudes of Presidents - Woodrow Wilson 1916
- Southerner elected in 1912
- Determined to keep white and Black staff separate in the white house
- Praised the KKK for helping to save the south from Black rule during reconstruction
33
Lack of Political Influence
Attitudes of Presidents - Herbert Hoover
- President in 1929
- Wanted to get rid of blacks from the Republican Party in order to capture the votes of white southern democrats
- Replaced many black republican leaders with whites
- Nominated Judge J Parker to the supreme court in 1930, he supported the disenfranchisement of blacks in North Carolina in 1920
34
Lack of Political Influence
KKK
- Reformed in 1915 by William J. Simmons, a preacher
- Didn't believe in civil rights
- Believed Black Americans were inferior
- Promote: 'White supremacy' through fear and intimidation
- Against Catholics, Jews, Communists and even divorced woman
- 'American way of life' they said hey were protecting this
35
Lack of Political Influence
KKK - What happened if people didn't do what they were told?
They would be:
- Kidnapped
- Whipped
- Mutilated
- Murdered
36
Lack of Political Influence
KKK - Stats
- Lynched many black people
- 109 people lynched in 1899, 87 were black
- From 1918 to 1927, 416 blacks were killed, mostly in the south
- Only 4 have been sentenced for the rime of lynching
37
Lack of Political Influence
KKK - What was defeated in 1922
- The Dyer anti-lynching bill was defeated in the US senate
| - This enabled the practice of lynching to continue
38
Lack of Political Influence
Economic Discrimination - In the south
- Black Americans in the south suffered particularly from poverty
- 1920s: income fell below $200 a year
- Blacks were paid lower wages than white workers doing the same job
- Often 'last hired and the first fired'
39
Lack of Political Influence
Economic Discrimination - The Great Migration
- The industrial North offered greater economic opportunities especially when WW1 generated jobs
- Between 1910 and 1970 over 6 million Blacks migrated from the rural south to the cities of the north, Midwest and west
40
Lack of Political Influence
Economic Discrimination - The Great Migration (movement of blacks)
- In 1910 89% of Blacks lived in the south
| - BY 1970 53% of Blacks lived in the south
41
Lack of Political Influence
Economic Discrimination - East St Louis riot 1917
- 2 white police detectives were shot by Black youths
- White mob invaded the Black area of the town
- Black women and children were beaten up
- Black men were lynched
- 50 dead
42
Lack of Political Influence
Economic Discrimination - Red Summer 1919
- Lasted for 8 days
- 38 dead: 23 black
- Black men were in the sea when a white man threw a rock at one Black mans head and kills him
- Black men race to white area and demand the white man to be arrested
- Black man arrested instead
- This started a mob between Black and white men
43
Lack of Political Influence
Economic Discrimination - Discrimination in Housing
- Northern whites had no desire to live near blacks
- The appalling living conditions also affected the health of Blacks
- No effective social security system
- Death rate high due to incidences pf childbirth and infant mortality, tuberculosis. pneumonia and heart disease aggravated by lack of medical care
44
Lack of Political Influence
Economic Discrimination - Discrimination in Housing: Stats
- 90% of blacks lived in inner city ghettos by 1900
- In Chicago in 1910, a 7 room apartment for working class white cost $25 a week but $37.50 a week for Blacks
- In Harlem, the death rate among Blacks was 42% higher than in other parts of New York
45
Lack of Political Influence
Economic Discrimination - Discrimination in Education
- A reduction in spending on education hit Black communities more than white
- In the south, states cut back on Black schools
- In the North, only New York state refused to accept segregated schools
- Without a good education, it was hard to escape the poverty trap
- Poverty deprived Blacks of obtaining a good education
46
Lack of Political Influence
Economic Discrimination - The great depression
- They carried signs which said "no jobs for niggers until every white man has a job"
- Desperate whites moved into the jobs formerly services, street cleaning, garbage collection and bellhops
47
Lack of Political Influence
Economic Discrimination - The great depression: Stats
- 2 million southern Black farmers left the land as crop prices plummeted from 18 to 6 cents a pound
48
Obstacles to achieving civil rights
- Separate but equal (Jim Crow)
- KKK
- Lack of political influence
- Economic Discrimination
