US3 Racial Tension Flashcards
When was slavery abolished in the USA?
1865
by this time there were more black people than White in the south
What were the laws called, put in place by white politicians that tried to keep African Americans segregated?
Jim Crow Laws
What were some of the examples of the things African Americans were stopped from doing?
Using the same:
- restaurants
- hotels
- swimming pools
- cemeteries
As well as:
- being stopped to vote
- being segregated in the military
- some states banned mixed race marriages
Why did African Americans not expect to receive justice from the legal system?
Because many judges, sheriffs and police upheld the Jim Crow Laws
Where did African Americans head to when they left the south?
Headed north attracted by better pay and opportunities in new industries
How much did the African American population of Chicago and New York increase in the early 1900s?
More than doubled
How did racism still manifest itself in the north?
- African Americans were often the last to be hired and the first to be fired
- they occupied the worst housing in the poorest areas of the cities
- some factories only employed white workers or paid black workers the lowest
- there were occasional race riots
What caused a race riot in 1919 in Chicago?
Black youths accidentally entered a ‘whites only’ beach and one was killed by a white beachgoer who threw rocks at them. He was hit and drowned. This triggered a riot that lasted a week.
What was ‘The Black Renaissance’?
Term for the African American communities in Harlem that became a centre for creativity, black culture and black pride
What types of people gathered in Harlem in the black Renaissance
Black poets writers, artist and musicians
What attracted white customers to areas like Harlem?
The excitement and liveliness of new nightclubs and jazz bars
Who was William Edward Burghardt Du Bois?
WEB du Bois
- The great grandson of an African American slave
- set up the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
What did the NAACP set out to do?
- Improve the rights of African Americans
- for example campaigning for the right to vote
What was the KKK?
- Ku Klux Klan
- a racist terror group with a membership of around 5 million people in 1925
What were the aims of the KKK?
- Maintain white supremacy over African Americans and immigrants
- ‘keep them in their place’
How did the KKK start?
- founded in the southern states in 1860s to terrorise African Americans
- black people were beaten up or even killed in the hope that they would be too scared to register to vote
When did the original KKK decline?
Towards the end of the 19th century
What triggered a revival of the KKK and when?
- the movie ‘The Birth of a Nation’
- 1915
Why did a movie spark the resurgence of the KKK?
- the movie showed klansmen saving white families from violent black criminals
- it glorified the Klan as an organisation that protected decent law abiding citizens
- it attracted huge audiences and sparked a revival
How many members did the KKK have by 1925?
5 million
What type of people made up most of the kkk?
Poor, white people mainly from rural areas of southern and western states
Why did people join the kkk?
- poor people looked for someone to blame for their poverty
- They turned on African Americans, Jewish people, catholics and immigrants
- the secrecy with its coded language, menacing hooded costume and strange rituals were part of the appeal
What did klan members believe African Americans and immigrants were doing?
- the klan was against anyone who was not like them - white and Protestant. They saw themselves as defenders of their Protestant religion and against what they saw as a decline in moral standards
- they felt that black and immigrant workers willingness to work for lower wages took jobs from white people
- they also attacked drunks and gamblers to ‘clean up’ society
What were some of the KKK’s methods of intimidation and violence?
- dressed in white sheets and white hoods
- whipping
- branding with acid
- kidnapping
- castration
- lynching
What triggered the decline of the klan in the 1920s?
- in 1925 a popular local klan leader was convicted of the brutal rape, and murder of a young woman.
- at his trial he exposed many secrets of the kkk
- within a year membership had fallen from 5 million to 300,000
