USA, 1918 - 1968 Flashcards
Obstacles Towards Black Civil Rights
Main Points
- Legal Impediments
- The KKK
- Divisions in the Black community
- Lack of Political Influence
- Popular prejudice
Legal Impediments
Paragraph
K- 1870’s onwards the Jim Crow Laws were introduced in southern states to allow legal segregation and racism
A- Jim Crow laws allowed for legal segregation, hard to fight back
K- JCL covered southern states like Texas such as no white female nurses in black men’s ward in Alabama
A+- Did not apply to Northern states so northern states can campaign
E-Florida, marriage between white and black people, or a person of black decent to 4th generation. Was law so hard to combat while kkk was social threats so wasn’t a law stopping rights
The KKK
Paragraph
K- Main methods included threats, mob violence and lynching. 78 black veterans were lynched in South 1919
A- Installed fear into black communities due to violent attacks and murders, stopping campaigns for civil rights
K- 1925, KKK had 5 million members and dominated legislation in Maine, Kansas, Colorado and Texas
A+- Mainly in south and very little of the population so northern states are okay
E- 1922 Dyer Anti-Lynching bill was defeated in US senate, legal impediments allowed for KKK to continue its methods
Divisions in the black community
Paragraph
K- William Du Bois founded the National Association for the Advancement of coloured people in 1909 seeking equality and had 91,000 members in 1919
K- Marcus Garvey introduced first Universal Negro Improvement Association to NYC and gained 6 million members by 1923 for his idea of black people going back to Africa
A- Different views so do not present united front to civil rights campaign
A+- Each individual pushed for Black rights and independence on their own
E- 1896 Supreme Court allowed segregation under ‘separate but equal’, highest legal power said racism was legal super hard to fight compared to split communities
Lack of political influence
Paragraph
K- 180,000 black people could cote in Alabama in 1900, only 3,000 in 1902
A- Difficult to gain vote as people had to take bias tests so less people could participate - less to vote against racism
K- Hiram Rhodes Revels was the first African American Senator who filled a vacant seat in 1870
A+- Black people could participate in politics to a certain extent
E- Grandfather Clause in Louisiana 1898 allowed people to vote if their father or grandfather could vote on Jan 1st 1867, laws stopped black people voting in the first place
Popular Prejudice
(Obstacles)
Paragraph
K- President Theodore Roosevelt “a perfectly stupid race (black people) can never rise to a very high place”
A- Very wide spread prejudices about them and very hard to fight against of many people believe it
K- Riots about discrimination broke out in cities like Chicago which late was known as the Red Summer of 1919
A+- Black people saw how badly they were treated which encouraged action to be taken not discouraged
E- Mississippi, white convicts shall have separate apartments for eating and sleeping from black convicts, laws made it punishable to go Agassi t popular prejudice making it more concerning
Changing Attitudes Essay
Main Points
- Fear of Revolution
- Social Fears
- Economic Fears
- Racism and Prejudice
- Isolationism
Fear of revolution
Paragraph
K- Tsar Nicholas II and family murdered 1917, the replaced by Vladimir Lenin and Bolsheviks to start first communist state by 1924-1991
A- USA feared immigrants would bring over communist ideas of revolt
K- 1920 estimated 120 - 150,000 anarchists in the US roughly 0.1%
A+- Very small percentage were communists and the fear was irrational
E- Historian John Higam “By Western European standards, the masses of southern and Eastern Europe were educationally deficient, socially backwards and bizarre in appearance” fear of rev only spread from prejudice
Social Fears
Paragraph
K- Millions immigrated to US after the war, settling in areas such as Boston, Chicago and Pittsburgh being named ‘little Italy’ or ‘China Town’
K- In areas like ‘Little Italy’ there was Gangsters and mafias like Al Capone but very little were crime lords
A- USA felt threatened by rough immigrant lifestyles and heightened suspicions towards immigrants
A+- Very little were actually involved in mafias and culture did not impact USA except in small areas like ‘China Town’
E- Historian Roger Daniels “ American Protestant leaders regarded Roman Catholic, Greek othodox and Jewish Immigrants with alarms” they were scared of the prejudice about the culture not the fear of crime
Economic Fears
Paragraph
K- Post war industries that thrived off war work died so unemployment rate doubled from 5.2% to 11.7% in 1921
A- USA saw immigrants as taking American jobs which was feared more due to mass unemployment
K- Immigrants mainly took jobs such as coal mining and steel mining and street trading
A+- Immigrants took lower class jobs Americans didn’t always want so didn’t impact job market that much
E- 1897 American Protective Association was armed with the aim to counter catholic impact in schools and life, racism branched to all aspects of life not just job market like economic fears
Racism and Prejudice
(Changing Attitudes)
Paragraph
K- Writers like Kenneth Robert’s of Saturday evening post referred to polish Jews as “human parasites”
A- Americans had disgusting unfair prejudices towards immigrants and spread them to other people too
K- By 1925 the KKK had 5 million members
A+- Overall 5 million is very little of the population and are in the south so the prejudice will avoid northern immigrants on the most part
E- 1920 Sacco and Vanzetti were charged with murder and sentenced to electric chair despite very little evidence, proved prejudice was widely spread and applied to ever immigrant unlike the very few communist immigrants
Isolationism
Paragraph
K- 1921 emergency immigration act banned immigrants from some of south Europe and all of east Asia
A- US gov turned their back on the world to focus on themselves as they viewed immigrants as distracting them
K- 1924 National origins act set a limit in immigrants per annum which did not apply to Mexicans
A+- Did not apply to all immigrants and allowed those that benefited the economy in via farming
E- Immigration restriction league campaigned for literacy tests and anti- immigration laws which were passed between 1921 and 1924, the prejudice caused them to restrict not isolationism as they still allowed some in
Developments of Civil Rights Essay
Main Points
- *Experience of Black Service men in WWII
- Continuation of Discrimination
- Influence of Black leader such as MLK
- Influence of MLK and other Black Leaders
- Black organisations
Experiences of Black Servicemen during WWII
Paragraph
K- 1 Million Black Americans served in the armed forces during WWII, in Britain and France stayed in white families and socialised in pubs
A- Made them realise how bad segregation was in US and encouraged further action in campaign
K- 1948, Pres Truman opened all jobs in the armed services to African Americans
A+ - Only opened all jobs in military so did not impact everyday life
E- Red Cross separated blood of Black and White people during war, convinced major change after seeing horrific segregation in life and death situations unlike everyday discrimination
Continuation of discrimination
(Developments)
Paragraph
K- Brown vs Board of Education of Topeka 1954 lead to Supreme Court ruling in may that segregation under sep but equal was not constitutional
A- Continuing discrimination lead to the end of legal segregation, making it easier to develop campaign
K- Two years after brown vs school not one black child attended a white school in the Deep South and by the end of 1965 not one black child regularly attended a white school
A+- segregation still happened due to discrimination, so stopped development not helped
E- Pres Franklin D. Roosevelt ‘war against Germany was a war against Hitler’s racial policies’ and ‘war to support democratic freedoms’, made it difficult to justify racism at home
