What was life like in the South? Flashcards
How much of the US population were black Americans in 1917?
10%
What percentage of black Americans in the USA lived in the South?
90%
Over half of black Americans in the South were…
Impoverished sharecroppers
Schooling in the South: (3)
- Segregated
- Black teachers were paid less
- Schools often dilapidated and poorly equipped
By 1917, what laws were in place?
Jim Crow Laws
What did the Jim Crow Laws do?
It segregated every aspect of life
What examples of segregation did Jim Crow Laws introduce? (5)
- Where to sit on the tram
- Where to live
- Where to send children to school
- Separate public facilities such as drinking fountains
- Some workplaces had different stairs to walk around the building
How were black Americans disenfranchised from voting? (4)
- Harder passages to read during a literacy qualification
- In many states voters had to be home-owners
- Poll taxes, which black Americans couldn’t afford
- Many polling stations were surrounded by whites waiting to beat up any black person who turned up to vote
What was the 24th Amendment?
Abolished the use of poll taxes
What did the number of black voters drop to in Lousiana from 1896 to 1904?
1896 - 130,000
1904 - 1,300
Between 1915 and 1930 how many lynchings were there?
579
How were lynching’s organised? (3)
- They did not need to have committed a crime
- Sometimes those doing the lynching didn’t even feel the need to produce a specific accusation
- Often advertised beforehand
When was the lynching of Emmett Till?
1955
What was the reasoning for Emmett Tills lynching?
For talking to a white woman, allegedly asking her for a date
When was the KKK revitalised?
1915
Who were the KKK against?
Any non-WASP group, but especially black people
What were the estimated membership of the KKK in 1925?
3 to 8 million
Women KKK members: (2)
- Women Klan members rarely took part in lynchings
- However, they brought up their children to be white supremacists and created anti-black environments
President Wilson on immigration:
Had no problem with it
President Harding on civil rights:
Spoke out against lynching and broadly in favour of civil rights
What did Harding do express the evils of segregation?
Addressed 30,000 segregated people at the University of Alabama on the evils of segregation
However why did Harding and Coolidge not enforce legislation?
Committed to a policy of Laissez-faire
Why are state governors, policemen and military leaders joining the KKK significant?
State governors are part of the legislative branch and can pass racist laws
