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(Summary) History Quest for Civil Rights 1917-80, Chapter 2 America Notes.
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(Summary) History Quest for Civil Rights 1917-80, Chapter 2 AmericaNotes
❖ When and what was the 13th amendment?
1865, abolished slavery in the USA.
• When and what was the 14th amendment?
1868, all people born or naturalised in the USA (including former slaves), are
citizens of the USA.
When and what was the 15th Amendment?
1780 - all US citizens have equal voting rights
❖ What does 'de facto' and 'de jure' mean?
♦ de facto = in fact / in practice
♦ de jure = in law / legally correct
What is the background to Jim Crow (JC) legislation?
After Civil wars, government freed slaves (4 million) + set-up school, help for
work + voting.
Politically, things improved.
In practice, many slaves went back to plantations to work (an economic problem
when freed).
Social problems harder to solve - how could Southerners still control black
people?
1896 Plessy vs Ferguson' stated 'separate but equal'.
By 1917, the South had lots of laws on Segregation: JC Laws.
What was the impact of Jim Crow legislation?
JC Laws segregated every aspect of life: housing, schools, separate public
facilities.
Many workplaces segregated their workers
Voters had to pass a literacy + poll taxes qualification to vote (black people
given harder passages to read).
In may states, voters had to be home owners.
Louisiana: 1896 - 130 black voters
, Louisiana: 1904 - 1300 black voters
Information about Lynching and the Ku Klux Klan.
1915 - 1930: 579 black men lynched, mostly in the South.
- often advertised beforehand - shocking images
KKK: white supremacist group (revived in 1915) - against any non-WASP (
White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) group - especially black people.
1925: 3 to 8 million members - in South, this included people with real political
power.
- lynching's, and created 'non-black' environments.
Did the Federal Government intervene in the South?
(Presidents: Woodrow Wilson 1913 - 21, Warren G Harding 1921 - 23,Calvin Coolidge
1923 - 29)
▪ President Wilson: a southerner - had no problem with segregation
▪ President Harding: spoke out against lynching + broadly in favour of Civil
Rights
▪ However, both he and Coolidge were committed to a policy of laissez-
faire - they could try and influence behaviour, but would not enforce
legislation.
▪ During Depression (1929 - 39): government less focussed on Civil Rights
In 1917, what % of Americans were black?
Where did they live?
Black people made up 10% of the US population.
Nearly 90% of black people lived in the South (former Confederate states)
Over 50% were poor share croppers
What was the Great Migration?
(figures for Detroit population?)
Between 1917 and 1930, there was a wave of black migration from the
South to the North and East, to cities such as New York, Detroit and
Chicago.
Detroit population: 1910 (5,700); 1930 (120,000)
What were the reasons for the Great Migration?
, 1. People drawn for greater employment opportunities (rising need for workers
in munition factories due to WW1)
2. No Jim Crow laws - less lynching
What was it like in the Northern and Eastern cities (Great Migration)? (Employment,
housing, racism?)
1. Employment: normally low paid (often to fill gaps created by white workers
who's asked for higher wages)
2. Housing: normally crowded, run-down areas, often higher rent than for white
people (ghettos formed e.g. Harlem in NY City)
3. Racism: no Jim Crow laws but de facto (in practice) racism + discrimination
What were the impacts of the Great Migration (on North and South)?
North:
- population increased rapidly
- black political influence increased
- black political representation increased e.g. Oscar dePriest - 1st black American
elected to House of Representatives 1920.
- greater opportunity to create opposition groups
South:
- labour force shrank -
- farming areas struggled to get by - poorest farmers (mostly black) struggled the
most).
- Southerners saw migration as ' voting with their feet' over JC Laws
- tendency to assume those black people remaining accepted the JC Laws
What was the 'Plessy vs Ferguson' 1896 case?
Case: An African American man (Plessy) refused to sit in a black railroad car.
Decision: not Unconstitutional - the Supreme Court ruled that racially segregated
public facilities were legal, so long as the facilities for Black people and whites
were equal - this endorsed the JC Laws.
What was the 'Murray vs Maryland' 1936 case?
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