Segregation and Discrimination

1. Segregation and Discrimination Mr. White’s US History 1

2. Big Questions • How was the law used to restrict the rights of non-white Americans in the late 1800s and early 1900s? • How was society structured to restrict the rights of non-white Americans in the late 1800s and early 1900s?

3. Legalized Discrimination • As African Americans used more of their political and social power after the Civil War, they faced hostile and sometimes violent opposition from many whites • Some voted, some held political office, but by the early 1900s, laws had been passed to restrict them and their rights

4. Voting Restrictions • All southern states imposed voting restrictions to deny legal equality to black Americans • Literacy tests – limited vote to people who could read (why?) • Poll tax – had to pay an annual tax to allow you to vote • Grandfather clause – anyone who failed literacy test or didn’t pay poll tax still had the right to vote if he, his father, or his grandfather had been allowed to vote before January 1, 1867 (why?)

5. Jim Crow Laws • Supreme Court never overturned the poll tax, literacy test, or grandfather clause, even though it went against the Constitution – 15th Amendment • Southern states passed laws that enforced segregation – blacks and whites had to use separate public and private facilities • Schools, hospitals, parks, transportation systems, etc.

6. Plessy v. Ferguson • Legal case reached the Supreme Court testing legalized segregation – would it be constitutional? • Supreme Court ruled in the case Plessy v. Ferguson that the separation of the races did not violate the 14th amendment (equal protection under the law), as long as facilities were equal • Facilities had to be “separate, but equal” – were always separate, but were rarely equal

7. Social Discrimination and Race Relations • Blacks faced not only legalized discrimination, but social discrimination, reinforcing their second-class status as citizens • Racial etiquette – blacks and whites never shook hands, blacks had to walk on the other side of the street, blacks had to remove their hats for whites

8. Reformers • Booker T. Washington – thought whites and blacks should work together for social progress • W.E.B. DuBois – thought problems of inequality were too urgent; something needed to be done immediately

9. Violence • People that didn’t follow racial etiquette often faced severe punishment or death, carried out by mob violence • Lynchings – men and women were taken by mobs and hanged; continued into the 20th century

10. Discrimination in the North • Blacks were attracted to the north by the better-paying jobs in the cities • Faced discrimination in the north, as well • Segregated neighborhoods • Labor unions sometimes discouraged black membership • Sometimes race riots because of perceived injustices

11. Discrimination in the West • In the western territories and states, discrimination existed for other groups besides African Americans • Mexicans – working on railroads, many faced debt peonage – workers had to work to pay off unpayable debts • Chinese – Often put into segregated schools; many laws passed to keep them from immigrating into the United States

12. Discussion Questions • Look at the viewpoints of Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois. With which one do you agree more? Why do you feel this way?