Segregation and Discrimination

1. Segregation and Discrimination Objective: Understand how racism caused discrimination and the spread of segregation; describe the impact of Plessy v. Ferguson

2. Voting Rights • Whites weakened the political power of African-Americans by restricting voting rights

3. Literacy Tests • Test to see if a person could read • White Southern voting officials used unfair tests to prevent African Americans from voting

4. Poll Tax • A tax on voting • Southern states used them to keep poor African Americans from voting

5. Grandfather Clause • Clause to prevent a law from affecting someone • If your grandfather could vote, so can you. • Southern states used them to allow white Southerners to vote even if they failed to meet other requirements such as the literacy test

6. Jim Crow Laws • Laws meant to enforce segregation • Mostly in southern states • Kept African Americans from achieving equality

7. Segregation • Separation of African Americans and whites in public places • Mostly in the south • Prevented African Americans from having full access to public facilities

9. Plessy v. Ferguson • Supreme Court case that affirmed the legality of segregation • “separate but equal facilities” did not violate the 14th Amendment • Allowed southern states to keep Jim Crow Laws

10. Plessy v. Ferguson THE ISSUE  SegregationORIGINS OF THE CASE  By the 1890s, most Southern states had begun to pass laws enforcing segregation—the separation of the races—in public places. One Louisiana law called for "equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races" on trains. On June 7, 1892, Homer Plessy, who was part African American, took a seat in a train car reserved for whites. When a conductor told him to move, Plessy refused. Plessy was convicted of breaking the "separate car" law. He appealed the case, saying that the law violated his rights under the Thirteenth and Fourteenth amendments.THE RULING  The Court ruled that "separate but equal" facilities for blacks and whites did not violate the Constitution.

12. NAACP • National Association for the Advancement of Colored People • Civil rights organization • Fought to overturn legal segregation so that African Americans could have equal rights

13. Racism in the West • Chinese workers receive lower pay than whites • Sometimes faced violence • Mexicans and African Americans in southwest forced into peonage • Peonage – people forced to work until they pay off their debts • 1911 Supreme Court declared peonage a violation of the 13th Amendment

15. Summary • Explain what Jim Crow laws were • Compare and contrast the discrimination of African Americans in the North and South • Compare Chinese and Mexican immigrants • Activity: Illustrate the effect of the Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision