How does Mass Immigration link to these other areas of the course? Try to explain the links. One has been done for you.

Mass immigration 1890-1920

Prohibition and the temperance movement

Isolationism

Populist and Progressivism movements – problems

created/worsened by immigration

Growth in the US economy – Big Business etc.

Rise in nativist groups –KKK etc

Concerns over political machines and corruption –

Tammany Hall etc.

Link 1: Immigrants were a source of cheap labour. They were both a cause and a symptom of US economic growth.

Lesson 22: Had the position of African-Americans improved by World War One?

• To know the significance of the Plessy vs Ferguson case

• To understand the differences between Washington and Du Bois

• To be able to form a judgement on whether there was progress and improvement for African Americans.

Recall MapThe Position of African-Americans 1865-1890

Write down details from earlier lessons next to the key words on the recall map.

1.Segregation

8. ‘Separate but equal’

2. 15th Amendment

7. Reconstruction6. Jim Crow Laws

5. White Democrats

3. Compromise of 1877

3. Northern migration 4. Sharecropping

Recap: How did States find ‘loopholes’ in the voting rights of African Americans?

Many state laws were passed to get around the 15th Amendment:

• In 1877 Georgia introduced a $2 poll tax on those registering to vote.

• In 1898 Louisiana introduced the ‘grandfather clause.’ Only people whose father or grandfather voted before 1 Jan 1867 (the date A-As were given the vote) could vote.

• Some states said that only those who owned their own homes could vote.

• In 1890 there was a literacy test in Mississippi – sometimes questions were made simpler for uneducated white Americans than they were for African-Americans.

Why was the Plessy v. Ferguson case a catastrophic defeat for black civil rights in the South?

Read the information on the following slide, watch the video and then answer the questions on Slide 8.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoOlEPoc1PE

In 1887, a railroad company in Florida was the first to introduce segregated railway carriages and over the next 4 years, 7 more Southern states brought in segregation on trains. This was gradually extended to cover public places. Segregation was reinforced by the Plessy v Ferguson Case.

Homer Plessy was light-skinned but classed as African-American because he had one-eighth black ancestry. In 1896 he deliberately challenged Louisiana state law, which required railroad companies to provide separate facilities on their trains for black and white Americans, when he refused to leave a ‘white’ carriage. He was arrested and put on trial with Plessy insisting that his rights were being violated under the Fourteenth Amendment. Ferguson, the local judge, ruled against Plessy whose case was then taken to the Supreme Court. Seven of the eight Supreme Court judges ruled that segregation was legal because ‘separate but equal facilities’ were within the law. Here we can see Reconstruction legislation being ignored – the Civil Rights Act (1875) which guaranteed black people equal accommodation in public places; the Fourteenth Amendment (1866) which granted citizenship to freed slaves. The Supreme Court had shown that they supported these anti-Reconstruction attitudes.

The ruling was a disaster for black civil rights since states could now interpret ‘equal’ however they liked. In 1899 in ‘Cumming v Board of Education’, the separate but equal ruling was extended to schools which in practice meant under-funded, poor quality schools for African Americans were allowed to continue.

Questions:

1. Which state started segregation on trains?

2. What did Plessy challenge and how?

3. Why did the Supreme Court rule that segregation was legal?

4. How is this going against Reconstruction legislation -make sure you explain your point.

5. Why was this such a disaster for black civil rights?

6. What happened in 1899?

7. How many states would pass segregation laws under the protection of Plessy?

8. List a number of things that African-Americans could not do/were segregated

9. What was this era called?

10. How many African Americans were linked in the first years of the 20th Century?

Additional Notes:

Historians view…

What argument is the historian making about the position of African-Americans at this time?

Key individuals in the fight for African-American rights

Booker T. Washington (1865-1915) W. E. B. Du Bois (1868-1965)

Booker T WashingtonBorn a slave in Virginia to a black mother & white father he never knew, the latter of which he never knew. After emancipation Washington went to college and became a teacher. In 1881 he set up the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama which became a model for education linked to vocational training for black students. Washington believed that for AAs to progress they needed to get skills through education.

Later, Washington helped set up National Urban League to help AAs adjust to industrial, urban life. This was because many African Americans had been migrating North.

In a 1895 speech in Atlanta, Georgia, Washington argued that the race question would be resolved if white Americans regarded AAs as potential economic partners rather than a threat to political control. He argued that AAs should focus on education and economic progress rather than on trying to remove segregation and discrimination or trying to achieve enfranchisement. He believed that achieving these would be a slow progress which would be achieved if education and economic progress were the main focus.

BUT critics called the speech the Atlanta Compromise and attacked his attempts at accommodation (acceptance of difficult circumstances) with white Americans in South.

Booker T WashingtonDid he achieve anything for

AAs?YES NO

Was a role model for AAs because of way he progressed from slave to college principle

Seemed to accept idea of white supremacy and made no

attempt to challenge second-class position of AAs

Role model in his standards of strict behaviour and discipline

Did little for civil rights of AAs

Developed valuable contacts for AAs within white dominated

political world of USA

Focused on working within the system, rather than trying to

change the system itselfGained the interest of Theodore

Roosevelt who frequently consulted Washington on AA issues and invited him to tea

at the White House

Underestimated the importance of achieving the vote for

improving the position of AAs

W. E. B Du BoisDu Bois was from a very different background to Washington and disagreed significantly with him. He was born into a family in Great Barrington, Massachusetts who were part of a very small free black population. Great Barrington had a majority European-American community and De Bois attended the local integrated public school, where he mixed with white schoolmates. After he gained degrees from Fisk, a college for African-Americans, Berlin and Harvard University, he became a lecturer in philosophy.

At first, Du Bois supported Washington’s ideas of slow but gradual change. However, by 1900 he was calling for more active resistance to discrimination, through use of legal and political processes, as well as ‘unceasing agitation’.

The Niagara Movement, 1905

Du Bois helped to found this movement which developed from a meeting held in Niagara Falls city. It rejected Washington’s cautious approach and put emphasis on protest to demand civil rights. It never developed into mass movement b/c Du Bois and followers too academic and lacked money/organization.

However, it did add impetus to the number of AAs who wanted more active resistance and wanted to challenge the views of Washington.

The NAACP, 1909

Du Bois played an important role in setting up The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Du Bois was keen to attract white people, if possible, to join the movement. Its aims were to investigate racism, publicize it, suggest possible solutions and to take legal action to enforce the law against it. The NAACP took a constitutional approach to lawsuits, believing many of the measures taken against African Americans were violations of the constitutional amendments brought in through Reconstruction. Du Bois edited its magazine for 20 years.

WashingtonDu Bois

1. Created the Tuskegee Institute for education in Alabama.

2. Founded the National Urban League.

3. Proposed ‘unceasing agitation’ to raise the profile of black civil rights.

4. Founded the Niagra movement in 1905 – protest demanding civil rights.

5. Role-model due to his rise from slavery to educated man.

6. Invited to tea by Roosevelt.

7. Lecturer in Philosophy.

8. Important in creating the NAACP

9. Believed education and economic achievement would reduce discrimination.

10. Critics saw him too accepting of white discrimination.

Having read the information, decide which statements are about Washington and which

are about Du Bois.

Terrorism and Politics

Although the Ku Klux Klan were in abeyance until the 1920s, acts of lynching continued. There were 292 in 1892 alone and almost 5,000 between 1882 and 1950. In 1901 a former slave, Congressman George Henry White, proposed an Anti-Lynching Bill to make lynching a federal crime. It was defeated in Congress.

Ben Tillman – ‘Pitchfork Ben’

Read through page 96-97 of your textbook, and his profile on page 97. Jot down how he was involved in African-American discrimination throughout his lifetime.

How far had the position of African-Americans improved by World War One?

ProgressRegress

1) Organise and stick, or number your cards from Slide 17 onto your continuum line.2) Colour code them into factors e.g. Legislation, Violence, Economic, Political and any others you can think of.3) Write a summary of 100 words explaining how far African-American Civil Rights progressed during this period.

Attacks on black Americans

were commonplace as were

rapes. All-white juries usually

refused to convict even when

guilt was obvious.

In the North, black

Americans were not accepted

by trade unions.

Consequently, they were often

forced into the worst and

lowest paid jobs. Violent

attacks were less common but

not unknown

Despite the creation of

schools for black Americans,

many remained illiterate and

found themselves in the worst

and lowest-paid jobs.

. In the South, the average

wage was less than half of

that in the north and illiteracy

rates were eight times higher.

Black Americans suffered

most from the effects of these

comparisons

During the 1890s, Jim Crow

Laws began to be passed in

the South. Loopholes in the

Fifteenth Amendment were

exploited to impose literacy

tests on black voters

Between 1889 – 1929 85% of those lynched in the South

were African Americans.

. In 1896, Plessy v Ferguson

established the principle that

separate could mean equal.

This gave Supreme Court

approval to segregation.

Black Americans were usually

disregarded by US presidents.

Washington. Roosevelt had

tea with Washington on more

than one occasion.

NAACP was formed in 1909 to progress African American

rights.

Niagra movement formed in 1905 – protested to improve civil rights. The movement was not supported by the

masses.

By 1912 there were no African-Americans in

Congress, so the active political role that some had

gained during the Reconstruction era had gone.

By 1912 African-Americans had lost the right to sit on

juries.

With developments such as the Tuskegee Institute, the

chances of African-Americans receiving formal education

had increased.

African-Americans were free to leave the South and

migrate to the North. Many did this, especially during the

war years.

With significant individuals like Washington, Du Bois and their work, by 1912 the seeds of the Civil Rights Movement

had been sown