Transcript Chapter 8- Life at the Turn of the 20th Century

Chapter 8 – Section 3
Segregation and Discrimination
Preview: Why do you think certain groups
experienced violence and racial
discrimination?
Do you think these actions are
justified? Why or Why not?
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Ida B. Wells- editor of a local paper in
Memphis.
Racial Justice was a persistent theme in
her reporting.
lynching – “An excuse to get rid of
Negroes who were acquiring wealth and
property and thus keep the race
terrorized…”
By writing and lecturing, she tried to end
the lynching of African Americans.
African Americans Fight Legal
Discrimination
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Faced hostile and violent opposition from whites.
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End of Reconstruction 1877, African Americans continued to
vote and occasionally hold political office in the South up until
the turn of the century.
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Southern states adopted a broad system of legal policies and
methods to weaken African-American political power.
-voting restrictions
-Jim Crows Laws
-Plessy v. Ferguson
Voting Restrictions
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Literacy test-had to be able to read
-Asked more difficult questions than whites
-Given test in a foreign language
-Officials could pass or fail applicants as they
wished
Poll Tax
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Annual tax that had to be paid before
qualifying to vote.
Black as well as white sharecroppers were
too poor to pay poll tax.
Whites could vote even they failed literacy
test or couldn’t pay poll tax if they fell under
the grandfather clause. (added to states
constitutions)
Grandfather Clause
Even if a man failed the literacy test or
couldn’t afford the poll tax, he was still
entitled to vote if he, his father, or his
grandfather had been eligible to vote before
Jan. 1, 1867.
Why is this date so important?
Supreme Court (1870s and 1880s) failed to
overturn the poll tax or grandfather clause.
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Jim Crow Laws
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Segregation laws in Southern states to
separate white and black people in public
and private facilities.
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Put in effect in schools, hospitals, parks,
and transportation systems throughout the
South.
Plessy v. Ferguson
Legal case that reached the Supreme Court to
test constitutionality of segregation.
 In 1896, Supreme Court rule that the separation
of races in public accommodations was legal and
did not violate the 14th amendment.
 Decision established ‘separate but equal’ doctrine
(states could have segregated facilities as long as
they provided equal service)
The decision permitted legalized racial segregation
for almost 60 years.
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th
14
Amendment
•Section 1 – No state shall make or
enforce any law which shall abridge the
privileges or immunities of citizens of
the U.S; nor shall any state deprive a
person of life, liberty, or property …..or
equal protection of the laws……
Turn-of-the-Century Race Relations
Racial etiquette- regulated relationships
between whites and blacks.
1. Blacks and whites never shook hands
(would have implied equality)
2. Blacks had to yield the sidewalk to white
pedestrians.
3. Black men always had to remove their hats
for whites.
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Booker T. Washington
suggested that whites and black work
together for social progress, in a gradual
approach to equality.
Ida B. Wells and W.E.B. Du Bois
believed that the problems of inequality
were too urgent to postpone.
Violence
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African Americans and others who did not follow
racial etiquette could face severe punishment or
death.
All too often, Blacks accused of violating racial
etiquette were lynched.
Between 1882-1892: more than 1,400 African
American men and women were shot, burned, or
hung without trial in the South.
Discrimination in the North
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Many blacks moved North looking for
better-paying jobs and social equality.
Found out there was racial discrimination in
North as well.
Forced to live in segregated
neighborhoods, discrimination in the
workplace, and fired before whites.
Discrimination in the West
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African Americans weren’t the only group to
experience violence and racial
discrimination.
Groups who faced discrimination
1. Native Americans
2. Asian Immigrants
3. Mexicans
4. African Americans
Mexican Workers
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Railroads hired them, more than any other
ethnic groups, to construct rail lines in the
Southwest. Paid less money
Also vital to the development of mining and
agriculture in the Southwest.
-became major labor force in the
agricultural industries in the region.
Debt Peonage
A system that bound laborers into slavery
in order to work off a debt to the employer.
Some Mexicans and African Americans
were forced into this system.
Supreme Court (1911) declared involuntary
peonage violated the Thirteenth
Amendment.
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Excluding the Chinese
1880- 100,000 plus Chinese immigrants lived in the
US
 Whites feared job competition
-segregated schools and neighborhoods
-strong opposition not just in West
Remember the Chinese Exclusion Act?
Nonwhites-racial discrimination caused problems.
Others, whites particularly-leisure time and money for
products
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