Mrs. Stoffl THE STRUGGLE AGAINST DISCRIMINATION IN THE PROGRESSIVE ERA

 Analyze Progressives’ attitudes towards minority rights  Explain why African Americans organized  Examine the strategies used by members of other minority groups to defend their rights OBJECTIVES:

 Most Progressives were W.A.S.P.s  Indifferent or hostile to minorities  Wanted everyone to follow the white middle class life PROGRESSIVISM PRESENTS CONTRADICTIONS

 Americanization: The process of changing non- Americans into “Americans.”  Especially immigrants…  Teach them to act, dress, eat, and celebrate like Americans  AKA assimilation  More loyal and better citizens  Temperance: Partial consequence of prejudice against immigrants (notorious for drinking)  Women’s Christian Temperance Union SOCIAL REFORM OR SOCIAL CONTROL?

 Most white Progressives held same racist beliefs as non-Progressives  Some people more fit than others to lead society  By 1910 segregation was across the country, not just in the South RACISM LIMITS THE GOALS OF PROGRESSIVISM

 1. Work hard to rise to the occasion of full citizenship, blacks must pull themselves up by bootstraps through education of trade skills, hard work, owning businesses  Gradually and patiently win whites’ respect  Who am I?  2. Very outspoken against this ^ (______) view  He and William Monroe Trotter argued that blacks should have immediate full rights of all citizens  Both Harvard grads!  Who am I? AFRICAN AMERICANS DEMAND REFORM

 Especially concerned about the black right to vote in the South:  DuBois, Trotter and other black reformers met in Niagara Falls to discuss what to do  Niagara Movement (name of the group) denounced Washington’s gradual process to full rights and the teaching of only trade skills  That education “can create workers, but it cannot make men.”  Should teach blacks history, philosophy, literature so they can think for themselves  Niagara Movement didn’t get much following but… AFRICAN AMERICANS FORM THE NIAGARA MOVEMENT

 Springfield, IL: White mob attempts to lynch 2 black prisoners in the city jail (Summer, 1908)  They are moved to safety(mob fails to lynch them)  White mob turns to black residents: Kills 2 and burns 40 homes – Niagara Mvm’t outraged!!  Springfield Riot  got the attention of white reformers acknowledging the need to protect black lives  1909: In response, white reformers + Niagara Mvm’t join to form the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) RIOTS LEAD TO FORMATION OF NAACP

SPRINGFIELD RIOTS LEAD TO THE NAACP

 Help African Americans be:  Physically free from forced low pay labor  Mentally free from ignorance  Politically free from disenfranchisement  Socially free from insult  Equal access to housing and careers  NAACP leaders were both black and white Progressives  Jane Addams, Florence Kelley, Ida B. Wells, etc.. GOALS OF THE NAACP

 As African Americans moved to the cities, many groups formed to help them find jobs  In 1911 many groups across many cities joined to form the Urban League to help the poorer black workers find employment relief  Helped families buy clothes and afford school  NAACP focused on middle class blacks and social and political justice  Both still around today AFRICAN AMERICANS FORM THE URBAN LEAGUE

 Discrimination not only happening to blacks…  Catholic immigrants  Jewish immigrants  Mexican Americans  Native Americans  Asian Americans REDUCING PREJUDICE AND PROTECTING RIGHTS

 Jewish immigrants in New York form the Anti- Defamation League in response to the growing anti-Semitism in 1913  ADL sought to project Jewish followers from  Physical and verbal attacks  False statements  And “to secure justice and fair treatment of all citizens alike.” THE ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE

 Mex-Am living in Arizona formed the Partido Liberal Mexicano (PLM).  Similar to the Urban League, it offered job services for Mex-Am’s  Mutualistas: Made loans available to and provided legal assistance for Mex-Am  Insurance programs if too sick to work MEXICAN AMERICANS ORGANIZE

 Dawes Act of 1887 divided Native American reservations into farms to Americanize them  The law made all land not given to the Native American open for sale to the public  ∴ by /3 of the land was owned by whites  Society of American Indians  sought to protect the rights of Indians and to combat federal Indian policy  Carlos Montezuma: part of the Society, urged Indians to preserve their culture and avoid relying on gov’t NATIVE AMERICANS TAKE ACTION

 1913 CA law said only citizens could own land  Japanese Americans not allowed to become citizens b/c Gentlemen’s Agreement:  U.S. would not impose restriction on Japanese immigration, + Japan would not allow further emigration to the U.S.  So Japanese Americans were forced to sell their land…  Some got around this by putting the land in their children’s names  Born in the U.S. = citizen ASIAN AMERICANS FIGHT UNFAIR LAWS