PROGRESSIVES AND REFORMERS SEC. 5: FIGHTING FOR EQUALITY

1. After the end of Reconstruction, African Americans in the South lost their hard-won political rights. JIM CROW laws led to segregation in schools, trains, and other public places.

2. NORTHERN blacks also faced prejudice 2. NORTHERN blacks also faced prejudice. Many hotels and restaurants would not serve blacks. In some areas, mainly in the South, unemployed whites took out their anger on blacks. In the 1890s, lynch mobs murdered more than 1,000 blacks.

3. Such violence outraged the African American journalist IDA B. WELLS. In her newspaper, Free Speech, Wells published shocking statistics about lynching.

4. BOOKER T. WASHINGTON offered one answer to the question of how to fight discrimination. In his autobiography, Up From Slavery, Washington told how he had succeeded. Born into slavery, he taught himself to read. In 1881, he founded TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE in Alabama. It became a center for black higher education.

5. Washington urged African Americans to work patiently and move upward slowly. First, learn trades and earn money, advised Washington. Only then would African Americans have the power to insist on political and social EQUALITY.

6. Other African Americans disagreed with Washington 6. Other African Americans disagreed with Washington. Racial harmony was impossible when whites were LYNCHING blacks and denying them the right to vote. W.E.B. Du BOIS was one leader who took this view. In 1895, he became the first African American to earn a PH.D. from Harvard.

7. Du Bois said, “So far as Mr 7. Du Bois said, “So far as Mr. Washington apologizes for injustice, we must firmly oppose him.” Instead, Du Bois urged blacks to fight DISCRIMINATION actively. In 1909, Du Bois joined with Jane Addams, Lincoln Steffens, and other reformers to form the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE, or NAACP.

9. Some African Americans succeeded despite huge obstacles 9. Some African Americans succeeded despite huge obstacles. GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER discovered hundreds of new uses for peanuts (peanut butter) and other crops grown in the South.

10. Churches like the AFRICAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH offered a strong foundation for religious and family life. They were also training grounds for African American leaders.

10. Although African Americans gained success, they could not get a president to support their civil rights cause. WOODROW WILSON did not help get any civil rights legislation passed by Congress. When given the chance he did not support racial integration in federal government jobs.

1. Many of the poor MEXICAN immigrants worked in the fields, harvesting crops. Like other immigrant groups, Mexicans created ethnic neighborhoods, or BARRIOS. There, they preserved their language and much of their culture.

2. Some Americans in the Southwest responded with violence to the flood of immigrants from Mexico. NATIVISTS often attacked citizens as well as newcomers. In defense, Mexican Americans formed MUTUALISTAS, or mutual aid groups.

1. In the early 1900s, a new generation of Native American leaders emerged. One group set up the SOCIETY OF AMERICAN INDIANS. The society worked for social justice and tried to educate other Americans about Indian life.

1. Americans on the West Coast hired FILIPINO and JAPANESE workers, mostly young men. Many Japanese were farmers. They settled on dry, barren land that other western farmers thought was useless.

2. In 1906, the San Francisco Board of Education placed the city’s 93 Asian pupils, including some adults, in a separate school. Japan protested the insult.

3. President Roosevelt reached a GENTLEMEN’S AGREEMENT with Japan in 1907. Japan agreed to curb the number of workers coming to the U.S. In exchange, Roosevelt agreed to allow the wives of Japanese men already living in the U.S. to join them.