Segregation and Discrimination “The Gilded Age 1877 – 1900”

Terms and People Jim Crow laws – legislation mean to segregate blacks and whites poll tax – tool used to prevent African Americans from voting by charging them money literacy test – reading and writing test formerly used in some southern states to prevent African Americans from voting grandfather clause – a law which allowed a person to vote only if his ancestors had voted prior to 1866, also used to disenfranchise African American citizens

Terms and People (continued) Booker T. Washington – called for African Americans to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” and go to a vocational school and prove themselves to the white population W.E.B. Du Bois – a black leader in the late 19th century who disagreed with Washington and argued that blacks should demand full and immediate equality Ida B. Wells – an African American teacher who bought a newspaper and embarked on a lifelong crusade against the practice of lynching 3

Terms and People (continued) Las Gorras Blancas – a group of Mexican Americans who protested their loss of land in the Southwest by targeting the property of large ranch owners

How were the civil and political rights of certain groups in America undermined during the years after Reconstruction? In the course of the Gilded Age, the equal rights extended to African Americans during Reconstruction were narrowed. This move away from equality for all had a lasting impact on society in the United States.

Federal troops were removed from the South in 1876 by President Rutherford Hayes Ways in which blacks’ right to vote was restricted in the South: poll taxes literacy tests grandfather clauses violence Segregation via Jim Crow laws became the norm, and African Americans lost voting rights.

The many strategies used to keep African American voters away from the polls were very effective.

In addition to losing their voting rights, African Americans also faced widespread segregation in the South and in the North. Still, African Americans refused to accept their status as second-class citizens. Several important leaders emerged and called for equality. The constitutionality of Jim Crow laws was upheld by the Supreme Court in the 1896 case Plessy v. Ferguson.- as long as states maintain separate but equal facilities African Americans responded to segregation by educating themselves and writing pamphlets trying to convince others to end segregation

Opened the Tuskeegee Institute in Alabama – vocational school Booker T. Washington was the most famous black leader of the late 19th century. Washington believed that black citizens should focus their energies on building up their own economic resources through hard work, instead of using those energies to overturn Jim Crow. Opened the Tuskeegee Institute in Alabama – vocational school 9

Some disagreed with Booker T. Washington. Du Bois felt the burden of achieving equality should not rest on the shoulders of African Americans alone. He believed the key to everything was the ability to vote (suffrage) W.E.B. Du Bois argued that blacks should demand full and equal rights immediately not limit themselves with vocational education Another black leader was Ida B. Wells, who devoted her life to the crusade against lynching.Bought a local newspaper and named it Free Speech – wrote articles condemning the mistreatment of blacks 10

Mexican Americans struggled against discrimination. In the Southwest, four out of five Mexican Americans lost their land after the Mexican-American War, despite a treaty which guaranteed their property rights. Las Gorras Blancas, a Mexican American group, fought for their rights by inflicting property damage on landowners and publishing grievances in their own newspaper. Alianza Hispano- Americana – protect culture, interests, legal rights of Mexican Americans.

Chinese immigrants also faced racial prejudice in the West at this time. The Chinese Exclusion Act prohibited Chinese laborers from entering the country. California stopped cities from hiring people of Chinese ancestry San Francisco – Oriental school Whites accused Chinese of taking their jobs so they opened their own businesses.

Yick Wo v. Hopkins – Supreme Court sided with Chinese who challenged California law that banned him from operating a laundry. 1886 – Chinese born Americans could not be stripped of their citizenship.

Prior to the Civil War, women played a large role in reform movements, including the call to abolish slavery. Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton formed the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1869. – to fight for women’s right to vote and Susan B. Anthony was arrested for voting in an election in New York Leaders wanted to further women’s rights and were disappointed when women were not included in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments.

Susan B. Anthony voted in an election in 1872 and was arrested. Awaiting trial, she toured the nation, delivering a powerful speech on the issue. Activists did not secure women’s suffrage during the 19th century – by 1906 Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Idaho – women could vote. By 1900 – 33% of college students were women 15