Segregation & Discrimination Chapter 8 Section 3

Segregation and Discrimination Have you ever felt discriminated against? In what ways? Explain What are the various forms of discrimination and prejudice? What are the factors that discrimination can be based?

Reconstruction Legislation 13th Amendment – Ends Slavery 14th Amendment – Deals with Citizenship 15th Amendment – Deals with Voting See Pages 98-100 for specifics

African Americans Fight Legal Discrimination Compromise of 1876 ends reconstruction in the south and southern states adopt legal policies of racial discrimination. Voting Restrictions Jim Crow Laws Plessey v. Ferguson Click link below and open link for interactive map http://www.jimcrowhistory.org/geography/geography.htm

Voting Restrictions http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/tools_voting.html Literacy Test – Tests to determine a voters ability to read and write and thus be eligible to vote. Problems: Unfairly administered and prevented even literate blacks from voting. Prevented some illiterate whites from voting. Poll Tax – An annual tax that had to be paid to gain access to the voting booth Problems: Prevented both poor blacks and poor whites from voting. Grandfather Clause – those disqualified otherwise could still vote if he, his father, or his grandfather had been eligible to vote before Jan. 1, 1867.

Jim Crow Laws Take the Jim Crow Quiz http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/tools_quiz_1q.html Jim Crow Laws are laws passed to separate white and black people in public and private facilities. Named after a minstrel-show character who sang a comic song ending in the words “Jump, Jim Crow”. Segregation: System of separating people on the basis of race. (Schools, Hospitals, Parks, Transportation, etc.)

What Does This Image Make You Think? Though difficult to read here, the signs on this cartoon indicate the inequalities of life under Jim Crow. Is the point muted by the way in which the cartoonist portrays the woman? http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/php/scribble.php?pic=3

Plessy v. Ferguson The state of Louisiana enacted a law that required separate railway cars for blacks and whites. In 1892, Homer Adolph Plessy -- who was seven-eighths Caucasian -- took a seat in a "whites only" car of a Louisiana train. He refused to move to the car reserved for blacks and was arrested. Was Louisiana's law mandating racial segregation on its trains an unconstitutional infringement on both the privileges and immunities and the equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment?

The Ruling: Separate but Equal The court ruled that the Louisiana state law is within constitutional boundaries and upheld state-imposed racial segregation. The justices based their decision on the separate-but-equal doctrine, that separate facilities for blacks and whites satisfied the Fourteenth Amendment so long as they were equal. (The phrase, "separate but equal" was not part of the opinion.) Justice Brown conceded that the Fourteenth Amendment intended to establish absolute equality for the races before the law. But Brown noted that "in the nature of things it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political equality, or a commingling of the two races unsatisfactory to either." In short, segregation does not in itself constitute unlawful discrimination.

Significance The court’s ruling in Plessy v Ferguson launched the era of Jim Crow in the United States -- legal segregation resulting in terrible inequalities for African Americans. http://www.historynow.org/04_2008/inter5.html Above source for the 2 previous slides as well.

Turn of the Century Race Relations Racial Etiquette- informal rules and customs that regulated relationships between whites and blacks. Custom that humiliated and demeaned blacks Established them as “second-class citizens”

Racial Etiquette Examples Blacks and whites never shake hands Blacks yield the sidewalk to a white person Black men always remove their hat in the presence of a white person, even children Blacks were expected to refer to white males in authority as “Boss” or “Cap’n” Blacks were never referred to as Mr. or Mrs. Black men were referred to as “Boy”, “Uncle”, or “Old Man” – regardless of age. Black women were referred to as “Auntie” or “Girl (examples taken from The Americans and Racial Etiquette by Ronald L.F. Davis, Ph. D.)

Violence Against Blacks Violations of Racial Etiquette could result in severe punishment. Minor breaches would be overlooked or reprimanded A black person could possibly lose his or her job Severe breaches could result in lynching Between 1885 and 1900, 2,500 plus were lynched (shot, burned, or hanged without trial) Lynching is the illegal execution, without trial, carried out by a mob.

Ida B. Wells (One American’s Story) Born into slavery right before emancipation Teacher Newspaper Editor Wrote about racial justice and spoke out against lynching Friends were lynched because their business was too successful. She fled Memphis because of the threat of lynching Continued to fight against lynching and for civil rights for African Americans See page 286 for full story)

Discrimination in the North Many Blacks migrated to the North in search of better-paying jobs and social equality. They found DISCRIMINATION Segregated Neighborhoods Denied Labor Membership Job Discrimination Riots (White on Black Riots)

Discrimination in the West Mexican Workers Debt Peonage- a system of involuntary servitude in which the laborer is forced to work off a debt. Chinese Chinese Exclusion Act, 1882 Couldn’t own land Couldn’t gain citizenship Couldn’t vote Couldn’t marry Caucasians