1. Racial Segregation Jim Crow Laws The African American Response
SOL 4c
Racial Segregation
Jim Crow Laws
The African American Response

2. Racial Segregation and the Rise of Jim Crow
Because of the growing concerns of white citizens, the freedoms and rights promised to African-Americans were slowly taken away after Reconstruction. African-Americans began to experience discrimination, or the unfair treatment of people based on their religion or culture. In addition, organizations were created after the Civil War to carry out a campaign of terrorism against African-Americans and ensure white supremacy (power).

3. You Answer!!!
1. Discrimination is the unfair treatment of people based on their ___________________ or ___________________.

4. Racial Segregation and the Rise of Jim Crow
By the late 1800s and early 1900s, discrimination in the South took the form of Jim Crow laws and segregation, the separation of people, usually based on race or religion. These laws were passed by Southern legislatures to discriminate primarily against African-Americans. Other groups, like poor whites, also experienced discrimination. Jim Crow Laws made racial segregation practices legal in many communities and states. They affected African-Americans by enforcing unequal opportunities in housing, education, employment, and government.

5. Racial Segregation and the Rise of Jim Crow
Housing: Laws were passed that upheld segregation of housing and neighborhoods.
The owners of apartment buildings were not allowed to rent space to African-Americans in buildings where white families lived.
Landlords signed legal agreements with other landlords promising not to rent or sell real estate to African-Americans.

6. Racial Segregation and the Rise of Jim Crow
Education: Laws were passed that made it illegal for African-American children and white children to attend the same schools.
Separate free schools were built for the education of African-Americans.
Text books used by African-American children could not be used later by white children.

7. Racial Segregation and the Rise of Jim Crow
Employment: Laws were passed enforcing the hiring and treatment of African-American employees.
Many employers kept African-Americans confined to boring, unskilled positions.
Employers were required to have separate bathroom and lunchroom facilities for African-American employees.

8. Racial Segregation and the Rise of Jim Crow
Government: Laws were passed that made it almost impossible for African- Americans and poor whites to vote or hold public office.
All voters had to pay a poll tax of $6.00 each time they voted. Because of this tax, poor freedmen could rarely afford to vote.
Election officials were allowed to give voters a test that they had to pass in order to vote Literacy Test. Since freedmen usually had little education, these tests kept them from voting, also.

9. You Answer!!!!
2. What legislation made racial segregation legal in many communities and states?
3. Segregation was usually based on _______________ or ___________________.
4. The area of the United States where Jim Crow laws were mostly found was the
_____________________.
5. Jim Crow laws were mainly aimed at ______________________ Americans.
6. Because of Jim Crow laws, African Americans faced unequal treatment in the following four areas:

10. Racial Segregation and the Rise of Jim Crow
African Americans brought lawsuits to challenge segregation. In 1896, the Supreme Court upheld segregation in Plessy v. Ferguson. Plessy argued that the East Louisiana Railroad had denied him his rights under the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution when he was arrested after refusing to leave the “white car” and sit in the “colored” car. Therefore, segregation was legal as long as facilities for African Americans and white Americans were equal—“separate but equal.” In fact, facilities were rarely equal. While the Court did not find a difference in quality between the whites-only and blacks-only railway cars, this was clearly untrue in the case of most other separate facilities, such as public toilets and cafés, where the facilities provided for African Americans were poorer than those for whites.

11. You Answer!!!
6. In an 1896 case, the Supreme Court upheld racial segregation under the principle of __________________ but ____________________.

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13. Booker T. Washington
Although Jim Crow laws angered African-Americans, some well-known African- American leaders differed in their responses to discrimination. Booker T. Washington, a former slave, accepted the social separation of the races. He believed that African-Americans should live, work, and learn separately from White Americans. He also believed that African-Americans could achieve equality through vocational education and he encouraged them to attend trade schools instead of colleges. He saw the opportunity to earn a living and own property as more important than acquiring civil rights. As a result he founded the Tuskegee Institute, which today is a important Southern university. Although academic subjects were taught at the school, the emphasis was on the learning of practical skills such as farming, carpentry, brickmaking, shoemaking, printing, and cabinetmaking. In the end, he felt African Americans would “earn full citizenship rights. Therefore, Booker T. Washington believed that African Americans should accept social separation for now and equality could be achieved eventually through vocational education.

14. W.E.B. DuBois
W.E.B. DuBois, another well-known African-American leader, opposed Booker T. Washington’s views. Unlike Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois and his family had not been in the bonds of slavery for over a hundred years. He was a professor of economics and history at Atlanta University where he studied the conditions of African Americans in the South at the same time Booker T. Washington was sharing his plan of vocational education. W.E.B. DuBois believed that Washington’s views supported a view held by many white Americans that the African-American race was inferior. As a result, he became a believer in full political, civil, and social rights for African-Americans. His meetings with other promoters of equal rights would eventually lead to the foundation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in the early 1900s which worked to gain the rights promised in the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments.

15. Both
Both Dr. DuBois and Mr. Washington wanted the same thing for the African American—first-class citizenship—but their methods for gaining it were different. Mr. Washington believed that African Americans should begin at the bottom and work up slowly to reach positions of power and responsibility before they could expect equal citizenship. Dr. DuBois believed that African Americans should have the same rights as white citizens without the wait.

16. The Response by many African Americans
Many African-Americans were angered by the discrimination and segregation they faced after Reconstruction. As a result they formed groups to fight against Jim Crow laws. They wrote letters, held meetings, and organized protests. They also began to start their own businesses, print their own newspapers, and train to become doctors, lawyers, and teachers. Jim Crow laws caused many African-Americans to work together to improve their lives and their communities

17. Booker T or W.E.B? Accepted Segregation Founder of Tuskegee Institute
Did not accept segregation
African American must work hard at a vocational skill to make it to the top.
Wanted full social, political, and civil rights NOW.
One of the leading founders of the N.A.A.C.P. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
Has a PHD from Harvard University
Was born a slave