Life for African-Americans
PROGRESS?
Goal #31
Racial discrimination
was common in
19th and 20th century
America.
I. Discrimination in the South
 A. Whites regained control
over their state legislatures.
They passed 1. poll tax and
literacy tests to prevent African
Americans from voting.
most are too poor to afford the
poll tax
literacy tests created to make
them fail
B. Some poor or illiterate white
men could not meet the
requirements. 1. grand father
clause allowed them to vote
 C. If an African American failed to speak respectfully or acted with too
much pride or defiance, the consequences were serious.
 The worst consequence was 1. lynching, the a. murder of an individual
usually by hanging, without a trial.
 Between 1882 and 1914, mobs lynched nearly 1, 900 African-Americans
b. Ida B. Wells, a journalist, led an anti-lynching crusade
II. Plessy v. Ferguson
Homer Plessy, 1/8th
African-American, was
arrested for A. Sitting
in the “whites only car”
of a Louisiana train
Violation of that state’s
“Separate Car Act.” He
wanted to test the law.
B. The case was appealed
to the Supreme Court
based on the 14th
Amendment (“equal
protection” clause)
Supreme Court Ruling 1896
C. SEPARATE facilities were lawful as long as they were
EQUAL.
1. Jim Crow laws – now OK to separate the races everywhere
Supreme Court in 1896
Separate but Equal???
In 1900, 90% of all African-Americans lived in the South
In 1910, only 8,000 school-age African-Americans attended
high school
White School
Black School
III. African Americans Leaders
– 2 Ways To Fight Jim Crow
Booker T. Washington
W.E.B. DuBois
A. Booker T. Washington
Former slave – wrote book “Up
From Slavery” - 1901
1. Founded Tuskegee Institute in
1906 in Alabama
a. Developed programs for job
training and vocational skills
2. Felt that African – Am. should
work to gain economic security
before equal rights
a. accept segregation for the
moment
Popular with white political and
business leaders
b. believed African-Americans
would “earn” equality
B. W.E.B. Du Bois
Harvard-trained professor – Wrote
“Souls of Black Folks” – 1903
1. African-Am. students should get a
classical education –”talented tenth”
a. Felt it was wrong to expect
citizens to “earn their rights”
b. Strongly opposed Booker T.
Washington’s tolerance of segregation –
demanded immediate equality
2. Helped found the NAACP with Ida B.
Wells
NAACP- National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People
Established in 1909 a. to fight racial injustice
IV. Great Migration
A. African- Americans moved to Northern cities in
record numbers to search of better paying factory jobs
and to escape segregation
B. found that discrimination was in the North too
Life in the North
 1. By the early 1900’s, ½ million African-Am. moved to
Northern cities
 2. Better schools for their children & men able to vote
V. Others Suffer Discrimination
A. Mexican
Americans
B. Asian
Americans
C. Native
Americans
They encountered hostility from white Americans.
1. Debt peonage tied many of them to their jobs
until they could pay off debts they owed their
employer.
Chinese and Japanese Americans had to live in
1.segregated neighborhoods and schools
Housing was difficult, because most apartment
owners did not want Chinese tenants. Several states
also 2. forbade marriage with whites
Native Americans faced government efforts to
stamp out their traditional ways of life. 1. Children
were sent away from their parents to be
“Americanized.” Reservation life held little
opportunity for a better life.