RACISM AND THE KU KLUX KLAN
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THE BAD THINGS [
SHACKLE
]
S
upremacism and routine racism
: at this time in America's history 'WASP' Americans believed (and were told by '
' scientists) that they were genetically superior to other races, and that they were harder-working, more intelligent and more civilised that other races. Discrimination was EMBEDDED throughout American society, not only towards immigrants and African Americans, but also towards Native Americans and Mexicans.
H
ostility to Immigrants
and the 'Red Scare'
A
merican Government and laws
:
• the government
to pass laws banning lynchings or giving Black Americans the vote
• in 1926 a Supreme Court judgement (Corrigan v.
) upheld racial covenants in housing, allowing neighbourhoods to remain
• racial minorities faced discriminatory
and harsher court sentences.
• many unions, notably the
barred non-white workers from joining.
Jim
C
row Laws
: the name for laws passed in the southern states which prevented Black Americans from mixing with whites ('segregation'), marriage between the races ('
'), denied them equality of education and civil rights, and prevented them from
.
K
u Klux Klan
: an organisation to maintain WASPs supremacy, which had
million members by 1925. Some supporters were poor whites, who did not want Black Americans to be their equals/feared they would take their jobs, but most were educated, middle-class white Americans. They wore white sheets and hoods, and marched with burning crosses. They spoke with each other in a secret language which they called '
'. At the local level, they campaigned for better schools and local improvements. They also intimidated, attacked, tortured and killed Black Americans, but also Jews and Catholics and '
'' people such as alcoholics.
L
ynchings
: mobs of white people often hanged ('lynched') Blacks Americans whom they suspected of a crime (usually the police turned a blind eye).
E
ven in the North
: Black Americans ended up with the low-paid
jobs, such as janitors, bootblacks, cooks, houseboys, baggage handlers, waiters, doormen, dishwashers and washroom attendants. In 1919, white Americans in
rampaged through Black neighbourhoods after a drowning black man clinging to a log had drifted into a whites-only swimming area.
THE GOOD THINGS [
RHINO
]
R
ole models
: some Black Americans became famous – the sprinter
, the baseball player
, the dancer
. .. They were an inspiration to other Black Americans.
H
arlem
: a cultural flowering in the New York Black neighbourhood of Harlem, based on jazz, but also excellent Black architects, novelists, poets and painters. Many of these believed in 'Artistic Action' – winning equality by proving they were equal.
I
dentity
: in 1925 Alain Locke wrote The
, who had to smash the old image of 'Uncle Tom' and 'Sambo', and develop a new identity, 'uplift' the race and fight for equality. There were Black newspapers and magazines. This was the time when the phrase was coined: '
'.
N
AACP
: set up in 1909, the
campaigned for civil rights.
O
ne-and-a-half million
: Black Americans migrated from the south to the north. Although many of them ended up in low-paid jobs, some of them formed a new Black middle class, and were educated at university.
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