Black American civil rights, c1917–55

Question 1

Which early amendments were passed in the 19th century which aided Black African-Americans?
What did they do?

Answer 1

13th, 14th, 15th Amendments.
Abolished slavery, made all born in USA citizens, declared all same voting rights.

Question 2

Which Black African-American gave a famous speech that came to be known as the ‘Atlanta Compromise’?
What was the Atlanta Compromise?

Answer 2

Booker T Washington
Progress through education, rather than trying to challenge directly the Jim Crow segregation and the disenfranchisement of black voters in the South.

Question 3

Why was Woodrow Wilson baaaaad for civil rights?

Answer 3

Segregated the government offices and White House in 1913.

Question 4

What is the name of the set of laws that were aimed at introducing and maintaining segregation? Date?
What was their impacts?

Answer 4

Jim Crow Laws, 1917.
Laws on where to sit, live, be educated. Separate public facilities, workplaces, even staircases. Also a bias literacy qualification to be able to vote.

Question 5

How many Black African Americans were at polling booths in Louisiana in 1896 and 1904?
Why was this?

Answer 5

130,000 fell to 1,300
Violence in polling stations, JC laws (literacy test + home ownership)

Question 6

What was lynching?
How old was Emmett Till? What happened to him and when? Impact?

Answer 6

Common in the South, a mob taking law into its own hands to punish someone. Usually racist in south, resulting in hanging.
14. Lynched for asking a white woman the date in 1955. Got lynched, attracting wide publicity and shocking even the South.

Question 7

What year was the Plessy vs. Ferguson ruling? What did it do? Impact?

Answer 7

1896. Despite the 14th Amendment, ruled segregation as possible if it was ‘separate but equal.’ Helped the South.

Question 8

Great Migration dates?
By 1920, what percentage of African Americans in the North lived in what cities?
Why were blacks drawn there?

Answer 8

1917-32
40% in 6 cities including Chicago, Ohio and Detroit.
Escaping the South, work (especially with WW1 producing need for factory workers.) More friendly/ welcoming.

Question 9

Impact of Great Migration on the South?
Phrase used to describe the actions taken by Black African Americans to migrate North?

Answer 9

Labour force shrank, farms struggled. Those who stayed were seen as accepting Jim Crow.
‘voting with their feet’

Question 10

Who issued Executive order 8802 banning racial discrimination in the defence industry? Why?
What did the National Recovery Administration do to minimum wages during the New Deal?

Answer 10

FDR in 1941. To get as many as possible into war work.
Set both Black and White minimum wages to be equal

Question 11

What were the negatives on blacks of the New Deal?

Answer 11

Blacks were constantly moved off projects for whites.
Social Security provisions didn’t apply to those working in other people’s homes/ farm workers, usually blacks.

Question 12

Which case did the NAACP turn down for it then to be taken up by communists to find the defendants innocent?
What happened?

Answer 12

Scottsboro Boys in 1931
9 young black men framed for raping 2 young white girls on a train. Proved them innocent.

Question 13

How many members of NAACP were there in Alabama vs. number of Black American communists in 1930?
Why was communism more popular with them?
Why wasn’t this necessarily a good thing?

Answer 13

6 vs 3000
They championed the cause of all workers equally.
It gave CR opponents another stick to beat the movement with.

Question 14

What was the Housewives League motto? What did it signify?

Answer 14

‘Don’t buy where you can’t work’ (started in Detroit.) Campaigns to boycott stores until they hired black workers.

Question 15

What did Executive order 7027 order do? Date?
How many farmers were influenced by Executive order 7027?

Answer 15

1935: Resettle low-income families and provide loans if needed… helped some farmers who lost their homes.
3,400 of 200,000

Question 16

Who led the 100,000 strong march in 1941? What did it lead to?

Answer 16

A. Randolph: led to executive order 8802 banning discrimination in defence work.

Question 17

When was Pearl Harbour?

Answer 17

December 1941

Question 18

What was the percentage of black African Americans working in the defense industry in 1942 and 1944?
What did this represent in the north? Impact on society?

Answer 18

3% and 8%
Wartime migration to north Cities was higher than 1920s migration. Many strikes/ violence from whites having to work with them.

Question 19

What was Truman’s attitude to Civil Rights?
What did Congress reject and when?
What committee did he set up and when?

Answer 19

Supported CR
Proposed anti-segregation + fair employment laws in 1954.
President’s Committee on Civil Rights, urged equal opportunities, and federal support.

Question 20

Which Black civil rights group formed in 1935, became a suspect organisation due to it having some communist members?

Answer 20

National Negro Congress

Question 21

In which year did Truman issue executive orders desegregating the military and all work done by businesses for the government?

Answer 21

1948

Question 22

What was the NAACP membership in 1917, 1919 and 1946?
What was the other movement alongside the Civil Rights movement? What did it advocate?

Answer 22

9,000 to 90,000 to 600,000
Separatists movement said they should embrace segregation but fight equality… or even go back Africa.

Question 23

When was the Scottsboro trial?
What did the Scottsboro trial show?
How many Scottsboro boys were there?

Answer 23

1931
An extreme case of a miscarriage of justice
9 (all innocent)

Question 24

What was the Shelley vs Kraemer (1948) ruling?

Answer 24

Banning racial regulations on buying of any property.

Question 25

When, where and how many people were in the Silent Protest Parade? What was this an example of? What was it? How did direct action develop? Examples?

Answer 25

June 1917, New York, 10,000 people: early Direct Action. In response to lynchings. It became more used in 1940s/50s: CORE held sit-ins in northern cities. Fellowship for Reconciliation rode Southern interstate buses to desegregate them.

Question 26

Where and when did the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) hold sit ins?

Answer 26

Northern Cities (like Chicago) in 1940s and 50s

Question 27

Which group joined CORE in 1947 to do the Journey of Reconciliation on buses through Southern states to desegregate them?

Answer 27

Fellowship for reconciliation

Question 28

What were the tactics of the Black African American movement at the time?

Answer 28

Non-violence, trying to show the horrors of segregation through their protests to change their views and support their fight for change.

Question 29

When was the first Brown vs Board of Education ruling? Vague Phrase used? What did this mean? Impact of Brown vs Board?

Answer 29

1954, ‘With all deliberate speed.’ Especially Deep South schools felt no rush to desegregate. Many organisations formed in the South to retaliate. Not much early impact on blacks due to segregated living areas: the NAACP’s next target.