Unit 1 - Changing geography of civil rights issues

Question 1

When was Abraham Lincoln elected president?

Answer 1

1860

Question 2

When did the Civil War start?

Answer 2

1861

Question 3

When was the Emancipation Proclamation published?

Answer 3

1863

Question 4

When was the 13th Amendment introduced into the Constitution?

Answer 4

1865

Question 5

When was the 14th Amendment introduced into the Constitution?

Answer 5

1868

Question 6

What was the Southern Homestead Act? When was it introduced?

Answer 6

It helped slaves gain their own land in states like Florida, Arkansas and Alabama.
It was introduced in 1866.

Question 7

What is sharecropping?

Answer 7

A system of division of plantations into small farms. The white landowner allowed a black tenant to sue the land in exchange for a share of the crop.

Question 8

How did white farmers take advantage of sharecropping?

Answer 8

They set unfair prices and forced black farmers to go into debt or work too much to meet the required quota of crops to keep the land.

Question 9

Why was abolition not significant for many former slaves?

Answer 9

Because having civil rights on paper didn’t translate to real life. Many stayed on the same farms and worked under similar conditions as before, the only difference was that they made very low wages instead of nothing.

Question 10

What did the 13th Amendment do?

Answer 10

It abolished slavery.

Question 11

What did the 14th Amendment do?

Answer 11

Citizenship rights to every person born in the US, including former slaves. Equal protection under the law.

Question 12

Name some pull factors for the slow drift north and west in the early 1910s.

Answer 12

-Prospect of a better life in the north
-People who moved were writing home about how much better it was in the north
-Recruiters posted ads for industrial jobs (the conditions weren’t much better than in the south, but people didn’t know this)

Question 13

Name some push factors for the slow drift north and west in the early 1910s.

Answer 13

-KKK and discrimination
-Boll weevil
-Lack of jobs in the south

Question 14

How many black Americans left the South during the Great Migration of 1915 - 1945?

Answer 14

1,6 million

Question 15

When did the Great Migration happen?

Answer 15

1915 - 1945

Question 16

Name some push factors of the Great Migration.

Answer 16

-Slump of the cotton industry because of Boll weevil
-Discrimination eg. lynchings, white supremacist groups, the Grandfather Clause

Question 17

Name some pull factors of the Great Migration.

Answer 17

-Jobs for POC due to WW1 because of war production
-Letters home depicting the north as a promised land
-Economic boom: massive increase in industrial jobs, low demand for agriculture
-Great depression and the New Deal: establishment of federal agencies to help POC obtain jobs

Question 18

Why did African Americans move back to the South after World War 2?

Answer 18

People wanted to leave cities with high crime rates and limited jobs. There were new jobs in the sun belt.
Heavy industry declined so job opportunities in the North were reduced.
People wanted to go home to their families.

Question 19

How many race riots happened in the ‘Red Summer’ 1919?

Answer 19

26

Question 20

Briefly outline the 1919 Chicago riots.

Answer 20

The riots were caused by competition for housing, black people being discouraged from joining trade unions and bad living conditions in black spaces.
The trigger was a young man who tried to enter a public beach reserved for white people. He was attacked and drowned.
The riots lasted 5 days. 38 people, 23 of them black, died.

Question 21

Briefly outline the 1921 Tulsa race riot.

Answer 21

A young black American was accused of assaulting a white girl in a lift. The Tulsa Tribune published fictitious exaggerations of the event and 2000 white people tried to lynch the young man. Some black sympathisers tried to protect him.
Greenwood, a predominantly black area, was attacked and about 300 black Americans were killed and 1000 homes and businesses were destroyed.
The intensity of the attack led to half of Tulsa’s black population leaving the city.

Question 22

Briefly outline the 1965 Watts riot in Los Angeles.

Answer 22

Over 3’500 rioters participated for 4 days. They protested against poor housing and unemployment prospects, as well as police harassment.
The riot broke out because a young motorist was arrested under suspicion of drunk driving. As onlookers gathered, the scene became more tense and it erupted into violence.

Question 23

Briefly outline the 1967 Newark riot.

Answer 23

It started because, after various events of police brutality, a black Taxi driver was arrested for allegedly assaulting a police officer. The rioting lasted four days.
Additional tension was there because of housing segregation and the use of land to build the New Jersey College of Medicine and Dentistry instead of using it to relieve the black housing problem.

Question 24

What was the Kerner Commission?

Answer 24

A commission to report on the causes of riots. President L. Johnson set it up in response to the Newark riot and similar events nationwide.

Question 25

What is de facto segregation?

Answer 25

Segregation by private individuals rather than legislation. An example is housing segregation due to landlords not renting to black people.

Question 26

How did major US cities become racially segregated?

Answer 26

Black people moved from the South and rural areas to cities. As people earned more, white people moved to suburban neighbourhoods and black people lived in urban, often crowded areas. Some examples include the Bronx, Harlem and the South Side of Chicago.

Question 27

Why was there racial tension in cities in the 60s?

Answer 27

Because of significant differences in black and white neighbourhoods. This included wages, quality of life, access to facilities and segregation.

Question 28

What are Levittowns?

Answer 28

Suburban communities of affordable private housing, initially for white residents only.

Question 29

Why was the implementation of desegregation slow in the Old South?

Answer 29

Massive white resistance from the governments and individuals, violence and intimidation. The South had always managed to loophole their way into keeping racist laws and policies, so the resistance to changing that must have been massive.

Question 30

What did the Voting Rights Act do?

Answer 30

It gave black people the right to vote. Black people were elected to Congress for southern districts, and they were elected mayors for major southern cities as well.

Question 31

What did the 1954 brown v Board of Education SCOTUS ruling decide?

Answer 31

That racially segregated public schools were unconstitutional.

Question 32

What did the Alexander v Holmes County School Board SCOTUS ruling decide?

Answer 32

It ordered the immediate desegregation of public schools in the South.

Question 33

What did the Charlotte Mecklenburg cases deal with?

Answer 33

Transporting students by bus to promote integration in public schools.

Question 34

Which laws gave black Americans full civil rights?

Answer 34

The 1964 Civil Rights Act and The 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Question 35

Why did not all black Americans benefit from the legal changes made in the mid-60s?

Answer 35

Some managed to receive college educations and developed into a black middle class, and others stayed in the same housing and poorly-paid jobs. This bifurcation became a feature of southern society from 1970 to 2009.