#19 AIM: Why did Racism Increase in the US During the 19^th Century?

Blacks had been first brought to North America in 1619 into Virginia. Whites rationalized their need to have a slave black population by declaring that blacks were inferior to whites & that it was the white’s duty to educate, civilize, & convert blacks to Christianity. This system lasted until the end of the Civil War.

US blacks gained their freedom after the Civil War, but when ______________ ended, southern blacks began to lose their rights. Many southern states passed restrictive Jim Crow laws that almost completely eliminated the freedmen’s ability to vote, and limited or segregated the contact between the two races.

Southern blacks could do little about this system of segregation. In the famous Supreme Court decision of 1896, in Plessy vs. Ferguson, the Court ruled that there could be separate facilities for the races as long as those facilities, ( parks, schools, railroad cars, hospitals etc.) were equal or of the same quality. The problem was that the facilities for blacks were vastly inferior to those of whites. This ruling remained the law of the land until the Court overturned Plessy in 1954 in the Brown Vs Board of Education of 1954.

Two famous black leaders, Booker T Washington & W.E.B. DuBois had opposing ideas on how Blacks could achieve equality in the US. Washington believed that there could be a small degree in segregation & that blacks should be trained in the trades to be carpenters, farmers, mechanics & other trades. Washington, a former slave, was educated at Hampton Institute, the first all black college created by the _________

_____________. He went on to found Tuskegee Institute, in Alabama, where he hired __________ ____________ _____________ who did his famous experiments on peanuts.

Du Bois, raised in Massachusetts, & the first black to earn a doctorate from Harvard College, felt that blacks should be a complete part of US society. He encouraged blacks to become professionals, such as doctors, lawyers, teachers, scientists etc. He was also one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peoples the nation’s oldest & largest Civil Rights organization.

In the West violence against Asians, particularly ____________, led Congress, in 1882, to pass the Chinese Exclusion Act which prevented Chinese immigration into the US. In the Southwest, blacks & particularly Mexicans were forced to work for very low wages & in some instances were not permitted to own property.

HOMEWORK: Read pgs 624 – 629. Do pg. 623 ques. 3A & B. & pg. 630 ques. 7. Do pg. 626 T & N # 1,2,3,5-8. Tomorrow we will review the homework & review some material then have a test the next day!