Introduction to the Progressive Era
Introduction to the Progressive Era
Segregation & Social Issues
African Americans Lose Freedoms
Southern governments enacted various measures aimed at disenfranchising, or taking away the voting rights of, African Americans & enacted Jim Crow Laws.
Jim Crow Laws – Segregation laws enacted in the South after Reconstruction.
(Segregates blacks and whites in all public facilities.)
Widespread segregation became a reality. There were Jim Crow railroad cars, jury boxes and bibles, cemeteries, restaurants, parks, beaches, hospitals, etc.
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
▪ The Facts: In 1890, Louisiana pass a law allowing railroads to provide “separate but equal” facilities. Home Plessy, an A.A., sat in the car reserved for whites. He was arrested when he refused to move to the “colored” car.
▪ The Issue: Plessy argued that the Separate Car Act violated the 14th Amendment.
▪ The Decision: A 7 to 1 majority declared that “separate but equal” did not violate the U.S. Constitution. The Court argued that as long as states maintained “separate but equal” facilities, they did not violate the 14th Amendment. In reality, separate but equal facilities were rarely equal.
• Example: In 1915, S.C. spent nearly $14 for every white student but less than $3 for every black student.
Booker T. Washington
Born a slave in 1856, Washington argued that African Americans should not focus their energies on seeking to overturn
Jim Crow Laws.
Washington pushed African Americans to achieve economic equality with whites. He did not advocate immediate social equality because he believed that economic equality would eventually bring equal rights.
W.E.B. Du Bois
Du Bois was a Harvard-educated black historian and sociologist.
Du Bois pushed for both equal economic and social rights for
African Americans.
He disagreed with Booker T. Washington, that economic success
was the key to equality. He also argued that Washington wrongly
shifted the burden of achieving equality from the nation to the
“Negro’s shoulders” alone.
Ida B. Wells
Wells owned a newspaper called Free Speech in Tennessee. She wrote numerous articles that condemned the mistreatment of blacks.
Wells spoke out against lynching. Wells was run out of town, but continued her crusade against lynching.
Women Make Gains and Suffers and Setbacks
Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton formed the
National Women Suffrage Association to fight
for a constitutional amendment that would grant women the
right to vote.
By the time of Anthony’s death in 1906,
only four western states had granted
women the right to vote.
One gain that women did achieve was
the number of women attending college.
-----------------------
Poll Tax
Required voters to pay a tax to vote.
Costs voters $1 or $2 to vote.
Poor African Americans could scarcely
afford such a fee.
Grandfather Clauses
Allowed a person to vote as long as his ancestors had voted prior to 1866.
Literacy Test
Test of a potential voter’s ability to
read and write.
A.A. had been denied an education.
This restriction
disqualified many from voting.
................
................
In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.
To fulfill the demand for quickly locating and searching documents.
It is intelligent file search solution for home and business.
Related searches
- during the romantic era composers
- the reconstruction era facts
- the reconstruction era packet answers
- the reconstruction era books
- was the reconstruction era good
- the reconstruction era answer key
- how long did the neolithic era last
- progressive era today
- immigration during the progressive era
- reasons for immigration during the progressive era
- what effects did the neolithic era have
- progressive era immigration acts