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Early 1950s + Opposition to progress - Coggle Diagram
Early 1950s + Opposition to progress
Segregation + Discrimination
Jim Crow laws - enforced segregation and varied from state to state but they all separated blacks and whites.
Black children could not go to the nearest school if it was a white school. They had to walk or catch the bus to the nearest black school which might not have heating or textbooks because far less money was spent on the black schools.
Southern states could pass and enforce segregation laws because of the two levels of government in USA.
Attitudes in the south
White people were brought up to see black people as racially inferior - They thought they were childlike, lazy and unintelligent
Black people struggled to get jobs even in the lowest paid ones.
White people were disrespectful to the black Americans and called them by their first names.
White southerners would not shake hands with black people because that was a sign of equality.
The few white southerners who objected to discrimination were called white niggers and faced the same violence as black Americans.
The police and law courts were mainly racist white officials who did not support complaints by black people - In the deep south many policemen and judges were members of the KKK. The officials that were meant to protect them were often members of the racist white groups that were threatening them.
Black people were regularly beaten up to get them to confess to crimes they did not commit - They were unfairly imprisoned, and black people could not sit on juries.
It a black person murder another black person it was dismissed as a negro crime and often not investigated.
The effect of the second world war
Black people hoped for more civil rights after the war, after working more equally with white people during the war.
Some white people were more open to equality after working for the first time with black Americans.
Racial inequality was an embarrassment for the USA.
During WWII and the Cold war USA was fighting for freedom and democracy.
Their opponents used their treatment of Black Americans to show that they did not give freedom even to their own citizens.
Voting rights
It would have given black people power because the politicians needed votes to get elected - so politicians needed to win black support.
In 1956 around 20% of black Americans were registered to vote - before the war only 3% were registered to vote.
Many white people stopped black Americans from voting through official and unofficial methods.
White employers threatened to sack black employees if they registered to vote or voted.
White gangs physically beat up black Americans who were trying to vote. (KKK)
Black people who went to court to defend their right to vote faced beatings or even murder.
States set up their own rules for state elections - some passed laws making it harder for black people to vote.
Most states had a ;literacy qualification to register to vote (reading a passage of text or passing a written test.) - Black Americans were given harder tests to prevent them voting.