SEGREGATION AND DISCRIMINATION IN AMERICA VIDEO
Jan 02, 2016
SEGREGATION AND DISCRIMINATION IN AMERICA
VIDEO
RACISM CAUSES DISCRIMINATION
• Reconstruction allowed southern blacks to gain political power.
• Reconstruction ended in 1877 and southern states began to restrict African American rights.
RESTRICTION ON VOTING RIGHTS
• Literacy (reading) test – unfair exams – some were written in Latin
• Poll Taxes – African Americans in the South did not have enough money to pay the tax.
• Grandfather clause
PLESSY V. FERGUSON
• Homer Plessy, an African American male in 1892 sued a railroad company arguing that segregated seating violated his 14th Amendment Rights – “equal protection of the laws”
• The Supreme Court ruled against Plessy saying that – “separate but equal” facilities did not violate the 14th Amendment
SEPARATE BUT EQUAL• Separate facilities were not equal.
• White controlled companies and government allowed the facilities for African Americans to decay.
VIOLENCE IN THE SOUTH• KKK – used violence to enforce segregation
• More than 2,500 African Americans were lynched between 1885 and 1900
• Ida B. Wells – journalist – three of her friends were lynched to she started an anti-lynching campaign in her newspaper
VIOLENCE IN THE NORTH• Many African Americans moved North to escape
discrimination and segregation
• Black could not get housing in white neighborhoods