S EGREGATION AND S OCIAL T ENSION 16.1

O BJECTIVES Assess how whites created a segregated society in the South and how African Americans responded. Analyze efforts to limit immigration and the effects. Compare the situations of Mexican Americans and of women to those of other groups.

K EY P ARTS African Americans Lose Freedoms African Americans Oppose Justices Chinese Immigrants Face Discrimination Mexican Americans Struggle in the West Women Make Gains and Suffer Setbacks

I NTRODUCTION Read section 16.1 Answer Questions 4-6

A FRICAN A MERICANS L OSE F REEDOMS During Reconstruction the federal government focused on equal rights for African Americans. However, by the Gilded Age the minorities began to face a narrowing of their rights. Hays was elected in 1876 and pulled out all of the troops in the South. This allowed southern states to reassert their control over the African American population.

C ONT. The southern governments were primarily focused on the disenfranchising or taking away the voting rights of African Americans. The same governments enacted the Jim Crow Laws; which were laws segregating whites and blacks. One of the major issues for the south inregards to completing this action was the fifteenth amendment.

C ONT.. The fifteenth amendment prohibited state governments from denying someone the right to vote because of race, color or previous servitude. The southern governments worked around this by enacting the poll tax which required voters to pay a tax to vote. Most African Americans could not afford the tax thus, not being able to vote.

C ONT … As a result, black participation in politics fell dramatically. In Louisiana the number of blacks registered to vote went from 130,000 in 1894 to just over 1,300 in Due to the Jim Crow laws segregation became a huge issue. In court case Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Jim Crow laws. Stating as long as the facilities were “separate but equal” it did not violate the fourteenth amendment.

A FRICAN A MERICANS O PPOSE I NJUSTICES African Americans never gave up on their rights, even during the toughest times of the Jim Crow Laws. They established black newspapers, women’s clubs, fraternal organizations, schools and colleges. The most famous black leader during the late nineteenth century was Booker T. Washington.

C ONT. Booker T. Washington did not focus on overturning Jim Crow, instead, he called for blacks to “pull themselves up from their own bootstraps” by building up their economic resources and establishing their reputations as hardworking and honest citizens. W.E.B. Du Bois criticized Washington’s willingness to accommodate southern whites. He argued that blacks should demand full and immediate equality and not limit themselves to vocational education.

C HINESE I MMIGRANTS F ACE D ISCRIMINATION During the same time the Jim Crow Laws arose in the South, Chinese immigrants faced racial prejudice on the west coast. In 1879 California barred cities from employing people of Chinese ancestry. In the same year Congress responded to these issues by passing the Chinese Exclusion Act, which prohibited Chinese laborers from entering the country.

M EXICAN A MERICANS S TRUGGLE IN THE W EST The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that was signed at the end of the Mexican American War, guaranteed the property rights of Mexicans who lived in the Southwest prior to the war. At this point however four out of five Mexican Americans who lived in New Mexico lost their land, this occurred in several other southwestern states.

C ONT. One of the major issues why the Mexican- Americans struggled to have land was the fact they had no representation in government to argue their case. A group of Mexicans took matters in their own hands (Las Gorras Blancas). They would cut holes in the barbed wire fences of the white farmers and burn houses. This caused major issues and began anti- Mexican groups in the United States.

W OMEN M AKE G AINS AND S UFFER S ETBACKS Before the Civil War women played a prominent role in many reform movements. Susan B. Anthony was one of the major reformers. She favored the abolishment of slavery and fought for the right for women to vote. She voted in an election in 1872 and was tried and convicted of illegal action. This stemmed other women's rights groups (suffrage groups) such as Frances Willard's Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU)