Black History Month: We Shall Overcome

Following a brief intercession during Reconstruction in the South, white Americans resumed subjecting African Americans to legal and extralegal persecution. From 1868 to 1915, southern states passed "Jim Crow" laws that disenfranchised most black, and some white, citizens. Many states required citizens to pay poll taxes, take literacy tests, and meet property qualifications in order to vote.

Since most blacks were poor, landless, and illiterate, this dramatically decreased their voting influence. "Grandfather clauses," added to many southern state constitutions, eliminated rights gained by the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. While the amendment prohibited discrimination against citizens on the basis of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, the grandfather clause made the exercise of civic liberties contingent upon whether the individual's grandfather had possessed that right.

When legal restrictions did not always work, some private citizens resorted to terrorism and violence through formation of the Ku Klux Klan. Although the Klan had all but disappeared in the South by the early twentieth century, bands of white citizens continued to attack black individuals and communities. Lynching of blacks reached alarming proportions. In 1910 alone, mobs lynched 67 blacks and nine whites in the United States.

The election of President Obama signals a dramatic and symbolic change in the attitude of white Americans toward African Americans; but a significant gap in economic and social equality still remain to be overcome. Today's students need to understand the obstacles and laws created in the southern states that drove African Americans to the urban northern cities in their quest for a better life. That quest continues today.

Pathfinder 1: Click the icon for The 1920s > Intolerance

Pathfinder 2: Click the icon for 1910 > Race and Ethnicity

Assign students to write a report of at least 150 words that cites at least three resources. Student reports should address essential questions that integrate critical thinking. The following are examples, but teachers can create others:

• Who were the leaders of the Ku Klux Klan and what were their goals?
• What were some of the obstacles created by states to prevent African Americans from enjoying their rights as citizens?
• What organizations did African Americans create to spearhead their fight for equality?
• What opportunities did African Americans hope to find in the North?
• How was life different in the North than in the South?

Use our custom ProQuest models for written or PowerPoint reports written and PowerPoint-style reports.

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