GCSE (9-1) History the USA: Conflict at Home and Abroad KEY TOPIC 1 REVISION NOTES

Key Topic 1: Revision notes

Early 1950’s

Segregation and discrimination

All across the USA, black mericans faced segregation (separating groups of people based on race or religion)and discrimination (treating people unfairly because of their race or religion).

Segregation in the North was caused by discrimination. Black people usually had the worst paid jobs and lived in poorest parts in towns and cities (ghettos).

However segregation in the south was different .Racist state laws called ‘Jim Crows laws’ enforced segregation.  Many areas of land were racially separated e.g. cinemas, buses and black children couldn't go to the nearest ‘white school’.They had to walk or catch a bus for long journeys to black schools.

Attitudes in the South

 Southern whites were brought up to see blacks as racially inferior: lazy and unintelligent

Whites called blacks by their first names, or ‘boy’ or ‘girl’ and they didn’t shake hands with blacks because it was sign of equality

Whites who objected to discrimination faced the same violence as black people

The police and law courts in the South were full of racist white officials who did not support complaints by blacks. Many policemen and judges were KKK members

Blacks were beaten and forced to confess to crimes they did not commit

They were imprisoned for no reason and often represented in court by white lawyers who made no effort to defend them

Few black people in Southern towns could find work in factories, even in the lowest paid jobs

Effects of the Second World War (1939-45)

ü  Over a million black Americans fought in WW2, in segregated units

ü  Millions worked in factories, making weapons or doing the jobs of those who had gone to fight

ü  They hoped for more equality, some white people were more open to civil rights after the war; especially for White Americans who had worked with blacks for the first time

ü  Racial inequality was a political embarrassment to the USA

ü  In the Cold War, opponents used the example of black Americans to show that it did not even give freedom to its own citizens

ü  This put pressure on the federal government to improve the situation of black Americans, especially in the South

Voting Rights

Ways white people stopped black people from voting:

ü  Threatening to fire black employees if they registered to vote or voted

ü  Physically stopping black Americans to vote and often beating them up

ü  Beating up and even murdering those who would defend their right to vote in court, even the lawyers and civil rights activists who helped

ü  State passing laws to make it harder for black people to vote.

ü  Most states used literacy tests to register to vote. A common tactic was to give black people harder test than white people

Civil Rights groups

NAACP

ü  The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) set up in 1909 by WEB Dubois…