Racial and Political Intolerance in the 1920s.

Racial and Political Intolerance in the 1920s. BY: WEST, KISSY, DANIELLE & ZACK 

Copy this on your paper  Red Scare

Main Idea

Important Facts (Dates/ People)

KKK

Monkey Trial

Vanishing Americans

Immigration  Nearly 9 million people immigrated to the US from

1901-1910  Immigrants were mostly Jews, Eastern Europeans, and Italians. They were looked down on by more established immigrants like Germans and Irish.

Red Scare  After the Bolshevik Revolution, Americans feared

immigrants would bring radical ideas to America  In 1919 400,000 workers went on strike, which at the time was seen as a sign of Communist influence  American suspicions were not entirely false, as Anarchists did distribute pamphlets, and bombs went off in multiple cities.

Sacco and Vanzetti  Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were arrested

for armed robbery and murder in 1920.  During their trial, it was discovered they were anarchists. The trial became more about their radical beliefs than their crimes  They were convicted based on weak evidence and executed in 1927.

Sacco and Vanzetti

Questions  What effect did immigration have on the Red Scare?  Why were Palmer’s purges initially so popular?  What does the Sacco and Vanzetti trial show about

prejudices in the 1920’s?

Immigration Quotas  In 1924 because of the fear of radicals the

government restricted immigration.  They created a system that primarily only let immigrants from north-west Europe(British, Irish, & German) in to the U.S.  Before more than a million immigrants a year wer coming in the U.S. between 1901 and 1910 and by 1929 only 150,000 per year were coming into the U.S.

The Experience of black Americans  The first black people were brought to America as

slaves by white settlers in the seventeenth century.  When slavery was ended in the nineteenth century there was more black than white people in the southern United States.  The whites feared that the blacks would gain power so they placed many laws restricting their freedom such as they couldn’t vote, denied access to good jobs, and good education.

The Ku Klux Klan  They were a white supremacy movement.  Used violence to intimidate black Americans.  Was declining in numbers until the film The Birth of a Nation

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was released in 1915. The film showed the KKK as being good and defending decent American values against renegade black people and corrupt white businessmen. President Wilson supported the movie by saying how true it all was which led to political figures in the klan. After the KKK started to grow again blacks faced fierce racism and were lynched without trial if suspected of a crime. Soon most blacks left the rural south and went to the big cities of the north.

Klan meeting of the KKK

Questions:  Which part of Europe did the U.S. allow into the

country as immigrants?  What was the purpose of the Ku Klux Klan?

Mitchell Palmer  In 1919, one of these bombs almost killed Mitchell

Palmer, the US Attorney General.  Palmer then appointed J Edgar Hoover to handle “purges.”  From 1919-1920, Hoover notified 10,000 supposed radicals that they would be deported.  Palmer saw his purges were popular, and tried to build popularity to run for president. However, it was discovered that only 556 of Hoover’s cases had any fact to them.

Improvements on black society  Growing Black middle class in the north  Better chance of jobs and education in north

(Howard University)  ‘Black Capitalist’ Movement  Harlem Renaissance: celebration of music and creativity in black society.  Blacks entered Politics: WEB DuBois founder of NAACP, campaigned to end racial segregation laws. Marcus Garvey UNIA, urged blacks to be proud of their race.

Improvements of black society

Problems with Black Society  Blacks lived in poverty in the north. Poorer housing

with higher rent.  Suffered prejudice from whites.  Poorer education than whites.  Blacks migrants from south were blamed by middle class black in the north for intensifying white racism.

Questions:  What was celebrated at the Harlem Renaissance?  Who was the founder of the Universal Negro

Improvement Association (UNIA)?

Vanishing Native Americans  Almost disappeared as an ethic group in the 19th

century- 1.5 million to 250,000 in the 1920s  Those who survived were forced to leave their traditional way of life and live on reservations

Vanishing Native Americans

Vanishing Americans  12 thousand had served in the armed forces in World

War One.  Changed white attitudes towards them for the better  However, the census in 1920 and a survey proved that Native Americans were living in poverty:  They had lower life expectancy, bad health, poorer education and poorer paid jobs.

Continue  Native Americans were extremely discriminated

against. They were loosing land quickly:  Mining companies were legally able to seize their land. Others gave up on trying to live their way of life traditionally, giving land to others in search of other jobs.  1924: they were given citizenship and were able to vote.  1934- New Deal introduced reforms to laws relating to Native Americans

Monkey Trial  Focus of ill-feeling between the rural and urban

areas of the United States: rural areas were completely religious, urban areas believed Darwin’s theory of evolution  Rural areas were Protestants and were Fundamentalists- led by William Jennings Bryan  Urban areas taught Darwin’s theory to the children

Monkey Trial  Bryan passed a law forbidding schools to teach

Darwin’s theory in six states.  John Scopes deliberately broke this law to be arrested and put a case up against fundamentalism in the court system.  In July 1925 both sides had good lawyers and went to court in Tennessee. Traditionalists joined the battle  Scopes was convicted of breaking the law but Bryan was proved to be ignorant and confused about religion and science- anti-evolution lobby never recovered.

Monkey Trial

Review:  Why were Native Americans loosing a lot of their

land?  Why was 1924 a turning point for Native Americans?  What was the cause of ill-feeling between the urbans and rural areas?  What was the outcome of the Monkey Trial?