ARGUMENT 1: A Time of Oppression?
1. Supremacism and routine racism
WASPs believed they were genetically superior, harder-working, and more civilised than other races, supported by eugenicist 'science.'
Discrimination was embedded in US society against immigrants, African Americans, Native Americans, and Mexicans.
2. Hostility to Immigrants
Linked to the 'Red Scare.'
3. American Government and laws
Govt refused to ban lynching or give Black Americans the vote.
CORRIGAN V BUCKLEY (1926) upheld segregation in housing via racial covenants.
Police targeted minorities with discriminatory enforcement and harsher court sentences.
Unions like the AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR excluded non-white workers.
4. Jim Crow Laws
SEGREGATION laws in the South denied Black Americans equal education, voting rights, and civil freedoms.
Banned interracial marriage (MISCEGENATION).
5. Ku Klux Klan (KKK)
By 1925, 5m members supported WASP supremacy, targeting Black Americans, Jews, Catholics, and immoral groups like alcoholics.
Members, mostly middle-class whites, wore white hoods and marched with burning crosses. They spoke with each other in secret KLONVERSATIONS.
Used violence (e.g., intimidation, lynching) but also advocated local improvements.
Reasons for growth (192024):
Anglo-Saxon racism & nativism / Post-WWI disillusionment / Immigration-driven economic instability
/ social networks (Klaverns) / Anti-modernism & cultural backlash / Media promotion of their activities
/ Support for prohibition and anti-Catholic & anti-Jewish sentiment / Local political influence
6. Lynchings
White mobs (often ignored by police) lynched Black Americans they suspected of crimes.
7. Even in the North
Most Black Americans were stuck in low-paid jobs (e.g., janitors, waiters, dishwashers).
Racial violence occurred; in 1919, CHICAGO riots after a Black man drifted into a whites-only swimming area.
ARGUMENT 2: A Time of Flowering?
1. Role models
Figures like JESSE OWENS (sprinter) and JOSEPHINE BAKER (dancer) inspired hope and pride.
2. HARLEM RENAISSANCE
Cultural flourishing in Harlem focused on jazz, poetry, art, and architecture.
'ARTISTIC ACTION' aimed to win equality by proving Black talent and equality.
3. Identity
Alain Locke's THE NEW NEGRO (1925) urged Black Americans to reject stereotypes like 'Uncle Tom'.
Black newspapers/magazines spread the idea that 'Black is Beautiful.'
4. NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE
The NAACP (1909) fought for civil rights.
5. One-and-a-half million Black Americans moved North
The Great Migration from the South to the North created a new Black middle class.
Many gained university educations despite often being stuck in low-paying jobs.
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