1. The Jim Crow system
1.1. racial caste system
1.2. Jim Crow represented the legitimization of anti-black racism
1.3. excluded blacks from public transport and facilities, juries, jobs, and neighborhoods.
1.4. Jim Crow states passed statutes severely regulating social interactions between the races
1.5. Blacks who violated Jim Crow norms, for example, drinking from the white water fountain or trying to vote, risked their homes, their jobs, even their lives.
2. The Spanish War
2.1. U.S.S. Maine blown up in Havana harbor
2.2. Congress hurriedly appropriated $50 million to prepare the nation for war
2.3. McKinley asked Congress for authority to use military force to end the Cuban conflict. Essentially, this was a declaration of war.
2.4. . In the four months of fighting, Americans had lost a total of 460 soldiers in battle
3. Questions
3.1. What was the impact of Jim Crow laws?
3.1.1. These laws were intended to restrict social contact between whites and other groups and to limit the freedom and opportunity of people of color.
3.2. Can we read the Spanish American War as a continuation of manifest destiny? Why?
3.2.1. No. The Cuban struggle was heightened by the fact that the rebels attacked the U.S.S Maine. A declaration of war was only absolute in obliterationg the threat the Cubans presented to the American people.
3.3. What are the similarities between the Spanish American War and the War with Mexico?
3.3.1. Both wars took place on foreign land. Both displaced many people.
3.4. What does it mean to be white in the US?
3.4.1. It meant that you were a descendant from peoples of Northwest Europe.
3.5. How does one become white in the US?
3.5.1. Becoming white included joining the middle class and assimilating into mainstream culture.
3.6. What were the differences and similarities of the process of becoming white for Italians and Jews?
3.6.1. Because the need for new professions to uphold the new postwar economy was a necessity it became easy to assimilate Jews and Itialians into white society. However, differences in this process were attributed to different religious beliefs.
4. Plessy vs Ferguson
4.1. shoemaker named Homer Plessy was jailed for sitting in the "White" car of the East Louisiana Railroad
4.2. Plessy went to court and argued, in Homer Adolph Plessy v. The State of Louisiana, that the Separate Car Act violated the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution
4.3. Plessy was found guilty in both state and national trials
4.4. The Plessy decision set the precedent that "separate" facilities for blacks and whites were constitutional as long as they were "equal." The "separate but equal" doctrine was quickly extended to cover many areas of public life, such as restaurants, theaters, restrooms, and public schools.
5. Reconstruction & its aftermath
5.1. The Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 freed African Americans in rebel states, and after the Civil War, the Thirteenth Amendment emancipated all U.S. slaves wherever they were.
5.2. Reconstruction aimed at reorganizing the Southern states after the Civil War, providing the means for readmitting them into the Union
5.3. African Americans enjoyed a period when they were allowed to vote, actively participate in the political process, acquire the land of former owners, seek their own employment, and use public accommodations.
5.4. Opponents of this progress, however, soon rallied against the former slaves' freedom and began to find means for eroding the gains for which many had shed their blood.
6. How did the Jews become white folks?
6.1. Jews immigrated to United States like many ther ethnicities
6.2. Red Scare of 1919 linked anti-immigrant with anti-working class sentiment.
6.3. Children of Jews in 1930s era would flock to colleges. After WWII anti-Semetisism lost it's hold on American society.
6.4. Economic prosperity played a powerful role in the "whitening process". Economic mobility of Jews and other Euro-ethnics derived ultimately from America's postwar economic prosperity. It's need for professional, technical, and manageerial labor was a contributor in including such ethnics into white society.
7. White Negros and Smoked Irish
7.1. Throughout most of the eighteenth century, Ireland was governed under a series of codes which have become known collectively as the Penal Laws
7.1.1. Penal Laws regulated every aspect of Irish life, civil, domestic, and spiritual.
7.2. From 1815 to the Famine, between 800,000 and one million Irish- (about twice the total for the previous two centuries-sailed for North America.
7.2.1. On their arrival in America, the Irish were thrown together with black people on jobs and in neighborhoods.