Southern States Pose Threat Against African Americans After World WarⅠ By: Owen Aanestad As our American troops make their way back from the grewling win in Europe, America is more alive than ever before. Making a big contribution was the African Americans of the south. Supplying troops and supplies like many of the other Americans, the African Americans thought this would bring them closer to the country and be accepted as a normal citizen. Coming back from World War l these African Americans did not see the changes they wanted to see as they returned to the south. This is creating a problem that could lead to catastrophe and needs to be fixed immediately. Ways of life were just like they were before the war in the south according to African Americans things like education segregation, Jim Crow Laws, and the Ku Klux Klan. Schools for people of color were the most common in the
south as the local government and school district demanded kids of color away from their white kids. African Americans things like education segregation, Jim Crow Not only African Americans were affected by school segregation. A school district in Birmingham, Alabama told the father of Martha Lum, a Chinese American student that she also had to attend school of color. “All members of the brown, yellow, red, and black races are colored,” the Birmingham School District said. This offend the “colored people” of the south. Birmingham also declared that each public service had to be marked which color was able to use it. Jim Crow, in 1838 became a pejorative name for African Americans, this is how Jim Crow Laws got their name today. These laws enforced segregation in the south. 2
This is the separation of blacks and whites in daily life in a city. For example bathrooms identified as black use and white use, this also was true for water fountains and stores. These laws were very aggravating to African Americans in the south. This is one of the things coming back from World War l they thought would be fixed, it wasn’t and it is causing a problem for the south and African Americans. African Americans did try to fight against these laws. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was one of the biggest things striving in this direction. People are stepping up for African Americans, like Booker T. Washington who is voicing his concerns in the media letting the people know about this problem. The Ku Klux Klan is a white supremacy group spreading throughout the south at this moment. It's mostly consisted of uneducated white Americans against the idea of foreigners and immigrants.
The klan mostly attacks in acts of violence against these people. Throughout the south many African Americans were being burned, lynched, and blatenty killed for the color of their skin. These crimes against African Americans are common ways to promote the klan, media sources are covering these types of stories. But also aggravating African Americans. Groups of people were formed against the Ku Klux Klan but people didn’t respect the African Americans enough believe them. After World War l this is one of the biggest things that affected African Americans. We as the people of America need to start showing respect for people that put their lives on the line for ours and there’s country. Through school segregation in the south migrating towards the education of both in one building is the goal. Jim Crow Laws start to be ignored and step over the line for what people believe, resulting in good and bad spreading throughout the south. 3
Finally the Ku Klux Klan is the hardest to result in positivity. As a country we hope to promote the good instead of the bad to have everyone come together as America in the 1920s for the past and the future.
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Jazz Has Taken the United States by STORM, How is This Form of Music Changing Our Country? By: Shalynn Scheets The Jazz age brought people together through the sounds of music. The sounds of the blues could let the people throw away their troubles and dance. It brought out the life in people who needed to just get away from their daily routine and dance the night away. Jazz called people from the streets to dance and have fun. Blaring trumpets, hot Clarinets, and booming Drums could be heard up and down the streets. The exuberant, carefree music with a driving rhythm and a blistering melody let people forget the world. Jazz got people to “Brush off” their troubles and dance away throughout the night. Jazz is a form of expression and a way for people to express themselves. It’s their “explosive” attempt to cast off their blues and be happy. It is a revolt of emotions against repression.
Jazz is rejuvenation and hope. Jazz took the country by storm, many dressing establishments were advertising Jazz styles of clothing. Jazz is a popular genre, lots of people liked how it sounded but there were some people who thought it was awful. Cotton Clubs played Jazz music for people to enjoy but some of those who didn’t agree with the music started throwing bombs into these clubs to cause hysteria. In conclusion, Jazz is a powerful music genre. People far and wide loved to enjoy the sounds of the blues and castaway their troubles and doubts. Yes, there were those who thought Jazz was awful. They did cause damage to the clubs and those who liked the music genre, but it was still played. Eventually Jazz was accepted and loved for what it was. 5
The Segregated Cities of America Create Obstacles for African Americans in the Aftermath of WW1 By: Kenadee Showalter How do you see our world today? Is it equal? In today’s society, Black Americans are faced with challenges consisting of inequality, when people aren’t treated the same way, Jim Crow Laws that are there to allow blacks to be on the lesser half of whites and rioting. The worst one of them all, is the terrible treatment due to the race rioters. Not just the Jim Crow Laws enable segregation, but also the people of towns and cities do so, so these people and things make it possible for the majority of these actions to happen. The African Americans of our country are being treated in an unacceptable manner due to inequality. Blacks are being treated in an inappropriate way. On April 18th, 2 white police officers suddenly shot 5 African American males, seriously injuring them.
There was no found reason for this violent action. Whites came to the blacks neighborhoods and violate them by vandalizing their homes. There are newspaper articles on these situations that have been going on for several months. Blacks have been drowned to death, dragged out of their own cars and stoned and left blacks dead in the lake etc. Current newspapers are being strategically written to favor white Americans, causing the public to have a bad view of the African American population. Rioting has been going on lately and it has affected a lot of people’s lives. Rioters are people who publicly and violently attack groups in a disturbing way. One black man named Ossian Sweet, a physician in Detroit, was attacked by vandalism and physical force a couple of months ago. 7
Sweet had recently hired a few body guards to protect him in his neighborhood and his family. Rioters had then attacked two of his brothers in the street. The brothers were using self-defense by shooting/attacking back from inside the house but are being found guilty for injuring people even though all they were doing was protecting themselves. This shows that even the judges and people of the community are taking the wrong side. Jim Crow Laws have become apparent recently. They basically say that blacks are not as important compared to whites. Some of the examples are: blacks can’t shake hands with whites because that would mean the races are “equal”, the black person would have to ride in the backseat of the car or the trunk if they riding in the same car with a white person, if a black person tries to shake hands with a white lady he could get tried for rape, no one ever calls white people by their first name but they call blacks by first name and last but not least, blacks can
if a black person tries to shake hands with a white lady he could get tried for rape, no one ever calls white people by their first name but they call blacks by first name and last but not least, blacks can not show affection to each other in public because it offends the white population. This is totally unfair to the blacks and they can’t do anything about it because they don’t have anyone in office or leaders in the community. In conclusion, the challenges faced by blacks are inequality, rioting and the Jim Crow Laws that are not right and the race rioting has to end. We are going to try to find a way to cut this off or limit the terrible treatment. Hopefully after all of the segregation is gone, all of these problems have disappeared, and everyone is treated fairly and equally.
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The pride and creativity of harlem By: Mukucha Omari What is the Harlem
Renaissance, and what is it contributing to American culture? The Harlem Renaissance, is testament to black people’s perseverance. Sounding call of black innovation, freedom and creativity. Black culture can be viewed through the Harlem Renaissance emphasis on literature, music, plays and pride. The African American pride, African American began to earn publicity acknowledgement at the national stage especially the music, art, theater and literature, the perspective of white culture, this emergence appeared sudden.
For decades much of blacks arts had been assimilated into the national culture without any conscious acknowledgement, the sacred music from black churches became popular spirituals sung by all church goers. Festus claude Mckay, early poems were written in the dialect of black country folk, moved to New York to wrote for radical socialist journals. Founded american society hopelessly corrupted by racism and greed, his work spoke out primarily against racism and greed which won him the label the enfant terrible of harlem. Washington, when he looked at blacks he saw 10
people barely able to survive, his logic about blacks was they needed jobs instead of equality and he believed that pursuing any higher learning was impractical and dangerous for blacks, he find Tuskegee normal school that trained blacks for jobs. It connected with harlem renaissance of how some of the artist went there like Mckay. Jean Toomer’s brilliant novel, the novel Cane was of the first books published by the white establishment to depict African American characters and culture genuinely, rather than caricatures, the novel and the literature it inspired reject the old stereotype and substituted instead idea of self respect, self reliance, and racial unity. Jean Toomer was a very first artist of the race with all an artist passion
and sympathy of life, its hurts, its sympathies, its desire surrender or compromise of the artist visions . Aaron Douglas, the most celebrated artist in Harlem Renaissance was often called the “ the father of black american Art “ which he adapted African techniques to realize paintings and murals, as well as book illustration. Augusta Savage, she followed small clay portraits of everyday African American and was later be a success of enlisting black artists into the Federal Art Project, a division of the WPA. James VanDerZee Photography captured harlem daily ife as well as commissioned portraits in his studio that he worked to fill with optimism and separate philosophically from the horrors of the past. 11
Cane
by jean toomer
Cane is a slim miscellany composed of fifteen poems, six brief prose vignettes, seven stories, and a play—all about black life in the 920’s. Have you ever wonder what black life was like in the 1920?
6 Million Moving North By: Jestin Wisemen The Great Migration was a relocation of 6 million African americans,when the african americans left the south to go to the north they created a whole new place. African americans were forced to make living jobs do these things called Black codes and the Jim Crow Law. When southern governments were restored it made rights and new rules such as Nadin. The blacks had rights to vote but now they were discouraged . The crow laws were posed to marginalize african americans. Lynching showed african americans who was the boss. The Ku Klux Klan was dissolved but there continued lying people and using violence .
African americans have a hard time competing with europeans immigrants. Blacks left there home to find jobs and money. African americans had to make a lot of money in industry. They were competing with whites and the whites felt disrespected and unprotected. War was happening and people were encouraging african americans to come north and help them produce new weapons. Thousands of african americans did riots for their rights and freedom.The riots first started out because whites were hostile because of seperation of black community in their own neighborhoods.
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Great Migration
Day in the Life of an African American By: Owen Aanestad, Kenadee Showalter, Shalynn Scheets, Mukucha Omari, and Jestin Wiseman Inman Life is booming as the 1920s continue in the United States. After World War l as African Americans came back from war positives like the Great Migration and the Harlem Renaissance. Also the down sides as African Americans have been forced into segregation and the line of fire for the white supremacy group the Ku Klux Klan. The Great Migration was a good thing for African Americans but not for the southerners. They were able to build a new place among their names. The overall plan for Great Migration was to be able to escape segregation for everyone across the country. The movement was extremely large, not only thousands, but 6 million African Americans left the south to go to the north and west for better opportunities and freedom. Blacks were able to leave the south and go to the north and gain jobs that gave them money also produce weapons for war. African Americans were able to get better jobs and equal rights with whites during the war after. Southerners were not happy that African Americans were
competing with them for jobs or even able to create music. After moving from the racist pressures of the south to the northern states, African Americans were inspired to different kinds of creativity. The Great Migration resulted in the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance made African Americans earn publicity acknowledgment at the national stage of music, art, theatre and literature. The sacred music from black churches became popular sung by all church goers, festus claude Mckay his work of poem spoke out primarily against racism and greed,the novel Cane by jean toomer inspired reject the old stereotype and substituted with racial unity When the Clarinets and Trumpets started making their music, people’s hearts began to soar. The sounds alone are getting people to “brush off” their worries and dance the night away. Far and wide people are listening to Jazz. Going to the clubs, listing to the sounds of the blues, people are starting to feel happy and letting their hopes take flight.
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Letting your troubles and doubts slip away by listening to Jazz, is the best way to let go of your problems and feel free. On the other hand life after World War I for some African Americans is a time that many don’t like to think of. Three big things ruled the time against African Americans school or education segregation, Jim Crow Laws, and the Ku Klux Klan. Cases are being brought to national attention like in Birmingham, Alabama where kids of any race other than white attend a different school and use different public services, while at night lynchings and burnings are happening lead by a white supremacy group, the Ku Klux Klan. African Americans were appalled with the way they were still being treated after putting their life on the line for a country that still doesn’t respect them they way they respect others. Blacks are faced with inequality, racial rioting and laws created by the government to ¨put down” African Americans. Whites treat them with total disrespect and unfairness. They go into blacks neighborhoods and vandalize their homes and belongings. The government recently created laws called the Jim Crow Laws, that discriminate
against the blacks by not letting them live the life that whites get to live. Even officials in the United States have been acting up in a negative way with blacks and not being equal with treatment compared to each of the races. As you can see African Americans are going through the good and bad of their race after World War l. It is either the Great Migration as they moved North to have better opportunities, the sudden boom in music and fun in the Harlem Renaissance brought the new way of expressing people's ideas, jazz. Not everything is good as an African American though, Jim Crow Laws and segregation aggravated African Americans as they are being treated as on of the others in America. Groups like the Ku Klux Klan also is bringing fear to African Americans in their publicity of lynching and burnings. The 1920s are bringing the good and the bad to African Americans throughout America.
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Works Cited Works Cited (Kenadee Showalter) Apollo Theater. www.apollotheater.org/event/historic-tours/. Bessie Smith Singing 1920's. edu.glogster.com/glog/the-harlem-renaissance/2433n3cngou. Bondi, Victor. American Decades: 1930-1939. Detroit, Gale Research, 1995. Domina, Lynn. The Harlem Renaissance. Santa Barbara, Greenwood, an imprint of ABC-CLIO, 2015. Hanson, Erica. The 1920s. San Diego, Lucent Books, 1999. Harlem Painting. blogs.bu.edu/guidedhistory/historians-craft/alexandra-marcus/. Harlem Renaissance. theroaring20satimeforchange.weebly.com/harlem-renaissance.html. Hart, Diane, and Bert Bower. History Alive!: Pursuing American Ideals. Student edition. ed., Rancho Cordova, Teachers' Curriculum Institute, 2013. KKK Burning. nypost.com/2016/06/30/the-ku-klux-klan-is-slowly-rising-again/. KKK March in Washington DC. www.maynardlifeoutdoors.com/2016/05/ku-klux-klan-in-massachusetts-1920s.html. Race Rioting. galleries.apps.chicagotribune.com/chi-vintage-1919-race-riot-photos-20140819/. Rioting in 1920's. www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2013/07/auto_industry_troubles_racial.html. Segregated Water Drinking Fountains. www.trtworld.com/americas/in-pictures-a-look-at-the-journey-of-the-civil-rights-movement-i n-the-us-16584. U.S.A. 1920s. Danbury, Grolier, 2005.
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Works Cited (Aanestad) An African-American youth at a segregated drinking fountain in Halifax, North Carolina, in 1938. Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_segregation. Bondi, Victor. American Decades: 1930-1939. Detroit, Gale Research, 1995. Colored" drinking fountain from mid-20th century with African-American drinking (Original caption: "Negro drinking at "Colored" water cooler in streetcar terminal, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma"). July 1939. Wikipedia Commons, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%22Colored%22_drinking_fountain_from_mid-20th_century_wi th_african-american_drinking.jpg. File:Ku Klux Klan at a gathering near Kingston, Ontario in 1927.jpg. Wikipedia Commons, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ku_Klux_Klan_at_a_gathering_near_Kingston,_Ontario_in_1927.jpg. Gallery Slideshow File:Charles County, Maryland. Upper-grade pupils in the Waldorf Negro elementary school are ready to ans . . . - NARA - 521562.jpg. Wikipedia Commons, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Charles_County,_Maryland._Upper-grade_pupils_in_the_Waldor f_Negro_elementary_school_are_ready_to_ans_._._._-_NARA_-_521562.jpg. Hart, Diane, and Bert Bower. History Alive!: Pursuing American Ideals. Student edition. ed., Rancho Cordova, Teachers' Curriculum Institute, 2013. LuĚˆsted, Marcia Amidon, and Jennifer K. Keller. The Roaring Twenties: Discover the Era of Prohibition, Flappers, and Jazz. White River Junction, Nomad Press, 2014. Twine, Richard Aloysius. Emancipation Day Parade Lincolnville, Florida (1920s). 20 May 1920s. Wikimedia Commons, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Emancipation_Day_Parade_Lincolnville,_Florida_(1920s).jpg. Urofsky, Melvin I. "Jim Crow Law." Encyclopedia Britannica, www.britannica.com/event/Jim-Crow-law. U.S.A. 1920s. Danbury, Grolier, 2005.
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Works Cited(Shalynn Scheets) Hart, Diane, and Bert Bower. History Alive!: Pursuing American Ideals. Student edition. ed., Rancho Cordova, Teachers' Curriculum Institute, 2013. Hill, Laban Carrick. Harlem Stomp!: A Cultural History of the Harlem Renaissance. New York, Little, Brown, 2009. This Fabulous Century. Alexandria, Time-Life Books, 1987. Yancey, Diane. Life during the Roaring Twenties. San Diego, Lucent Books, 2002. Works Cited (Omari) Carrick, Laban. The Harlem Stomp! Little, brown book for younger reader, 2004. Haskins, Jim. The Harlem Renaissance. Millbrook press, 1996. Works Cited(Jestin Wiseman Inman) Hart, Diane, and Bert Bower. History Alive!: Pursuing American Ideals. Student edition. ed., Rancho Cordova, Teachers' Curriculum Institute, 2013. Isserman, Maurice. Journey to Freedom: The African-American Great Migration. New York, Facts on File, 1997. U.S.A. 1920s. Danbury, Grolier, 2005.
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