EOTO -3 Reaction Blog

 EOTO-3 Reaction Blog

There were great presentations given by my classmates and I learned a lot from all of them.

The Birth of the Nation movie helped reboot the popularity of the Ku Klux Klan. The movie follows two families one from the North and One from the South. The movie portrays Blacks as evil and lusting after white woman during the Reconstruction Era. It paints the Ku Klux Klan as a heroic force. The movie stirred up a lot of riots and the NAACP tried to ban the movie.    

The Second KKK wanted a more organized group to recoup white supremacy through the states, making it 100% American. This excluded Jews, Catholics, immigrants and most Europeans. They believed that only the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant were considered 100% American.   

Sundown Towns were towns mostly in the Mid-West and West during the 1890-1960's. These towns wanted only white people living in their communities. Although Blacks may be able to work or travel in a community during the daytime, they must be out by sundown. They just didn't discriminate against blacks, this included Jews, Native Americans, Chinese, Japanese and others. There are still sundown states today including: New York, California, Texas, Florida, and North Carolina but they do not use that name anymore.

4 Little Girls was about a bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama on September 1963. The bomb took the lives of 4 innocent little girls. This church was a gathering place for people to gain more Civil Rights. White supremacists saw this as a threat and wanted to put an end to the church. This bombing got news coverage all over the world causing the United States to have a bad reputation of racial struggles and discrimination.

Emmet Till was a 14 year old boy that was accused of flirting with a white woman named Carolyn Bryant in 1955. He was kidnapped, brutally beaten and shot in the head and thrown in the Tallahatchie River by Carolyn's husband and half brother. They were arrested but when they went to trial, the jurors were all white men because there were no blacks or women aloud on a jury in Mississippi at this time. They were both acquitted of all the charges. In 2004 the case was reopened but by then the husband and half brother died. This brought nationwide attention of racial violence and injustice.

Mississippi Burning This involved the disappearance of three men in Philadelphia, Mississippi on June 21, 1964. All three men were for Civil rights and racial equality. The three men were investigating a church fire that the KKK had done. They got arrested for speeding but got released a few hours later. As they drove off they were being followed by the KKK. They were never seen again. The next day a notice of their disappearance was posted. On the following day, their burnt station wagon was found with no bodies in it. A month and a half later all three bodies were found below earthen dam on a local farm. KKK was responsible for these murders.  

Brown v. Board of Education The case started with Oliver Brown who wanted his daughter Linda to go to a white elementary school. When she was denied he challenged Kansas school segregation laws in the Supreme Court. This case in 1954, legally ended decades of racial segregation in America's public schools. Chief Justice Earl Warren delivered in the unanimous ruling in the landmark civil rights case. State-sanctioned segregation of public schools was a violation of the 14th amendment and unconstitutional. The "Separate but Equal" was causing a huge issue in education for black children. It is not fair to teach children to look down on one another. God created all of us to be equal. It was also costing the economy too much money to have two of everything to keep blacks and whites separate. On the side of the Board of Education, this case was made up of Southern white political leaders. They condemned the decision and vowed to defy it. James Eastland, the powerful Senator from Mississippi declared that the south would not listen or obey this legislative decision by a political body.

The Great Migration was one of the largest movements of black people in U.S. history. About six million black people moved from American South to the Northern, Midwestern, and Western states. This took place around 1910 until 1970. The reason for the relocation was for blacks to escape the racial violence, pursue education and economic opportunities, and obtain freedom from the Jim Crow era. Some were met with housing discrimination, which created segregated neighborhoods.

Integration of the Armed Forces  Although in the past blacks had served in the armed service, they were kept separate from white solders. On July 26, 1948, President Harry Truman signed order 9981 (this stated there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed forces without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin.) This order created the President's Committee of Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services. This order mandated the desegregation of the U.S. military. The large number of African Americans in the military, gave them a new importance in national defense.

Jackie Robinson Jackie Robinson was the first African American to break the color barrier in Major League Baseball during the Jim Crow Era. The stadium was still segregated with blacks on one side and white on the other. Robinson was not just an athlete but a symbol of hope, resilience and the struggle for justice in the face of adversity.

Harlem Renaissance A birth of African Americans culture mostly of creative arts. This embraced literature, music, theater and visual arts. The period was between the end of World War I (1917) and led up to World War II (1930's).  Artists associated with the movement asserted pride in black life and identity. This brought awareness to inequality and discrimination and interest in the changing world. Many African Americans expressed freedom through the arts for the first time. The Harlem Renaissance planted artistic seeds that would grow for decades.

NAACP stand for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Founded in New York City on February 12, 1909. This was the nation's oldest civil rights organization. This was formed as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for the African Americans. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the association led the black civil rights struggle in fighting injustices such as the denial of voting rights, racial violence, discrimination in employment, and segregated public facilities. The NAACP helped advance not only integration of the armed forces in 1948 but the Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1964, and 1968 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

History of the United Negro College Fund was founded in 1944 and believed there was strength in numbers. They thought that education was crucial to black mobility. In the beginning UNCF served 27 member colleges and universities which totaled 12,000 students. They believe that every American should have equal access to a college education that prepares them for rich intellectual lives, competitive and fulfilling careers, and engaged citizenship and service to our nation.