Jim Crow laws, Plessy v. Ferguson and those who fought back

Grade 11 Social Studies Worksheet - Challenge Me

Circle the best answer.

1. Read this first

   Use this

   Louisiana, 1897 to 1904. Card A: Table "Registered voters in Louisiana, 1897 to 1900", columns Year | Black voters | White voters: 1897 | 130,344 | 164,088; 1898 | 12,902 | 74,133; 1900 | 5,320 | 125,437. Data: Janet Allured, "Louisiana Constitution of 1898," 64 Parishes (Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities). The 1900 Black figure is the source's count of voters of color. Card B: "Louisiana's 1898 rules and who could meet them, in brief". Who made it: historians and textbooks writing today. When: today. Where: the United States. For whom: readers today. Why: to sum up what is known. Summary in our words, not a quotation: The 1898 constitution gave a literacy test to a local official, who decided who passed. Its grandfather clause counted men whose father or grandfather had been on the voter rolls in 1867. Its property rule counted men who owned $300 of taxable property. Louisiana did not allow Black men to vote in 1867. The Fifteenth Amendment barred denying the vote because of race, so the rules named no race. Card C: "White primaries, in brief". Who made it: historians and textbooks writing today. When: today. Where: the United States. For whom: readers today. Why: to sum up what is known. Summary in our words, not a quotation: In the South after 1900, one party nearly always won the general election, so the real choice among candidates was made in that party's primary. In Louisiana, the party made its primary a whites-only primary in 1904. A Black voter who could not take part in the primary had almost no say in who held office. Card D: Table "Black voters in Louisiana, 1896 to 1904", columns Year | Black voters | How the source words it: 1896 | about 130,000 | registered; 1900 | 5,320 | voted; 1904 | little more than 1,300 | registered. Data: US House of Representatives, History, Art & Archives, Black Americans in Congress, "Toward a Temporary Farewell". The 64 Parishes entry on the 1898 constitution words the 1900 figure as 5,320 voters of color registered.

2. 1.

   From 1897 to 1900 Black registration fell from 130,344 to 5,320. Which of the 1898 rules does the table show did the work, Ari asks?

   • None alone: the table gives totals, not which rule removed which voters.
   • The property rule, since owning $300 of taxable property was out of reach for most Black voters.
   • The grandfather clause, since white registration rose again to 125,437 by 1900.
   • The reading test, since card B lists it first and the official decided who passed.
3. 2.

   White registration fell to 74,133 in 1898 and rose to 125,437 by 1900, while Black registration fell. What does the rebound suggest, Bo asks?

   • The rules were repealed for white voters in 1900, since their numbers recovered by then.
   • White voters paid the poll tax in 1900 and Black voters did not, since the two counts differ.
   • Some route let many white men register again that Black men lacked; the table cannot prove it.
   • White registration recovered by 125,437 voters between 1898 and 1900, found from the 1900 count.
4. 3.

   A whites-only primary began in Louisiana in 1904, and about 1,300 Black voters were registered that year. How should Esme weigh the primary against the 1898 rules?

   • The 1898 rules mattered most, since the primary came in 1904, six years after, and changed nothing.
   • The primary mattered more, since it decided who held office in a one-party state.
   • The primary did little, since 1,300 voters remained to be excluded.
   • The 1898 rules had already cut the rolls, so the primary shut out the few voters who remained.

5. Use this

   Washington and Du Bois on the color-line. Card A: "Washington on pressing for social equality". Who made it: Booker T. Washington. When: September 18, 1895. Where: Atlanta, Georgia. For whom: the Exposition's directors, visitors and the press. Why: to urge cooperation between the races in the South. Excerpt (Atlanta Exposition address; Up from Slavery, 1901, p. 223): "The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremest folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing. No race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world is long in any degree ostracized [shut out]." Card B: "Du Bois on Washington's plan". Who made it: W. E. B. Du Bois. When: 1903. Where: Chicago. For whom: readers of his book. Why: to criticize Washington's plan and say what followed it. Excerpt (The Souls of Black Folk, chapter III; The Souls of Black Folk, 1903, p. 51): "Mr. Washington distinctly asks that black people give up, at least for the present, three things,—First, political power, Second, insistence on civil rights, Third, higher education of Negro youth,—and concentrate all their energies on industrial education, the accumulation of wealth, and the conciliation [winning over] of the South. … In these years there have occurred: 1. The disfranchisement [loss of the vote] of the Negro. 2. The legal creation of a distinct status of civil inferiority for the Negro. 3. The steady withdrawal of aid from institutions for the higher training of the Negro."

6. 4.

   Du Bois lists disfranchisement, a status of civil inferiority and withdrawn aid as events that occurred "in these years." How should Kira use that against card A's prediction?

   • As evidence the prediction failed in those years, though not that Washington's advice caused it.
   • As irrelevant, since a prediction about ostracism cannot be tested against later events.
   • As proof that Washington's advice caused the events, since they followed soon after his speech.
   • As confirming Washington, since progress came through struggle as he said it would.

7. Use this

   Card A: "Ida B. Wells, in brief". Who made it: historians and textbooks writing today. When: today. Where: the United States. For whom: readers today. Why: to sum up what is known. Summary in our words, not a quotation: Ida B. Wells was born into slavery in Holly Springs, Mississippi, in 1862. In 1884 she sued a railroad after she was made to leave her seat; a lower court gave her $500, and the Tennessee Supreme Court reversed it. She became a newspaper editor in Memphis, was dismissed from her teaching job in 1891 after criticizing segregated schools, and then gathered records of lynching and published them. She signed the call that was released on February 12, 1909. After she married in 1895 she was also known as Ida B. Wells-Barnett. Card B: "The NAACP, in brief". Who made it: historians and textbooks writing today. When: today. Where: the United States. For whom: readers today. Why: to sum up what is known. Summary in our words, not a quotation: On February 12, 1909, the hundredth anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth, a call went out for a national meeting on racial justice. About 60 people signed it. Seven were Black Americans, and they included W. E. B. Du Bois and Ida B. Wells-Barnett. The NAACP grew from that call. In 1910 it opened a national office in New York City. In 1915 it helped win Guinn v. United States, which struck down Oklahoma's grandfather clause.

8. 5.

   Card A says Wells sued a railroad in 1884 after she was made to leave her seat, and the Tennessee Supreme Court reversed her award. What does that add to Plessy, Luz asks?

   • A Black passenger had already challenged railroad seating in court and lost on appeal.
   • It shows the Supreme Court decided Wells's case, since the card names a high court.
   • It shows seating rules ended in Tennessee, since her award was reversed there.
   • It shows Plessy's case was the first challenge, since Wells sued a railroad rather than a state.

9. Use this

   Brown and Harlan in Plessy v. Ferguson. Card A: "Justice Brown on the separation of the races". Who made it: Justice Henry Billings Brown, writing the opinion of the Supreme Court. When: 1896. Where: Washington. For whom: the parties, other courts and the public. Why: to explain and justify the Court's decision. Excerpt (Plessy v. Ferguson, opinion of the Court; United States Reports vol. 163, 1896, p. 551): "We consider the underlying fallacy [mistake in reasoning] of the plaintiff's argument to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it." Card B: "Justice Harlan on laws that rank citizens". Who made it: Justice John Marshall Harlan, dissenting from the Court's decision. When: 1896. Where: Washington. For whom: the parties, other courts and the public. Why: to explain why he disagreed with the Court. Excerpt (Plessy v. Ferguson, dissenting opinion; United States Reports vol. 163, 1896, p. 563): "Slavery as an institution tolerated by law would, it is true, have disappeared from our country, but there would remain a power in the States, by sinister [harmful] legislation, to interfere with the full enjoyment of the blessings of freedom; to regulate civil rights, common to all citizens, upon the basis of race; and to place in a condition of legal inferiority a large body of American citizens …"

10. 6.

    Brown says stigma comes only from how Black citizens read the law; Harlan says such laws place citizens in legal inferiority. What is the crux, Milo asks?

    • Whether the cars were equal, which Brown asserts and Harlan denies in their excerpts.
    • Whether Louisiana's law was passed in good faith, which Harlan doubts and Brown accepts.
    • Whether separation by law itself marks inferiority, or just the meaning people give it.
    • Whether the Fourteenth Amendment reaches state laws, which Brown denies.

11. Use this

    Brown and Harlan in Plessy v. Ferguson. Card A: "Justice Brown on the separation of the races". Who made it: Justice Henry Billings Brown, writing the opinion of the Supreme Court. When: 1896. Where: Washington. For whom: the parties, other courts and the public. Why: to explain and justify the Court's decision. Excerpt (Plessy v. Ferguson, opinion of the Court; United States Reports vol. 163, 1896, p. 551): "We consider the underlying fallacy [mistake in reasoning] of the plaintiff's argument to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it." Card B: "Justice Harlan on laws that rank citizens". Who made it: Justice John Marshall Harlan, dissenting from the Court's decision. When: 1896. Where: Washington. For whom: the parties, other courts and the public. Why: to explain why he disagreed with the Court. Excerpt (Plessy v. Ferguson, dissenting opinion; United States Reports vol. 163, 1896, p. 563): "Slavery as an institution tolerated by law would, it is true, have disappeared from our country, but there would remain a power in the States, by sinister [harmful] legislation, to interfere with the full enjoyment of the blessings of freedom; to regulate civil rights, common to all citizens, upon the basis of race; and to place in a condition of legal inferiority a large body of American citizens …" Card C: "After Plessy, in brief". Who made it: historians and textbooks writing today. When: today. Where: the United States. For whom: readers today. Why: to sum up what is known. Summary in our words, not a quotation: The 1896 decision said that separate public places could be equal in law. After it, states wrote more segregation laws, and the national government rarely stepped in when the places were not equal. Laws that separated schools were the most common, and segregation spread to most public places. These laws were called Jim Crow laws. Justice Harlan's dissent said such laws put Black citizens in a position of legal inferiority. Who gained: states that wanted segregation by law. Who lost: Black citizens, who lost access to equal public places.

12. 7.

    Brown assumes any stigma lies in how Black citizens read the law. Which card supplies evidence that tests that assumption, Noah asks?

    • No card, since a question about how people read a law cannot be tested against laws or places.
    • Card A, since it shows the Court let the Louisiana law stand without testing its effects.
    • Card C, which says the national government rarely stepped in when places were unequal.
    • Card B, since Harlan predicted the effects in 1896 and a prediction settles them.

13. Use this

    Card A: "Plessy v. Ferguson, in brief". Who made it: historians and textbooks writing today. When: today. Where: the United States. For whom: readers today. Why: to sum up what is known. Summary in our words, not a quotation: In 1890 Louisiana passed a law that told railroads to give white and Black passengers equal but separate cars. In 1892 Homer Plessy, a New Orleans man the law counted as Black, sat in a white car on purpose. A Black citizens' committee had planned the test case. He was arrested and tried before Judge John H. Ferguson. The Supreme Court decided the case in 1896. Justice Henry Brown wrote the opinion, and the Court let the Louisiana law stand. Justice John Marshall Harlan was the only justice who disagreed. Who gained: states that wanted segregation by law. Who lost: Plessy and other Black passengers, who were kept to separate cars. Card B: A student's note, made up and not from any source: "In 1896 the Court ruled that Black passengers must ride separately in every state, and no state had a railroad law before then."

14. 8.

    Which revision of the student's note on card B fits the brief on card A, Ren?

    • "In 1896 the Court let Louisiana's law stand, and Florida had passed a law of its own in 1887."
    • "In 1896 Plessy won his case, and Louisiana then repealed its law of 1890."
    • "In 1896 the Court struck down Louisiana's law, with Justice Harlan alone in the majority."
    • "In 1896 the Court ordered separate cars across the country, after Louisiana's law of 1890."

15. Use this

    Louisiana's voting rules. Card A: "Louisiana's 1898 rules and who could meet them, in brief". Who made it: historians and textbooks writing today. When: today. Where: the United States. For whom: readers today. Why: to sum up what is known. Summary in our words, not a quotation: The 1898 constitution gave a literacy test to a local official, who decided who passed. Its grandfather clause counted men whose father or grandfather had been on the voter rolls in 1867. Its property rule counted men who owned $300 of taxable property. Louisiana did not allow Black men to vote in 1867. The Fifteenth Amendment barred denying the vote because of race, so the rules named no race. Card B: Table "Registered voters in Louisiana, 1897 to 1900", columns Year | Black voters | White voters: 1897 | 130,344 | 164,088; 1898 | 12,902 | 74,133; 1900 | 5,320 | 125,437. Data: Janet Allured, "Louisiana Constitution of 1898," 64 Parishes (Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities). The 1900 Black figure is the source's count of voters of color. Card C: A student's note, made up and not from any source: "Louisiana's 1898 constitution barred Black men from voting by name, and the number of white registered voters rose in each year."

16. 9.

    Which revision of the student's note fits cards A and B on Louisiana's voting rules, Tala asks?

    • "The 1898 rules named no race; Black registration fell from 130,344 in 1897 to 5,320 in 1900."
    • "The 1898 rules barred Black men by name, and white registration fell in each year of the table."
    • "The 1898 rules applied to Black voters alone, since white registration stayed near 164,088."
    • "The 1898 rules named no race, and Black registration fell by 5,320 voters."

17. Use this

    Washington and Du Bois. Card A: "Washington on pressing for social equality". Who made it: Booker T. Washington. When: September 18, 1895. Where: Atlanta, Georgia. For whom: the Exposition's directors, visitors and the press. Why: to urge cooperation between the races in the South. Excerpt (Atlanta Exposition address; Up from Slavery, 1901, p. 223): "The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremest folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing. No race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world is long in any degree ostracized [shut out]." Card B: "Du Bois on Washington's plan". Who made it: W. E. B. Du Bois. When: 1903. Where: Chicago. For whom: readers of his book. Why: to criticize Washington's plan and say what followed it. Excerpt (The Souls of Black Folk, chapter III; The Souls of Black Folk, 1903, p. 51): "Mr. Washington distinctly asks that black people give up, at least for the present, three things,—First, political power, Second, insistence on civil rights, Third, higher education of Negro youth,—and concentrate all their energies on industrial education, the accumulation of wealth, and the conciliation [winning over] of the South. … In these years there have occurred: 1. The disfranchisement [loss of the vote] of the Negro. 2. The legal creation of a distinct status of civil inferiority for the Negro. 3. The steady withdrawal of aid from institutions for the higher training of the Negro." A student's note, made up and not from any source: "Washington and Du Bois both accepted segregation as permanent and differed only on tactics."

18. 10.

    Which revision of the student's note fits cards A and B, Zee asks?

    • "Washington wrote the passage on card B, which asks Black people to give up political power."
    • "Washington called agitation for social equality folly, while Du Bois attacked giving up civil rights."
    • "Washington and Du Bois both accepted separation, and differed in how fast to press for change in the South."
    • "Du Bois accepted social separation in 1903, while Washington demanded civil rights in 1895."