The First Red Scare The Second KKK Xenophobia The New woman The New Negro The NAACP WEB Du Bois Lynching Chicago race Riots of 1919 Margaret Sanger Flapper 19th amendment Harlem Renaissance Modernist Traditionalist Vocabulary Part I Familiarize yourself which each of the above terms and people The First Red Scare – Occurring between 1917 -1920, the Bolsheviks conquered the Romanov dynasty causing mass panic of communists globally. The Sedition Act of 1918 threatened anyone that criticized the government or aligned with radical beliefs would be deported. U.S. Attorney General Alexander M. Palmer conducted the Palmer Raids, violent law-enforcement raids targeting leftist radicals and anarchists. This would be known as the “Red Summer”. The Second KKK – The KKK experienced a revival in the 1920s, a reflection of the society’s reaction to urbanization and immigration. Xenophobia – Xenophobia is described from Oxford Languages as a “dislike of or prejudice against people from other countries”. The “New Woman” – The new woman had less constraint from past Victorian standards, in a rebellion way. They pursued roles in society and expressed their sexuality. Summarized, they were modern. This was a glamorized perception of women with the rise in woman suffrage movements, movements that did not pertain to minorities. The “New Negro” – Thousands of African Americans moved to the North from the rural South, pursing social and economic opportunity. When black troops returned from war, they were looking to achieve a full participation in American society. The “New Negro Movement” advocated for racial pride, cultural self-expression, economic independence, and progressive politics. The NAACP – Started in 1909 in New York City by black and white activists in response to the 1908 Springfield race riot in Illinois, the NAACP is a civil rights organization. W.E.B. Du Bois – William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was an American civil rights leader, PanAfricanist, sociologist, historian, poet, and more. He is the founder of the Niagara Movement, an African American protest group of scholars and professionals. He was amongst one of many founders of the NAACP. Lynching – Defined by Oxford Languages, “Lynching is a verb described as a mob killing someone, especially by hanging, for an alleged offense with or without a legal trial”. Chicago Race Riot of 1919 – During the Red Summer (a summer where law enforcement would raid leftist radicals and anarchists), soldiers returned home where Southern Black people or immigrants filled in for them and African American veterans were denied basic rights (adequate housing and equality under the law), creating tensions between the people and the authorities. On July 27, 1919, a 17-year-old African American boy named Eugene Williams was murdered in Lake Michigan when he crossed the unofficial border between the city’s “white” and “Black” beaches. Violence broke out between gangs and mobs of Black and white. 1,000 Black families were left homeless after rioters torched their homes, 500 people were injured (60% being Black people), 23 Black people died, and 15 white people died. The Chicago Commission on Race Relations was created in response and focused on fixing inadequate housing options for Black people, competition for jobs, inconsistent law enforcement, etc. (History, The Red Summer of 1919) Margaret Sanger – Sanger was a social reformer and the founder of the birth control movement and Planned Parenthood. She was motivated to advocate when she witnessed poverty, uncontrolled fertility, and the deaths from botched illegal abortions. (Britannica, Margaret Sanger) Flapper – As defined by Oxford Languages, “a flapper is a woman in the 1920s who was young, fashionable and intent on enjoying herself and flouting conventional standards of behavior”. 19th Amendment – On August 18, 1920, this amendment granted women the right to vote. Harlem Renaissance – Defined by the Britannica, the Harlem Renaissance is the blossoming of African American culture, particularly in the creative arts, and the most influential movement in African American history. Modernist – a supporter of modernism, break free from traditional forms Traditionalist – an advocate for traditionalism, upholding traditions Part II Visit http://www.americanyawp.com/text/22-the-twenties/ Read the following sections of text: V The New Woman VI The New Negro VII The Culture War VIII Fundamentalist Christianity IX Rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan Part III I want you to tell me the main idea of each of the five sections that you have just read. I do not want a summary of each section, instead, I want you to explain to me “essence” of the new woman, the New Negro, The Culture Warriors, etc. In other words, what you think the most important and essential aspects of each group/trend in the United States was. The 1920s were subject to fast change, change that empowered and weakened the American public. The reform of past ideologies often had the opposite effect. They deconstructed the social norms for white and black, while the revival of traditionalists was in full force. This decade, from my understanding, contradicted itself and appeared like two separate Americas. Part IV Cite two pieces of evidence from each section that supports your point of view about each of the groups. The New Woman it was a decade in which images such as the “flapper” gave women new modes of representing femininity, and one in which such representations were often inaccessible to women of certain races, ages, and socioeconomic classes”. “Finally, “But for many women—particularly young, college-educated white women—an attempt to rebel against what they saw as a repressive Victorian notion of sexuality led to an increase in premarital sexual activity strong enough that it became, in the words of one historian, “almost a matter of conformity.” “While there were exceptions, for many minority women, work outside the home was not a cultural statement but rather a financial necessity (or both), and physically demanding, low-paying domestic service work continued to be the most common job type”. The New Negro “The New Negro, Locke proclaimed that the generation of subservience was no more—“we are achieving something like a spiritual emancipation”… Bringing together writings by men and women, young and old, Black and white, Locke produced an anthology that was of African Americans, rather than only about them”. “Within just a few years of his arrival, he built the largest Black nationalist organization in the world, the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA)… Garvey sought to promote racial pride, encourage Black economic independence, and root out racial oppression in Africa and the Diaspora” The Culture War “Many Americans expressed anxieties about the changes that had remade the United States and, seeking scapegoats, many middle-class white Americans pointed to Eastern European and Latin American immigrants (Asian immigration had already been almost completely prohibited), African Americans who now pushed harder for civil rights, and, after migrating out of the American South to northern cities as a part of the Great Migration, the mass exodus that carried nearly half a million Black Southerners out of the South between 1910 and 1920”. “Their guilty verdicts were appealed for years as the evidence surrounding their convictions was slim…Nevertheless, despite worldwide lobbying by radicals and a respectable movement among middle-class Italian organizations in the United States, the two men were executed on August 23, 1927”. The Christian Fundamentalist “Although never a centralized group, most fundamentalists lashed out against what they saw as a sagging public morality, a world in which Protestantism seemed challenged by Catholicism, women exercised ever greater sexual freedoms, public amusements encouraged selfish and empty pleasures, and critics mocked Prohibition through bootlegging and speakeasies”. “Across the nation, Americans tuned their radios to the national broadcasts of a trial that dealt with questions of religious liberty, academic freedom, parental rights, and the moral responsibility of education”. (I just find it interesting that they broadcasted the trial. After researching, I found out that this was the first live trial broadcasted by radio) The Ku Klux Klan “A mob organized and led by Klan members in Aiken, South Carolina, lynched Bertha Lowman and her two brothers in 1926, but no one was ever prosecuted: the sheriff, deputies, city attorney, and state representative all belonged to the Klan.42” “ In many states and localities, the Klan dominated politics to such a level that one could not be elected without the support of the KKK. For example, in 1924, the Klan supported William Lee Cazort for governor of Arkansas, leading his opponent in the Democratic Party primary, Thomas Terral, to seek honorary membership through a Louisiana klavern so as not to be tagged as the anti-Klan candidate.” (I believe the KKK to be still upholding their roots in today’s governments, local and federal.)
