Effects on Nation

Discrimination in the north• By 1900 many African Americans had moved to northern cities looking for social equality and better paying jobs
• African Americans were forced into segregated neighborhoods and were discriminated against in the workplace
• Black membership was often discouraged by labor unions
• Employers hired African-Americans only as a last resort
• Competition for jobs between blacks and whites became violent
New York City race riot of 1900
• A young black man, who believed that his wife had been mistreated by a white policeman, killed the policeman
• Word of the killing spread and whites started to attack blacks
Discrimination in the west• Native Americans, Asian immigrants, Mexican immigrants, and African Americans lived alongside white settlers in the west
• In the late 1800s railroads hired more Mexican immigrants than members of any other ethnic group for construction of rail lines in the southwest
• Railroads made the Mexicans work for less money than other ethnic groups
• The National Reclamation Act of 1902 gave government assistance for irrigation projects causing southwestern desert areas to boom: Mexican workers major labor force in agricultural industry
• Mexicans were forced into debt peonage – a system that bound laborers into slavery in order to work off a debt to the employer
• Caused Supreme Court to declare involuntary peonage a violation of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1911
• 100,000 Chinese immigrants lived in the U.S. by 1880
• Whites pushed Chinese into segregated schools and neighborhoods because of their fear of job competition with Chinese immigrants
Discrimination in the south• African Americans were not allowed to share a taxi with whites
• Blacks had to enter buildings at separate entrances
• They were forced to drink from separate water fountains, use separate bathrooms, go to separate schools, swear on separate Bibles, and be buried in separate cemeteries
• One zoo listed separate visiting hours for African Americans and whites
• Blacks were excluded from many public places such as restaurants and libraries
• Many parks barred them with signs reading “Negroes and dogs not allowed”
• African Americans were expected to step aside to let a white person pass
• Black men were not allowed to look a white woman in the eye
• Black men and women were addressed to as Tom or Jane and whites addressed blacks of any age as boy or girl
• Blacks were often called nigger or colored