Field Trip to Maycomb

Supplemental Notes

13th Amendment

• Passed in 1865• Outlawed slavery and involuntary

servitude (except as punishment for a convicted crime)

14th Amendment

• Passed in 1868• “all persons born or naturalized in the

United States are citizens of the United States”

• States cannot deny citizenship, equal protection or life, liberty or property to anyone (without the due process of law)

Plessy v. Ferguson

• Supreme Court ruling decided in 1896• Began in Louisiana in 1892 when Homer Plessy,

a biracial man (1/8 African American), refused to leave a “whites only” train car

• Court ruled in favor of segregation, saying that it was constitutional for states to make laws based on prejudice

• “God almighty drew the color line and it cannot be obliterated”

Jim Crow Laws

• Laws passed in southern states beginning in 1877 through the 1960s

• Laws that legalized segregation and failed to protect the civil rights of African Americans

• Justified by the “separate but equal” doctrine, but ultimately ruled unconstitutional

Separate, but equal?

• JimCrowSegregated.jpg

Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas

• Supreme Court ruling decided in 1954• Linda Brown denied access to a school

closer to her home because of her race• Racial segregation in public schools

deemed UNCONSTITUTIONAL because segregation violates the 14th Amendment

• “Doll Tests” used as evidence (African-American children attending segregated schools had negative self-perception)

LynchingWHAT IS IT?

• A form of mob violence • Murder by hanging, shooting, and/or

extreme torture: burning at the stake, mutilation, dismemberment, castration

• A means of social control through fear

LynchingWHO WERE THE VICTIMS?

• People accused of—but not necessarily guilty of—crimes or “insults”

• Murdered and tortured without having been convicted, without due process under the law

• Mostly African-American men (though women and whites were also victims)

• On the average, a black man, woman or child was murdered once a week, every week, between 1882 and 1930 by a hate-driven white mob

LynchingWHO WERE THE PERPETRATORS?

• The only states where lynching has NOT occurred: Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont

• Most prevalent in: Mississippi, Georgia, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama

• Considered a form of amusement • Committed mostly in smaller towns and rural

communities by people who were undereducated and economically disadvantaged

Have you ever …

• Acted suspiciously?• Argued with a white man?• Frightened a white woman?• Demanded respect?• Been seen as unpopular?• Tried to vote?• Used obscene language?• Spread disease?• Been obnoxious?• Peeped in a window?

What do all the behaviors on the previous slide have in common?

• They were all reasons given for lynching a person

• Without Sanctuary

Poverty Rates, 2008-2009

White Black Hispanic Other0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

Alabama

Alabama

Poverty Rates, 2008-2009

White Black Hispanic Other0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

Washington

Washington

Incarceration RatesRate per 100,000 (2005)

White Black Hispanic0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

ALWAU.S.

Youth Dropout Rates, 2005

• In 2005, Hispanics accounted for 41% of all current high school dropouts, but only made up 17% of the total youth population

Youth Dropout Rates

WhiteBlackHispanicAll Races