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Progressives & Discrimination

Progressive Discrimination

• Prejudice and discrimination continued even during the Progressive Era• Minorities, including African Americans, Latinos,

Catholics, Jews and Native Americans worked to help themselves• Their efforts paved the way for the era of civil rights

several decades later

Status Quo

Most Progressives were white, middle-class Protestants who

held the racial and ethnic prejudices common in this period

They envisioned a model America based on Protestant

ethics and a white middle-class lifestyle

As a result, they were often hostile to

minority or immigrant cultures

Americanization• Progressives believed assimilation

would turn immigrants into loyal and moral citizens—introduced the Americanization movement

• While teaching English to immigrants, they also advised them to replace their customs with middle-class practices and values

• Progressives saw many immigrant customs as moral failures

African Americans

• Many Progressives supported racial prejudices.• The Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court case (1896),

establishing “separate but equal” is legal, furthered discrimination in the North as well as the South• By 1910 segregation was the norm nationwide• After 1914, even federal offices were segregated

because of policies approved by President Woodrow Wilson

African Americans were split over how to end racial discrimination

Booker T. Washington

Urged a patient, gradual effort based on earning

equality through training and work in the skilled

trades

W.E.B. Dubois

Demanded that African Americans receive all

the constitutional rights immediately

They disagreed over whether achieving equality was the burden of the nation or of the African Americans

NAACP• After the 1908 riot against African Americans in

Springfield, Illinois, Progressives joined with the Niagara Movement to form the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)• The NAACP demanded voting and civil rights for

African Americans• The NAACP aimed to help African Americans become

“physically free from peonage, mentally free from ignorance, politically free from disenfranchisement, and socially free from insult”• Prominent Progressives were attracted to their cause

Ethnic Groups• Jewish Americans: • formed B’nai B’rith to

provide religious education and support• Anti-Defamation League

was formed to defend Jews and others from physical & verbal attacks, false statements and to “secure justice and fair treatment to all citizens alike”

• Mexican Americans:• Formed mutualistas

that provided legal assistance and insurance• Many Latinos were

subject to unfair labor contracts that the mutualistas helped defeat

Ethnic Groups• Native Americans• In 1911 the Society of

American Indians was formed to protest federal policy• By 1932, two thirds of all

tribal lands had been sold off

• Japanese Americans• In 1913, California

restricted land ownership to American citizens which excluded the Japanese because they were not allowed to become citizens• In 1922, the Supreme

Court allowed the limitation