Book Notes -13 - Summary A Different Mirror: a History of Multicultural America PDF

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Notes /questions/answers of important events and people and critical thinking for that specific chapter. ...

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Book Notes Chapter 13 1. Who are the main characters and why are they significant?  Du Bois he became the first African American to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard University. Du Bois wrote extensively and was the best-known spokesperson for African-American rights during the first half of the 20th century. He co-founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1909.  Richard Parker was hired as a black promoter and to set up a black company union, the American Unity Labor Union.  Edward Franklin Frazier was an American sociologist and author, publishing as E. Franklin Frazier. His 1932 Ph.D. dissertation was published as a book titled “The Negro Family in the United States”; it analyzed the historical forces that influenced the development of the African-American family from the time of slavery to the mid-1930s.  Thomas Woodrow Wilson was an American statesman and academic who served as the 28th President of the United States from 1913 to 1921. He also led the United States during World War I, establishing an activist foreign policy known as "Wilsonianism."  Marcus Mosiah Garvey Jr, was a proponent of Black nationalism in Jamaica and especially the United States. He was a leader of a mass movement called PanAfricanism and he founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities.  John Llewellyn Lewis president of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) from 1920 until 1960 and founding president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), he was the dominant voice shaping the labor movement in the 1930s.  Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the 32nd American president who led the United States through the Great Depression and World War II, greatly expanding the powers of the federal government through a series of programs and reforms known as the New Deal. 2. What are the significant events (cite dates, periods, locations)?  World War 1 had virtually cut off the flow of European immigrants, reducing their members from 1,200,000 in 1914 to only 110,000 in 1918.  In 1917, the Chicago Real Estate Board pointed out that the southern blacks were “pouring into Chicago at the rate of ten thousand a month”, and warned that this influx would precipitate a decline in property values.  In 1910, over 60 percent of the women were domestic servants or laundresses; close to half of all the employed men worked as porters, servants, waiters, and janitors.  In 1917, bombs destroyed the homes of several black families; a year later, a letter warned black tenants on Vincennes Avenue, “We are going to blow these flats to hell and if you don’t want to go with them you had better move at once”

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In 1919, several bombings were aimed at the offices of real estate agents who had sold homes to blacks in white neighborhoods. On June 21, 1919, white hoodlums killed two black men, reportedly because they wanted to “get a nigger”. White gangs posted notices on the boundaries between white and black neighborhoods, threatening to “get all the niggers on Fourth of July”. By the 1920’s, Harlem had become a slum, the home of poor people desperately clinging to deferred dreams. The Harlem Renaissance, with its cabarets and literary lights, hid much of the ghetto’s squalor. Then came the Great Crash of 1929 and the shattering of the economy, unshrouding the grim reality behind this veil of glamour. By 1932, more than 50 percent of blacks living in southern cities were unemployed.

3. What important themes does Takaki focus on in this chapter?  A significant theme in chapter 13 was the migration of Southern blacks to the “Promised Land” of Northern Urban cities such as Chicago, Detroit, and New York. Southern blacks were fed up with living in poverty as sharecroppers and tenant farmers and many fled their farms and plantations without so much as a warning. The North promised a new life for these men and women, a life outside of poverty and within mainstream America. Their wanderlust was aided by geographical bonuses: the Illinois Central Railroad ended in Chicago, “The Black Metropolis” and connected to rural cities in Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana. Autonomous travel was within the grasp of adventurous Southern blacks longing to escape increasing violence from Southern whites. Even in the north many African Americans faced discrimination trying to find jobs and housing. The explosion of the African American population in Chicago was met with resistance from white landowners and realtors. In order to keep their property values, realtors and landlords joined forces to bar African Americans from moving into predominantly white neighborhoods. This changed with “The Depression” when many landlords were desperate for tenants and reluctantly allowed African American to apply for apartments. The “divide and conquer” strategy of pitting two races against one another remained a valuable asset to labor managers. Two divided unions based on race were doomed to fail due to a lack of unity. The racism made the black people feel inferior.

4. Identify the power takers in this chapter. By what means did these individuals or groups gain power?  The power takers in this chapter were the white men. They tried their best to prevent African Americans from moving into predominantly white neighborhoods. They threaten African Americans that they would kill them. In 1919, several bombings were aimed at the offices of real estate agents who had sold homes to blacks in white neighborhoods. On June 21, 1919, white hoodlums killed two black men, reportedly because they wanted to “get a nigger”. White

gangs posted notices on the boundaries between white and black neighborhoods, threatening to “get all the niggers on Fourth of July”. They also had told them to leave if not they will die there. What these white men gained may have been fear and control over the African Americans. 5. Identify the characters whose power was appropriated. What were the circumstances that lead to their oppression? How did these characters demonstrate resistance to their oppression?  The characters in this chapter that had their powers appropriated were the African Americans (Southern Blacks). What led to their oppression were the migration of African Americans to the south even in the north as they moved into white neighborhoods. They got tired living in poverty so they began to live in urban cities. They didn’t really demonstrate any type of resistance towards the white oppression. Anywhere they went they faced discrimination. but in the northern urban city’s landlords were desperate because of the Great Depression so they allowed African Americans to apply to these apartments....