Black Americans

Firstly black Americans faced problems in the south because of lynching and the Jim Crow Laws. Lynching meant that racist white Americans would put the law into their own hands and punish black people whenever they please. They would hang the victim from a tree. In 1897 123 black people were lynched in the south, 84 in 1903 and 61 in 1921. The police would turn a blind eye and made no effort to stop lynching from happening. Even though slavery ended in 1865 black people faced the threat of violence, intimidation and racial discrimination on almost a daily bases. The Jim Crow Laws were created to keep whites and coloured people away from each other. The Jim Crow Laws covered all the aspects of life. Black Americans were stopped from using the same restaurants, hotels, libries, taxis, and even cemeteries. If black people wanted to vote the Jim Crow Law made them have to pass a difficult literacy test and they would have to pay high taxes. Nearly 2million black Americans moved from the southern states to the north in hope of a better life. This was called the Great Migration They thought they would be able to escape the Jim Crow Laws and racism as a whole, they wanted to go to the north for a better chance at jobs and education but little did they know.
Secondly black Americans faced problems in the south because of the KKK. The KKK stands for the Ku Klux Klan; they were a racist group and were part of a secret society. The leader of the KKK in the 1920’s was a dentist called Hiram Wesley Evans whose name in the KKK was Imperial Wizard. Only WASP’s could belong to the KKK- White Anglo Saxon Protestants. The KKK targeted blacks mainly, but they also hated Jews, Catholics and Liberals but there main focus was poor black families that were very vulnerable. 5 million white Americans joined the KKK between 1920 to 1925. Most members where poor white people because they were afraid that black people would take over their jobs. Some of the KKK members were judges,