Other Americans Seek JusticeProgressives fought to advocate 2 things:

1.) working-class rights 2.) women’s rights

…but they often neglected the rights of minorities

Remember us?

African Americans

• Jim Crowe laws• Low-paying jobs• Refusal to rent homes in “white neighborhoods”• Jobless whites took out anger on blacks, as they

could get away with it (that’s messed up!)• 1890s = 1,000+ African Americans were lynched:

murdered by mobs

Booker T. Washington speaks for many African Americans & presses white &

blacks to live in harmony.

NAACP: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, founded by W.E.B. Du Bois, promoting equal

rights for African Americans

The System: 1. Work patiently to move up in

society2. Learn trades & earn money3. Then they’d have the power to

demand money

Mexican Americans

• Thousands move to the West & Southwest U.S.• 1910: famine & revolution in Mexico = pushing them into

the states• Met with a lot of racism & prejudice– Worked as field hands– Build roads– Dug irrigation ditches– Factory workers– Paid FAR less than white workers– Denied skilled jobs (not even given the opportunity to succeed)

Neighborhoods

• Barrios: Mexican neighborhoods where language & culture is preserved, traditional festivals & memories of Mexico are shared. – Los Angeles = nation’s largest barrio

• Mutualistas: mutual immigrant aid groups who pooled money to buy insurance and pay for legal advice. They also collected money for the sick and needy.

Asian Americans

Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) sparked

racism&

Kept Chinese from settling in U.S.

Still a demand for cheap labor– Philipinno & Japanese workers came• Many come to Hawaii: sugar plantations• Very skilled in farming, lumbering & mining

STILL – Asians denied skilled jobs and paid less than whites

• Forced to attend separate schools• Barred from owning any land in the U.S.

Japan was creeping up on the radar as building a VERY strong Navy… we wanted to keep good ties with them, so as to not

create an enemy

Gentlemen’s Agreement: 1907 – agreement between the U.S. & Japan to limit Japanese immigration

–Teddy Roosevelt would lift the segregation in schools between whites & Japanese students–Japan would stop any more workers from going to the U.S. if

the U.S. would allow Japanese women to join their husbands who were already in the country

Native Americans• Dawes Act (1877) divided reservation lands into

family plots, where Indians were supposed to become farmers & assimilate with American life (sound familiar?...)

BUT• Much of the land these Indians received was in-farmable• Many had no farming skills (Hunter gatherers)

• Sold land at cheap prices to white pioneers• No land, money, food, shelter

Native Americans

• Society of American Indians: group that worked for social justice and tried to push Native Americans into the American mainstream– Writers– Artists– Christian ministers– Lawyers– Doctors– Worked for social justice and to educate white

Americans about Indian life