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¶ … Declining Significance of Race by William Julius Wilson: Questions
What is the major theme of the reading?
Southern society was profoundly unequal not just in terms of race but also because of the sharp divisions of its social classes: Southern plantation owners made up a tiny minority of the population yet owned the majority of slaves. While slavery has existed since the beginning of time, Southern slavery took on a unique character. Laws classified slave and slave-owners by race. The economic, political, and legal apparatus of the South was orchestrated to ensure that slaveholders retained their dominant status. Property requirements barred poor whites as well as blacks from voting. The lack of economic mobility created a vicious cycle which affirmed plantation owners' dominance: because the economy was slave and land-based, there were few opportunities for others to find ways of making a living and to generate power for themselves. The rise of the cotton industry's profitability and the end of the slave trade further increased the need to solidify the existence of a permanent slave class.
Q2. What evidence is marshaled in support of...
Constitution in the form of the 3/5ths compromise, whereby a slave was worth 3/5ths of a freedman in tabulating state populations. This gave Southern states greater influence in Congress than they might otherwise have possessed, had state populations been tallied according to population alone. The dominance of the South in getting its way during the antebellum period is testimony to the power of this small group of Southern landholders. The willingness to accommodate the South in Congress was manifested in the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The domination of Southern interests is was even felt in the U.S. Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision, effectively declaring slaves property even when slaves crossed into 'free' states.
The calculated, political nature of Southern slavery is stressed in the readings by tracing its historical development from the 18th century onward, whereby the decline of white indentured servants and their costs caused Southerners to see slaves as a better economic…
Slavery The emancipation of slaves did not lead to the dismantling of the underlying structures of slavery. Its most formidable social, economic, and political institutions persisted in spite of federal legislation following the end of the Civil War. Limp federal legislation enabled the racist social and political climate in the American South to fester, depriving all Americans of the opportunity to experience a "more perfect union." The PBS documentary Slavery by
history slavery North Atlantic British colonies United States Observations Regarding Slavery One of the primary methods of resistance for people of African descent who existed in servitude in the North Atlantic British colonies and in the United States was rebellion. Although far from occurring frequently, armed, violent revolt from chattel slaves helped to shape the history of their descendants in these locations. One of the most notorious of these uprisings was
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The FDIC is one of Roosevelt's most notable legacies. However, New deal economics have largely fallen by the wayside. The neo-liberal market economy that prevailed in the latter decades of the 20th century counteracts the inherent socialism of the New Deal. A series of public works programs like the Civil Works Administration (CWA), the Public Works Association (PWA), the Works Progress Administration (WPA), and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) helped
American foreign policy change from 1940 to the present? Before the 20th century, the U.S. had a strong tradition of isolationism and non-interventionism. Beginning with American participation in World War I and continuing with its involvement in World War II after the invasion of Pearl Harbor, the U.S. increasingly began to conceive of itself as not only a player on the international stage, but also the ideological promoter and protector
Thus, the New Negro Movement refers to the new way of thinking, and encompasses all the elements of the Negro Renaissance, artistically, socially and politically (New). The Harlem Renaissance changed the dynamics of African-American culture in the United States forever, for it was proof that whites did not have a monopoly on literature, arts and culture (Harlem). The many personalities of the era, such as composer Duke Ellington, dancer Josephine