DISCRIMINATION AND OPPORTUNITY IN THE GAPE

Fighting Jim Crow
by Adriane Lentz-Smith, Duke University
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​When President Woodrow Wilson called for American entry into the Great War by asserting that “the world must be made safe for democracy,” he did not have Black Americans in mind. The white supremacy campaigns of the 1890s had used chicanery, the law, and murder to drive most African Americans from political life in the U.S. South and to build the careers of the white Southerners who became some of President Wilson’s most trusted allies. As the U.S. moved to join the Great War in the spring of 1917, neither the Wilson administration nor many white Southerners saw a contradiction in calling for democracy while embedding Jim Crow—the colloquial name for the system that debased Black labor, denied Black voters, and secured its place through terror. Rather, they saw good government and white rule as synonymous. In this, the United States resembled its closest allies. What British writer Rudyard Kipling called “the white man’s burden” guided how European nations and the United States treated the people of color under their rule. However, African Americans and people of color worldwide had a broader political vision: There could be no peace without justice. Conscripting Wilsonian rhetoric and military service to the cause of the Black freedom struggle, African Americans argued that making the world safe for democracy required fighting Jim Crow.

Bibliography
The Immigrant Experience: Racism Towards Chinese and Mexicans during the GAPE
Lesson by Nancy Gomez, El Monte High School

As the United States continues to be a nation of immigrants, learning about the experiences of diverse immigrant groups encourages tolerance, empathy, and respect for cultural diversity. Understanding Chinese and Mexican immigration is especially relevant in contemporary discussions about immigration, border security, and multiculturalism. Both groups, amongst many others, have faced oppression, discrimination  in labor, social mobility was scarce, both were deported, and both faced segregation in the United States. Since the Gilded Age, Chinese and Mexicans built communities in the United States to support themselves and persevere despite the nativist attitudes of the time. Most beautifully, these two groups often worked together and coexisted alongside each other. For instance, many Chinese went to Mexico to cross the US Mexico border when the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 went into effect, yet many Chinese stayed in Mexico. Later, during the civil rights movements, groups that had been oppressed by white supremacy, Jim Crow laws, and racism ended up coming together to improve their conditions. 

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Indian Wars and Indigenous Conflicts in the West
Lesson by Ashley Mitchell, Douglas High School

For much of the early 19th century, the idea of American expansion was enmeshed in the issue of slavery. Every step taken by the young nation was met by the dichotomous push for free states and slave states in the West. Upon the secession of the southern states, the US government was free to politicize the West unimpeded. A series of federal movements followed, and by the end of 1862, the Homestead Act offered western land, the Morrill Land Grant Act established higher education, and the Pacific Railroad Act tackled transportation--all aimed at settling and establishing the West. The Department of Agriculture was created and began overseeing previously unregulated territory. Through it all, the issue of Indigenous inhabitants and land promised to native nations went unaddressed. Implementing and enforcing these large-scale schemes might have been impossible for the US government were it not for the broad threat of the Civil War. The war saw military bases established throughout the West, and the end of the war meant many unemployed soldiers were available to be stationed throughout the region. Thus, the nation was positioned to militarily engage with Indigenous nations throughout the Plains and the West Coast. The subsequent decades saw massacres, skirmishes, attacks, wars, and raids. Justice failed in the face of shock troops and an expanding empire. Within 20 years, tribes from Colorado to Oregon had fought and failed, and the United States had firmly established its physical presence throughout the contiguous US.
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