Aline DEKLERCK – Ms.

Saint-Paul – 2020-2021

American culture 2020-2021

Table des matières
1 Test your knowledge! ..................................................................................................................... 3
2 US ID card ........................................................................................................................................ 4
2.1 Physical geography: land, climate, and natural resources...................................................... 4
2.1.1 Test your knowledge!...................................................................................................... 6
2.2 Human geography: territory and people ................................................................................ 7
2.2.1 About the states .............................................................................................................. 7
2.2.2 What are belts? ............................................................................................................... 8
2.2.3 The people .................................................................................................................... 10
2.2.4 Cities, towns, and transportation ................................................................................. 11
2.2.5 Test your knowledge!.................................................................................................... 11
3 Theme #1: US political history – from white settlement to modern politics ............................... 13
3.1 Part 1 – The Colonial Period .................................................................................................. 13
3.1.1 Test your knowledge!.................................................................................................... 19
3.2 Part 2 – The Origins and Structure of the US Government................................................... 20
3.2.1 The Articles of Confederation ....................................................................................... 20
3.2.2 The Constitution............................................................................................................ 20
3.2.3 The Bill of Rights............................................................................................................ 24
3.2.4 Test yourself! ................................................................................................................ 26
3.3 Part 3 – Political ideologies in the US ................................................................................... 27
3.3.1 What is an ideology? ..................................................................................................... 27
3.3.2 Economic issues ............................................................................................................ 28
3.3.3 Social and moral issues ................................................................................................. 28
3.3.4 Military and foreign policy issues ................................................................................. 29
3.3.5 What the two parties believe today ............................................................................. 29
3.3.6 US Presidential Election ................................................................................................ 31
3.3.7 Test yourself! ................................................................................................................ 35
4 Theme #2 – Natives, immigration, and territorial expansion throughout US history .................. 37
4.1 Part 1 – the Pre-Columbian era: a diversity of tribes and cultures....................................... 37
4.1.1 The Pueblo .................................................................................................................... 38
4.1.2 The Apache.................................................................................................................... 38
4.1.3 The Iroquois .................................................................................................................. 38
4.1.4 The Dakota / the Sioux .................................................................................................. 39
4.1.5 The Haida ...................................................................................................................... 39
4.2 Part 2 – White settlement and immigration ......................................................................... 40

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4.2.1 A review of the nations exploring the continent .......................................................... 40

4.2.2 A review of the first permanent British settlements .................................................... 40
4.2.3 A review of the first permanent French settlements: la Nouvelle France.................... 40
4.2.4 A review of the first permanent Spanish settlements: New Spain ............................... 40
4.2.5 American territorial expansion ..................................................................................... 40
4.2.6 Summary of Immigration to the US before the 1800s .................................................. 42
4.3 Part 3 – Shifting trends and rising tensions – Natives and immigrants today ...................... 46
4.3.1 Immigration Services..................................................................................................... 46
4.3.2 The US government bans alcohol: the Prohibition ....................................................... 47
4.3.3 The Golden Gates close................................................................................................. 47
4.3.4 An identity crisis ............................................................................................................ 48
4.3.5 Immigration today ........................................................................................................ 48
4.3.6 The immigration debate in the new millennium .......................................................... 48
4.3.7 The immigration debate today ..................................................................................... 50
5 Theme #3: African American history ............................................................................................ 51
5.1 Part 1 – From the introduction of slavery to segregation .................................................... 51
5.1.1 The first Dutch cargo ..................................................................................................... 51
5.1.2 The growth of slavery in America ................................................................................. 51
5.1.3 Growth of slave power.................................................................................................. 53
5.1.4 Emergence of sectionalism (1825-1860) ...................................................................... 53
5.1.5 Trying to “solve the problem”....................................................................................... 54
5.1.6 The Civil War ................................................................................................................. 54
5.2 Part 2 – From Segregation to Obama’s presidency .............................................................. 57
5.2.1 The Black Migration ...................................................................................................... 57
5.2.2 The US enters WWII ...................................................................................................... 58
5.2.3 The Turbulent Fifties and Sixties ................................................................................... 59
5.2.4 African Americans in the “Post-Racial Era” ................................................................... 61

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1 Test your knowledge!

05/02/21
1. Who was Donald J. Trump’s running mate and who did they defeat in the last presidential
elections (2016)?
Mike Pence was Trump’s running mate, and Trump and he defeated Hillary Clinton and Tim
Kaine.
2. How often are presidential elections held?
Presidential elections are held every four years. The Constitution limits the presidency to
two mandates (8 years).
3. Who takes over if the president is impeached while in office?
The Vice President takes over if the President dies or is impeached, then the Speaker of the
House, then the President of the Senate, then the Secretary of State.
4. When are the next legislative elections?
The next legislative elections, also called Mid-term Elections, are held in November 2022.
They are held every two years.
5. What is the capital of the United States?
Washington D.C. (District of Columbia)
6. How many stars are there on the American flag?
50 stars for the 50 states
7. What is the population of the United States?
There are about 330 million people living in the U.S.
8. Which state ranks first in per capita income?
Connecticut (Northeast of the US.S.)
9. What is the official language of the United States?
There is no official language at the federal level in the U.S.
10. Is death penalty applied throughout the United States?
No, it is legal in 28 states but only applied in about 5-10 states (depends on the year).

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2 US ID card
2.1 Physical geography: land, climate, and natural
resources
First, let us define the continent: The United States is a part of the
American continent, or Americas. Some people refer to the US as North
America, which is incorrect because it would mean that it is the only
country on that continent.
In terms of latitude, the US stretches from the Artic Circle to the Tropic
of Cancer. That means that the US can vary a lot in terms of weather.
Southernmost state is Florida, and southernmost city is Key West, in
Miami. Northernmost state is Alaska.
The Americas
In terms of longitude, the US covers 6 times zones, four on the
continent + Hawaii and American Islands (Porto Rico, …).

There are other global features of the United

States: oceans and seas.
➢ Pacific Ocean on the West coast:
Hawaii, the Aleutian Islands, Guam.
Most of the Aleutian Islands belong to
the state of Alaska, some to Russia,
while Guam is an organized territory
of the United States. There are
fourteen territories that are scattered
to the Caribbean Sea in the Pacific
Ocean, but some of these have no one
living on them. Porto Rico is actually The Oceans
the most populous of these territories, with 2.9 million people. The residents received the
American citizenship at birth, except for American Samoa.
➢ Atlantic Ocean on the East coast
➢ Gulf of Mexico, the area between Texas and Florida
➢ Straits of Florida (Southeast)
➢ Chesapeake Bay (Northeast)

Other important global features are mountains ranges and

plains. They are classified from East to West (the mountains
are higher there):
➢ Appalachian Mountains
➢ The Great Plains → flat grasslands
➢ Rocky Mountains
➢ Sierra Nevada
➢ Coastal Range

The landscape of North America

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Then we have rivers and lakes. To be remembered in the

East and Midwest:
➢ The Saint Lawrence River (US Canadian border)
➢ The Great Lakes (US Canadian border)
➢ The Niagara Falls (US Canadian border)
➢ The Mississippi (+ Delta, the area where it falls into
the Gulf of Mexico)
➢ The Ohio River
➢ The Missouri River (Yellowstone National Park)

The rivers of North America

And to be remembered in the West:

➢ Rio Grande (US Mexican border)
➢ The Colorado River (Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam, Las Vegas)
➢ The Great Lakes (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Eerie,
Superior1): they are known as America’s inland
seas. They are so massive that they border 8 states
and contain 23 quadrillion litres of water. These
vast bodies of water span forest, grassland, and
wetland habitats, supporting a region that is home
to over 3,500 species.
The story of these Great Lakes begins near the end
of the last Ice Age over 10,000 years ago, a time
when the climate was warming and the glaciers
that cloaked the Earth’s surface began their slow
retreat. These immense ice sheets carved out a The Great Lakes
series of basins. Those basins filled with water as
the ice began to melt, created the world’s largest area of freshwater lakes. Over time,
channels developed between these basins.
Today, the interconnected great Lakes contain 20% of the world’s supply of fresh surface
water. The water’s journey begins in the far north of Lake Superior, the deepest, coldest, and
clearest of the lakes. A drop of water spends 200 years there before flowing into Lake
Michigan or Lake Huron. Linked by the Straits of Mackinac, these two lakes are technically
one. To the west lies Lake Michigan, where water slowly moves through its cul-de-sac shape.
To the east is Lake Huron, and below them, water continues to flow southeastwards into Lake
Eerie. Finally, the water reaches its last stop by plunging more than 50 meters down the
Niagara Falls into Lake Ontario. From there, some of this water enters the St-Lawrence River,
eventually reaching the Atlantic Ocean.
The Great Lakes also bring us multiple benefits: they provide natural water filtration, flood
control, and nutrients cycling. By moving water across more than 3,200 kilometres, they also
provide drinking water for 40 million people and 212 billion litres a day for the industries and
farms that line in their banks.

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H.O.M.E.S.!

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But they have a range of negative impacts, too: the Great Lakes habitats are being degraded
and increasingly populated, exposing the once pristine waters to industrial, urban and
agricultural pollutants. Humans have also inadvertently introduced more than 100 non-
native and invasive species into the lakes, that have decimated some indigenous fish
populations. On a larger scale, climate change is causing the waters to warm, thus reducing
water levels and changing the distribution of aquatic life.
Luckily, people have started to recognize the value of the Great Lakes, and partnerships
between the United States and Canada are underway to reduce pollution, protect coastal
habitats, and halt the spread of invasive species.
➢ State of Minnesota: land of 10,000 lakes
➢ State of Florida: Everglades (!! alligators)

The US climate is mostly temperate but can also be:

➢ Tropical in Hawaii and Florida: high temperatures and a lot of rain
➢ Arctic in Alaska
➢ Semiarid in the Southwest: dry, very hot

Weather conditions in the US are varied and can be very extreme:

➢ Winter blizzards and avalanches
➢ Permafrost and melt (in Alaska)
➢ Hurricanes and tornados: hurricanes create over the Caribbean and then hit Florida, the Gulf
of Mexico, by dumping a lot of water and having very high winds, whereas tornados build on
lands only and only have high winds
➢ Flooding (California, Louisiana, …) and mudslides
➢ Heatwaves and droughts (Southwest)
➢ Wildfires
So, each year, the US spends billions on weather and climate disasters.

2.1.1 Test your knowledge!

1. How many time zones are there in the US?
There are six time zones: four on the continental US, and two extra time zones on the Oceans.
2. What are the northernmost and southernmost states in the US?
The northernmost state is Alaska, which is part of the Artic Circle, and the southernmost is
Florida.
3. Name the mountain ranges which are the closest to the East and West coasts.
The mountain range which is the closest to the East is the Appalachian Mountains, while the
one on the West coast is the Coastal Range.
4. Give the names of at least 3 of the Great Lakes.
Lake Michigan, Lake Superior, Lake Ontario + Lake Huron, Lake Eerie
5. What is the name of the river that splits the US in two, what is the origin of its name and what
does its name mean?
Mississippi, the name means big river in Native American.

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6. What is the name of the waterfalls which are on the border between the state of NY and
Canada?
The Niagara Falls
7. What is the name of the river which flows through the Grand Canyon?
The Colorado (without the article, it refers to the state of Colorado!!)
8. Which State is also called the “state of 10,000 lakes”?
Minnesota
9. Which part of the US has a semiarid type of weather?
The South-East
10. Which area of the US can have frequent “whiteout conditions”?
The North-East and the North-West
11. Which area of the US has the highest risk of tornadoes?
The Tornado Alley, which is flat lands or the Great Planes, and is located between the Rocky
Mountains and the Coastal Range.
12. What is a “climate sceptic”, give an example?
It is said about someone who does not believe in climate change, who thinks it is a hoax.
Donald Trump, for example, said it was created by Chinese to be more economically powerful.

2.2 Human geography: territory and people

2.2.1 About the states
There are 50 stars on the American flag for the 50 states. There also are 13 red and white stripes for
the 13 original colonies. The flag is also called The Stars and Stripes and The Old Glory. The pattern
also influenced the tittle of the country’s National Anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner.

Geographically, the biggest state is Alaska, then Texas, followed by California.

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12/02/21
Each state has its own nickname:

They also have their own flags and license plates.

Census bureaus are bureaus that gather
information, like how much citizens there are in
which state every ten years. It matters because of
politics because population defines the number of
representatives.
They also divide the US in official regions.
The Deep South is one of the poorest, and very
conservative.

2.2.2 What are belts?

The US are also divided in unofficial regions: the belts.
A belt is a term for a region that shares cultural,
climate, or economic similarities.
There are a lot of different belts, and these are
approximate.

The Rust Belt stretches across the Great Lakes region

and six states, including Lower Michigan, Chicago, all
of Ohio, and Northern Indiana.
It had been the economic centre of the US and a home to a powerful manufacturing industry for a
long time but is now the centre of urban decay. It has a shrinking economy and population.

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For example, Detroit was once one of the most populated cities in America; it was at its peak in the
50s: the population was 1,800,00, whereas it is just 680,000 today. It lost 25% of its population in the
last decade alone.
As the US went into the post-industrial age, jobs that once could support a middle-class lifestyle were
shipped overseas to new industrial nations. Detroit, Chicago, Toledo, Cleveland, and many other cities
are now remnants of an industrial age. This led to higher rates of poverty, corruption, and a general
feeling of hopelessness. The people living there move out to go to the Sun Belt.

The Sun Belt refers to the generally warm regions, with climate
ranges from desert to subtropical.
The largest city in that belt is Los Angeles, but it will soon have
competition as the southern migration has boom cities across the
belt. Out of the 10 fastest growing cities in the US, 9 are in the Sun
Belt, and 5 in Texas alone. New tech like air conditioning and
greater access to water has left formerly uninhabitable regions to
become new centres of the American dream. Phoenix, Arizona
averages summer temperatures of 93 degrees yet remains the 6th fastest growing city in America.
The four Snow Belts are all surrounding the Great Lakes. It is known
for the snow they have there. In 1977, New York was hit by a 3-day
blizzard. Whiteouts are frequent there.
This is also thanks to the Frost Belt,
which is the same expect it is just one
belt.
These winters have driven away
population as snow is very unfavourable to drivers, and people would
have to deal with the cold temperatures.

Some areas are not referred by their belt names, but we know they exist nonetheless: it is the case
for the Corn Belt, which is the breadbasket of America. It extends from West Ohio to East Kansas and
is known for its large number of farms, and its production of fine corn.

The Bible Belt, coined by HL Mencken in 1924, is notable for its high percentage of protestant
followers which have influenced the laws and politics of the area with a much higher rate of politicians
and voters who exclusively vote conservative. It is opposed to the Unchurch Belt, which has the lowest
percentage of religious people in its population.

The Black Belt is a reference to the proportion of population that

is African American.
It contains states such as Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, South
Carolina, which are all states where slavery was at its peak.
It is typically a region of very fertile lands.

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The Jell-O Belt owes its name to the number of Mormons that lived there. They were said to like Jell-
O, which is why that belt has that name.

2.2.3 The people

The total population of the US is 330 million, and the most populated state is California (39 million
people).

Major minority groups according to US Census Bureau (2010 Census):

➢ Hispanic Americans: 18%
➢ Black Americans2: 13%
➢ Asian Americans: 5%
➢ Native Americans (American Indian) or Alaska Natives: 1.5%
➢ Native Hawaiians: 0.5%

About 1/3 of the US population is minorities today. US Census predicts that by 2050 the US will be a
“majority-minority” nation. 4 sates are already majority-minority: Hawaii (77%), California (60%), New
Mexico (59%), Texas (55%), and DC (65%).
The metaphor of the salad bowl corresponds to the idea that America is the bowl, and all the
ingredients are the different ethnic minorities. The metaphor of the melting pot is no longer used
because it implies that people must lose their colour.
Nearly 40 million, or 13%, of the total population of the US is foreign-born.

There is no official language in the US because when the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution
and the Bill of Rights, the first thing they wanted to guarantee is freedom of speech: in the 1st
Amendment is stated that not only all Americans should be able to say what they think, but also to
say what they think in whatever language they want.
States can still pass “English-only laws” for the administration at the state level, which means that you
will receive your official documents in English. This being said, you will always have the right to a
translation/translator/interpreter.

Which religious denomination has the largest following?

➢ Christian about 70%:
✓ Protestant about 50% (includes many different groups such as: Baptists, Lutherans,
Presbyterians, Evangelicals, Methodists, Quakers, etc.)
✓ Roman Catholic about 20%

2
African American is used to refer to people whose origin is linked to slavery, whose ancestors where slaves
(fr: Afro-Américain).

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➢ Non-Christian about 8%: Mormon 1.6%, Jehovah’s Witness 0.8%, Orthodox 0.5%, Jewish 2%,
Buddhist 0.7%, Muslim 0.9%, Hindu 0.7%, etc.
➢ “Nones” about 22% (no religion: atheist, agnostic, and nothing in particular)
Because America is cosmopolitan, it can be hard to identify as an American. Consequently, people will
try to belong to an entity, such as book-clubs, bands, etc.

The state that ranks first in per capita income is Connecticut, and the city is Washington DC, while the
poorest state is Mississippi.
19/02/21

2.2.4 Cities, towns, and transportation

The capital of the United States is Washington, DC. All 3 branches of federal government are in DC:
The White House – executive branch, Capitol Hill (Pennsylvania Avenue, 1600) – legislative branch,
and the US Supreme Court – judicial branch. There are also a lot of national and international
organizations3 (FBI, etc.), but it is also cultural centre (Smithsonian Institutions).
New York City (8.5 million) is the biggest city of the US, then Los Angeles (3.9 million), Chicago (2.7
million), Washington D.C. (680,000), which is smaller than Brussels (1.1 million).
Typically, urban centres have these big skyscrapers, like in NYC, Chicago, and Atlanta. By contrast,
Beverly Hills only has suburbs. There are also small towns, which typically have one bar, one
restaurant, one post office. Sometimes, there is a school if you are lucky.
Today, there are 6,586,610 million kilometres of roads. There are also subways, ports, bridges, and
airports (13,513, and 5,054 with paved runways).

2.2.5 Test your knowledge!

1. How many stripes are there on the American flag? Why?
13 - because of the original 13 colonies
2. What is the name of the American national anthem?
The Star-Spangled Banner
3. Geographically, which state is the biggest?
Alaska
4. What is Florida’s nickname?
The sunshine state
5. What are the official colours of US license plates? Why?
There are none; each state wants to retain the freedom to a plates that represents their
particularities.
6. How many official US Census regions are there in the US?
4 – the Northeast, the South, the Midwest, and the West
7. What is the “Black Belt”?
The area of the US in which the population has the highest percentage of African/Black
Americans
8. How many people live in the US today?
330 million
9. Which state is the most populated? What is its population?
California – about 39 million

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See page 9 of the syllabus

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10. Which minority group is the largest today? What percentage of the population does this group
represent?
The Hispanic American community – 18%
11. Where do most African Americans live in the US and why?
In the Deep South – because this was where slavery took root in the 1600s.
12. What is the official language in the US and why?
There is none. This is because of the first Amendment to the US Constitution = Freedom of
speech.
13. What is the estimated percentage of the US population which is Protestant?
Some 50 percent of Americans identify themselves as Protestant.
14. Which expression is used to refer to the part of the US which is the most religious?
The Bible Belt
15. Which is the richest state in the US? Which official region is it situated in?
Connecticut – in the Northeast
16. What does DC stand for in Washington DC? Which state is the city of Washington DC situated
in?
It stands for District of Columbia – a poetic reference to Christopher Columbus. It does not
belong to any state, it is an independent city.
17. Which US city has the largest population size? Give an approximate number.
New York City, NY – 8.5 million people
18. Which other term is used to refer to the suburbs in the US?
Suburbia

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3 Theme #1: US political history – from white settlement to modern

politics
3.1 Part 1 – The Colonial Period
What we are first going to be looking at what the situation was in Europe at the time of the first
European colonists left Europe for America:
➢ The Europe population was very dense: 80 million in Europe vs. 30 million in the US. The vast
majority will be killed by incoming people.
➢ Diseases spread like crazy: Black plague, syphilis, smallpox4. There was a climate of constant
fear. That was an important push-factor5.
➢ Hunger was a reality because cities were overpopulated, and famines were common.
➢ Corruption was very common. The power and the money were owned by the church. There
was no freedom of religion.
➢ Military and naval technologies are really developing, with new weapons and gunned ships.
They can then go and search for a new place.
➢ This is a period of revolutions, there was a downward pressure on the poor that led to
discontentment.
➢ The invention of the printing by Gutenberg in the 15th century helps spread this idea of
discontentment.

A “New World” is said to have been discovered by Christopher Columbus, but it had actually been
discovered long before:
➢ Hoei-Shin – China (459AD)
➢ Brendan the Bold – Ireland (551AD)
➢ Leif Ericson – Iceland (1000AD), and settled a camp called Vinland, and left because they
thought the Natives were too scary (lol he’s a Viking).
➢ Prince Medoc – Wales (1170)
➢ Zheng He – China (1421)
➢ Christopher Columbus (October 12, 1492), he set foot in what he calls the Indies (Los Indios),
in October, looking for a new root to India. He opened a period of exploration, looking for
money, products, and territory.
➢ Amerigo Vespucci (1490s) had something to
do with the appellation “America”. He is the
first explorer and cartographer who said there
was a new continent and put it on a map. The
first official map was made by Martin
Waldseemüller in 1507, was called Universalis
Cosmographia, and is considered as America’s
birth certificate.
Universalis Cosmographia

4
Variole in French
5
A factor that pushes someone to leave >< pull-factor

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The French were very active in exploration:

➢ Jacques Cartier discovers the St. Lawrence River, which corresponds to Canada (1534).
➢ Actual French settlements remained sparse, and made their way down the St. Lawrence River,
and then down the Mississippi. So, New France was not large.
➢ Samuel de Champlain founds Quebec City in 1608.
➢ In the south, the French founded la Nouvelle Orléans in 1718 up the Mississippi.

The Spanish were also travelling around the world (Spanish Conquistadores):
➢ They were looking for “El Dorado”, gold, and for opportunities to spread Christianity.
➢ Hernan Cortes – Aztecs (Mexico) (1520)
➢ Francisco Pizarro – Incas (Peru) (1550)
➢ Hernando do Soto (1539-43)
✓ Discovered the Mississippi
✓ Spanish settlements later founded in Arizona, Texas, and New Mexico
✓ Grand Canyon, Colorado River
✓ Settlements in Florida

Another exploring nation is England, with John Cabot and his Newfoundland, Chesapeake Bay.

There were three main settlements, these were British and gave birth to the United States:
➢ The Virginia Company founds Jamestown in 1607.
In 1605, a group of merchants go to King James and ask him if they can colonize Virginia,
named like that after the Virgin Queen. They create their company, the joint-stock company,
and invest in it, in search of economic freedom. They have the intention of digging up all the

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gold, the copper, and the silver they could find to bring it back in Europe. They also aimed on
““civilizing savages””.
They are wealthy men that are not used to work, so a lot of them are going to die because
they did not build their shelters fast enough, before winter lol. A lot are also going to die
because of mosquito swamps, lack of food, coldness, etc. So, with all that, they went from 120
settlers, to 100 when they arrive, to 32.
32 survived for three reasons (and an extra one is cannibalism):
✓ John Rolf decided to grow tobacco in the colony, that will become the cash crop.
They will trade it in Europe. They are also going to hire people from Europe to work
in these plantations, that are not being paid, but after seven years, they are free to
go, are no more indentured servants, and can go and live in the New World.
✓ Slaves were officially introduced in 1619 by the Dutch. The people of colour that
worked there were hired with the same conditions, but employers did not keep their
word.
✓ Colonists were helped and traded with the locals and survived because of the Natives.
Captain John Smith, a renegade, came in contact with Powhatan Indians, and this is
where the Legend of Pocahontas came from. The leader of the Mattaponi Tribe6 was
about to kill John Smith, but Pocahontas came between them and saved him.
➢ The Plymouth Pilgrims founds Plymouth Plantation in 1620.
They were separatists from the Church of England and were in search of religious freedom.
There were 102 passengers – including 18 women this time, and about 30 crew members on
the Mayflower Compact. They first set foot in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
They wanted to see the New World, and eventually, tell their families to come with them if
they liked it. They also wanted to find a New Jerusalem. A half of them died before the first
winter because they were not ready for this. Once
again, they survived because the Natives helped
them.
To mark the anniversary of living in the New World,
they created Thanksgiving in 1621. They invited the
Natives to have a meal with them to thank them for
their help.
There will be more and more colonies there!
26/02/21
➢ The (other) Puritan settlements found Massachusetts Bay in 1630-1642.
They came in much larger number than the other ones: there were thousands of people
(20,000). They came for religious freedom, just like the Pilgrims. It had the longest impact on
American culture.
They thought the Church of England was insufficiently reformed, and were for a more
conservative, pure way of practicing their religion, which is why they were called Puritans.

6
One of the Powhatan Tribe

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They had the intention of building a “City on the Hill”, which is a metaphor that represents
their journey, meaning they wanted to be on a higher ground to be closer to the Heavens.
They founded some of New England villages, and at the head of each was a town father.
The colony was ruled by a few learned laymen, and voting was restricted to male church
members. According to them, if you were not religious, you did not have a say in anything.
Unlike the other colonies, they had little patience with local tribes: they did not even try to
develop a friendship with them because they did not need them, and the Natives did not fit
in their bottle.
They introduced fundamental American values:
➢ Family: the men came with their kids and wives, and everything they had, with no
intention of going back, whereas the men of the other colonies came alone first, to
try it out. Plus, they were not safe in England because they could be killed for their
way of practicing, so you had to be able to count on your family and be self-reliant.
That is also when the role of the father was born: he had to make sure his family was
educated, and to look after his family grrr.
➢ Education: they felt the need to learn how to read and write, so education was
important to them: that would enhance kids to read the Bible. They founded Harvard
in 1636.
➢ Hard work: they believed it was important, not to become hard, but to make sure
everyone had food on their tables, to contribute to your community, and to get your
ticket to Heaven. You had to be self-reliant and not to depend on anybody.
➢ Charity: they had to take care of themselves, but there were people in their
community who need help, because they had health problems, or anything. These
should be helped, not by the government, but by the people. You would get salvation
by showing grace.
They were not on Earth to have fun and did not tolerate any kind of dissidence; this
secularism7 grew over the following decades, and this led to the Salem witchcraft trials in
1692. A lot of single women were brought to a court for “being witches”, and were often
sentenced to death: burnt alive in front of everybody, drowned (if they came back to the
surface, they were witches, and if not, then oops, too late), etc.

The growth of the colonies went on: there were thirteen colonies by 1733:
➢ the New England Colonies in the Massachusetts
In there, you have farming, crafts, small towns. Boston has a busy port for trade.
➢ the Middle Colonies in New York, Pennsylvania
In there, you have farming, crafts, and trade. You also have New York (1664), one of
the biggest urban centres at the time. Philadelphia is the largest city in America, with
a population of 28,000 by 1770.

7
Secularism: the idea that the religious rejects any outside control (e.g.: from the government) regarding their
religious life

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➢ the Southern Colonies, in Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia

These become increasingly agricultural, with tobacco and cotton plantations.
All these colonies trade with England: they export fur, timber, tobacco, and cotton; they import
immigrants, slaves, clothes, furniture, and manufacture.

The Colonies

Then, there is going to be a global conflict between the British

and the French: the possessions in North America were largely
undefined in the 1750s. The natural border was the
Appalachians: what was on the east was British, and what was on
the west was French.
That caused the Seven Years War8: a global war between the
Great Powers (France, Great Britain, and Spain), also referred to
as French (that were allied to the Natives and traded with them)
and Indian War in the USA. It ended with the Treaty of Paris in
1763. A proclamation line was established by George III, who is
trying to tell that he still has control over these colonies, he is
trying to reassert his power.
The Appalachian Frontier sets a limit on expansion, and this is not
the only thing George III is going to do on the 1760s: he also
Line established by George III
passes the Stamp Act in 1765 which imposes a tax on paper and
learning. That means that the New World had to pay a tax to Europe if they wanted to import that.
That angers the Puritans because education is important to them. Samuel Adams, one of the founding

8
La Guerre de la Conquête in French

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fathers, then stood up and said: “There should be no taxation without representation!” What he
meant is that the British colonies do not have any representative in the British Parliament: that does
not make any sense because this Parliament is supposed to defend their interests, but no one is there
to do that.
A few years later, a new legislation is passed: the Tea Act, which is a tax on any tea imported on the
Old World to the New World. That will give rise to the Boston Tea Party in 1773, which is the first
official act of rebellion against the British government. They thought that the British Parliament had
no right to tax or interfere with the activities of the colonies, so 60 colonists dressed up as Native
Americans and threw tea chests overboard.
In the following years, a group of representatives met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and this was the
First Continental Congress9 in 1774. The meeting was called in response to the Intolerable Acts (what
happened before: the Stamp Act, the Tea Act, …). Not all the 13 colonies were represented: Georgia
was not, because they wanted to wait and see the meeting went. Indeed, their economy depended
on their relations with Europe because they were selling most of their cotton there. Anyway, the
meeting took place to consider options, like boycotting British goods.
They decided to begin to train “militias”, the Minutemen: young men in their early twenties formed
to be able to respond to any outside attack in the minute. They first gathered arms against British
soldiers, also called Red Coats, and the first battle takes place in Lexington and Concord,
Massachusetts. This is referred to as the American War of Independence, or the Revolutionary War.

Before George Washington became the First President of the United States, he was a military leader
during that war, and he is considered as one of the keys to success for its effective military
commanding.
Another key to success is geography: the Red Coats were not familiar with the geography of the
Americas whereas the young Americans had been living there for generations.
The motivation of the Americans to be free also played a role in the fighting.
Surprisingly, France supported the Americas and participated in the pushing of the British colonies,
maybe because they realised, they had interest in doing so.

On July 4th, 1776, Thomas Jefferson and the Continental Congress adopt the Declaration of
Independence. That will be officially recognized by Britain in 1783 with the Treaty of Paris. Jefferson
is considered as the main author of the Declaration of Independence. He had travelled to Europe,
where there were revolutionary ideas because of movements like the Enlightenment, and
philosophers such as British John Locke, who inspired him. The Declaration of Independence is actually
a list of grievances condemning King George, a list of why they think they should be free. It is a
cornerstone of American democracy. The original draft can be found at the Library of Congress: it
includes a part against slavery and promises the equality of all men. There is a handwritten copy signed
by delegates at National Archives in WDC.
Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Adams, John Hancock10 (biggest signature because of his big ego), Benjamin
Franklin, and George Washington are considered as founding fathers.

9
Here, it just means « meeting ».
10
“I need your John Hancock” means “I need your signature” in the USA. Careful: when translating, you must
paraphrase! A French-speaker does not understand this reference to American culture.

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“We hold these truths to be self-evident,

that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator
with certain unalienable Rights,
that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,

deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

That whenever any Form of Government

becomes destructive of these ends,
it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,
and to institute new Government…”

They explained why they wanted to be free, and then got that freedom, but did not have anything: no
government, no army, no President. They did write the three founding documents – the Declaration
of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, but still had no idea what to do next.

3.1.1 Test your knowledge!

1. Give at least 4 push-factors encouraging Europeans to look for new places to settle in the
1500s.
Hunger, corruption, disease, dense populations, revolutions, the invention of printing
2. According to historians, which nation was the first to set foot in North America?
China (459AD) – But most history books refer to Christopher Columbus (1492)
3. Why was the “new” continent called “America”?
Because of Amerigo Vespucci, the Italian navigator who published 2 booklets on the New
World in the early 1500s and which inspired the cartographer Martin Waldseemüller to apply
the name America for his map showing the New World.
4. Which three nations were exploring the Americas in the 1500s?
The French (that had the biggest part of the territory), the Spanish and the British (more
populated colonies)
5. Give the names of the first three permanent British settlements.
Jamestown, the Plymouth Plantation, the Puritan Settlements
6. What was the name of the Native American tribe which traded with the Jamestown colonists?
The Powhatan
7. What was the name of the Plymouth pilgrim compact11?
The Mayflower Compact in reference to spring
8. When was the first Thanksgiving celebrated and who was involved?
1621 – The Plymouth Pilgrims invite the local Natives to share a meal with them to thank them
for their support throughout their first year in the New World
9. List the four main fundamental American values introduced by the Puritans.
Family, education, hard work, charity
10. By the mid-1700s, which nation covered the biggest part of the north American territory?
France
11. In the late 1700s, what territorial limit did George III impose on the people living in the
colonies?

11
Compact: group of ships that travel together

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The Proclamation Line, or the Appalachians frontier

12. When did the Continental Congress declare the independence of the American colonies?
On July 4th, 1776 – Independence Day
05/03/21

3.2 Part 2 – The Origins and Structure of the US Government

There were two constitutions: the first US Constitution is named Articles of Confederation and
Perpetual Union (1781 – 1791) and the Modern Constitution.

3.2.1 The Articles of Confederation

The first Constitution establishes the name of the country: “The United States of America”. It also
gives states most of the power, and that is a very weak form of government. They decide to have no
executive branch at all, meaning there is no president: a reason for that is that they are afraid of giving
the power to only one man. There only is an Assembly, a Congress; there are courts but no national
courts. They also decide that Congress cannot regulate interstate trade and has no power to tax.
They also say that 9 out of 13 states must approve a law for a law to pass. Each state coins its own
money and has its own flag.
One thing can be mentioned about this period: few decisions were made. The only notable legislation
passed was the Northwest Ordinance (1787). It made exploring the rest of the continent possible for
the generations to come. It opens up new territory for exploration and settlement. The second
important thing it does is prohibiting slavery in the territory. It also acknowledges Native American
presence and says they shall be nice to them. It says that they should not take their territory without
consent lol. The promise was not kept because of Cotton Gin and Louisiana Purchase.

3.2.2 The Constitution

After some years, the people of the new country realized not having an executive was somewhat of a
problem: they did not have anybody to represent them. 55 delegates12 from the 13 colonies met in
Philadelphia in 1787 (Constitutional Convention Philadelphia) to solve the problems of the Articles
of Confederation but decide to rewrite the whole Constitution13 after three or four days because they
realised it would not work.
It is depicted as a Bundle of Compromises in history books because they wanted an executive power,
but without giving too much power to it. So, they created a system of checks and balances14: in a
nutshell, that means that none of the three branches existing today can make a decision without the
approval of at least one of the other branches.
For example, the President can pick a new Supreme Court Justice if one dies or retires, but the Senate
has to approve that choice. Congress can draft a piece of legislation, but the President has to sign it.
Another compromise they made was on the presidential elections: they did not want a direct election
because they were afraid a dictator might get elected and steal the election. So, they created an
indirect election system called the Electoral College.
The greatest compromise they had to make is the bicameral legislature. The legislative branch in the
USA is the Congress. They could not agree on whether representatives in Congress should be
proportional to the population in each state, or equal in each state.

12
They were all white males.
13
Can be referred to as the modern or living Constitution.
14
See pages 12 and 13 of the syllabus

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Therefore, they decided to have two chambers: the Senate,

which represents the states (= equal representation, two
senators/state), and the House of Representatives, which
represents the people (= proportional representation, Alaska
has one and California 53).
They also had to talk about taxation, on which southern and
northern states disagreed: the Southern states did not want to
count slaves for taxation in order to get the best out of the
system, but did want to count them when talking about
representation in order to get more representatives. They did
find an agreement: the Three-Fifths Compromise, which says
that 5 slaves equals 3 whites.
Because the debate for taxation was so tense, one last
compromise was not to interfere for 20 years. As soon as that
period was over, Congress banned slavery for good.
The Constitution of the United States was accepted in 1788. The Founding Fathers or Drafters

Here are the first words of the Constitution:

“We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union,
establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity, provide for the common Defence,
promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty
to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish
this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Most Americans have read the Constitution, know how the government is structured.

The government the Constitution established15

The Constitution says there are three branches:

15
See page 8 of the syllabus

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➢ A legislative branch, which makes the laws, but is also responsible for approving federal
judges and Justices, passing the national budget, and declaring war.
➢ An executive branch, which execute the laws. They also take decisions within their area of
expertise such as Defense, the Treasury, and homeland security. They also appoint
government officials, command their own forces, and meet with leaders of other nations16.
➢ A judicial branch, which judges the laws under the Constitution: it interprets it and punish
those who break them. The Supreme Court settles state disputes, hears appeals from federal
courts, and determine if federal laws are constitutional.
This forms the government. When talking about administration, we refer to the executive only
(President + Vice president + 15 departments17, and a secretary18 for each of them). The term
“Cabinet” refers to the 15 departments.
The President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House depend on what political party is leading:
if the President is democrat, they will be democrat too. Nancy Pelosi is the current Speaker of the
House.
The Judicial Branch is made of the US Supreme Court19, which is the highest court in the nation. There
are nine Justices20 picked by the President if one retires or dies21. The states choose their laws, but
the US Supreme Court can pass a law for the 50 states. For example, in 1954, they decided it was
unconstitutional to have separate schools for white children and children of colour. In 1974, they
decided that all women would have a right to abortion up to 22 weeks of pregnancy. In 2015, they
decided that everyone should be able to get married, regardless of their sexual orientation. They are
the only body that can declare something constitutional or unconstitutional. The current Chief
Justice is John Roberts.

Requirements for holding (federal22) office

There are two types of officials: elected officials (Congress members, the president, judges, sheriffs,
etc.) and appointed officials (Cabinet members, Justices to the US SC, CIA director, etc.).
The Vice President is half elected half appointed.

16
This is a lot of work, so 4 million people are employed to do it.
17
Ministères in French
18
Do not use minister!! It is a religious denomination in English. Ministre in French. The president appoints
every secretary. He can also appoints members of a number of members for government corporations (see
page 9 of the syllabus).
19
Cour suprême des États-Unis in French
20
Not judges !!!
21
See page 10 of the syllabus
22
There is also a legislature at state level.

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In order to be hired at the US SC, three things have to happen: you have to be nominated by the
president of the US, your nomination needs to be approved by the Senate, and the president must
formally appoint you to the court. Since the Constitution does not mention anything about age,
profession, qualifications, or anything, anyone can be appointed.

The Founding Fathers decided the legislative branch would be a bicameral system, a system made of
two branches: the Senate and the House of Representatives23. Congress members are elected during
midterm elections (also called legislative elections) every 2 years.

In 2020, we elect 33 senators; in 2022, 33 again; then, in 2024, 34. In 2026, the people we elected in
2020 leave and we rerun elections.
As you can see in the table, in 2020, there were 50 Republicans and 50 Democrats in the Senate. The
Vice President will be counted to know which party is leading. For example, if that happens when
Kamala Harris is in the office, the Senate will be considered as Democrat because Harris is.
You can also see that in 2020, if you add 222 and 212, that makes 434. It is because some
representatives do not want to be affiliated with any political party.

The fifteen departments of the Cabinet

The current POTUS is Joe Biden and FLOTUS is Jill Biden.

23
See page 27 of the syllabus

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12/03/21

3.2.3 The Bill of Rights

The framework of US government was
created with the 1788 Constitution,
but the Founding Fathers were still
afraid they may have created too
strong a federal government, so they
added the Bill of Rights in 1791. Even
with the system of checks and
balances, they feared that the rights of
the people would not be respected.
The Bill of Rights is a list of
amendments24 to the US Constitution
(American people’s individual rights
and liberties) that limits the power of
the federal government. Their idea
was to try to find some kind of balance
between a strong central government,
individual freedoms, and state
powers.
The Framers enabled the document to
grow with the nation: the language is
flexible enough to be interpreted in
different ways.

24
Exam: the 1st, 2nd, 5th and 6th Amendments are the most important! (13, 14, 15, 18, 21, 25?)

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Aline DEKLERCK – Ms. Saint-Paul – 2020-2021

The 1st Amendment is the most important to them because this is the exact cause they started
exploring and founding colonies: they wanted freedom. It states that they have a right to protest, to
disagree with the government: in a nutshell, the freedom of speech.

The 2nd Amendment states that they have a right to have a gun. It could be repealed, the Red Coats
are no longer there, but it is not for one reason: that could let people think that the other Amendments
could be repealed, like the first one. They do not want to open that door, take that risk. So, they leave
the decision to state level.

The 3rd Amendment states that no troop has the right to take over somebody’s private home.
Americans are very attached to their privacy. Police officers cannot come in your house unless they
have a mandate.

The 4th Amendment states that your house can be searched only if the police have a warrant. They
can have the warrant if there is already some evidence against you.

The 5th and the 6th Amendments are the rights of the accused. You have the right to receive protection
by all proper legal procedures (= due process of law): everybody should be protected equally under
the law. You have the right to be accused by a grand jury. You have the right not to be tried twice.
You have the right to remain silent – until you speak to your lawyer for example.
In the 1960s, Ernesto Miranda was arrested for having kidnapped, raped and killed a handicapped girl.
He confessed, but when he was brought to court, there were no other proof. His lawyer managed to
have him acquitted because he argued that the police did not remind him of the 5th Amendment. That
case was brought to US SC, and it was decided that police officers had the obligation of reading the 5th
and 6th Amendments to anybody they arrest. Therefore, those are named the Miranda rights.

The 7th and 8th Amendments are the rights to have a trial by jury and protection against unusual
punishment. This is vague and can be interpreted in multiple ways. Death penalty opposers argue that
being executed is an unusual punishment, is unconstitutional and should be banned.

The 9th Amendment states that the rights that are not in the Constitution should be respected too.
This protects the rights they could have forgotten.

The 10th Amendment states that the powers that the national government does not have are given
to the states.

The Founding Fathers made it possible for the Bill of Rights to be continued. It went from 10 to 27
Amendments!

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The 13th, 14th and 15th are the Civil War Amendments: they prohibited slavery, gave the citizenship
to African American, and the right to vote.

The 21st Amendment repealed the 18th Amendment, that tries to refrain immigration (there was a lot
of it after the WWI) by prohibiting liquor. That did not work.

The 25th Amendment enables the people to declare the President unfit to rule. Only the Vice President
and the Cabinet can do that.

This sums up
what we need to
know.

The federal
actually has very
limited power!

3.2.4 Test yourself!

1. How often a presidential and legislative election is held?
A presidential election is held every four years while legislative election is held every two
years.
2. When are the next presidential and midterm elections?
The next presidential elections will be held on Tuesday November 5th, 2024. The next midterm
elections will be held in 2022.
3. Who takes over if the President dies or is impeached?

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Aline DEKLERCK – Ms. Saint-Paul – 2020-2021

The Vice President. The Constitution states a presidential line of succession: the Speaker of
House, etc.
4. Who swears25 the President into office?
The Chief Justice of the US SC. John Roberts inaugurated Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
5. What was the name of the first US Constitution?
The Articles of Confederation
6. What 3 things did the 1787 Northwest Ordinance do?
It opened new territories for exploration and settlement; it prohibited slavery in the
territories; it acknowledged Native American presence in these territories.
7. What metaphor is also used to refer to the modern/living Constitution?
A ‘bundle of compromises’
8. Give the names of at least 3 of the Founding Fathers.
George Washington, Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock, James Madison, Ben
Franklin, and Patrick Henry
9. What are the 3 branches of the US federal government?
The Executive (President + VP + Administration), the Legislative (Congress), and the Judicial
(US Supreme Court + lower courts)
10. What are the two types of federal government officials? Give one example for each.
Elected officials: President, congressmen and women, judges in lower courts, sheriffs, etc.
Appointed officials: Department heads (secretaries), Supreme Court Justices, etc.
11. What are the two houses of Congress? How many members are there in each house and why?
The two houses are:
The Senate: 100 senators, 2 senators per state, equal representation in all 50 states
12. What is the ‘Cabinet’ made up of?
It is made up of the heads of the 15 departments = the secretaries
13. What is another expression for legislative elections? How often these elections held, and how
long are the senators’ and representatives’ terms?
Midterm elections are held every two years. Senators are elected for 6-year terms and
representatives for 2-year terms.
14. How many amendments did the original Bill of Rights contain when it was added to the
Constitution in 1791?
10 Amendments
15. Which individual liberties do the first two amendments guarantee?
The First Amendment: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly
The Second Amendment: the right to bear arms
16. Which amendment do the ‘Miranda Rights’ refer to? Whose rights are protected?
The 5th Amendment: the rights of the accused
17. Which is the only amendment which was ever repealed? How was it repealed?
The 18th amendment (National liquor prohibition) was repealed by the passing of the 21st
amendment (This question is also dealt with in the part of the course dedicated to
immigration).

3.3 Part 3 – Political ideologies in the US

3.3.1 What is an ideology?
An ideology is a set of beliefs. You can have different types of ideologies: a religious ideology, a
personal ideology, a political ideology, etc.

25
Être investi, entrer en fonction ou prêter serment in French

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A political ideology (= what we are going to talk about now) is a set of ideas which can guide or inspire
political action. This is how you think the government should work. The terms26 left and right are
often used to refer to the different stances: a person taking the intermediate stance would be called
a centrist or moderate.
In the US, the left corresponds to the Democratic party: its colour is blue, and its mascot is the donkey;
the Republican’s colour is red, and its mascot is the olifant.

3.3.2 Economic issues

The political parties have their own ways of seeing things on multiple economic issues.
➢ Business regulation – deregulation: should the federal government impose restrictions on
factories, or not?
The government can regulate the economy, to have a say on what factories do. This keeps the
economy from growing, but it can reduce pollution for example.
It can also deregulate the American economy, let the factories do what they want, so that
they can produce more and create more jobs. That was Trump ideology. That way, the
economy can be jumpstarted.
➢ Employment – unemployment: is it the role of the government to give unemployment
benefits?
➢ Welfare – social security: should people have access to social security?
➢ Health care
➢ Education – job training
➢ Immigration – illegal immigration
➢ Poverty: whose role is it to help the poor?

3.3.3 Social and moral issues

➢ Women’s rights: should all American women have equal access to jobs? And to equal pay?
➢ Abortion: in some states, you can still have an abortion until the seventh or eighth month of
pregnancy. Should it stay that way? Should it be free? Is it a murder? (their body, their choice
<3)
➢ Pornography – nudity: is it the role of the government to say what I should or should not
watch? To say what should be (or should not be) in television?
➢ Religion
➢ Race
➢ Gay rights (and LGBTQ+ rights!!)
➢ Crime: should the police be tough on crimes?
➢ Gun control

26
See page 18 of the syllabus for more

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3.3.4 Military and foreign policy issues

➢ Involvement in international agencies (UN): should the US be part of the UN?
Conservative presidents usually position themselves as isolationist.
➢ Signing of international treaties (Paris Agreement): should American treaties be signed by
the Americans?
➢ Military spending – intervention in conflicts

3.3.5 What the two parties believe today

LIBERAL VS. CONSERVATIVE

Liberal beliefs today Conservative beliefs todays
Economic issues
1) Capitalism should not be abolished—it works 1) Much business regulation is unnecessary,
better than socialism—but it should be wasteful, and harmful. It has lowered our
regulated. Businesses often exploit workers, productivity, tied up business in red tape, and
waste resources, make unsafe and shoddy cost taxpayers a fortune. We should deregulate.
products, pollute the environment, and
discriminate on grounds of race and sex. → less government control to let people do
→ more government control to protect what they want
business
2) We need major new spending programs to 2) Welfare spending hurts the very people it is
deal with the causes and consequences of supposed to help because it mires them in
poverty—more money for housing, education, dependency. The way to cure poverty is to
job training, health care, income supplements, stimulate business so that it can create jobs in
and food programs. Government should ensure the private sector. In the meantime, poor relief
jobs, if necessary, by hiring people itself. is best left to private agencies or state and local
government.
→ more government intervention to smooth → deregulate and simplify legislation for
inequalities businesses to allow them to hire more
Social and moral issues
1) Since a woman has the right to control her 1) Abortion is not a “victimless crime” because it
own body, the government should not restrict kills an unborn baby. If it can be justified at all, it
abortion and should pay for the abortions of is only in cases where the woman’s life is at
poor women. Absent solid proof that women are stake. Pornography and prostitution victimize
exploited, government should not ban women and debase society’s morals and should
pornography or prostitution. be outlawed.
→ the government should not tell people what → in order to guarantee morals, the
to do – or not government must intervene
2) Those suspected of crime, especially the poor, 2) Criminals have literally been getting away
have been so often abused by the police in the with murder because of excessive leniency in
past that they require protections given them by the courts. We need judges who will ease
the Supreme Court during the 1960s. restrictions on the police and hand out tougher
sentences. We also need the death penalty as
the ultimate deterrent.
→ criminals are victims that were not lucky → criminals are criminals because they want it,
enough to have access to education and death penalty is useful (in denial lol)

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3) There must be a wall of separation between 3) Americans are religious people. There should
church and state. Religions must not receive be a place in our public institutions for the non-
state funds, at least not directly: religious sectarian exercise of religion.
activities have no place in public institutions.
→ moral issues such as religion are private and → religion is a guarantee of morals, and its
should be taken in a private sphere presence in institutions is encouraged
4) Racial justice in America requires the use of 4) Racial quotas or other programs giving
such strategies as busing and affirmative preferential treatment to minorities amount to
action27. racism in reverse.
→ the government must intervene to → the government must not intervene because
compensate for race discriminations it would reverse things (no<3)
5) Gay men and lesbians need legal protection 5) To give legal sanction28 to homosexual
against discrimination, both as individuals and behaviour flouts29 the deepest norms of our
couples. Gays, whether singly or with others, civilization. The idea of homosexual “marriage”,
should have the same rights to marry, buy and which makes a mockery of an institution central
rent property, adopt children, and do everything to our society, must be firmly resisted.
else allowed to heterosexual people.
→ what you do is private, and you should not → gay marriage should be forbidden, and gay
be discriminated for it behaviours should not be tolerated :/
Military and Foreign Policy
1) America should conduct more of its foreign 1) The United States should stay out of foreign
policy through international agencies like the entanglements unless there is something in
United Nations and less of it unilaterally. them that will clearly advance America’s self-
interest. We should be wary of excessive
involvement in the United Nations or any other
world body that might compromise American
sovereignty.
→ the US should have relationships with other → the US should focus on themselves and be
nations isolationist, America first!
2) Government spends too much on the military. 2) Negotiation will not work unless we negotiate
We can have a “lean, mean” military for less from strength. We must demonstrate our
money. willingness to use force if necessary, to advance
our interests: otherwise, our diplomacy will
simply be appeasement.
→ the government should not spend so much → America should be strong and show force by
money on the military investing in the military

27
Discrimination positive in French
28
Reconnaître légalement in French
29
Attaquer in French

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26/03/21

3.3.6 US Presidential Election

To be President of the United States, you must:
➢ Be a natural born citizen
➢ Be at least 35 years old
➢ Have been a U.S. resident for at least 14 years

3.3.6.1 Early stages: testing the waters (Fall 2019)

The process of electing a President and a Vice President usually starts two years before Election Day,
typically after the mid-term elections. This means that in 2022, we will already be talking about the
2024 elections.
Contenders30 from the 2 major parties31 test the waters by setting up exploratory committees to
measure popularity among different constituency groups.
If the committees report promising results, the contender makes formal announcement speech and
becomes an official candidate: the race begins.
There are front-runners, candidates that are likely to win, and underdogs, less popular candidates.

To win an election, candidates in federal elections need to:

➢ Gain public support by holding rallies and other events

30
A contender is not a candidate: they are just thinking about being a candidate to the elections. Un
prétendant in French
31
The Democratic Party, the Republican Party and minor parties

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Aline DEKLERCK – Ms. Saint-Paul – 2020-2021

➢ Raise enough money to gain that support to finance rallies: “There’s no election in the world
more expensive than the race for the White House.”

Where does the money come from?

➢ Small individual contributors: $200 or less
➢ Large individual contributors: more than $200
➢ Political Action Committee (PACs): “An organization formed to promote its members’ views
on selected issues”
➢ Self-financing (the candidate own’s money)

What do the candidates spend their money on?

➢ Campaign ads (TV – radio – social media): there are positive ads that want to make sure
the public is aware of the candidate’s strengths and negative ads that want to make sure
the public is aware of the opponent’s weaknesses
➢ Payroll for consultants and staff
➢ Insurance
➢ Bumper stickers, hats, t-shirts, and signs
➢ Stamps (to mail ads)
➢ Rent + desk and chairs
➢ Photos
➢ Travel: hotel, gas, airplane tickets, professional parking valet services
02/04/21
3.3.6.2 Primaries and Caucuses32 (from January to June 2020)
From January to June, the 50 states and the District of Columbia hold primaries and/or caucuses to
choose their preferred candidate.
Each state has its own set of rules for selecting the official candidates:
➢ Caucuses (Indian word for ‘meeting’): meetings open to all registered voters pf the party
(party activists). Few states rely on caucuses.
➢ Primaries: open to all registered voters. There are two types of primaries:
✓ Open primaries: elections in which any qualified registered voter may participate –
regardless of party affiliation
✓ Closed primaries: elections that are restricted to voters who are registered in the
party

32
Primaires et Caucus in French

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Aline DEKLERCK – Ms. Saint-Paul – 2020-2021

At the end of primaries, there is only one candidate left for each party.
3.3.6.2.1 The candidates for the Republican Party Nomination
Donald Trump, the current POTUS33 at the time, was the official preferred candidate for the
Republican Party in 2020. Nobody tried to challenge him but Bill Weld. He did not have the support
of his political party.

3.3.6.2.2 The candidates for the Democratic Party Nomination

There were 20 candidates for the Democratic Party, but we will only talk about the front-runners
before Joe Biden became the official favourite candidate.
Bernie Sanders was a candidate, but he was too much of a socialist for the Americans.
Michael Bloomberg, the former Mayor of NYC, was also a front-runner.
Elizabeth Warren, a former law professor, was also part of the race.
Amy Klobuchar, a former attorney, did try to come in the White House.
By the end of June, it was established that Joe Biden was the preferred one.

3.3.6.3 Party National Conventions (Summer 2020)

During the summer, after primary season, each party holds a 3-to-4-day National Convention to
confirm candidates for president and Vice President. So, there is a DNC, democratic National
Convention, and an RNC, a Republican National Convention. They typically pick cities in swing states.

The Conventions are often seen as ‘media extravaganzas’: it is 4 days of free media coverage for each
party to communicate its central message, its platform.

Here is the typical convention program:

➢ Day 1: Speeches
➢ Day 2: Platform
➢ Day 3: Nominating party’s official, the successful candidate then appears on stage with
spouse, children, … and thousands of balloons/music
➢ Day 4: Presenting the presidential candidate’s running-mate. Together, the P+VP form a ticket
and the VP is picked carefully: they should balance the ticket, compensate for the flaws of the
P. The unsuccessful candidates also come on stage to endorse official candidates.

3.3.6.4 Fall Campaign (Fall 2020)

The Fall Campaign starts on Labour Day weekend, which is the first weekend in September.

33
President Of The United States

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Aline DEKLERCK – Ms. Saint-Paul – 2020-2021

You traditionally have a traditional series of televised presidential and vice-presidential debates. This
is efforts to win as many undecided voters as possible: on average there are 40% republican and 40%
Democratic, so 20% are undecided voters.
So, the candidates work essentially on battleground states, purple states, where the swing voters
are, because it can make or break an election. They focus on key, elector-rich states for debates and
campaign ads.

3.3.6.5 Election Day (November 3, 2020)

Registered voters in the 50 states and Washington D.C. cast ballots34 for a ticket (P+VP).
Voter turnout35 in US midterm and presidential elections is usually low because voting is not an
obligation in the US.
Voters36 vote for electors37 that vote for a presidential ticket. Therefore, this is an indirect voting
system.
The Founding Fathers chose that type of voting system because they did not want a candidate to be
able to manipulate the population, so that careful deliberation would lead to the election of a
candidate.
Each state is given a number of electors or points. It is the sum of the senators and representatives
for that state.

The ticket that wins the most popular votes (plurality) in a state gets all of the state’s points or
Electoral College votes by a system called winner-take-all.
The candidate with most of the Electoral College votes nationwide – 270 out of 538, wins the election.
If tie, the House of Representatives votes.
The system makes it possible for minority presidents to be elected.

When a candidate gets the majority of the points, the election is over in the public’s mind, but it is
not: the electors meet months after the elections: in fact, it took place the 6th of January this year,
when the mob attack on the Capitol happened. They must certify the win of the President elect. Then,
the President is inaugurated on the 20th of January, and the P+VP take their oaths, are sworn into
office.

34
Bulletin de vote in French
See pages 29-30 of the syllabus for 2016 ballot
35
Le nombre d’Américains qui votent in French
36
Personnes qui votent in French
37
Grands électeurs in French, people chosen by the party who are pledged to vote for a particular candidate

34
Aline DEKLERCK – Ms. Saint-Paul – 2020-2021

3.3.6.6 The last elections

How was Trump elected in 2016?
Older people voted for Donald Trump. His voters were also mostly men. A majority of Trump
supporters are white.

What changed in 2020?

Trump acquired a bad reputation because of the way he handled Covid-19, of its bad character, of its
patriotism, of its memorable slogan.

3.3.7 Test yourself!

1. Which words are used to refer to right-wing and left-wing ideologies in the US?
Conservative and liberal
2. List 2 economic issues and 2 social / moral issues that Americans often debate about.
Economic issues: employment / unemployment, business regulation / deregulation, taxation,
etc. Social / moral issues: abortion, gay rights, religions at school, gun rights, etc.
3. Which words / names / expressions are used to refer to the extreme right in the US?
The alt-right, the neo-Nazi, the Tea Party
4. List (not detail) the different steps in the presidential election process.
1. Testing the waters
2. Primaries and caucuses
3. National conventions
4. The Fall campaign
5. Election day

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Aline DEKLERCK – Ms. Saint-Paul – 2020-2021

5. What word is used to refer to someone who is thinking of running for office but has not made
a formal announcement yet?
A contender
6. What are the four ways a presidential candidate can raise money in an election?
- Small donations / large donations
- PACs
- Candidate’s own money
7. What do the candidates spend most of their campaign funds on? Why?
Advertising – TV ads, radio ads, ads on social media, billboards, etc.
8. What is the aim of primaries and caucuses?
To select the official nominee for each of the political parties (only one candidate left for each
party at the end of this process).
9. When are the DNC and RNC typically held?
The National Conventions for the Democrats and Republicans are typically held in the summer
prior to the election.
10. What does ‘balancing the ticket’ mean?
It is picking a running mate who compensates for the presidential candidate’s possible flaws.
Ticket means presidential candidate + vice-presidential candidate. (ex: a presidential
candidate who is more liberal on social issues will pick a running mate who is more
conservative on these issues to compensate and draw more votes)
11. Give 2 synonyms for the term ‘swing state’ + list at least 2 ‘swing states’.
A battleground state, a purple state, an undecided state. Ex: Florida, Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania,
etc.
12. List at least 3 elector-rich states.
California (55 Electoral votes or points), Texas (38), Florida (29), NY (29), Illinois (20),
Pennsylvania (20), Ohio (18), etc.
13. What does a presidential candidate need to officially win the election?
They need to win a majority of the Electoral votes (270 votes or points)
14. What is a ‘minority president’?
A president who has won the majority of the Electoral College votes but did not have the
majority of the popular votes. Ex: George W. Bush or Donald J. Trump.
15. When is the president-elect sworn into office?
The president-elect is typically sworn into office at the end of January of the year following
the election year.

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23/04/21

4 Theme #2 – Natives, immigration, and territorial expansion

throughout US history
4.1 Part 1 – the Pre-Columbian era: a diversity of tribes and cultures
America is a nation of immigrants, that is for certain. In his book A nation of Immigrants, published
post-mortem in 1964.

Since 1607, when the first English settlers reached the New World, 40 million
people who have migrated to the United States, every American who ever lived (…)
was either an immigrant himself, or a descendant of immigrants. -JFK
This is a way of seeing things, if you do not take in consideration the people that lived there first.
No other nation in the world has received so many people from so many different countries, there is
a unique blending of: ethnic origins and cultures, traditions, religions and philosophies, languages.

Throughout history these immigrants have often crossed oceans or walked over land to seek freedoms
such as: economic freedom and religious freedom.
Before these millions of immigrants travelled the world to settle in the New World, what were the
first populations on the North American soil?
At the first European contact, there were 30 million indigenous people. Most of them were decimated
by disease, famine, war, and forced labour. That caused a collective depression. By the 19th century,
it is said there only were 240,000 Natives left.
In the 1960s, there was an identity revival because historians started to talk about what happened.
Americans started to invest their time trying to revive this heritage, teaching about Native culture,
museums exhibited Native American culture, etc.
Today, Native Americans only account for 1.5% of population. They are one of the smallest and he
poorest38 minority groups.

The first Americans came from Asia (Bering Strait) into North
America about 50,000 years ago. Now, you have water between
Asia and the Americas, but at the time, it was covered with ice.
They travelled to the Americas because they were running out of
food in Asia and needed to eat (duh).
It is estimated by historians that about 12,000 years ago, they had
made it to present day Central America because we have
evidence of corn-growing, or maize in Mexico.
And historians think they made it about 5,000 years ago all the
way to the tip of South America: the Tierra del Fuego.

38
See page 68 of the syllabus for numbers

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Aline DEKLERCK – Ms. Saint-Paul – 2020-2021

They are pictured to:

➢ Have tepees for housings
➢ Travel on horse backs or canoes
➢ Use bows and arrows, hatchets, spears for weapons
➢ Dress like Pocahontas: anything with feathers
➢ Look taal, thin, dark skinned, dark haired, braids
➢ Have dreamcatchers, totems

Names used to refer to native populations:

➢ Native Americans / Amerindians
➢ The Indigenous Peoples of Americas39
➢ Aboriginal Peoples40
➢ “Red Indians” / “Redskins”41
➢ Cowboys (the good guys) vs. Indians (the bad guys)

In the present-day US, there were about 500 different tribes and some 300 languages. There were
also many different lifestyles: nomadic / sedentary, hunter-gatherers / farmers, war-like / peaceful,
etc. In a nutshell, there was a tremendous diversity42.

They are so much more that the stereotypes during European colonization make it seem. A very
common cliché was that they were “savages”, partly because they did not believe in God, but actually
they were very spiritual.

4.1.1 The Pueblo

They lived in Arizona, New Mexico and were what we call sedentary farmers: they grew corn, cotton,
and leather. They did not live in tepees at all: they lived in cliff dwellings43.

4.1.2 The Apache

They lived in Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico; they were Pueblo’s neighbours. They also had
common roots with the Navajo.
They are very different from the Pueblos: they were wandering warriors. They had two types of
housing: tepees and wikiups.
The most popular figure was Geronimo, which means “the one who yawns”.

4.1.3 The Iroquois

They lived in North-eastern forests of NY. They were a nation of 6 tribes, such as the Mohawk, where
the typical hairdo comes from.
They were sedentary, war-like, and defensive. They lived in longhouses.

39
Used in big history books
40
Not used to talk about Native Americans! It refers to Canadians, Australians, or New Zealanders
41
Do not use that!! It refers to them as savages.
42
See pages 55 and 56 of the syllabus for more
43
Villages creusés dans les falaises

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Aline DEKLERCK – Ms. Saint-Paul – 2020-2021

The cliché we have for Natives may be due to the fact that this was the first tribe the Europeans
encountered, so the brought back paintings of dark-haired Natives with feathers, etc.

4.1.4 The Dakota / the Sioux

The two names for the same tribe are used, but not by the same people: the Europeans or the enemies
referred to them as “the Sioux” while they (or Native allies) referred to themselves as “the Dakotas”.
They lived in Western grasslands, from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains.
They were hunter-wanderers following buffalo. We can say they were semi-nomadic because they
moved according to the seasons. They lived in tepees.
Two famous figures were Sitting Bull, who joined the war when he was 14, and Crazy Horse, who took
part in one of the most famous battles in the Native American history, the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
It resulted in the defeat of U.S. forces in 1876. They were decimated by the US government later.

4.1.5 The Haida

They lived on the Pacific North-West coast. They were sedentary hunters and fishers, and typically of
the pacific salmon.
They lived in plank house built from red cedar trees.
They had one typic sacred art: carved totem poles. Each house had one because they protected
families from evil spirits.
They were the ones that used canoes to fish.

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4.2 Part 2 – White settlement and immigration

4.2.1 A review of the nations exploring the continent
In the early 1600s, several nations are exploring the North American continent: the British explored
the East Coast; the Spanish explored the South of the US, Central America, and South America; the
French explored the Northeast and up and down the Mississippi River; the Dutch explored the
Northeast and brought the first African American slaves in Jamestown.

4.2.2 A review of the first permanent British settlements

There were three main settlements in the 1600s: the Virginia Company that founded Jamestown in
1607; the Pilgrims Fathers that founded Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620; the other Puritan exiles
that founded Massachusetts Bay Colony, Massachusetts in 1630-1642.
These first colonies have had a profound influence on the social, political, ethical, and theological ideas
of the Americans. They were the one to introduce key American values: individualism and self-
reliance, democracy, hard work, sense of mission and charity, education (for the American dream)
and family.

4.2.3 A review of the first permanent French settlements: la Nouvelle France

In 1608, the French settled in Canada. In 1673, they claimed territory along the Mississippi River and
called it Louisiana after King Louis. In 1718, they founded New Orleans.
These French colonies were very slow in developing compared to the British population: there were
80,000 people in New France vs. 1,500,000 in British colonies.
The French were not really interested in staying there, but we know they were there because there
still are several thousands of French names for forts and trading posts, mostly along the states on both
sides of the Mississippi.

4.2.4 A review of the first permanent Spanish settlements: New Spain

Most Spanish settlements are located in the Southwest of present-day US and Florida. The regions
are still the most densely populated by Hispanics today because of proximity of borders with Mexico
and Cuba.

4.2.5 American territorial

expansion
The American territory expanded
during the 1700s and the 1800s.
The nation purchases Louisiana
(1803), Florida, Arizona, New
Mexico and Alaska.
They also expanded through wars:
Texas, California, Nevada, Utah,
Colorado.
By the late 1800s, the US will cover
east coast to west coast.

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4.2.5.1 Pushing Natives out of the way

The young Americans (WASP: White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) will push the Natives off of the
territories to make room for themselves.
In the 1820s, the steel industry is going to start developing in the Northeast of the US because of
railroad construction. The idea was to make it easier for people to travel the US. So, they are going to
build the “Iron Horse” in 1830.
As a result of the building of the railroads and territorial expansion (Louisiana had already been
bought), as a result of people going more and more West, the American government is going to pass
the Indian Removal Act in 1830. President Jackson convinced Congress to appropriate funds and
“relocate” five “Indian” tribes. The Act is written in a way that makes it look good. So, whenever they
felt like moving Natives, they invoked that Act and said they were removing them to protect them
(lol).
In the following years, there were a number of conflicts between the American government forces
and Native American tribes, trying to protect their territories. There were some brutal forced marches,
like the Trail of Tears. They were forced to leave their settlements and to walk in the snow for days
and days. It involved the Cherokee Family.
One of the most famous of these battles is the Little Bighorn Battle in 1876, also called Custer’s Last
Stand in the US. You can visit a memorial from this in Montana. During this battle, colonel Custer, a
famous colonel, was defeated by the Dakota, led by Chief Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, and some
members for the Cheyenne. So, the Natives pushed back, and the government did not like that
because there was gold in there, in Montana. Because they were resisting, the American forces sent
even more troops in there.
After that, the American government decimated the Natives. They even declared war to the Buffalo
because “there were too much”, but it was only because they knew it was the Natives’ food.
In 1887, the railroads are still being built, the Natives are still being pushed, and the government
passes another act: the General Allotment Act, that states they want to “Americanise the Natives”44.
The federal government argued it was in the interest of the Natives to Americanise: they created off-
reservation boarding schools to assimilate the Natives into the White-dominant society, in an attempt
to “kill the Indian and save the man”. Children were taught to speak English only – if they spoke any
other language, they were severely punished. They also had to follow Christian teachings, to have their
hair cut, to wear conventional clothing, etc.
26/04/21
4.2.5.2 The Frontier Days
In the 1840s, they start using the term “Manifest Destiny” to refer to the Americans’ restlessness and
passion for new land. In other words, they say it is their destiny to conquer, to push back the frontier.
This period of time is called The Frontier/Pioneer Days, and the ones that were exploring were called
The Pioneers.
In 1849, the Pioneers went West because they heard gold was discovered in California. These people
were ready to kill for it: this is the Californian Gold Rush. This is why we talk about the “Wild West”.
It is recorded as the biggest volunteer migration in the American history.
In 1853, the US bought the last piece of land from Mexico for a considerable amount of money, located
in Southern Arizona and New Mexico. The purchase provides the possibility for the Americans to have

44
See page 61 of the syllabus

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Aline DEKLERCK – Ms. Saint-Paul – 2020-2021

a suitable railway route to California. It is known as the Gadsden Purchase45 and gave America its
present-day shape46.
All of this is happening at the same time and they are trying to figure what to do with all this land. So,
in 1862, the Homestead Act plays an important role on determining what the rules of the game are
going to be. It authorizes any citizen, or immigrant who has the intention of becoming a citizen, to
select up to 160 acres of any unclaimed public land under the condition that the owner cultivates and
lives on the land for five years. It was the first act to grant free land to homesteaders. It drew not only
people from the East but also Europeans.
The Texan47 farmers went to war in the 1860s, because it was civil war. They often left behind them
their farms, cows and horses and hired young Americans to take care of the cattle they had, and these
were called cowboys.
In 1889, the Oklahoma Land Rush took place: the government officially opened an unsettled region
of Indian territory to homesteaders. It really set off a major land rush.

American progress – Painting by John Gast, 1872,

illustrating Manifest Destiny
This is Lady Liberty, floating in the air and dressed in
white, her clothing free to move with the wind
representing freedom, liberty.
She has got the star of the Empire on her forehead,
guiding her.
The right side of the painting represents the East
coast of the US with its bridges and ships. It seems
rather developed, industrialised, and civilized. It is
full of light, which represents freedom, openness, etc. The left side of the painting looks more savage.
That is the side Lady Liberty is going to. We know it is the West side because of the Rocky Mountains
and the Pacific Ocean on the back.
She is taking some things with her: a book, which represents education and knowledge, and
technology. We see an “evolution” with first horses, then carriages, trains, and ships.
We also see the Natives running away, who are in the dark: that implies that this side of the country
has not been discovered yet, and that it “needs” light.
The painting represents really well the Frontier Days, and the imperialist idea they had that they were
on a mission, that they were entitled to impose their model because they think it is the best out there.

4.2.6 Summary of Immigration to the US before the 1800s

Until 1825, there was roughly less than 10,000 immigrants per year. In 1790, 85% of white Americans
were WASPs. By the Civil War (1861-1865), 5 million immigrants had come to America.

45
See page 60 of the syllabus
46
Alaska was bought in 1867 and Hawaii in 1898, but we talk about the continental US here.
47
Sometimes also in New Mexico, Colorado, and Arizona

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Aline DEKLERCK – Ms. Saint-Paul – 2020-2021

The 19th century immigration was caused primarily by:

➢ Push-factors: economic hardships, unemployment, discrimination, persecution, famine
➢ Pull-factors: America’s “chronic labour shortage” (railroad, gold rush, etc.), growth of
industries, free land, political and religious freedom, other family members writing letters
(migration chains)

The immigration from the 1820s to today

1820s to 1880s, the “Old Immigrants” 1880s to 1920s, the “New Immigrants”
came from Northern or Western Europe came from southern or Eastern Europe and Asia
were mostly Protestants, except for a few Irishwere also Catholic, Orthodox and Jewish or
Catholics other
came in smaller numbers came in large numbers (millions of people!)
most spoke English few spoke English (Greek, Italian, Russian,
Polish, etc.) and had a hard time to learn it
assimilated easily harder assimilation due to language – clanish
(they stayed together!)
had the reputation of being hard-working and had the reputation of being unskilled and
literate illiterate
e.g.: Irish, English, German, Norwegians, etc. e.g.: Italian, Poles, Mexicans, Russians,
Armenians, etc.

The variety of cultures, languages and religions grew tensions between the Americans.

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4.2.6.1 The Germans

Between 1820 and 1920, it is estimated that 5.5 million people migrated to the US. The historians
consider them as the largest contributor.
The push-factors were unemployment, the overpopulation, and the political situation with Bismark,
a German Conservative politician.
They tended to be better educated and skilled workers.
They brought their own language and newspapers. For example, in 1865 in Cincinnati, Ohio, a half of
the schools were teaching in German.
In 1860, 500,000 Germans lived in New York state, and 338,000 in Illinois.
A lot of Germans were Jews running away from persecution at the time.

4.2.6.2 The Irish

Between 1820 and 1920, there were approximatively 4.5 million people immigrated.
Their push-factors were the potato famine, population growth, etc.
They had a good reputation: they were said to be hard-working, success-oriented, literate. The
Kennedy family, which JFK was a descendant of, came to the US during this period; his great-great-
grandfather, who crossed the Atlantic Ocean to make it to New York, had barely any penny in the
pocket. Today, this family is one of the richest.
They were often hired because they were fearless (too much sometimes).
They often worked in rail-road and canal projects on East Coast.

4.2.6.3 The Italians

From 1860 to 1920, approximatively 4.1 million Italians came to the US.
The pull-factor was that America was a “pot of gold” and they wanted to make money. They did not
have the same intention as the Irish and the Germans: they did not intend on staying. They wanted to
bring the money back home.
Most were from rural communities with little or no education. They had the reputation to sit and do
nothing.
Many worked in unskilled jobs and sweat shops48 owned by older immigrants.
Italian immigration was mostly a “male thing”: 2 out of three immigrants were men. Indeed, the wife
and the kids stayed in Italy.
This is the group that had the biggest “reverse immigration”: 2.1 million Italians went back to Italy. A
half of them stayed, but a half of them went back home: these were called the Americani. Some of
them ended up going back to America because they were said to that they were not true Italians
anymore.

48
Atelier clandestin in French

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Aline DEKLERCK – Ms. Saint-Paul – 2020-2021

4.2.6.4 The other groups from the East

Concerning Western Europe, the Greeks, the French, the Belgians, etc. also migrated: the push-
factors were unemployment, hunger, and population growth. Most of the Belgians migrators were
farmers and left by the port of Antwerp.
People from Middle Europe also went to the US: the Czechs, the Slovaks, the Poles, the Russians, etc.
Their push-factors were persecution and poverty.

They faced considerable discrimination in jobs and housing. They often lived in insalubrious multi-
family buildings. Like the freed slaves, they settled in different sections of Northern cities: these where
ethnic ghettos.

4.2.6.5 The other groups from the West

There was also Asian immigration (very little). The push-factors were economical and political chaos
because of civil wars, etc. So, on the Pacific coast, there were mostly Asians. China and Japan were the
two biggest groups.
The first Chinese immigrants started arriving in 1848. They came for the Gold Rush and the
transcontinental railroad. The figures swell rapidly: 1,000 immigrants by 1850, 37,000 by 1860 and
107,000 by 1880.
A Chinese neighbourhood, Chinatown, springs up in San Francisco and counts 14,000 people today.
The Japanese also came in large numbers and moved to Hawaii and California. They created
Japantowns and Little Tokyo (Los Angeles, CA) there.
At the end of the Gold Rush and the completion of the railroad, in the 1870s, there is going to be an
economic downturn in the West Coast, after the Civil war. As a result, there are going to be a lot of
anti-Chinese riots. The federal government is even going to pass laws targeting Asian immigration: for
example, the Chinese Exclusion Act is the first act targeting a specific group and trying to slow down
immigration. It was passed in 1884.

4.2.6.6 The reactions to new immigration

The old immigrants saw new immigrants as a threat and saw immigration as being out of control.
The industrialization and urbanization made matters worse: the cities were overcrowded, especially
the Big Three49.

4.2.6.7 The Gilded Age50 – 1865-1901

The adjective gilded means “covered in gold”. The word comes from Mark Twain’s book that bears
the exact same name: it is a satire from a society with a lot of problems. It has a rapid economic
growth, the industries are taking off, and, by contrast, millions of immigrants cannot find jobs.
It was happening at the time in the US: there was a growing gap between the elite and the poor.
The elite was a sophisticated upper-class Americans: they were steel industry tycoons, railroad and
transport company owners, etc. They are the gold on the surface.

49
Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia
50
Période dorée in French

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The middle- and lower-class Americans are hard-working and self-made. They are the wood
underneath the gold on the surface. We can see them when we scratch the gold.
There are growing tensions between immigrant groups and the older generation: the federal
government has to respond.
30/04/21

4.3 Part 3 – Shifting trends and rising tensions – Natives and immigrants today

The immigration in the US from 1900 to 2000

4.3.1 Immigration Services

As the millions of immigrants are pouring into the country around the turn of the century, the federal
government develops immigration services, the Federal Immigration Stations. These immigration
services screened the arriving huddled masses both:
➢ On the East coast, the Ellis Island, also called the “Island of Tears” saw 12 million immigrants
coming through this port of entry between 1892 and 1954. You had to go there before the
immigration services let you in the country.
➢ On the West coast, the Angel Island was opened a couple decades later because the
immigration on the West coast started a little bit later. Between 1910 and 1940, it saw
thousands of immigrants.

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When the immigrants made it to these ports, it was not guaranteed that they would be let in. They
would be screened for diseases, and if they were positive, they would go on a quarantine. After that,
they would be checked and then interviewed about why they want to come to the US. A very small
proportion was sent back home.

4.3.2 The US government bans alcohol: the Prohibition

The Prohibition movement began as grassroots movement51 in the 1870s. It really became a “cause
célèbre” for activists such as religious fundamentalists because not every immigrant is Protestant but
also considered alcohol problematic, suffragists because they blamed alcohol for domestic violence,
and nativists because they associated drunkenness with undesirable and uncontrollable immigrant
populations, and also because they thought immigrants could never really be Americans.
Many immigrants drank alcohol, such as Whiskey for the Irish and beer for the Germans. By the end
of the 1800s, there was 48 breweries in Brooklyn alone, and more than 1,200 German-owned
breweries in the country. So, the immigrants were seen as an obstacle to a morally-sound nation.
There were going to be protests on the streets, therefore the 18th Amendment was passed in January
1919. It bans alcoholic beverages nationwide: if alcohol production sale and consumption are
banned, immigrants will have to go home.
For them, Prohibition was a moral necessity for the sake of the social order and the public welfare.
This is the first way the government tried to restrict immigration, but it was a total failure: it made
alcohol even more desirable.
The wets or bootleggers52, those who drink, protested that they wanted to drink and thought the
government was interfering too much in the lives of the individual, while the drys, those who do not
drink, believed alcohol did severe damages to morals.
The wets opened speakeasies53, underground
illegal cafés where mostly men went to drink
alcohol. They were getting this alcohol from the
states around the Appalachians or in the Great
Planes: farmers produced it illegally with
potatoes. In major cities, some people produced
alcohol in their bathtubs, such as pumpkin wine.
It was also smuggled from other countries: it
was the case for rum, from Cuba.

The 18th Amendment was repealed by the 21st Amendment in 1933.

4.3.3 The Golden Gates close

In 1921, after WWI, President Harding signed the Emergency Quota Act to limit the flow of
immigrants. Congress enacted immigrations quotas, which favoured immigration from Great Britain,
Ireland, Scandinavia, and Germany. Small quotas will be reserved for eastern and southern Europeans:

51
Mouvement qui vient du peuple in French
52
Because they hid their alcohol in their boots.
53
Because you had to speak easy, not too loud.

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the new immigrants, while no quotas at all were reserved for Asians. The government closed the
Golden Gates. They wanted to keep a WASP majority.

4.3.4 An identity crisis

The massive immigration waves between the 1820s and the 1920s led to an identity crisis.
Americans started to ask themselves: “What does being an American mean? How long do you have to
live in the US to be labelled as an American? What language should an American speak? Which
religious denomination should one belong to?”
This is the first time the metaphor of the “melting pot” is mentioned. It implies that the federal
government would like the generations of immigrants coming to the country to lose their cultural
identity, to melt into the WASP majority population. Today, the term “salad bowl” is preferred because
the ingredients do not change, the identity is not lost.
This identity crises will not be resolved until WWII because of an increasing nationalism due to the
common enemy that unifies the Americans.

4.3.5 Immigration today

Between WWI and WWII, immigration numbers remained very law. In 1965, President Johnson54
signed the Immigration and Nationality Act which abolishes the quotas that had been put in place in
1921, raising the ceiling from 150,000 authorized immigrants a year to 1 million a year. The Golden
Gates are reopening for the first time. The location he chose to sign the act was the foot of the Statue
of Liberty.
Within the following 50 years, most US population no longer have its roots in Europe. Today, the
majority of immigrants comes from Latin America, or Asia. Actually, 2/5 come from Latin America,
2/5 come from Asia, and 1/5 comes from the rest of the world.
A lot of naturalized immigrants refer to themselves as Hyphenated Americans: “I’m an Irish American,
I’m a Belgian American, I’m an African American, etc.” They like to refer to their origins.
That illustrates the motto that you find on the one-dollar bill “E Pluribus Unum”, that means “from
many one”, one nation created from multiple nations.

4.3.6 The immigration debate in the new millennium

4.3.6.1 Under George W. Bush (2000-2008)
He did not make any important decision concerning Native Americans, he was
uneventful as regards Native Americans. He made multiple attempts to reform
immigration policy, though: he wanted to introduce a guest-worker program to
permit illegal immigrants to obtain legal status and to become American citizens.
It was rejected by Congress. Although he was a Republican president, he did not
have the same policies as Donald Trump. Instead, an act was passed to authorize
the building of a 2,000 mile-fence on the US-Mexico border.
After 9/11, more funds were made available for deportation and immigration
control: that made islamophobia even stronger.

54
The Vice President of JFK

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4.3.6.2 Under Barack Obama (2008-2016)

He was elected to office with massive majority among Native communities because he put an effort
into reconnecting with the Natives.
In 2012, he signed the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals
(DACA) which gave former illegal immigrants who came to the
US as children access to work permits and to education. It is
often associated with the Development, Relief, and Education
for Alien Minors Act, the DREAM act55, which was introduced to
Congress multiple times between, 2001 and 2012 with the same
aim. The DACA is the renewal of the Dream act. The DACA was
made to make the road to citizenship easier.
In November 2014, Obama used executive orders to force an immigration reform package to make it
easier for the undocumented parents of children who are US citizens to get work permits as well.
03/05/21
4.3.6.3 Under Donald J. Trump (2016-2020)
Trump’s campaign pledges included building a wall along the US-
Mexican border to stop Mexican criminals and “rapists” from crossing
the border, and the Mexicans would pay for it. He only managed to
replace barriers installed by previous administrations, and that was
paid by the US.
Every time he went to Congress to try and build his wall, Congress
would refuse. His reaction was to act like a child and say that he would not sign the federal budget
until they would accept his project. He even declared a state of national emergency to get some funds
from the Pentagon and used that money to try and renovate that wall. Fortunately, the system of
checks and balances exists, and he could not build his wall.
6 days after being in office, he signed one of his first executive orders: Executive Order 13769,
“Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States. He banned Muslims from
entering the United States56. This was broadly condemned by the international community including
longstanding US allies, such as Belgium and France, and thousands of protesters gathered at a number
of American airports. It was openly discriminatory. He was already known as an islamophobic because
in 2001, he systematically associated the sad events with Muslims.

4.3.6.4 Under President Biden (2020-…)

As soon as he came into office, President Biden took action
to pass a number of executive orders to reverse Donald
Trump’s immigration policy: he ended the Muslim travel
ban, making it possible for people from Muslim countries
to travel to the US again; he also ended the national
emergency that Trump had declared on the border with
Mexico in 2018, and also started reviewing the contracts
with the companies working on the border fence to slow
down and revise the process; he ordered the Cabinet to work to preserve DACA, introduced in 2012.

55
This is why we use the term “dreamer” to talk about Hispanic immigrants.
56
This is also referred to as “the travel ban”.

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4.3.7 The immigration debate today

It is estimated that there are between 3 million and 12 million undocumented aliens (illegal
immigrants) in the US today. People who see immigrants as a threat tend to give bigger numbers, and
vice-versa: the truth is somewhere in between.
Many of them are Mexicans who come to work in the US as farmhands. Sometimes, they cross the
border just for one season to make money and bring it back home.
There have been an increasing number of deportations in the last decades because the number of
people coming to the US remains very high.
Many states, mostly in border states57, feel the federal does not do enough to oppose illegal
immigration. Most concerns are about the cost of providing services such as welfare, healthcare, and
education (language issue).
A majority of Americans are in favour of immigration because they think it is very important to that
country.

Continuous immigration is central to the whole American faith. It gives “old”

immigrants a standard by which to judge how far they have come and “new”
Americans a realization of how far they might go. It reminds every American, old
and new, that (…) American society is a process, not a conclusion. -JFK

57
They can also be called “minority-majority states”.

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5 Theme #3: African American history

5.1 Part 1 – From the introduction of slavery to segregation
5.1.1 The first Dutch cargo
The Dutch introduced the first 20 African slaves into British colonies in August 1619; they came on a
cargo. At the time, in the 1610s, the plantation system was already well in place.
Some had signed a contract that stated they had to work for seven years in order to be freed
afterwards: they were called indentured servants. In reality, for the most of them, they were never
granted freedom because they were considered as being inferior. British colonists in Jamestown grew
tobacco and other crops and, sometimes, Amerindians were forced into labour.
It is a historical arrival, the beginning of a trend in colonial America: Africans were taken unwillingly
from their motherland and consigned to lifelong slavery. The robust economic growth of the English
colonies made possible by this exploitative institution.

5.1.2 The growth of slavery in America

Slavery really grew by the
1650s: the settlers’ ships
left Europe with goods,
went to Africa,
exchanged goods for
slaves, and brought the
slaves to the New World.
Less than 100 years later,
slavery hard firmly taken
root: by the late 1600s, it
is estimated that more
than 1,000 Africans were
arriving each year via
merchant-slave ships.
Official sea routes were established between England and Africa, and then Africa to the New World.

Slavery took root more in the south of the United States that in
the north: slaves represent more than a half of the population.
It took root in the Southern colonies rather than the Northern
colonies between the 1700s and the 1880s because the weather
is warmer and more humid, and that creates ideal conditions for
crops such as tobacco, rice, and cotton.
In the late 1700s and early 1800s, several factors will contribute
to the growth of slavery, and disputes over that topic. Three of
the most important factors were the invention of the Cotton Gin
in 1793, the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, and the prohibition of
foreign slave trade by Congress in 1808.

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5.1.2.1 The Cotton Gin

Before the Cotton Gin, separating cotton from seeds was done by hand. That represents a lot of
labour: 1 pound58 of cotton was done per day.
The Cotton Gin was invented by Eli Whitney in 1783 and made cleaning of cotton much quicker: long
hours could be saved, and that was a revolution in cotton production. Landowners could use the saved
labour on sowing and picking more cotton.
As a result, cotton was considered as a “cash crop” because it could grow anywhere. There is a very
high demand from textile mills in North and Britain. Southern economy booms and becomes
increasingly dependent on slave labour. The cotton produced in Southern colonies represents 75%
of world production, and 66% of US export trade.

5.1.2.2 The Louisiana Purchase

The New France belonged to the French, but in 1803, Thomas Jefferson bought Louisiana from them
and altered the shape of a nation and the course of history. It made it possible for the White slave
owners to buy new land to have even more fields and produce even more cotton.
This territorial growth caused disputes over which states would be slave states or free states. This
contributed to tensions which turned lead to the Civil War.

5.1.2.3 The Congress prohibits slave trade

The Constitution is called “a bundle of compromises” partly because it was hard to find an agreement
concerning slavery. In 1788, the Founding Fathers decided to not decide for 20 years. So, in 1808,
Congress took a decision.
Economic demand of labour is increasing in the South and new West, but Congress bans slave imports:
what they wanted to do was to weaken the institution. The result was to increase value and price of
human property. This is related to the law of supply and demand.

58
A half kilo

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This is a turning point in treatment of slaves: if you were a slave owner before Congress banned the
import, you did not really care if your slaves died. All the sudden, the White treated their slaves a
“little better, more humanely” and beat them less. Slaves began to have children.
This was also the beginning of paternalism: the slaves began to bargain work for food and fair
treatment. They will try to get more out of the Whites because they know the owners depend on
them.
This is the beginning of the downturn of slavery because slaves want more and more (as they F should)
and asked themselves if they could have a right of freedom. The owners, to keep their slaves under
control, tried to establish a relation of inferiority: the slaves could not look their owners in the eyes,
they had to enter by the back door, etc.
In the early 1810s, it is estimated that the total US population was of 7.2 million while the total slave
population was 1.2 million.

5.1.3 Growth of slave power

By the 1860s, the slave population went from 1 million to 4 million. This can be explained because of
their “better” standard of living: less beating, more rest, best fed, more pregnancy, etc.
Congress wanted to reduce slavery, but it increased the number of slaves.
In a nutshell, the South was made of big plantation landowners; they imported foreign manufactures
and defended slavery for economy. The North abolished slavery by 1804 because they did not need
slaves in industry: they had immigrant workforce. The “free” Northern blacks enjoyed few freedoms.

5.1.4 Emergence of sectionalism (1825-1860)

The Industrial North The Plantation South The Small-Farm West
- Manufacturing - Agricultural – tobacco, rice, - America’s breadbasket –
- Steel industry sugar, and cotton wheat, corn, etc.
- Urbanization - Trade with North - 1860s cattle trails and
- Cheap white labour - Static society based on cowboys
- Dynamic society – used and aristocracy - Individualism and self-
open to change reliance

There were three categories of states:

slave states, those in which slavery was
legal, free states, those in which slavery
was illegal, and border states, those who
did not care about that.
The Ohio River is the frontier that the
slaves trying to escape wanted to cross to
be in the free states.

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5.1.5 Trying to “solve the problem”

Anti-slavery and abolitionist societies tried to find a solution for those free slaves running across the
border, which they did: in 1821, the Liberia solution sent those slaves back to Africa in a land they
purchased in West Africa. So, 15,000 free blacks left for Liberia while they knew nothing about it. That
is abolitionist idealism and racial prejudice.

Also, there were these underground railroads which were secret slave-smuggling routes. Thousands
of slaves escaped to North. One of the most notorious participants was Harriet Tubman, an escaped
slave, known for helping a lot of slaves to escape.

One of the first rebellions that really scared Whites was Nat Turner’s Rebellion in 1831: they knew
they were underestimating the slave population. Nat Turner was a slave on a plantation who run
away, killed his owners and went with a number of other slaves on a massacre in Virginia. From this
point on, the owners realized they had to (no) tighten to rules to dissuade slaves from running away.
They used public leashing to do so, just like KKK.

In parallel to this, an increasing number of Whites began to express that they are anti-slavery, in The
Liberator for example, a magazine in favour of liberating slaves founded in 1831.
The creation of the American-Anti-Slavery Society marks the beginning of abolitionist movement in
the US in 1833.

During this period, in 1845, Frederick Douglass wrote a biography in which we can find the citation
below.

“I have observed this in my experience of slavery, that whenever my condition

was improved, instead of its increasing my contentment, it only increased my
desire to be free, and set me to thinking of plans to gain my freedom.”

In 1852, Uncle Tom’s Cabin was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe, an abolitionist and active in
Underground Railroad, and describes the horrible standard of living of African Americans. It really
helped to make people aware of what was happening in the South. Lincoln called her ‘the little Lady
who wrote the book that made this big war”.
07/05/21

5.1.6 The Civil War

5.1.6.1 The 1860 Presidential Election
Because of the books that were written during the 1850, an increasing number of Whites in the North
were sensitive to the question and supported the prohibition of slavery. But the US Supreme Court
made a decision that was seen as a huge step back: The Dred Scott US Supreme Court decision. Dred
Scott was an African slave from a southern plantation who run away to a northern free state and
claimed that he was free because he crossed the border into a free state. His landowners did not let
things go and went to court because, to them, Dred Scott was their property. The Supreme Court had
to make a judgement and concluded that slaves were properties. American slaves were really
discouraged by this decision.

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In 1860, the President had to be elected, and slavery was a central issue in the debate. Abraham
Lincoln, an abolitionist, was running for election. Tensions arose between the North that wanted to
use force to end slavery, and the South where the states threatened to secede59 if Lincoln became
president.

“A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe that this government
cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.” Abraham Lincoln

5.1.6.2 The causes of the Civil War

The basic causes of the American Civil War were mostly conflicts between the North and the South
over interpretations of the Constitution.
For example, the North and the South were very different economically speaking. The North is
industrial, urbanized, with a lot of immigrants coming in, while the South is agricultural, which is why
they did not want the government to prohibit slavery.
Their views on the nature of the Union was also very different: the South thought any state had the
right to secede while the North saw the union as “one nation indivisible”. Lincoln was even to say
that if you break away, then a war would be necessary to preserve the union, not to end slavery.
They also disagreed on the control of the central government: the South did not want the government
to tell them what to do and was in favour of slavery extended into Western territories, while the
North was against that.
There were also differences in civilization: the South is much more static aristocracy, not open to
change at all, conservative, while the North is much more dynamic aristocracy, open to change
because of the millions of immigrants coming in.

5.1.6.3 A “nation divided”

In 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected president and like they promised to do, 11 states secede from
the Union. In 1861, they created their own country, the Confederate States of America.
When US government rejects the secession, the Civil War
began with the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter in April
1861, Charleston, S.C. The Union had at least one major
advantage over the Confederacy: they had a population of 22
million people while the Confederacy only had 9 million
(including 3.8 million slaves).
The Confederate States surrendered, and key Confederate The Confederate Flag
captures take place after Gen. Lee’s60 surrender on April 9,
1865.

Some names to remember:

The Confederacy vs. The Union; Confederates vs. Unionists; General Lee vs. General Grant

59
Faire sécession in French
60
The Commander of the Confederate Army

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5.1.6.4 The reconstruction of the Union and the end of the Civil War
Abraham Lincoln did what we call the Emancipation Declaration in 1863: it says that all the slaves
living in the states that had seceded (13 at the time because two states joined the 11 states) were
free. He did that to destabilize the southern states in the middle of the war.
Lincoln also made the Gettysburg Address61 in 1863: it illustrates the idea that everything had to be
burnt down to rise up from these ashes and start over.
Lincoln was assassinated before the end of the Civil war, on April 14, 1865. He was shot in the head
while he was at the theatre. HIS VP, Andrew Johnson, had to take over and to work with the southern
states to reconstruct America.
This is also the period at which the KKK surfaced: it is a
white-supremacist racist organization which is created
by White men in the south of the US to keep slaves
from exercising their rights. A symbol which they often
used was a burning cross, which they planted in front of
the houses of people of colour, or whites that were
“being too nice”. If you saw this, you knew that
something really bad was going to happen to you. They
were active from the 1960s all the way to the 1960s,
during desegregation. It came back when Barack Obama
was elected.

The period 1866-1876 is called the Reconstruction. They were trying to reunite the 13 states that had
left and the Union.
The federal government added some laws to the Bill of Rights to enforce the southern states to end
slavery. These are called the Civil War Amendments: in 1865, the 13th Amendment abolishes slavery.
The southern states tried to work around the law, so the government had to pass the 14th Amendment
in 1866, which is the First Civil Rights Act and grants citizenship to Black Americans. Some years later
in 1870, the 15th Amendment gives Black Americans the right to vote.
In order to come back to the Union, the 13 states had the obligation to ratify these Amendments, but
they tried to keep the Black Americans from exercising their rights at local level: the laws they passed
to do so are called the Black Codes or Jim Crow Laws. For example, in some states like Tennessee, you
had to take a literacy test in order to vote, but it
excluded African Americans to vote because they were
never given an access to education. Also, in some states,
you had to pay a tax to vote, but African Americans did
not have any money. You could also have grandfather
clauses: in Georgia, you could not vote if your
grandfather was a slave.

In 1896, the US Supreme Court made a decision in the

Plessy vs. Ferguson case that legalizes Segregation: it
recognizes that there can be separate facilities

61
See page 77 of the syllabus

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(schools, stores, churches, train wagons, sections on the bus,

restaurants, army, etc.) as long as these facilities are equal62
(lol).
During this period, a lot of Black people are going to fight for
their rights (<3333): in 1909, they created the lobby group
NAACP, National Association for the Advancements of
Coloured People.

The Segregation finally ended in the 1960s, even if there are still differences in treatment and rights
today.

5.2 Part 2 – From Segregation to Obama’s presidency

5.2.1 The Black Migration
Between 1910 and the 1960s, African Americans left the South, the place they called home, for the
West Coast and the northern states. Two main factors contributed to this Black Migration or Great
Migration. Segregation in the South is the push-factor while the industrial revolution in the North is
the pull-factor. The steel industry was really taking off but the Golden Gates were closed: so, labour
was needed in factories. Plus, in the South, the machinery was slowly replacing labourers.
So, there was a lot of migration: for example, the African American population in Detroit Michigan
went from 6,000 in 1910 to 120,000 in the late 1920s.
They will settle in previously Jewish neighbourhoods such as Brooklyn, and they contributed to the
building of Brooklyn Heights Expressway.
There were many results of the Black Migration: they had access to economic and educational
opportunities. They also learnt about urban living and a distinctive black culture and identity
developed itself.
In the 1920s, Harlem,
NYC, was known for
being an African
American
neighbourhood that
had taken action
against racism and
developed pride in
black identity. This
period is referred to
as the Harlem
Renaissance.

62
In theory!! In practice, they were never equal. The Whites always had better facilities.

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5.2.2 The US enters WWII

Initially, the US did not want to enter WWI, but because of the Japanese bombing of Honolulu, the
American naval base at Pearl Harbour on December 7, 1941, they decided to do so. More than 2,000
American soldiers and sailors died in the attack, and another 1,000 were wounded. This was the first
time63 since the American revolution that the US had been attacked at home.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan, and Congress approved
with just one dissenting vote. 3 days later, Germany and Italy also declared war on the US and again
Congress reciprocated.
WWI brought major changes to the lives of three groups in US society: American women, African
Americans, and Japanese Americans.

5.2.2.1 American women

200,000 women served in the military services in the WWII, and over
5,000,000 held factory jobs: that led to important changes to employment
and lifestyle64 due to women’s role in the workplace. After the war, many
women were ready to return to their roles of wife and mother after the war,
and proof of that is the baby boom, but thousands wanted to continue
working: that set the wheels of feminism into motion.
That gave birth to posters that are now cultural icons and symbols of
feminism, such as Rosie the Riveter.

5.2.2.2 African Americans

There were setbacks and gains during WWII for African Americans: that provided the seeds for the
Civil Rights Movement65 (1950s-1960s).
Nearly 1 million African Americans served in the military, but the military
practiced segregation. When they lived in Europe, the African Americans
and the White Americans fought side by side, and sometimes, saved each
other’s lives. They learnt they had a lot of things in common. When the
time came to go in small towns of Belgium and France to announce the
liberation and the end of the war, the African Americans were treated
like heroes, just like their white counterparts. But when they came back
to the US, nothing had changed, they were still treated like garbage.
There was a contrast between the way they were treated in Europe and
in the US. Some Whites could not ignore this any longer and fought with
Black Americans for their rights.

5.2.2.3 Japanese Americans

Japanese Americans faced severe hardships during WWII because of racism. After Pearl Harbour,
many Americans feared that Japanese Americans might pose a threat to national security. So, the
federal government decided to imprison Japanese Americans during WWII.

63
The second time being 9/11.
64
Before WWII, most American women were housewives.
65
Mouvement des droits civiques in French

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In 1942, President Roosevelt issued an executive order to move 100,000 Japanese Americans to
internment camps. Congress formally apologized in 1988.

5.2.3 The Turbulent Fifties and Sixties

5.2.3.1 Brown vs. the Board of Education
The father of Linda Brown, an African American little
girl, wanted his daughter to go to the nearest school
to their home, but that school was a Whites’ school.
Linda would have had to take a 1-hour bus every day
to go to the nearest Blacks’ school. His father
disagreed and went
to court (with the
help of NAACP).
In 1954, the case was brought to the US Supreme Court that made a
crucial decision: it was declared that segregation of black children in
public schools is against the 14th Amendment. The case is referred to
as the Brown vs. Board of Education case.
So, education is the first facility to have been desegregated. Desegregation began.
That repealed the previous decision made on the
question by US Supreme Court in Plessy vs.
Fergusson that stated in 1896 that the doctrine had
to be equal but separate.
The decision was hotly contested in the South, and
the white southerners. Parents of white children
N-word
would assault, hit, throw objects at black kids.
N-word
That was a hard period for Black people, but they
resisted.

5.2.3.2 1955 Rosa Parks

In Montgomery Alabama, before Rosa Parks, Southern Blacks rode in the back of public buses, or
had to stand when no seats were available. It was prohibited for Black people to sit in the front of
the bus.
One day after work, Rosa was seated in the Black section of the bus, and there were no more seats
available for white people. The bus driver called her and said she had to get up for white folks to sit
where she was, but she refused. She thought she had worked at least as hard as everyone else on
that bus, so she had no reason to get up.

“I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, that diminishes
fear.” -Rosa Parks
She broke the Alabama segregation law by refusing to give up her seat to a white person, and that set
an example, first at a local state, then to every other Black person. She was arrested and jailed for
this.

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In reaction, Martin Luther King Jr. and Montgomery Black people organize
a boycott of the city’s bus system for more than one year. Other cities
began to do the same.

The NAACP took up her case and defended her in court. In 1956, it was
taken to the US Supreme Court that declared Alabama’s segregated bus
laws unconstitutional. It really set the Desegregation Movement in
motion.

5.2.3.3 Little Rock Arkansas 1957

President Eisenhower ordered army troops to escort 9 black pupils to a Little Rock high school, in
Arkansas. These were being attacked, not only by the population, but also by the local national guard.
The southerners were resisting the 1954 US Supreme Court
decision, and the governor of the state of Arkansas had called
out the Arkansas National Guard to block the black pupils.
That led to more than 1 month of segregationist riots and
mob violence.
This marks the first time federal troops are used to protect
the rights of Black people since the Reconstruction.

5.2.3.4 Sit-ins and freedom riders

In the 1960s, some non-violent, peaceful campaigns took place in restaurants, in lunch counters, in
hotels, etc. to desegregate public facilities.
The people that participated were called freedom riders: they were mostly from the North, they rode
from town to town, Black and Whites together. They recruited to defy segregationist laws in the South,
and then the new freedom riders were sent into civil rights “boot-camps”, where they were trained
to remain calm in any circumstances.
The KKK reacted in a very violent way: in response to a massive three-month initiative to register
southern Black people to vote, the Klan followed three Civil Rights activists to murder them. This is
known as the Mississippi Burning.
In February 1960, four African American college
students sat at a whites-only lunch counter at the local
Woolworth’s store in Greensboro, NC. The service
was refused, so they sat patiently while being
assaulted for hours: the civil rights sit-in was born.
They would sit quietly and wait to be served: if
attacked, the students would curl up into a ball and
wait. That was the key to success.

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5.2.3.5 The Birmingham Demonstration

In spring 1963, King and SCLC, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, stage a peaceful
demonstration, and King was arrested. While in jail, he wrote the now famous Letter from Birmingham
jail.
It is a turning point in Civil Rights Movement because it is the first time the president acknowledged
that racial discrimination had to end: so, Kennedy submitted a new civil rights legislation to Congress
that was passed after his death.

5.2.3.6 The March on Washington

As Congress worked on a bill, civil rights activists organized a
March on Washington to rally black and white support for the bill.
So, in August 1963, more than 250,000 people come to
Washington: this became one of the largest demonstrations in
the history of the capital.
During this demonstration, King made his very famous “I have a
dream” speech from the top of the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
In fact, if you go there and look at your feet, you can see “I have a
dream”: it has been engraved.

5.2.3.7 Legislating Civil Rights after Kennedy

JFK is killed on November 22nd, 1963, as he was making an official visit in Dallas. He could have been
shot because of his activism (the bare minimum, but still). His Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was
sworn into office and immediately showed his commitment to Kennedy’s civil rights policies. Very
soon, in 1964, he got Congress to approve the (second) Civil Rights Act, which outlaws discrimination
in government-owned or operated facilities, forbid discrimination in most public places (hotels,
restaurants, theatres, sports arenas, etc.), it gave financial support to public schools carrying out
desegregation, and made unlawful to deny opportunities to an individual on the basis of race or
gender (Affirmative Action possible if needed).

5.2.4 African Americans in the “Post-Racial Era”

Looking at recent figures provided by the Census Bureau of the US can provide an insight into the
African American community today:
➢ About 13.5% of the US population claims African ancestry.
➢ Life expectancy is shorter for Black people than for whites, attributed to a number of factors:
poverty and instability, limited access to health care, poorer diet.
These greater poverty and economic instability are linked to the fact that African Americans
do not earn as much ($18,700/year for Black people; $30,100 a year for whites) because they
did not get the same access to education because their parents did not have enough money
to pay for their education.
➢ Greater fragmentation of black family: the divorce rates are higher among African Americans
(54% of whites are not divorced, 29% of Black people live with their partner).

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➢ Over-representation in the military: Black people are over-represented in the military service
(over 18%) because it is sometimes the only option they have.
➢ Over-representation in prison: Black people are over-represented in the US prison population
(39% of the total US prison population).

So, the population said: “we are in a post-racial era, we have elected a Black president!!”. But is it the
truth? Is racial profiling a reality or an exaggeration? Are affirmative action policies still needed or do
they exacerbate race relations?
Can we say this is a post-racial era while people of colour are still being murdered by police officers?
George Floyd is not the only one. The Black Lives Matter Movement was – and still is necessary.

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