African Americans and children who work as my minority groups.
At the beginning of the 20th century, many children had to work in factories to help their families stay afloat. The owners of factories liked having kids work for them because they could pay them less. The children were also easier to control and less likely to rebel against the harsh conditions of the heart labor. Child labor wasn’t a new idea at this time, but at the beginning of the 20th century, a record number of kids were working in factories. This caused many groups to speak out against the idea and try to change it. The National Child Labor committee of 1904 was one of these groups. Their strategy was to try to stop sweatshops and give all children a free education. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1939, which banned child labor, was the result of their work (Child Labor in U.S. History | the University of Iowa Labor Center, n.d.). Even though this took a long time, progressivism was able to bring about change and get children out of factories.
Even though African Americans were now free, many people in the south still treated them badly. There was a lot of segregation, and most of the time they were treated like animals because they had to sit where they were told and walk on one side of the street. It was the beginning of the civil rights movement, and the progressive era was in full swing. Many white people said that African Americans should work to help the south’s economy grow and pay their own way. They thought that if African Americans were busy enough, the civil rights marches and the changes that were made for them wouldn’t bother them. Booker T. Washington said, “Their success and hard work would eventually persuade white people in the south to give them these rights.” Many whites agreed with Washington because he put the responsibility for protecting African Americans’ rights on them, not on them. Most African Americans didn’t agree with this plan because they thought it wasn’t moving fast enough. Washington’s plan didn’t work because it didn’t change anything for African Americans.
References
History of Child Labor in the U.S. | The Work Center at the University of Iowa. Retrieved on September 26, 2022, from https://laborcenter.uiowa.edu/special-projects/child-labor-public-education-project/about-child-labor/child-labor-us-history.
OpenStax. American history. OpenStax CNX. Get this from https://cnx.org/contents/p7ovuIkl@6.18:gMXC1GEM@7/Introduction
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