The Practice of Freedom
382 questions
Read the excerpt below from the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Williams v. Mississippi (1898):
"The constitution of Mississippi and its statutes do not on their face discriminate between the races, and it has not been shown that their actual administration was evil; only that evil was possible under them."
Which of the following statements best analyzes the significance of this ruling in the context of legal disenfranchisement in the late nineteenth-century South?
Read the following excerpt from Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin's opening address at the First National Conference of Colored Women in 1895:
"Our woman’s movement is a woman’s movement in that it is led and directed by women for the good of women and men, for the benefit of all humanity, which is more than any one branch or section of it... We are not drawing the color line; we are only drawing the line of character... We feel that we can best do this by coming together, by discussion, by association, by comparison of views, by planning for work."
Based on the excerpt, which of the following best explains how Ruffin’s vision for the Black women's club movement differed from the goals of mainstream white women's organizations of the same era?
Read the following excerpt from a petition submitted by Prince Hall and other free Black Bostonians to the Massachusetts Legislature in 1787:
"We, therefore, a short time since, petitioned the honorable selectmen of the town of Boston for a school... We must fear for our rising offspring to see them leading a life of ignorance, we, therefore, pray your Honors that we may have a school established for our children."
Which of the following statements best describes the role of early Black leaders and fraternal organizations during this period, as demonstrated in the petition?
Read the following excerpt from Zora Neale Hurston's 1928 essay "How It Feels to Be Colored Me":
> "I am colored but I offer nothing in the way of extenuating images. I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not belong to the sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature has somehow given them a dirty deal."
Based on the excerpt, which of the following core tenets of the New Negro Movement is best reflected in Hurston's perspective?
Read the following excerpt from Ida B. Wells-Barnett’s pamphlet *A Red Record* (1895):
'The first excuse given to the civilized world for the murder of unoffending Negroes was the necessity of the white man to repress and prevent "Negro Riots."... The second excuse... was that the Negroes were given the right of franchise, and that the white men were compelled to kill them to prevent "Negro Domination."... The third excuse... was that the Negroes must be killed to avenge their assaults upon the honor of white women.'
Based on the excerpt and your knowledge of the anti-lynching movement, which of the following best analyzes Wells-Barnett's purpose in outlining these three sequential excuses?
Read the following excerpt from a speech delivered by Booker T. Washington in 1895:
"No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top. Nor should we permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities."
Based on this excerpt, which of the following best describes the primary goal of Washington's educational philosophy?
Read the following excerpt from the preface to The Book of American Negro Poetry (1922) by James Weldon Johnson:
"No people that has produced great literature and art has ever been looked upon by the world as distinctly inferior. The status of the Negro in the United States is more a question of national mental attitude toward the race than of actual conditions. And nothing will do more to change that mental attitude and raise his status than a demonstration of intellectual parity by the Negro through the production of literature and art."
Which of the following statements best describes the primary ideological goal of the New Negro Movement as expressed in this excerpt?
Read the following excerpt from Claude McKay's poem "America," published in 1921:
> Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,
> And sinks into my throat her tiger’s tooth,
> Stealing my breath of life, I will confess
> I love this cultured hell that tests my youth!
> Her vigor flows like tides into my blood,
> Giving me strength erect against her hate.
Which of the following statements best describes how this poem aligns with the philosophy of the New Negro Movement?
In an article calling for collective action, anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells wrote:
"The nineteenth century has bequeathed to the twentieth century a great task—the eradication of the lawlessness and lynching that disgrace our land. The women of our race, through their organized clubs, must lead the way in demanding justice."
Which of the following best describes how the Black women's club movement approached activism, as illustrated by this passage?
Read the following excerpt from Alain Locke's essay "Art or Propaganda?" (1928):
> "Propaganda perpetuates the position of group subordination by appealing to the court of public opinion, which is the court of the multitude. Art, on the other hand, is self-expression, self-assertion, and self-revelation. The one is pleading, the other is demonstrating. It is the difference between defensive and offensive tactics. Propaganda is a bid for sympathy; art is a bid for recognition."
Which of the following statements best describes Locke's primary argument about the role of the Black artist in the New Negro Movement?
Read the following passage adapted from an editorial in an early nineteenth-century Black publication:
"Our religious assemblies and benevolent societies are not merely places of worship and charity; they are our schoolhouses, our senate chambers, and our strongholds. Within their walls, we organize our resistance to oppression, educate our youth, and minister to our sick and destitute, proving that our faith and our freedom are inseparable."
Based on the excerpt, which of the following best describes the primary function of early Black churches and mutual aid societies in the antebellum era?
In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, African American communities established numerous mutual aid societies, fraternal orders, and independent churches. The constitution of one such organization stated that its members associated 'for the purpose of mutual benefit, to support each other in sickness, and to provide for the decent interment of our deceased members.'
Which of the following best describes the broader historical significance of these institutions beyond their immediate charitable functions?
Read the following excerpt from Countee Cullen's poem "Yet Do I Marvel" (1925):
"I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind,
And did He stoop to quibble could tell why
The little buried mole continues blind,
Why flesh that mirrors Him must some day die,
...
Yet do I marvel at this curious thing:
To make a poet black, and bid him sing!"
Which of the following best describes the central tension that Cullen highlights in the final two lines of the excerpt?
Read the excerpt below from the majority opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court in the Civil Rights Cases (1883):
"Individual invasion of individual rights is not the subject-matter of the [Fourteenth] amendment... It does not authorize Congress to create a code of municipal law for the regulation of private rights; but to provide modes of redress against the operation of State laws, and the action of State officers..."
Which of the following best describes the historical consequence of the legal reasoning expressed in this excerpt?
Read the following excerpt from an editorial in the Atlanta Constitution, a Southern newspaper, published in 1916:
"The Negro is not leaving the South because he prefers the cold climate of the North. He is leaving because of the industrial opportunities offered to him there, and because of the treatment he receives here. If the South wishes to keep its labor, it must provide better protection under the law and wages that can compete with Northern factories."
Based on the excerpt, which of the following best describes the relationship between the factors driving the Great Migration?
Read the following excerpt from Mary Church Terrell's 1898 address "The Progress of Colored Women":
"Day nurseries have been established in several cities by our women, which enable mothers to go out to work, comfortable in the assurance that their little ones are well cared for. In addition to day nurseries, sewing schools and mothers' meetings are held under the auspices of these clubs. Thus our women are trying to rescue the children of the poor."
Based on this excerpt, which of the following best describes the primary focus of the Black women's club movement?
Read the following excerpt from Ida B. Wells's pamphlet *Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases* (1892):
"The People's Grocery Company... did a flourishing business. The colored people of that suburb had given it their liberal patronage, and the grocery store of the white merchant, who had previously monopolized the trade of that quarter, was not so well patronized. He was a cousin to the sheriff... The grocery was a success, and the white merchant, who had been displaced... began to stir up strife."
Based on the excerpt and your knowledge of the anti-lynching movement, which of the following best describes the main conclusion that Ida B. Wells drew regarding the underlying motivations of racial terror?
Read the following excerpt from a speech delivered by Representative John R. Lynch of Mississippi in the United States House of Representatives in 1874:
"They say, 'You have the Reconstruction acts, the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, and the Enforcement acts; what more do you want?' I answer, we want the right to be secure in our persons and property, and to enjoy the same privileges as other citizens... What we ask is not social equality, but public equality—equality before the law... The Fourteenth Amendment declares that all persons born or naturalized in the United States... are citizens... and that no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens... We ask that the federal government secure to us the rights which this amendment solemnly guarantees."
Representative Lynch’s argument regarding the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of "public equality" was most directly constrained by which of the following structural limitations or historical developments?
In the late nineteenth-century American South, crop lien laws granted landowners and merchants the legal right to claim a portion of a tenant's harvest to cover unpaid debts for supplies advanced during the growing season. Which of the following best explains how these laws functioned in tandem with the sharecropping system?
Read the following historical excerpt concerning early civil rights activism:
"The Niagara Movement, after five years of effort, has decided to merge its activities with the newer and larger organization, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The Niagara Movement was a movement of protest, of agitation, of uncompromising demand for rights. Its membership was exclusively Black, and its resources were limited to the contributions of its members. The new Association, incorporated under the laws of New York, brings together Black and white citizens in a systematic, well-funded effort to secure legal rights through the courts and the press."
Based on the excerpt and your knowledge of the period, which of the following best analyzes the primary structural and strategic shift that occurred in the transition from the Niagara Movement to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)?