Part 1 question 1

After the end of the Civil war, the slaves gained their freedom and efforts to reconcile the United States were initiated. Racial justice was at the center of these efforts. The nation was under reconstruction. However, racial conflicts were alive in the south. The southerners could not accept the end of slavery given that they were farmers and depended on slave labor for their farming (Glaser, 1994). They thus wanted slavery to remain.

African Americans at this time started to inert their political rights. The southerners could not accept this and they started to kill the elite African Americans. The clandestine Klan for example perpetrated lynching, Beatings, and massacres. The southerners could not accept that the African Americans were equal to them.

African Americans won elections in the southern state and even in the congress. However, in less than a decade, the relationally forces such as the Ku Klux Klan managed to reverse these changes through radical reconstruction and violence. This radicalization restored white domination in the South. Federal registration were passed to with an aim to control these radicals but white supremacy reasserted itself in the south after the early 1870s as the support for reconstruction reduced (Henretta et al., 2012). Though many could not accept it, racism was still very strong in the south.

Another conflict was the issue of citizenship. When the slaves gained their freedom, there was the question of whether they will be accorded the citizenship of America. The southerners restricted citizenship to the African Americans by introducing the black codes and other oppressive laws. These codes denied the black people several rights such as the right to vote, freedom of movement, and criminalized certain behaviors.

Part 2 question 4

The depression affected everyone in the United States but it was harder for the minority groups including the African Americans and the Mexican Americans. When the ranging depression kicked in, the unemployment rates for all groups reduced by the worst hit were the minority groups. Racial discrimination became wide spread during this period (Henretta et al., 2012). The minority workers were mostly the first to lose their jobs on a farm or business.

For the African Americans, hard times were nothing new. Slavery had just ended some decades earlier. By the year 1932, the unemployment rate for the African Americans was over 50%. Most of these blacks help jobs such as farm laborers, cleaners, garbage collectors and waiters. However, with depression the larger white population needed these jobs and the African Americans had to lose them (McNeill, Hanes, & Hanes, 2003).  While most of the African Americans worked in farms, very few of them owned farms. With the deterioration of the economy, violence against the minority and there was an increase in the lynching of blacks by white mob. With no jobs, the black joined relief centers. Organizations such as Colored Merchants Association in New York City were established to help black businesses survive.

The Mexican Americans were also affected. Most of them were farm workers. However, when labor for the minority ended, the Mexican faced hostility. They were considered to be part of the ongoing economic problem. The whites considered the Mexicans to be absorbing government relief and taking jobs away. This resulted to the Mexican Americans being deported back to Mexico. Military operation, launching laid and roundups were conducted for the Mexican Americans (McNeill, Hanes, & Hanes, 2003). The African Americans fared better in that they were not deported and they had a chance to join relief centers unlike the Mexicans who were deported to the same place they had left due to lack of jobs.

Part 3 question 1

The big three who were Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin developed a plan of action for Allies powers in a series of informal meetings and conferences. The heterogeneous alliance was united by its determination to demand the surrender of enemy powers preferably the Germans and the Japanese. For Russia, the war was a struggle for survival while the western nations so this as a crusade against the forces of evil.

The immediate goal of the allied power was to eliminate Germany mostly on the western front. However, as the war progressed, other aims came up such as the defeat of Japan in the pacific and the integrating Germany into one state with France. However, the three could not agree on how best to handle the war (Henretta et al., 2012). The United States argued that the best way to defeat Germany was by invading France through the English Channel. However, Churchill favored the indirect attack fearing the casualties from a direct attack. Churchill recommended advancing through the Mediterranean Sea but Roosevelt rejected the idea.

The three leaders agreed that the enemy governments should be removed from power and the era of the Nazis and the French should be eradicated. While the war was ongoing, they also agreed that the defeated nations should be disarmed and demilitarized. This was mainly to prevent them from starting another war. 

The major goal of the allied powers at the end of the war was the containment of communism. However, they also failed to do so President Truman was a communist who had been working within to prevent the United States from containing communism.

Part 4 question 1

The new deal came in the third year after depression. By this time, unemployment had reached 30% and was still rising. The government stepped in to take responsibility for relief and the creation of jobs for the population. Banks were closed to try and alleviate the panic since many people were withdrawing their money (Henretta et al., 2012). At this time, the books and accounts of the banks were reviewed by the government and not the private entities. The government determined when a bank should reopen.

The keystone of the new deal was the National recovery act. The act was meant to review the practices in businesses and create more efficient productive industries. Franklin Roosevelt was a problem solver. He saw a problem and solved it (Hinton, 2015). He found a country in the verge of a revolution and then diverted the energy to something productive. The great society was facing a rather different problem. There were few rich people many poor people. There were black, Indians and whites all of them in need of an economic ladder. Johnson saw poverty as an enemy and had a personal analogue to the war against poverty.

Johnson envisioned the creation of a great society through the elimination of poverty. Several acts were designed to make the society a better place. Johnson himself was an accomplished legislator and he used his connections to achieve his agendas. In the end, he managed to eradicate poverty to some point.

In the long run, both programs had their benefits and failures. Poverty today is less than it was at those days but the great society also brought about the overdependence on the government (Hinton, 2015). Both the new deals and the great society managed to solve social problems in the verge of American destruction.

References

Glaser, J. M. (1994). Back to the black belt: Racial environment and white racial attitudes in the South. The Journal of Politics, 56(01), 21-41.

Henretta, J.A., Edwards, R., Self, R.O. (2012). America: A concise history, Volume two: Since 1865 (5^th ed.). Boston/New York: Bedford/St.Martin’s.

Hinton, E. (2015). “A War within Our Own Boundaries”: Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and the Rise of the Carceral State. Journal of American History, 102(1), 100-112.

Minority Groups and the Great Depression. (2003). In A. McNeill, R. C. Hanes, & S. M. Hanes (Eds.), Great Depression and the New Deal Reference Library (Vol. 1, pp. 172-186). Detroit: UXL. Retrieved from http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/uhic/ReferenceDetailsPage/DocumentToolsPortletWindow?displayGroupName=Reference&p=UHIC%3AWHIC&action=2&catId=&documentId=GALE%7CCX3425600021&zid=72d92d22ff6db2c80f093aec8d6591cc&source=Bookmark&u=oldt1017&jsid=c841f8093c3ffb23417e9ed4b63d83d0

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