The Gaines Vs Canada Decision Summary

1. The great depression had a dramatic effect on American but more so on African Americans, Southern sharecroppers /tenant farmers were reduced to starvation or homelessness. Even those in the North who were more prosperous lost their jobs and found themselves competing with desperate White people who were affected by the times. They were even subjected to intimidation and terror. The black women who provided domestic work were affected by the Great depression more so than the black men because the individuals that they worked for could no longer afford their services and when they did work it was for extremely low wages.
2. The New Deal refers to Federal programs and executive orders that were enacted by the Roosevelt Administration

with the goal to assist the public and end the great depression. The New Deal did not apply equally to African Americans and White people because they had a harder time in obtaining aid and when they did they were given less than their counterparts.
3. the controversy surrounding W.E.B. Dubois during the period of the great depression stemmed from his belief in voluntary segregation amongst the African American community as means for advancement during the great depression. He believed that was the only way to organize social and economic control for black people.
4.

Charles Hamilton Houston was a Harvard-trained African-American lawyer, scholar, Vice Dean of Howard University Law School, and an NAACP member. Charles Hamilton Houston used his legal expertise to fight the injustices of education and voting by forcing state and local governments to abide by the constitution. AND WHAT WAS HIS LEGACY? ,
5. The Gaines V Canada Decision was a court order by the U.S. Supreme court for the state of Missouri to provide black citizens with the opportunity to study law in a state supported institution. This decision was made by the U.S. Supreme court based on the Fourteenth amendments as the court found that failure to provide black citizens with the same opportunities afforded to white students would be a violation of the equal protection of the law clause, therefore it would be unconstitutional. This decision had an impact on civil rights as it set a constitutional precedent for other cases to come.
6. The Sweatt V Painter Decision was another U.S. Supreme Court decision that ruled in favor of the plaintiff on the basis of the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. The court found that although Texas had provided separate state-supported-institution (law school) it was in no way equal due to its inadequate library facilities, faculty, and support

staff.
7. WHAT WAS THE TERRELL LAW AND HOW WAS IT OVERTURNED? WHY IS THIS VICTORY IMPORTANT?
Mary McLeod Bethune was a highly accomplished activist woman and the first African American woman to hold a high position in government.

Bethune advocated for women’s education, political rights, and sexual autonomy through her writings, speeches, and organizational work. She founded the Daytona Educational and Industrial Institute for Training Negro Girls because she felt that girls required more focus because they were lacking educational opportunities. Later in her teaching career, she agreed to merge with the Cookman Institute, which became a co-ed institution and was renamed Bethune-Cookman College. During the 1920s she became the leader of the National Association of Colored Women, however as her frustration with the limited vision and caution of the group grew she left the club and founder the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), in which the members consisted of the prominent black women activists. Eventually, the NCNW had 20 national affiliates and 90 local councils in cities, towns, and rural com- munities across the country. Due to the New Deal, Bethune became a democratic party activist and a government official. Her close ties with First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, provided her with access to President Roosevelt which proved to be beneficial as she was advanced to the Black Cabinet and was able to persuade the president that there was a need for a negro division within the National Youth Organization (NYA), of which she was named the Director of Negro

Affairs. One of her biggest accomplishments was the Department of Labor’s Conference in 1937 addressing the “Problems of the Negro and Negro Youth”. The conference called for a federal anti-lynching law, equal access to the ballot in federal elections, and elimination of segregation and discrimination on interstate trains and buses. Notably, no other general meeting during the Roosevelt administration generated such interest and support. Essentially, the conference served as a guide for the Civil Rights Movement.