Month: July 2013

Helping Students and Young Professionals Succeed: The Why You? Initiative

Renaldo C. Blocker Foundation

(Photo Credit: Thinking Sociology)

Dr. Renaldo C. Blocker, Research Associate at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota and University of Wisconsin-Madison Ph.D. graduate in Industrial and Systems Engineering, has founded, in consultation with a distinguished Executive Committee (Strategy Team) that includes doctors, lawyers, social scientists, educators, researchers, community leaders and others, the Renaldo C. Blocker Foundation.  One the primary purposes of the Renaldo C. Blocker Foundation is embodied in the Foundation’s establishment of The Why You? Initiative.  The Why You? Initiative strives to help ameliorate the academic, social, professional, and personal evolution of high school, undergraduate, graduate, post-graduates and young professionals who may come from low-income, marginalized, disadvantaged and/or at-risk backgrounds.

The Why You? Initiative is committed to offering practical and creative solutions and inspiration to the aforementioned individuals to empower them to unleash their maximum potential.  Many leaders of this initiative come from challenging backgrounds and have had to endure difficult experiences, and those backgrounds and experiences lend themselves useful to this organization being able to equip diverse people with the knowledge, motivation, prowess, experiences, and opportunities to excel in sundry fields.

It’s the core belief of The Why You? Initiative that education is one of the most powerful vehicles for leading people to success.

The Why You? Initiative takes a comprehensive approach to offering longitudinal support to each member of its target population.  Students and young professionals receive services tailored to their specific needs.  At the core of what makes its services successful is the individualized mentoring technique.  Each student and young professional is partnered with his or her own personal mentor.  An extensive body of professional literature has revealed that the absence of mentoring is what leads to academic, professional and personal failure.  This Initiative features programs and services that are based on data-driven research.  The Why You? Initiative takes special care to engender a belief in its targeted students and young professionals that they have the capacity to accomplish all of their aspirations.

Some of the free services The Why You? Initiative will offer to students and young professionals across the nation are as follows: mentoring, self-esteem development, academic preparation, career placement, writing and mathematics workshops, research and internship experiences, life skills training and image/branding management.

Revolutionary Paideia announces that it will be one of the first sponsors of The Why You? Initiative and the future work of the Renaldo C. Blocker Foundation.  Revolutionary Paideia endorses The Why You? Initiative and the Renaldo C. Blocker Foundation as a whole.

Help Dr. Renaldo C. Blocker and his distinguished Executive Committee (Strategy Team) to help deserving students and young professionals across the nation to be equipped to succeed academically, professionally, and personally.  Click on the following address to donate today: http://www.whyyou.org/.  Give as often as you can and as much as you can.  Any amount you give will be greatly appreciated.  No amount is too small and no amount is too large.  Help a person in need today by making your donation and sharing this article and information about The Why You? Initiative with others.

Thank you for your support.

Dr. Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

The Use of Social Media in School

The Use of Social Media in School
(Source: Best Masters in Education)

The use of various social media platforms consumes a considerable amount of many people’s time.  At every level of education, especially higher education, several social media platforms are integral to how students learn and how teachers teach.  The above infographic offers an excellent understanding of this.

Do you believe the use of social media in the classroom is beneficial?  Outside of the classroom, have you been able to learn from various social media platforms, including blogging, Twitter, Facebook, and/or YouTube?  Share your thoughts.

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison 

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Only Stupid People Will Vote for Anthony Weiner

Anthony Weiner

(Photo Credit: ABC News)

New Yorkers considering or planning to vote for Anthony Weiner are simply stupid.  Weiner cannot be trusted.  He lies and lies.  Imagine if Weiner was elected mayor of New York: One of America’s most beloved cities would turn into a circus.  This man has demonstrated that he’s not committed to being a serious policymaker and leader.  He’s been far too focused on cheating on his wife and sexting with multiple women.  Weiner cannot even be sure how many women he’s engaged in sexting with and other inappropriate discourses.  His sexual corruption would be a tremendous distraction for the city, a city that has some important and pressing issues and problems that need addressing.  The people of New York don’t need to have attention taken off essential issues pertaining to education, crime, unemployment, and etc.  The massive national media focus on Anthony Weiner and his sexting is certainly not helpful to the genuine issues and problems New Yorkers need addressing.

The Democratic National Committee should call for Weiner to terminate his candidacy for mayor of New York immediately.

Democrats are always challenging Republicans to take a strong and principled stand against those in the Republican Party who say and do foolish things.  It’s time for them to do the same in the Weiner case.

Anthony Weiner admitted that he continued to be involved in sexting and inappropriate conversations with women other than his wife for an entire year after he had to resign for doing these things.  The public humiliation, the disappointment of his constituents and colleagues, and pain he caused his wife were not enough to stop him from showing off his emaciated body and diminutive penis to multiple women online.

Weiner’s candidacy for mayor of New York is a public spectacle.

In his recent promulgation that he has been involved in more sex scandals, a perspicuous message has emerged: Weiner is attempting to get ahead of those scandals before they’re disclosed by the mainstream media.  He hopes people will not view these scandals as important because he was the first one to announce them.  The people of New York and the American people see clearly what Weiner is trying to do and it’s not working.

If Weiner had any shred of decency, he wouldn’t continue to put his wife and family through the unremitting torture and pain of having to hear about his sexting with a number of women online.  Although his wife has publicly expressed that she supports her husband and has forgiven him, this doesn’t mean she’s not continuing to relive the horror of her husband’s indiscretions each day he stays in the race. 

Weiner is a man without any scruples; therefore, we cannot expect him to drop out of the race on his own.  The Democratic National Committee, Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and other powerful Democrats must put pressure on him to discontinue his candidacy.  The people of New York deserve a race for mayor that’s substantive, and Weiner’s presence in the race makes this impossible.  At some point, more Democrats are going to have to do the responsible thing and urge Anthony Weiner (a.k.a. “Carlos Danger”) to end his candidacy for mayor.    

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

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An Introduction to American Life and Culture in 2013

American Life and Culture

(Photo Credit: Neighborhood Love)

America is the most exceptional nation in the world.  This country continues to become more diverse: people across the world live in this nation.  From its inception, America has been a nation of immigrants and that tradition continues.  This is the only county where you can be the son of a former slave and become the President of the United States.  The diverse people from all parts of the world who live in America are responsible for diverse nature of American life and culture.

Making money seems to consume the thoughts, practices, and activities of most Americans in 2013.  Even when people are attempting to engage in activities that are creative, most of them strive to connect their innovative acts to ways to make a profit.  Any effort to introduce American life and culture in 2013, therefore, has to offer an understanding of the increasing power and importance of capitalism.

A close examination of American popular culture helps to illuminate what American life and culture is like in 2013.  When we examine television during this particular time, one finds a significant amount of variety.  One has an opportunity to witness things that are crass, such as Love & Hip Hop Atlanta and The Real Housewives of Atlanta, to valuable shows, such as Mad Men and Scandal.

Unfortunately, the federal government has not increased support for the arts, but average Americans have found innovative ways to keep engagement in the arts alive and well.  At higher education institutions across the nation, one can see how we have some of the greatest people involved in the arts than at any period of time in American history.

We have grown too divided as a nation.  We think in terms of “red states” and “blue states” and not simply the United States.  Our state and national elected officials have caused too many Americans to have a next election mindset, and this has led to numerous things not getting done.

One tremendously positive aspect about American life and culture in 2013 is there’s a burgeoning longing for innovation.  Although this longing for innovation is heavily centered on the profit motive, there’s hope that we can start thinking more about innovation outside of a capitalistic logic.  At this time, it’s becoming more difficult to differentiate creativity and capitalism.  There was a time in America when there were more artists who created things for the pure love of their craft.  Too many artists now are concerned about producing commodities—not art.  When we look at some current films, we see how they play into the profit motive by being imitations of events and people, such as White House Down, instead of striving to develop novel alternatives to the current way people behave and think in 2013.

While America is the most exceptional nation on the planet, American life and culture needs to discontinue being so self-indulgent and money focused.  With such diverse people in America, one has to remain hopeful about the potential innovations that can emerge.

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

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Startup Act 3.0 Legislation Would Pave the Way for Foreign Entrepreneurs

Startup Act 3.0

(Photo Credit: Mark Warner)

A bill introduced to the U.S. Senate aims to create thousands of new visa programs designed to attract top-tier innovators, according to its proponents.  Senator Jerry Moran introduced the Startup Act 3.0 legislation in February, and experts have been combing through the details and implications ever since.

For top-tier innovators, the legislation represents an easier path to a struggling but powerful economy. The U.S. still dominates the information and technology markets, so online entrepreneurs in particular are keeping tabs on this bill.

The Details

Two previous renditions of the legislation failed to make it through Congress, but Startup Act 3.0 has momentum and support from both Democrats and Republicans. Startup Act 3.0 would permit 75,000 immigrant entrepreneurs to come to the U.S. for three years.  A fixed number of current immigrants would also qualify.  To qualify for these visas, foreign-born entrepreneurs would have to raise $100,000 for new businesses and hire at least two employees within a year. If these qualifications are met, the visa would be extended to three years.  Part of the bill also modifies the tax code to encourage small business investments.  Senator Moran and the bill’s other sponsors believe entrepreneurship is the key to the economy’s vitality.

The Startup Act 3.0 news release states, “Research shows that, for close to three decades, companies less than five years old have created almost all net new jobs in American — averaging about three million jobs each year.”

The Kauffman Foundation Report

The Kauffman Foundation analyzed the potential employment impact, and the numbers are encouraging.  The bill could generate up to 1.6 million jobs over the next 10 years, according to the Kauffman Foundation report.  Foreign-born entrepreneurs founded one-quarter of technology and engineering companies between 2006 and 2012.  The report lists a baseline of almost 500,000 jobs with the potential for more than 1.5 million.

Current Reception

The National Metropolitan Business Alliance (NMBA) expressed its support for Startup Act 3.0. In a letter to Senator Moran, the NMBA declared that the act would boost America’s innovation and facilitate growth.  Forbes published a more personal tale of support for the bill written by Nancy T. Nguyen, an entrepreneur born in the Philippines.  She describes how foreign entrepreneurs are woven into American history.  Without policies that enabled her parents to immigrate, Nguyen wouldn’t have started her own business and become Ms. Corporate America 2011.

Much of the support for this bill is based on a broader support for small business in general. From Mark Zuckerberg to Phil Knight to Bob Parsons, the CEO and founder of GoDaddy.com, some of America’s most successful tycoons, like Businessman Parsons and Zuckerberg, started in small offices with few employees.  All data indicates small business is good for the economy, and a strong economy is good for everyone.

What’s Next?

As the sponsors of the legislation continue to raise support, the bill is currently in the hands of a congressional committee.  Despite considerable support, a reliable source doesn’t like 3.0’s chance of survival any better than its predecessors.  Govtrack.us suggests that the bill has an 8% chance of getting past committee and just a 3% chance of being enacted.  That may sound small, but it’s actually average.  Just 3% of bills were enacted from 2011-2013, Govtrack.us reports.

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Black Male College Student-Athletes and Race-based Stereotypes

College Basketball Player

(Photo Credit: Riverside Hawks Education)

In “Theorizing on the Stereotyping of Black Male Student-Athletes,” Hodge, Burden, Jr., Robinson, and Bennett, III (2008) explained that Black male athletes have been perceived as athletically gifted and intellectually inferior since the 19th century to the present day.  They disclosed that the purpose of their paper was to theorize about race-based stereotyping of Black male college student-athletes.  The scholars relied upon tenets of psychological critical race theory to explore racial, social, economic, cultural and psychological factors that impact Black male college student-athletes’ academic and athletic experiences.  Hodge and colleagues divulged that a substantial body of research has identified that Black males who have participated in sport have been stereotyped.  They informed the reader that race-based stereotypic beliefs have been proven to impact Black male college student-athletes’ ability to meet their full athletic potential.  Many Black male college student-athletes have been found to sabotage their own athletic performances to attempt to evade negative stereotypes about them.

Hodge and colleagues (2008) noted that stereotypic beliefs have been found to result in a number of Black males at a young age believing in their athletic prowess over their intellectual capabilities.  The scholars made clear that people can unconsciously employ stereotypic beliefs.  They cited scholarship that indicated a large proportion of students of color have low academic achievement as a result of damaging intellectual stereotypes “directed toward and perceived cognitively” by them (p. 210).  The article also provided research that revealed that students of color have a deep fear of performing in ways that will affirm deleterious intellectual stereotypes about them, and this significant fear often contributes to their low academic achievement in higher education.  The scholars contended that Black youths are often not exposed to Black intellects, so this further results in an internalization of the false notion of their athletic superiority and intellectual inferiority.  The article offered empirical evidence that Blacks aspire to be professional athletes more so than Whites, and this tends to operate as a means of reaffirming race-based stereotypes about Blacks’ athletic superiority.

Hodge et al. (2008) posited that vastly different experiences between Black and White youths in education and sports are impacted by structural inequities in school and community resources.  They state, “For Black students and athletes, their often inequitable educational and sports experiences, compared to their White peers, typifies the prevalence and magnitude of racism in the US” (p. 212).

The integration of Black male college student-athletes into predominantly White institutions’ athletic teams emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s because of a longing by these institutions to achieve significant economic revenue.  Hodge et al. (2008) asserted that Whites will “tolerate” and champion “racial advances” when they benefit from this tolerance and racial progress (p. 214).  When these Black male student-athletes arrive at these predominantly White higher education institutions, the scholars found that they are less likely to graduate than White student-athletes, and they academically underperform White student-athletes.  They demonstrated that many Black male student-athletes are placed at an academic disadvantage because of the limited resources available to prepare them for college at the high schools they attended.  The scholars argued that some Black male student-athletes devote too much attention to athletics and not enough to academics.

Conclusion

The article written by Hodge et al. (2008) evinces that higher education administrators and coaches have to engender policies and employ practices that fight against the toxic impact intellectual stereotypes have on Black male college student-athletes.  Before recruiting and admitting Black male college student-athletes, predominantly White institutions must ensure these student-athletes have the necessary preparation to graduate.  Predominantly White institutions must find ways to integrate Black male student-athletes into their academic culture, and don’t simply limit them to the fields and the courts they contribute their athletic labor.  With the dismal national graduation rates of Black male college student-athletes, more research should be devoted to helping higher education institutions develop ways to increase graduation rates for Black male college student-athletes.

Reference

Hodge, S.R., Burden Jr., J.W., Robinson, L.E., & Bennett III, R.A. (2008). Theorizing on the stereotyping of Black male student-athletes. Journal for the Study of Sports and Athletes in Education, 2(2), 203-226.

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

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Effective Mentoring Necessitates Activism

Obama Honors Bush

(Photo Credit: U.S. News)

When one is seriously committed to providing effective mentoring, activism has to be central to how he or she mentors.  Although things you do for your mentee on a one-on-one level is essential, you fail to maximize the outcomes of your mentoring when you don’t become an activist for your mentee.  Don’t simply localize your mentoring efforts; make your efforts as global as possible.  When you passionately advocate for mentoring at the local, state and national level, you can have an impact on public policy, and you can build a larger community of mentors and activists who support your cause(s).

After the tragic murder of Trayvon Martin, we should understand how vital it is to take genuine steps toward protecting our children from those who wish to do them harm.  In no way am I suggesting that Trayvon Martin is dead today because he didn’t have a mentor.  He has excellent and educated parents who love him.  He died because a man desired to kill him.  George Zimmerman and many others perceive the Black male body—no matter the age of that Black body—as a threat.

Our children need to be educated about how racists and others stigmatize and profile them as threats and problems and how they should respond to these realities.  In The Souls of Black Folk (1903), W.E.B. Du Bois asked a powerful question: “How does it feel to be a problem?”  Many Americans see Black boys as not “a problem” but as the “problem.”  Although every child needs to have a mentor in his or her life, it’s not optional for a Black boy to have a mentor in his life—it’s a matter of survival.  For those of us who mentor young children and/or adults, we have to wake this nation up to the importance of mentoring.  We have to bring enough attention at the state and national level so that investing money and resources in support of mentoring efforts becomes a national priority.

On July 16, 2013, at an event honoring former President George H.W. Bush and the 5,000th  recipient of the Daily Points of Light Award, President Obama announced he created a new task force to resolve how federal agencies and private companies could use members of AmeriCorps and similar programs “on some of our most important national priorities: improving schools, recovering from disasters, and mentoring our kids.”  This is certainly positive news.  We cannot, however, let the potential of increasing funding and resources for mentoring stop at the level of a White House task force.  Without public input and activism, especially from those currently involved in mentoring, nothing fruitful may emerge from the work of this task force.  This task force needs to hear from us, and it’s crucial that this task force benefits from our knowledge, ideas, experience and research about mentoring.  When the President of United States is willing to construct a task force dedicating critical attention to mentoring, we cannot squander this valuable opportunity to make supporting mentoring a national priority.

Contact your congressional representatives and share your ideas, knowledge, experiences and research with them about mentoring, and let them know specifically what you want communicated to this newly created White House task force.  Additionally, let your congressional and state representatives know that you desire for them to invest funding in local, state and national programs, organizations, and initiatives committed to mentoring.  If the American people make mentoring a true priority, then their elected official will have no choice but to make it a priority.

Don’t simply continue to mentor the two or three individuals you’re mentoring and never take the crucial step of becoming an activist for them.  Mobilize your community to get involved in mentoring and to demand that local, state and federal policymakers invest in mentoring.  Making substantive investments in mentoring will be one of the best uses of taxpayers’ dollars in American history.

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

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5 Reasons Why Many Black Churches Are Failing

Black Church

(Photo Credit: Tampa Bay)

Historically, the Black Church has served as a powerful political, social, and spiritual institution.  Unfortunately, too many postmodern Black churches are becoming fundamentally immaterial.  This is an especially sad reality when one considers how central the work of Black churches was to the Civil Rights Movement in the United States.  The purpose of this piece is to offer 5 reasons why many Black churches have basically lost their relevancy.

1.      Money.  Too many Black preachers place more focus on filling the offering plates than on responding to the comprehensive needs of the members of their congregations.  Instead of engendering a potent economic agenda offering serious solutions for their congregants, many Black preachers are more concerned with how they can fatten their wallets and ameliorate their personal dwellings and automobiles.  Although some people in the faith community are governed by a false consciousness that preachers aren’t capable of being venal people, this type of thought is divorced from reality.  Even with Bishop Eddie Long being publicly proven to be a corrupt man, some in the faith community still don’t believe that some preachers are corruptible.  Many Black churches are being dominated by the profit-motive, and their pastors are viewing the congregants as commodities.  The absence of economic uplift in numerous Black church members has contributed significantly to the waning of these churches’ importance.

 2.      Envy.  In many Black churches, envy is such a prevailing force that it not only threatens the effectiveness of the churches, but also will lead to their untimely demises.  Numerous Black preachers are unwilling to address envy within their churches because they’re afraid of losing church members, which, of course, leads to decreases in dollars in the offering plates.  Although you’ll have countless people tell you that they’re Christians in these churches, so many of them will be the first people to try to bring you down.  Too many people Black churchgoers aren’t committed to solidarity; they’re more committed to finding ways to attack one of their fellow members simply because he or she has something they desire.  Much of the extant envy in the Black Church emerges from deep racial self-loathing.  Black preachers, therefore, need to address self-esteem problems and racial self-hatred.  Envious people don’t want to face their funk—they attempt to deodorize and sanitize their funk.  Beware of those envious snakes who destroy you behind your back.

3.      Fragmentary Teaching and Preaching.  Too many Black churches cherry-pick the sins they discuss.  Countless Black churches have an incessant focus on homosexuality, but they refuse to address the unsettling number of aborted Black babies, the alarming divorce rate in the Black community, and many other sins that will upset the greater majority of the members.  To avoid infuriating the majority of the church members, many Black preachers pick phenomena that will incense only a minority of their congregants.  When teaching about a specific sin, it’s vital for churches to link that sin to the sin nature and offer hope, redemption, and salvation to those who have and/or are committing the discussed sin.  Overly focusing on a specific sin alienates people, and it causes church members to lose sight of the larger number of sins they’re committing and/or need to devote more concern to examining.

4.      Lack of Community Involvement.  Many Black churches are simply not involved enough in the communities in which they are situated for people to see why the churches even matter.  Quality and consistent community service was one of the hallmarks of the Black Church during the Civil Rights Movement, but numerous Black churches aren’t giving any time to community service, or they’re devoting an insignificant amount of time to community service.  An effective church stays active in the lives of the people in its service area.

5.      Lack of a Social Justice Agenda.  The Black Church, as a whole, must return to advocating for social justice as it did during the Civil Rights Movement.  Too many Black churches have been silent about senseless murders of Black people (e.g. Trayvon Martin), high Black unemployment, Black male academic underachievement, and etc.

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

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President Jimmy Carter: An Objective Look

President Jimmy Carter

(Photo Credit: The Carter Center)

James Earl “Jimmy” Carter, Jr. is the only Georgian to have served as President of the United States.  He was born in Plains, Georgia.  Carter graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis and served in the Navy for 7 years.  In 1954, he resigned from his Navy commission and returned to Plains, Georgia to manage his family’s warehouse and cotton gin businesses and a peanut farm.

In 1962, Carter was elected to the Georgia senate and was elected governor of Georgia in 1970.  During his term as governor, he reorganized the state’s executive branch, eliminating the number of government agencies from 300 to 25.  He also had an impact on Georgia’s court system: he engendered a unified approach to the courts and changed the selection of judges to a merit process.  Governor Carter appointed the first woman as a state judge.  He created the Georgia Heritage Trust, which functions to preserve Georgia’s natural and cultural resources.  Governor Carter expanded special education, vocational education, and pre-school education.  Additionally, he expanded state mental health services for Georgians.  At the end of his term in 1976, he informed Georgians that he would be a Democratic candidate for the presidential nomination.

Carter defeated President Gerald R. Ford in November of 1976 and served only one term.

As President, he created a national energy policy, completed major civil service reforms, expanded the national park system, deregulated the trucking and airline industries, and developed the Department of Education.

Carter’s presidency, however, suffered mightily from national economic problems: inflation and interest rates were high.  When Carter tried to lower inflation and interest rates, those efforts led to a short-term recession.

In foreign policy, he will most likely be known for negotiating the 1978 Camp David Peace Accords between Israel and Egypt, which was the first peace treaty between Israel and an Arab neighboring state.  President Carter was able to get congressional ratification of the Panama Canal treaties and established full diplomatic relations with China.  After Russia invaded Afghanistan in December of 1979, he withdrew the United States from the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow and increased aid to Pakistan.  He also advocated for human rights across the world.

In November of 1979, militants seized control of the U.S. Embassy in Iran and held 52 Americans hostage.  Those 52 Americans were held captive for 14 months.  Iran didn’t release them until 1981—on the day Carter left office.

The horrible economy and the mishandling of the 52 American hostages greatly contributed to his defeat in 1980.  He lost in a landslide to President Ronald Reagan.

After his defeat to President Reagan, Carter returned to Georgia and he became active in negotiating peace, fighting diseases, and ensuring fair elections across the globe.  He’s playing an instrumental role in Habitat for Humanity’s efforts to build economical housing.

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

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The Civil War and Reconstruction Amendments

Blacks Voting

(Photo  Credit: Gabriel Hackett /Getty Images)

After the Civil War, three Constitutional Amendments were passed and ratified to provide rights to formerly enslaved Blacks.  These three amendments are often referred to as the Civil War Amendments or Reconstruction Amendments.  With the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision to strike down a key section of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, it becomes increasingly vital for us to learn more about what our ancestors fought and died for us to have.

13th Amendment

The 13th Amendment furthered the work of the Emancipation Proclamation and abolished slavery.  The Amendment was passed by Congress in January of 1865 and was ratified by the states in December of 1865.  President Andrew Johnson used ratification of the Amendments as a requirement for southern states to rejoin the Union.  Abolishing slavery didn’t eradicate discrimination, however.  By 1865, most southern states had enacted Black Codes, which were laws aimed at limiting the rights of newly freed Blacks.  Racists have always sought ways to circumvent laws and the Constitution to restrict rights and opportunities for minorities in America.  Congress responded to Black Codes by creating the 14th Amendment.

14th Amendment

The 14th Amendment granted Blacks citizenship, “equal protection of the law” and due process rights.  It was illegal, therefore, for states to deny Blacks “equal protection of the law” after ratification of this Amendment.  This Amendment was passed by Congress in June of 1866, and it was ratified by the states in February of 1868.

15th Amendment

The 15th Amendment gave all male American citizens the right to vote regardless of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”  It was ratified in February of 1870.  Black males, therefore, gained the right to vote through this Amendment.  Unfortunately, Jim Crow laws prevented many of them from voting by mandating that they pass literacy tests and pay poll taxes in order to vote.

Quiz

1.     What did the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution do that brought about many changes in American society and economic structure after the Civil War?

A.    It freed the slaves.

B.     It changed who owned land.

C.    It gave Blacks the right to vote.

D.    It made Blacks U.S. citizens.

 2.    Under the terms of the radical Congressional plan of Reconstruction, what Amendment did a southern state have to ratify before it could rejoin the Union?

A.    15th

B.     16th

C.    13th

D.    14th

 3.    What did the 14th Amendment to the Constitution do?

A.    It gave Blacks citizenship.

B.     It gave Blacks their freedom.

C.    It gave Blacks the right to vote.

D.    It gave Blacks the right to own property.

 4.    What did the 15th Amendment to the Constitution do?

A.    It gave Blacks citizenship.

B.     It gave Blacks their freedom.

C.    It gave Blacks the right to vote.

D.    It gave Blacks the right to own property.

5.    The 14th Amendment to the Constitution was passed in response to the

A.    adoption of laws known as Black Codes by the southern states.

B.     rising violence from terrorist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).

C.    refusal of White southerners to provide freedmen with land and farm animals.

D.    refusal of some southern states to adopt constitutional provisions calling for an end to slavery.

Leave your responses to the Quiz as a comment.

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

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