Deck 19: American Dilemmas,1930s-1955

Question 1

What was the relationship between the civil rights movement and the labor union movement during the 1940s?

A)Civil rights organizations generally distanced themselves from labor activism,which they regarded as a needless distraction,and even dangerously radical.
B)Despite efforts by civil rights organizations to encourage the unionization of black workers,the entrenched racism of the industrial workplace proved too strong to overcome.
C)Labor unions often worked closely with civil rights organizations,and also provided early training in the forms of mass protest which would be employed in the later civil rights movement.
D)The civil rights movement and the labor union movement were actively hostile toward each other because each movement saw the other as an obstacle against desired change.

Answer 1

Labor unions often worked closely with civil rights organizations,and also provided early training in the forms of mass protest which would be employed in the later civil rights movement.

Question 2

Local 22 of the FTA was an influential labor union in which industry?

A)tobacco
B)automobile manufacturing
C)textiles
D)steel-working

Answer 2

tobacco

Question 3

The novels of George W.Henderson and George W.Lee both focused on black life in

A)Europe.
B)New York City.
C)the Midwest.
D)the Deep South.

Answer 3

the Deep South.

Question 4

Whose An American Dilemma highlighted the moral quandary of white Americans who embraced democratic ideals in theory but denied them to their black compatriots in practice?

A)W.Lloyd Warner
B)Mary McLeod Bethune
C)Gunnar Myrdal
D)John Dollard

Question 5

In the late 1930s,some American blacks joined the Abraham Lincoln Brigade to fight against fascism in which country?

A)Ethiopia
B)Egypt
C)Spain
D)Italy

Question 6

The struggle of which country,long regarded as a symbol for all of Africa,to maintain its independence in the face of Italian aggression became a cause célèbre for African Americans in the 1930s?

A)Ethiopia
B)Liberia
C)Egypt
D)Sierra Leone

Question 7

Which turn-of-the-century anthropologist pioneered the school of thought which regarded race as a social,rather than biological,construct?

A)Franz Boas
B)Gunnar Myrdal
C)W.Lloyd Warner
D)John Dollard

Question 8

Whose play A Raisin in the Sun contributed significantly to the expanding opportunities for blacks in American theater?

A)Hilda Simms
B)Paul Robeson
C)Gordon Heath
D)Lorraine Hansberry

Question 9

Who became the first African American to win the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end the Arab-Israeli War of 1948?

A)Rayford Logan
B)Paul Robeson
C)Max Yergan
D)Ralph Bunche

Question 10

Whose pioneering Myth of the Negro Past provided one of the first scholarly depictions of the African diaspora?

A)Alain Locke
B)Franz Boas
C)Margaret Mead
D)Melville Herskovits

Question 11

All of the following factors contributed to the emergence of anticommunist hysteria in the late 1940s and early 1950s EXCEPT

A)the demagoguery of Senator Joseph McCarthy.
B)several high-profile cases related to pro-Soviet espionage.
C)the exponential growth of the American Communist Party.
D)the emergence of Soviet-style governments in Asia and Europe.

Question 12

What stance did the United Nations Charter take on the question of race?

A)It affirmed that human rights and freedoms were universal without regard to race.
B)It carefully avoided the question of race so as not to offend its most powerful charter members.
C)It noted the regrettable continuance of racial discrimination,and expressed the hope that it would gradually disappear.
D)It contended that the question of racial discrimination,though serious,must take second place to considerations of national sovereignty.

Question 13

Whose Black Boy and Uncle Tom's Children made him one of the most successful black authors of the 1940s?

A)James Baldwin
B)Richard Wright
C)Ralph Ellison
D)Chester Himes

Question 14

Which New York City councilman and member of the Communist Party orchestrated the campaign which culminated in the integration of professional baseball?

A)Adam Clayton Powell,Jr.
B)Branch Rickey
C)Ferdinand Smith
D)Benjamin J.Davis

Question 15

Which of the following statements about the unionization of black auto workers is LEAST accurate?

A)Some black churches obstructed the unionization of black workers because the churches were closely allied with industrialist Henry Ford.
B)Throughout the 1940s,the UAW refused to admit black workers into its ranks because of their long history of serving as strikebreakers.
C)The unionization of black auto workers contributed to an increase in working-class membership in the NAACP.
D)Although black and white workers increasingly came together in unions,racial hostility outside the workplace occasionally exploded into violence.

Question 16

How did UNESCO's stance on race shift from 1950 to 1952?

A)In 1950 UNESCO portrayed race as a social construct; in 1952,it portrayed it as a biological fact.
B)In 1950 UNESCO portrayed race as a biological fact; in 1952,it portrayed it as a social construct.
C)In 1950 UNESCO described race using the language of early nineteenth-century scientific racism; in 1952,it abandoned that language.
D)In 1952 UNESCO abandoned the language of early nineteenth-century scientific racism; in 1952 it restored that language.

Question 17

All of the following factors contributed to the merging of labor activism with the civil rights movement EXCEPT

A)the migration of over a million blacks from the North to the South.
B)the anticommunist hysteria of the Cold War.
C)the federal government's New Deal policies and the creation of the FEPC.
D)the establishment of the CIO.

Question 18

Which author of The Foxes of Harrow wrote numerous bestselling novels and was perhaps the most widely read black writer of the 1940s?

A)Frank Yerba
B)Richard Wright
C)James Baldwin
D)Chester Himes

Question 19

Which author tackled themes not only of race but of his own homosexuality in such works as Go Tell It on the Mountain and Giovanni's Room?

A)Frank Yerba
B)Richard Wright
C)James Baldwin
D)Chester Himes

Question 20

In the 1940s and 1950s,the dominant sociological trend was to

A)attribute blacks' poverty and disenfranchisement to innate biological deficiencies.
B)portray blacks as pitiable victims of all-pervading racism.
C)emphasize the need for blacks to assert their own cultural identity.
D)dismiss allegations that a "black pathology" undermined blacks' attempts to advance in society.

Question 21

Which lawyer,the first ever black editor of the Harvard Law Review,was most responsible for crafting the legal strategy which would overturn Plessy v.Ferguson?

A)Charles Hamilton Houston
B)Thurgood Marshall
C)Oliver Hill
D)Robert L.Carter

Question 22

Who was the 1948 presidential candidate of the States' Rights Democrats (or Dixiecrats)?

A)Henry Wallace
B)Thomas Dewey
C)Paul Robeson
D)J.Strom Thurmond

Question 23

What piece of anti-labor legislation led to the merging of the AFL and the CIO?

A)the Taft-Hartley Act
B)the Smith Act
C)the Truman Act
D)the McCarran Act

Question 24

What was Operation Dixie (1946-1953)?

A)an effort by white supremacists to counter the efforts of civil rights organizations in the South
B)an effort by the Republican Party to gain the support of white southern voters who were disgruntled with the Democrats' increasingly pro-civil rights stance
C)an effort by the CIO to unionize the South's interracial workforce
D)an effort by the NAACP to create chapters in major southern cities

Question 25

How did public schools in the North differ from those in the South?

A)Unlike southern schools,northern schools had all been integrated by the beginning of the twentieth century.
B)Despite a few holdouts,almost all northern elementary schools were integrated,though secondary schools generally remained segregated.
C)Most northern states maintained segregated elementary schools,though a number had integrated high schools or provided separate but equal high schools to black students.
D)Northern public schools did not differ substantially from southern ones; they were almost all segregated and invariably provided black students with substantially inferior facilities.

Question 26

In the Sweatt and McLaurin cases of 1950,the NAACP evidenced a shift in the direction of what innovative tactic,which represented an important departure from earlier efforts?

A)attacking segregation in graduate schools before attacking it in public schools
B)insisting that segregated schools could only be constitutional if they were demonstrably equal in facilities
C)arguing that separate facilities were by their very nature unequal and unconstitutional
D)attacking segregation through legal cases rather than through economic boycotts

Question 27

An important development in the civil rights movement in the postwar period was

A)the disintegration of the liberal-left coalition.
B)the disintegration of the liberal-right coalition.
C)the strengthening of the liberal-left coalition..
D)the disintegration of the liberal-right coalition..

Question 28

The White Citizens' Councils which sprang up in many southern states were formed primarily with which goal in mind?

A)disrupting labor alliances between black and white workers
B)blocking the integration of public schools
C)rooting out "communist" influences from labor unions and civil rights organizations
D)preventing black southerners from exercising their right to vote

Question 29

Early legal blows were struck against Jim Crow in cases involving Donald Gaines Murray,Ada Sipuel,and George W.McLaurin,all of whom successfully demanded

A)that their children be allowed to enroll in nearby white-only schools.
B)that they be allowed to sit on buses and trains travelling across state lines without restriction.
C)that they be employed by corporations which had hired less qualified white candidates over them solely because of their race.
D)that they be allowed greater and more equal access to graduate schooling.

Question 30

Which of the following statements about the Brown case of 1954 is LEAST accurate?

A)In a follow-up case known as Brown II,the Supreme Court ordered the immediate integration of schools throughout the nation before the end of the following year.
B)In their decision in the case,the Supreme Court unanimously held that segregation was unconstitutional because separate schools were inherently unequal.
C)Although remembered by the name of one of the claimants,the Brown case actually brought four different but related cases to the attention of the Supreme Court.
D)To secure victory,the NAACP's legal team relied not only on legal precedent but also on the findings of historians,sociologists,and other scholars.

Question 31

As lawyers in the 1930s and 1940s,Thurgood Marshall and Charles Hamilton Houston adopted all of the following tactics EXCEPT

A)recruiting grassroots support in local communities.
B)embracing the lawyer's role as social engineer.
C)attacking the separate-but-equal clause head on.
D)building a body of casework to gradually erode the foundations of Jim Crow.