The New Jim Crow, Chapter 1: The Rebirth of Caste
Name: _________________________________________________
1.Describe the interactions that took place between blacks and whites in early colonial America, before chattel slavery.
2.Why did plantation farming shift from using indentured servants as labor to enslaved African people?
3.What reasons does Alexander give to explain why Africans were deemed the “ideal slaves”?
4.Explain the events of Bacon’s Rebellion.
5.What signal did Bacon’s Rebellion send to the planter elite?
6.How did the “racial bribe” that resulted from Bacon’s Rebellion help to construct the idea of race in America?
7.According to Alexander, how did whites attempt to reconcile the ideals of democracy with the system of slavery?
8.How does Alexander explain the South’s “dilemma” after the Civil War?
9.What was the economic impact of emancipation on the South?
10.What was the role of contact under slavery? Why do you think Alexander is pointing to this in her discussion of the death of slavery?
11.What did the Southern white elite accomplish by passing the black codes?
12.Explain how vagrancy laws and convict laws worked in tandem to create another system of forced labor. How was this system of forced labor different from enslavement?
13.In your own words, summarize the achievements of the Reconstruction Era. Do you agree that Reconstruction had “the potential to seriously undermine, if not completely eradicate, the racial caste system in the South”?