Progressive Reform and the Struggle for Racial Equality, Essay Example

The progressive era was an era of political reform and social activism in America that thrived from 1890s to 1920s. One major aim of the Progressive association was government cleansing, because Progressive attempted to do away with corruption through undercutting and exposing political bosses and machines. Most of the Progressive, though not all, were in support of prohibition to demolish the local bosses’ political power situated in saloons. Moreover, suffrage of women was promoted to come up with a female vote, which was “purer” into the field. The other theme was the building of an Efficiency movement in each sector that could recognize old ways that required modernization, and put forth engineering, medical and scientific solutions (Henretta and Brody 2009).

Several activists united in reforming the public education, finance, medicine, industry, insurance, churches, railroads, local government and several other areas. Progressives professionalized, transformed, and made the social sciences “scientific”, particularly economics, political science and history. Political leaders of the nation included Robert M. La Follette Sr., Charles Evans Hughes and Theodore Roosevelt on the side of Republicans, and Woodrow Wilson, Al Smith and William Jennings Brown on the side of Democrats (Klarman 2004).

The Progressive reform led to the southern states white primary being adopted and finished the disfranchisement process. There was an increasing number of Blacks migrating to northern cities from the rural south. In 1906, there was the organization for all-black Niagara Movement of African American scholars to look for equality in race. Black activists were joined by Progressives to come up with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in the year 1909. In 1911, a National Urban League organization for white and black social workers existed, which helped black migrants who moved to the cities. Black women from the South worked for progressive change via civic organizations, which sealed the space of black men’s disfranchisement (Henretta and Brody 2009).

Bibliography

Henretta, James A., and David Brody. 2009. America: a concise history. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martins.

Klarman, Michael J. 2004. From Jim Crow to civil rights the Supreme Court and the struggle for racial equality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.