This initial video is focused on Geolocation. The following videos connect to YouTube channels for a more complete experience. Find a channel you like then follow along step by step.
Flutter Training Channels: Free Code Camp
Flutter Training Channel: Google Developers
(You may want to Skip to video 6 after listening to this quick video.)
Medhnaa has to catch up with the content in her NOVA Social Studies class since the Final is due Sunday. She already has the essay topic for the final so I want to work with her over email or Google Docs to improve it. She plans to take the final Saturday morning, so that we can pivot toward the Precalc Final on May 5th.
Kushaan was finishing his NOVA Social Study final. Tomorrow he needs to write out a contract for how he plans to finish the SS Final paper which is about 9 paragraphs long. He also needs to complete the readings I gave him Monday for us to discuss a MIT OpenCourse class.
You can always see what I am posting for Kushaan and Medhnaa:
I shared some Expectancy-Value Theory research. The thing I need most from Kushaan is the outline of a 5-paragraph essay that will address the prompt (“Outline and then write a 5-paragraph essay of where you dream you will be at age 29.”). I also want to see the full writing but that may be too much to finish before we meet Saturday, but it should be done before school starts again Monday. There are also math problems about applying basic rules on his page.
This Week’s Schedule
Let me know if we need adjust our next meeting time.
This work goes back to slide rules and pre-calculator days. The idea is that all students have memorized many values on the unit circle, and there are 7 new rules they can use to find even more values. Teachers (and tests) do not expect students to memorize these rules, but they must be able to use them. The fail-proof way to solve all these questions is to:
Write down the rule that will be used to solve the question.
Calculate all sine and cosine values the rule needs.
Put the values in the equation.
Check the original question to verify whether the final answer is positive or negative.
All the rules needed in a standard trig class are listed in the graphic below. The unit on using formulas typically focuses on “Sum and Difference Formulas”, “Double Angle Formulas” and “Half Angle Formulas”.
Almost all questions look like straight calculation questions:
The Structure of the Government Must Furnish the Proper Checks and Balances Between the Different Departments From the New York Packet. Friday, February 8, 1788.
HAMILTON OR MADISON
To the People of the State of New York:
TO WHAT expedient, then, shall we finally resort, for maintaining in practice the necessary partition of power among the several departments, as laid down in the Constitution? The only answer that can be given is, that as all these exterior provisions are found to be inadequate, the defect must be supplied, by so contriving the interior structure of the government as that its several constituent parts may, by their mutual relations, be the means of keeping each other in their proper places. Without presuming to undertake a full development of this important idea, I will hazard a few general observations, which may perhaps place it in a clearer light, and enable us to form a more correct judgment of the principles and structure of the government planned by the convention.
In order to lay a due foundation for that separate and distinct exercise of the different powers of government, which to a certain extent is admitted on all hands to be essential to the preservation of liberty, it is evident that each department should have a will of its own; and consequently should be so constituted that the members of each should have as little agency as possible in the appointment of the members of the others. Were this principle rigorously adhered to, it would require that all the appointments for the supreme executive, legislative, and judiciary magistracies should be drawn from the same fountain of authority, the people, through channels having no communication whatever with one another. Perhaps such a plan of constructing the several departments would be less difficult in practice than it may in contemplation appear. Some difficulties, however, and some additional expense would attend the execution of it. Some deviations, therefore, from the principle must be admitted. In the constitution of the judiciary department in particular, it might be inexpedient to insist rigorously on the principle: first, because peculiar qualifications being essential in the members, the primary consideration ought to be to select that mode of choice which best secures these qualifications; secondly, because the permanent tenure by which the appointments are held in that department, must soon destroy all sense of dependence on the authority conferring them.
It is equally evident, that the members of each department should be as little dependent as possible on those of the others, for the emoluments annexed to their offices. Were the executive magistrate, or the judges, not independent of the legislature in this particular, their independence in every other would be merely nominal. But the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others. The provision for defense must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions. This policy of supplying, by opposite and rival interests, the defect of better motives, might be traced through the whole system of human affairs, private as well as public. We see it particularly displayed in all the subordinate distributions of power, where the constant aim is to divide and arrange the several offices in such a manner as that each may be a check on the other that the private interest of every individual may be a sentinel over the public rights. These inventions of prudence cannot be less requisite in the distribution of the supreme powers of the State. But it is not possible to give to each department an equal power of self-defense. In republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates. The remedy for this inconveniency is to divide the legislature into different branches; and to render them, by different modes of election and different principles of action, as little connected with each other as the nature of their common functions and their common dependence on the society will admit. It may even be necessary to guard against dangerous encroachments by still further precautions. As the weight of the legislative authority requires that it should be thus divided, the weakness of the executive may require, on the other hand, that it should be fortified.
An absolute negative on the legislature appears, at first view, to be the natural defense with which the executive magistrate should be armed. But perhaps it would be neither altogether safe nor alone sufficient. On ordinary occasions it might not be exerted with the requisite firmness, and on extraordinary occasions it might be perfidiously abused. May not this defect of an absolute negative be supplied by some qualified connection between this weaker department and the weaker branch of the stronger department, by which the latter may be led to support the constitutional rights of the former, without being too much detached from the rights of its own department? If the principles on which these observations are founded be just, as I persuade myself they are, and they be applied as a criterion to the several State constitutions, and to the federal Constitution it will be found that if the latter does not perfectly correspond with them, the former are infinitely less able to bear such a test.
There are, moreover, two considerations particularly applicable to the federal system of America, which place that system in a very interesting point of view. First. In a single republic, all the power surrendered by the people is submitted to the administration of a single government; and the usurpations are guarded against by a division of the government into distinct and separate departments. In the compound republic of America, the power surrendered by the people is first divided between two distinct governments, and then the portion allotted to each subdivided among distinct and separate departments. Hence a double security arises to the rights of the people. The different governments will control each other, at the same time that each will be controlled by itself. Second. It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. Different interests necessarily exist in different classes of citizens. If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure.
There are but two methods of providing against this evil: the one by creating a will in the community independent of the majority that is, of the society itself; the other, by comprehending in the society so many separate descriptions of citizens as will render an unjust combination of a majority of the whole very improbable, if not impracticable. The first method prevails in all governments possessing an hereditary or self-appointed authority. This, at best, is but a precarious security; because a power independent of the society may as well espouse the unjust views of the major, as the rightful interests of the minor party, and may possibly be turned against both parties. The second method will be exemplified in the federal republic of the United States. Whilst all authority in it will be derived from and dependent on the society, the society itself will be broken into so many parts, interests, and classes of citizens, that the rights of individuals, or of the minority, will be in little danger from interested combinations of the majority.
In a free government the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights. It consists in the one case in the multiplicity of interests, and in the other in the multiplicity of sects. The degree of security in both cases will depend on the number of interests and sects; and this may be presumed to depend on the extent of country and number of people comprehended under the same government. This view of the subject must particularly recommend a proper federal system to all the sincere and considerate friends of republican government, since it shows that in exact proportion as the territory of the Union may be formed into more circumscribed Confederacies, or States oppressive combinations of a majority will be facilitated: the best security, under the republican forms, for the rights of every class of citizens, will be diminished: and consequently the stability and independence of some member of the government, the only other security, must be proportionately increased. Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit. In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature, where the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger; and as, in the latter state, even the stronger individuals are prompted, by the uncertainty of their condition, to submit to a government which may protect the weak as well as themselves; so, in the former state, will the more powerful factions or parties be gradnally induced, by a like motive, to wish for a government which will protect all parties, the weaker as well as the more powerful.
It can be little doubted that if the State of Rhode Island was separated from the Confederacy and left to itself, the insecurity of rights under the popular form of government within such narrow limits would be displayed by such reiterated oppressions of factious majorities that some power altogether independent of the people would soon be called for by the voice of the very factions whose misrule had proved the necessity of it. In the extended republic of the United States, and among the great variety of interests, parties, and sects which it embraces, a coalition of a majority of the whole society could seldom take place on any other principles than those of justice and the general good; whilst there being thus less danger to a minor from the will of a major party, there must be less pretext, also, to provide for the security of the former, by introducing into the government a will not dependent on the latter, or, in other words, a will independent of the society itself. It is no less certain than it is important, notwithstanding the contrary opinions which have been entertained, that the larger the society, provided it lie within a practical sphere, the more duly capable it will be of self-government. And happily for the REPUBLICAN CAUSE, the practicable sphere may be carried to a very great extent, by a judicious modification and mixture of the FEDERAL PRINCIPLE.
AMONG the numerous advantages promised by a wellconstructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction. The friend of popular governments never finds himself so much alarmed for their character and fate, as when he contemplates their propensity to this dangerous vice. He will not fail, therefore, to set a due value on any plan which, without violating the principles to which he is attached, provides a proper cure for it. The instability, injustice, and confusion introduced into the public councils, have, in truth, been the mortal diseases under which popular governments have everywhere perished; as they continue to be the favorite and fruitful topics from which the adversaries to liberty derive their most specious declamations. The valuable improvements made by the American constitutions on the popular models, both ancient and modern, cannot certainly be too much admired; but it would be an unwarrantable partiality, to contend that they have as effectually obviated the danger on this side, as was wished and expected. Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty, that our governments are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority. However anxiously we may wish that these complaints had no foundation, the evidence, of known facts will not permit us to deny that they are in some degree true. It will be found, indeed, on a candid review of our situation, that some of the distresses under which we labor have been erroneously charged on the operation of our governments; but it will be found, at the same time, that other causes will not alone account for many of our heaviest misfortunes; and, particularly, for that prevailing and increasing distrust of public engagements, and alarm for private rights, which are echoed from one end of the continent to the other. These must be chiefly, if not wholly, effects of the unsteadiness and injustice with which a factious spirit has tainted our public administrations.
By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.
There are two methods of curing the mischiefs of faction: the one, by removing its causes; the other, by controlling its effects.
There are again two methods of removing the causes of faction: the one, by destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence; the other, by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests.
It could never be more truly said than of the first remedy, that it was worse than the disease. Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.
The second expedient is as impracticable as the first would be unwise. As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other; and the former will be objects to which the latter will attach themselves. The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government. From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results; and from the influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors, ensues a division of the society into different interests and parties.
The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good. So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts. But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government.
No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity. With equal, nay with greater reason, a body of men are unfit to be both judges and parties at the same time; yet what are many of the most important acts of legislation, but so many judicial determinations, not indeed concerning the rights of single persons, but concerning the rights of large bodies of citizens? And what are the different classes of legislators but advocates and parties to the causes which they determine? Is a law proposed concerning private debts? It is a question to which the creditors are parties on one side and the debtors on the other. Justice ought to hold the balance between them. Yet the parties are, and must be, themselves the judges; and the most numerous party, or, in other words, the most powerful faction must be expected to prevail. Shall domestic manufactures be encouraged, and in what degree, by restrictions on foreign manufactures? are questions which would be differently decided by the landed and the manufacturing classes, and probably by neither with a sole regard to justice and the public good. The apportionment of taxes on the various descriptions of property is an act which seems to require the most exact impartiality; yet there is, perhaps, no legislative act in which greater opportunity and temptation are given to a predominant party to trample on the rules of justice. Every shilling with which they overburden the inferior number, is a shilling saved to their own pockets.
It is in vain to say that enlightened statesmen will be able to adjust these clashing interests, and render them all subservient to the public good. Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm. Nor, in many cases, can such an adjustment be made at all without taking into view indirect and remote considerations, which will rarely prevail over the immediate interest which one party may find in disregarding the rights of another or the good of the whole.
The inference to which we are brought is, that the CAUSES of faction cannot be removed, and that relief is only to be sought in the means of controlling its EFFECTS.
If a faction consists of less than a majority, relief is supplied by the republican principle, which enables the majority to defeat its sinister views by regular vote. It may clog the administration, it may convulse the society; but it will be unable to execute and mask its violence under the forms of the Constitution. When a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular government, on the other hand, enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the public good and the rights of other citizens. To secure the public good and private rights against the danger of such a faction, and at the same time to preserve the spirit and the form of popular government, is then the great object to which our inquiries are directed. Let me add that it is the great desideratum by which this form of government can be rescued from the opprobrium under which it has so long labored, and be recommended to the esteem and adoption of mankind.
By what means is this object attainable? Evidently by one of two only. Either the existence of the same passion or interest in a majority at the same time must be prevented, or the majority, having such coexistent passion or interest, must be rendered, by their number and local situation, unable to concert and carry into effect schemes of oppression. If the impulse and the opportunity be suffered to coincide, we well know that neither moral nor religious motives can be relied on as an adequate control. They are not found to be such on the injustice and violence of individuals, and lose their efficacy in proportion to the number combined together, that is, in proportion as their efficacy becomes needful.
From this view of the subject it may be concluded that a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions.
A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect, and promises the cure for which we are seeking. Let us examine the points in which it varies from pure democracy, and we shall comprehend both the nature of the cure and the efficacy which it must derive from the Union.
The two great points of difference between a democracy and a republic are: first, the delegation of the government, in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest; secondly, the greater number of citizens, and greater sphere of country, over which the latter may be extended.
The effect of the first difference is, on the one hand, to refine and enlarge the public views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations. Under such a regulation, it may well happen that the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be more consonant to the public good than if pronounced by the people themselves, convened for the purpose. On the other hand, the effect may be inverted. Men of factious tempers, of local prejudices, or of sinister designs, may, by intrigue, by corruption, or by other means, first obtain the suffrages, and then betray the interests, of the people. The question resulting is, whether small or extensive republics are more favorable to the election of proper guardians of the public weal; and it is clearly decided in favor of the latter by two obvious considerations:
In the first place, it is to be remarked that, however small the republic may be, the representatives must be raised to a certain number, in order to guard against the cabals of a few; and that, however large it may be, they must be limited to a certain number, in order to guard against the confusion of a multitude. Hence, the number of representatives in the two cases not being in proportion to that of the two constituents, and being proportionally greater in the small republic, it follows that, if the proportion of fit characters be not less in the large than in the small republic, the former will present a greater option, and consequently a greater probability of a fit choice.
In the next place, as each representative will be chosen by a greater number of citizens in the large than in the small republic, it will be more difficult for unworthy candidates to practice with success the vicious arts by which elections are too often carried; and the suffrages of the people being more free, will be more likely to centre in men who possess the most attractive merit and the most diffusive and established characters.
It must be confessed that in this, as in most other cases, there is a mean, on both sides of which inconveniences will be found to lie. By enlarging too much the number of electors, you render the representatives too little acquainted with all their local circumstances and lesser interests; as by reducing it too much, you render him unduly attached to these, and too little fit to comprehend and pursue great and national objects. The federal Constitution forms a happy combination in this respect; the great and aggregate interests being referred to the national, the local and particular to the State legislatures.
The other point of difference is, the greater number of citizens and extent of territory which may be brought within the compass of republican than of democratic government; and it is this circumstance principally which renders factious combinations less to be dreaded in the former than in the latter. The smaller the society, the fewer probably will be the distinct parties and interests composing it; the fewer the distinct parties and interests, the more frequently will a majority be found of the same party; and the smaller the number of individuals composing a majority, and the smaller the compass within which they are placed, the more easily will they concert and execute their plans of oppression. Extend the sphere, and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more difficult for all who feel it to discover their own strength, and to act in unison with each other. Besides other impediments, it may be remarked that, where there is a consciousness of unjust or dishonorable purposes, communication is always checked by distrust in proportion to the number whose concurrence is necessary.
Hence, it clearly appears, that the same advantage which a republic has over a democracy, in controlling the effects of faction, is enjoyed by a large over a small republic,–is enjoyed by the Union over the States composing it. Does the advantage consist in the substitution of representatives whose enlightened views and virtuous sentiments render them superior to local prejudices and schemes of injustice? It will not be denied that the representation of the Union will be most likely to possess these requisite endowments. Does it consist in the greater security afforded by a greater variety of parties, against the event of any one party being able to outnumber and oppress the rest? In an equal degree does the increased variety of parties comprised within the Union, increase this security. Does it, in fine, consist in the greater obstacles opposed to the concert and accomplishment of the secret wishes of an unjust and interested majority? Here, again, the extent of the Union gives it the most palpable advantage.
The influence of factious leaders may kindle a flame within their particular States, but will be unable to spread a general conflagration through the other States. A religious sect may degenerate into a political faction in a part of the Confederacy; but the variety of sects dispersed over the entire face of it must secure the national councils against any danger from that source. A rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of property, or for any other improper or wicked project, will be less apt to pervade the whole body of the Union than a particular member of it; in the same proportion as such a malady is more likely to taint a particular county or district, than an entire State.
In the extent and proper structure of the Union, therefore, we behold a republican remedy for the diseases most incident to republican government. And according to the degree of pleasure and pride we feel in being republicans, ought to be our zeal in cherishing the spirit and supporting the character of Federalists.
Convert from polar coordinates to rectangular coordinates.
Convert from rectangular coordinates to polar coordinates.
Transform equations between polar and rectangular forms.
Identify and graph polar equations by converting to rectangular equations.
Over 12 kilometers from port, a sailboat encounters rough weather and is blown off course by a 16-knot wind (see Figure 1).
How can the sailor indicate his location to the Coast Guard? In this
section, we will investigate a method of representing location that is
different from a standard coordinate grid.
Figure 1
Plotting Points Using Polar Coordinates
When we think about plotting points in the plane, we usually think of rectangular coordinates(𝑥,𝑦)in the Cartesian coordinate plane. However, there are other ways of writing a coordinate pair and other types of grid systems. In this section, we introduce to polar coordinates, which are points labeled (𝑟, 𝜃) and plotted on a polar grid. The polar grid is represented as a series of concentric circles radiating out from the pole, or the origin of the coordinate plane.
The polar grid is scaled as the unit circle with the positive x-axis now viewed as the polar axis and the origin as the pole. The first coordinate𝑟is the radius or length of the directed line segment from the pole. The angle 𝜃, measured in radians, indicates the direction of 𝑟. We move counterclockwise from the polar axis by an angle of 𝜃,and measure a directed line segment the length of𝑟in the direction of 𝜃. Even though we measure 𝜃 first and then 𝑟, the polar point is written with the r-coordinate first. For example, to plot the point (2, 𝜋/4),we would move 𝜋/4 units in the counterclockwise direction and then a length of 2 from the pole. This point is plotted on the grid in Figure 2.
Example 1
Plotting a Point on the Polar Grid
Plot the point (3, 𝜋/2) on the polar grid.
Solution
The angle𝜋 /2 is found by sweeping in a counterclockwise direction 90° from the polar axis. The point is located at a length of 3 units from the pole in the 𝜋/2 direction, as shown in Figure 3.
Plot the point (2, 𝜋/3)in the polar grid.
Converting from Rectangular Coordinates to Polar Coordinates
To convert rectangular coordinates to polar coordinates,
we will use two other familiar relationships. With this conversion,
however, we need to be aware that a set of rectangular coordinates will
yield more than one polar point.
Review with Sal
Questions for Practicing
Algebraic
For the following exercises, convert the given polar coordinates to Cartesian coordinates with 𝑟>0 and 0≤𝜃≤2𝜋. Remember to consider the quadrant in which the given point is located when determining 𝜃 for the point.
For the following exercises, convert the given Cartesian coordinates to polar coordinates with 𝑟>0, 0≤𝜃<2𝜋. Remember to consider the quadrant in which the given point is located.
Checking Plot-Pointing Questions. This calculator allows you to plot polar and rectangular coordinates on the same graph. If the points are in the same location, then your answer is correct. (You can also change the calculator from radians to degrees.)
For the following exercises, convert the given Cartesian equation to a polar equation.
Explain how Presidents Truman and Eisenhower addressed civil rights issues
Discuss efforts by African Americans to end discrimination and segregation
Describe southern whites’ response to the civil rights movement
In the aftermath of World War II, African
Americans began to mount organized resistance to racially discriminatory
policies in force throughout much of the United States. In the South,
they used a combination of legal challenges and grassroots activism to
begin dismantling the racial segregation that had stood for nearly a
century following the end of Reconstruction. Community activists and
civil rights leaders targeted racially discriminatory housing practices,
segregated transportation, and legal requirements that African
Americans and whites be educated separately. While many of these
challenges were successful, life did not necessarily improve for African
Americans. Hostile whites fought these changes in any way they could,
including by resorting to violence.
EARLY VICTORIES
During World War II, many African Americans had
supported the “Double V Campaign,” which called on them to defeat
foreign enemies while simultaneously fighting against segregation and
discrimination at home. After World War II ended, many returned home to
discover that, despite their sacrifices, the United States was not
willing to extend them any greater rights than they had enjoyed before
the war. Particularly rankling was the fact that although African
American veterans were legally entitled to draw benefits under the GI
Bill, discriminatory practices prevented them from doing so. For
example, many banks would not give them mortgages if they wished to buy
homes in predominantly African American neighborhoods, which banks often
considered too risky an investment. However, African Americans who
attempted to purchase homes in white neighborhoods often found
themselves unable to do so because of real estate covenants that
prevented owners from selling their property to blacks. Indeed, when a
black family purchased a Levittown house in 1957, they were subjected to
harassment and threats of violence.
The postwar era, however, saw African Americans
make greater use of the courts to defend their rights. In 1944, an
African American woman, Irene Morgan, was arrested in Virginia for
refusing to give up her seat on an interstate bus and sued to have her
conviction overturned. In Morgan v. the Commonwealth of Virginia
in 1946, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the conviction should be
overturned because it violated the interstate commerce clause of the
Constitution. This victory emboldened some civil rights activists to
launch the Journey of Reconciliation, a bus trip taken by eight African
American men and eight white men through the states of the Upper South
to test the South’s enforcement of the Morgan decision.
Other victories followed. In 1948, in Shelley v. Kraemer,
the U.S. Supreme Court held that courts could not enforce real estate
covenants that restricted the purchase or sale of property based on
race. In 1950, the NAACP brought a case before the U.S. Supreme Court
that they hoped would help to undermine the concept of “separate but
equal” as espoused in the 1896 decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, which gave legal sanction to segregated school systems. Sweatt v. Painter
was a case brought by Herman Marion Sweatt, who sued the University of
Texas for denying him admission to its law school because state law
prohibited integrated education. Texas attempted to form a separate law
school for African Americans only, but in its decision on the case, the
U.S. Supreme Court rejected this solution, holding that the separate
school provided neither equal facilities nor “intangibles,” such as the
ability to form relationships with other future lawyers, that a
professional school should provide.
Not all efforts to enact desegregation required the use of the courts, however. On April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson
started for the Brooklyn Dodgers, playing first base. He was the first
African American to play baseball in the National League, breaking the
color barrier. Although African Americans had their own baseball teams
in the Negro Leagues, Robinson opened the gates for them to play in
direct competition with white players in the major leagues. Other
African American athletes also began to challenge the segregation of
American sports. At the 1948 Summer Olympics, Alice Coachman, an African
American, was the only American woman to take a gold medal in the games
(Figure 28.17). These changes, while symbolically significant, were mere cracks in the wall of segregation.
Figure 28.17 Baseball
legend Jackie Robinson (a) was active in the civil rights movement. He
served on the NAACP’s board of directors and helped to found an African
American-owned bank. Alice Coachman (b), who competed in track and field
at Tuskegee University, was the first black woman to win an Olympic
gold medal.
DESEGREGATION AND INTEGRATION
Until 1954, racial segregation in education was
not only legal but was required in seventeen states and permissible in
several others (Figure 28.18).
Utilizing evidence provided in sociological studies conducted by
Kenneth Clark and Gunnar Myrdal, however, Thurgood Marshall, then chief
counsel for the NAACP, successfully argued the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas
before the U.S. Supreme Court led by Chief Justice Earl Warren.
Marshall showed that the practice of segregation in public schools made
African American students feel inferior. Even if the facilities provided
were equal in nature, the Court noted in its decision, the very fact
that some students were separated from others on the basis of their race
made segregation unconstitutional.
Figure 28.18 This map shows those states in which racial segregation in public education was required by law before the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education
decision. In 1960, four years later, fewer than 10 percent of southern
African American students attended the same schools as white students.
Defining American
Thurgood Marshall on Fighting Racism
As a law student in 1933, Thurgood Marshall (Figure 28.19)
was recruited by his mentor Charles Hamilton Houston to assist in
gathering information for the defense of a black man in Virginia accused
of killing two white women. His continued close association with
Houston led Marshall to aggressively defend blacks in the court system
and to use the courts as the weapon by which equal rights might be
extracted from the U.S. Constitution and a white racist system. Houston
also suggested that it would be important to establish legal precedents
regarding the Plessy v. Ferguson ruling of separate but equal.
Figure 28.19 In
1956, NAACP leaders (from left to right) Henry L. Moon, Roy Wilkins,
Herbert Hill, and Thurgood Marshall present a new poster in the campaign
against southern white racism. Marshall successfully argued the
landmark case Brown v. Board of Education (1954) before the U.S. Supreme Court and later became the court’s first African American justice.
By 1938, Marshall had become “Mr. Civil Rights”
and formally organized the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Education Fund in
1940 to garner the resources to take on cases to break the racist
justice system of America. A direct result of Marshall’s energies and
commitment was his 1940 victory in a Supreme Court case, Chambers v. Florida,
which held that confessions obtained by violence and torture were
inadmissible in a court of law. His most well-known case was Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, which held that state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students were unconstitutional.
Later in life, Marshall reflected on his career fighting racism in a speech at Howard Law School in 1978:
Be aware of that myth, that everything is going to be all right. Don’t give in. I add that, because it seems to me, that what we need to do today is to refocus. Back in the 30s and 40s, we could go no place but to court. We knew then, the court was not the final solution. Many of us knew the final solution would have to be politics, if for no other reason, politics is cheaper than lawsuits. So now we have both. We have our legal arm, and we have our political arm. Let’s use them both. And don’t listen to this myth that it can be solved by either or that it has already been solved. Take it from me, it has not been solved.
When Marshall says that the problems of racism have not been solved, to what was he referring?
Plessy v. Fergusson
had been overturned. The challenge now was to integrate schools. A year
later, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered southern school systems to begin desegregation
“with all deliberate speed.” Some school districts voluntarily
integrated their schools. For many other districts, however, “deliberate
speed” was very, very slow.
It soon became clear that enforcing Brown v. the Board of Education would require presidential intervention. Eisenhower did not agree with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision and did not wish to force southern states to integrate their schools. However, as president, he was responsible for doing so. In 1957, Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, was forced to accept its first nine African American students, who became known as the Little Rock Nine. In response, Arkansas governor Orval Faubus called out the state National Guard to prevent the students from attending classes, removing the troops only after Eisenhower told him to do so. A subsequent attempt by the nine students to attend school resulted in mob violence. Eisenhower then placed the Arkansas National Guard under federal control and sent the U.S. Army’s 101st airborne unit to escort the students to and from school as well as from class to class (Figure 28.20). This was the first time since the end of Reconstruction that federal troops once more protected the rights of African Americans in the South.
Figure 28.20 In
1957, U.S. soldiers from the 101st Airborne were called in to escort
the Little Rock Nine into and around formerly all-white Central High
School in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Throughout the course of the school year, the
Little Rock Nine were insulted, harassed, and physically assaulted;
nevertheless, they returned to school each day. At the end of the school
year, the first African American student graduated from Central High.
At the beginning of the 1958–1959 school year, Orval Faubus ordered all
Little Rock’s public schools closed. In the opinion of white
segregationists, keeping all students out of school was preferable to
having them attend integrated schools. In 1959, the U.S. Supreme Court
ruled that the school had to be reopened and that the process of
desegregation had to proceed.
WHITE RESPONSES
Efforts to desegregate public schools led to a backlash among most southern whites. Many greeted the Brown
decision with horror; some World War II veterans questioned how the
government they had fought for could betray them in such a fashion. Some
white parents promptly withdrew their children from public schools and
enrolled them in all-white private academies, many newly created for the
sole purpose of keeping white children from attending integrated
schools. Often, these “academies” held classes in neighbors’ basements
or living rooms.
Other white southerners turned to state
legislatures or courts to solve the problem of school integration.
Orders to integrate school districts were routinely challenged in court.
When the lawsuits proved unsuccessful, many southern school districts
responded by closing all public schools, as Orval Faubus had done after
Central High School was integrated. One county in Virginia closed its
public schools for five years rather than see them integrated. Besides
suing school districts, many southern segregationists filed lawsuits
against the NAACP, trying to bankrupt the organization. Many national
politicians supported the segregationist efforts. In 1956, ninety-six
members of Congress signed “The Southern Manifesto,” in which they
accused the U.S. Supreme Court of misusing its power and violating the
principle of states’ rights, which maintained that states had rights equal to those of the federal government.
Unfortunately, many white southern racists,
frightened by challenges to the social order, responded with violence.
When Little Rock’s Central High School desegregated, an irate Ku Klux
Klansman from a neighboring community sent a letter to the members of
the city’s school board in which he denounced them as Communists and
threatened to kill them. White rage sometimes erupted into murder. In
August 1955, both white and black Americans were shocked by the
brutality of the murder of Emmett Till. Till, a fourteen-year-old boy
from Chicago, had been vacationing with relatives in Mississippi. While
visiting a white-owned store, he had made a remark to the white woman
behind the counter. A few days later, the husband and brother-in-law of
the woman came to the home of Till’s relatives in the middle of the
night and abducted the boy. Till’s beaten and mutilated body was found
in a nearby river three days later. Till’s mother insisted on an
open-casket funeral; she wished to use her son’s body to reveal the
brutality of southern racism. The murder of a child who had been guilty
of no more than a casual remark captured the nation’s attention, as did
the acquittal of the two men who admitted killing him.
THE MONTGOMERY BUS BOYCOTT
One of those inspired by Till’s death was Rosa
Parks, an NAACP member from Montgomery, Alabama, who became the face of
the 1955–1956 Montgomery Bus Boycott. City ordinances in Montgomery
segregated the city’s buses, forcing African American passengers to ride
in the back section. They had to enter through the rear of the bus,
could not share seats with white passengers, and, if the front of the
bus was full and a white passenger requested an African American’s seat,
had to relinquish their place to the white rider. The bus company also
refused to hire African American drivers even though most of the people
who rode the buses were black.
On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give her seat to a white man, and the Montgomery police arrested her. After being bailed out of jail, she decided to fight the laws requiring segregation in court. To support her, the Women’s Political Council, a group of African American female activists, organized a boycott of Montgomery’s buses. News of the boycott spread through newspaper notices and by word of mouth; ministers rallied their congregations to support the Women’s Political Council. Their efforts were successful, and forty thousand African American riders did not take the bus on December 5, the first day of the boycott.
Other African American leaders within the city
embraced the boycott and maintained it beyond December 5, Rosa Parks’
court date. Among them was a young minister named Martin Luther King,
Jr. For the next year, black Montgomery residents avoided the city’s
buses. Some organized carpools. Others paid for rides in African
American-owned taxis, whose drivers reduced their fees. Most walked to
and from school, work, and church for 381 days, the duration of the
boycott. In June 1956, an Alabama federal court found the segregation
ordinance unconstitutional. The city appealed, but the U.S. Supreme
Court upheld the decision. The city’s buses were desegregated.
Adalberto
has $2.25 in dimes and nickels in his pocket. He has nine
more nickels than dimes. How many of each type of coin does he have?
A Complete Solution to Consider
Step
1. Read the problem. Make sure you understand all the words and ideas.
Determine the types of coins involved.
Think
about the strategies you have used before. The first thing you need is to
notice what types of coins are involved. Adalberto has dimes and nickels.
Create a table to organize the information.
Label the columns: We use “Type”, “Number”, “Value”, “Total Value”
List the information you are organizing, in this case coins (Dimes and Nickels).
Write in the information you have about these variables:
The value of each type of coin
The total value of all the coins
We
can work this problem all in cents or in dollars. Here we will do it in dollars
and put in the dollar sign ($) in the table as a reminder.
The value of a dime is $0.10 and the value of a nickel is $0.05. The total value of all the coins is $2.25.
Type
Number
Value
Total Value
Dimes
$0.10
Nickels
$0.05
$2.25
Step
2. Identify what you are looking for.
We are asked to find the number of dimes and nickels
Adalberto has.
Step
3. Name what you are looking for.
Use variable expressions to represent the number of each type of coin.
Multiply the number times the value to get the total value of each type of coin.
In this problem you cannot count each type of coin—that is what you are looking for—but you have a clue. There are nine more nickels than dimes. The number of nickels is nine more than the number of dimes.
Let d = number of dimes.
d + 9 = number of nickels
Fill in the “number” column to help get everything organized.
Type
Number
Value
Total Value
Dimes
d
$0.10
Nickels
d + 9
$0.05
$2.25
Now
we have all the information we need from the problem!
You
multiply the number times the value to get the total value of each type of
coin. While you do not know the actual number, you do have an expression to
represent it.
And so now multiply number·value and write the results in the Total Value column.
Type
Number
Value
Total Value
Dimes
d
$0.10
0.10d
Nickels
d + 9
$0.05
0.5(d + 9)
$2.25
Step
4. Translate into an equation. Restate the problem in one sentence. Then
translate into an equation.
0.10d + 0.05(d + 9) = 2.25
Step 5. Solve the equation using good algebra techniques.
Write the equation. 0.10d + 0.05(d + 9) = 2.25
Distribute. 0.10d + 0.05d + 0.45 = 2.25
Combine like terms. 0.15d + 0.45 = 2.25
Subtract 0.45 from each side. 0.15d = 1.80
Divide to find the number of dimes. d = 12
The number of nickels is d + 9 . So, 12 + 9 = 21 nickels.
Adalberto has twelve dimes and twenty-one nickels.
Now it’s Your Turn!! Liliana has $2.10 in nickels and quarters in her backpack. She has 12 more nickels than quarters. How many coins of each type does she have?
