In the 1890s, we see both the institution of Jim Crow laws, which separated black people from white people in the Southern United States as well as an apparent advocacy in both the government and much of the public for the United States to become an imperial power. With the infamous 1896 U.S. Supreme Court decision Plessy v. Ferguson, the highest court in the land condoned "separate but equal" facilities for blacks and whites, a decision that led to the establishment of innumerable laws of segregation, primarily in the Southern United States. The opportunity to make U.S. imperialism a reality arrived in 1898 with the Spanish-American War when the United States won a small empire from Spain that included the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico. Shortly thereafter, the U.S. began what was apparently an imperial relationship with Cuba that lasted until 1959. What did Jim Crow and Imperialism share in common and what set them apart from each other? Discuss the ways in which race relations in the United States may have effected the ways that the U.S. set out on it's "civilizing" mission in the Philippines, for example? What connections can you make?

In the 1890s, we see both the institution of Jim Crow laws, which separated black people from white people in the Southern United States as well as an apparent advocacy in both the government and much of the public for the United States to become an imperial power. With the infamous 1896 U.S. Supreme Court decision Plessy v. Ferguson, the highest court in the land condoned "separate but equal" facilities for blacks and whites, a decision that led to the establishment of innumerable laws of segregation, primarily in the Southern United States. The opportunity to make U.S. imperialism a reality arrived in 1898 with the Spanish-American War when the United States won a small empire from Spain that included the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico. Shortly thereafter, the U.S. began what was apparently an imperial relationship with Cuba that lasted until 1959. What did Jim Crow and Imperialism share in common and what set them apart from each other? Discuss the ways in which race relations in the United States may have effected the ways that the U.S. set out on it's "civilizing" mission in the Philippines, for example? What connections can you make?