The Roaring 1920s: Prohibition, Racial Tensions, and the Changing Social Landscape

Abstract

[Name] According to Bartley (2022), the roaring twenties was a period that defined dramatic political and social changes within America. During this era, most Americans lived in the cities attributed to the advanced technology and growth in interactive industries like the music industry, which brought forth music that, matched the generation’s tastes and preferences. Economic growth attributed to mass communication and consumerism unconsciously exposed most Americans to an affluent consumer society. The jazz age associated with this period exposed the young generation to the acquisition of motor vehicles that eased their movements. The young generation enjoyed pleasures lie jazz band music’s in different American clubs defining a new phase of life attributed to technological advancements. However, even with such achievements and developments, most Americans, even to date, believe that the roaring twenties brought the nation and its populace more conflict than celebration. Racism is not a new term among Americans as commonly experienced by many, with its effects remaining well expressed in the long run. During the 1920s, racial discrimination and nativism became so clear and their effects too loud of becoming ignored. Prohibition remains linked with criminality and drinking. The time remained defined by raids, terror, and violence to this effect. According to Locke (2021), Prohibition remained linked up with anti-immigrant and anti-catholic bias advocated for by the white. Most of these whites believed that they were the real Americans and thus had the right to remain respected with their Anglo-Saxon Protestantism remaining valued over Catholics. According to these whites, America was under siege by Catholic immigrants from Italy. Unfortunately, these catholic immigrants were further accused of threatening the American culture with their foreign drinking habits and saloons. Unfortunately, the same mass culture that brought about economic development became a threat to the same economy as prohibitions paved the way for other options for survival. The passing of Prohibition led to the ratification of the 18th Amendment in the early 1920s leading to mass incarcerations as police disproportionately arrested American immigrants, the poor, the working class, and blacks. Prohibition-supporting white Protestants believed that the law did not express defined abilities in terminating bootleggers, enhancing the stepping in the KKK to do what these people believed the government could not do. During the 1920s, the KKK reemerged with over 6 million members nationwide. Racism directed KKK toward immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe (Heikkilä, 2021). It was a form of religious battle as KKK directed most of their attention on the catholic immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe, demanding their detachments with the American nation they believed belonged to the whites. Women Christian Temperance Union and men's Anti-Saloon League openly blamed the catholic immigrants for the saloon culture that proved a threat to the American culture; thus, Klan stepped in as a self-styled defender of the American values (Schoen, 2019). The Prohibition enabled Klan to succeed in its new mandate for its anti-immigrant, anti-catholic white protestant nationalist mission. It assured their fellow whites that it would clear all bootleggers and moonshiners. Prohibition enabled Klan to put the organized...