3 published verifications about African Americans African Americans ×
“W. E. B. Du Bois encouraged African Americans to demand their constitutional rights.”
The historical record clearly supports this. Du Bois repeatedly urged African Americans to insist on full equality under the Constitution, especially through the Niagara Movement and later NAACP activism. Sources describing his calls for voting rights, equal protection, and enforcement of the Fourteenth Amendment align directly with the claim.
“During the era of racial segregation in the United States, violence played a major role in preventing African Americans from exercising their civil rights.”
The historical record strongly supports this claim. During segregation, violence and the threat of violence were central tools used to suppress Black voting, organizing, education, and equal treatment, operating alongside discriminatory laws and customs. The main caveat is that violence was not the only mechanism of repression, but the claim does not require that stronger showing.
“In 1973, the American Association on Mental Retardation changed the IQ cutoff for mental retardation from below 85 to below 70 because more than half of African Americans scored below 85.”
The historical record does not support this explanation for the 1973 change. Authoritative sources say the IQ criterion was revised to a roughly two-standard-deviation cutoff and paired with adaptive-behavior requirements; they do not say the change was made because more than half of African Americans scored below 85. Broader concerns about minority overidentification existed, but the claim turns that context into an unsupported specific motive.