CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

Segregation 

a. 14th Amendment granted citizenship to blacks for the first time and guaranteed "equal protection" under the law and "due process" of law b. 15th Amendment guaranteed blacks the right to vote, but was circumvented by Southern states prior to the 1960s (property, poll taxes, literacy tests)

Segregation 

c. many southern communities were concerned that blacks would gain too much political power by being allowed to vote

d. in the 1890s, states used several tactics to circumvent the 15th Amendment and deny blacks the right to vote

1. some states required voters to own property and pay a poll tax (a fee voters were required to pay when they went to the polls) were used to exclude many blacks from voting because they could not pay the fee

2. literacy test (a test given to determine if voters could read the ballot) excluded many blacks who were

unable to read 3. grandfather clauses (exempted from poll tax or

literacy test anyone whose grandfather had been a registered voter before January 1, 1867) excluded remaining blacks

Segregation 

e. Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

1. Herman Plessy argued his right to equal protection of the laws was violated by a Louisiana law segregating railroad cars 2. the Court said that the 14th Amendment was “not intended to give Negroes social equality but only political and civil equality” 3. established the “separate but equal” doctrine "separate but equal" means that state and local governments may

legally separate or segregate different races as long as the separate facilities are equal in quality

f. Segregation became the norm in the South 1. segregation laws were known as "Jim Crow" laws->term came from a character in a slavery era blackface minstrel Civil Rights Act of 1875->prohibited keeping people out of public places

based on race 1883- Supreme Court stated that “no state” could deny citizens their

rights->only state actions were subject not private organizations and businesses

 

Segregation 

2. de jurie segregation - by law, legally mandated separation of races

3. de facto segregation - by fact or circumstance, occurs on its own

g. Racial Violence-> only thing worse than Jim Crowe Laws

1. lynchings->executions without proper court proceedings Over 187 a year b/w 1890 and 1899->80% occurred in

the South and 70% of the victims were African Americans Ida B. Wells-> young A.A. woman who launched a

campaign to end lynching-> led to decrease in lynchings in the 1900s

African American Response to Segregation 

a. In the early 1900s, Booker T. Washington urged blacks to temporarily put aside their desire for political equality and focus instead on economic security 1. Washington outlined his ideas, became known as the Atlanta Compromise

b. W.E.B. Du Bois rejected Washington's ideas 1. believed blacks must work for social and political equality 2. in 1905, helped organize conference in Niagara Falls, Ontario to discuss racial progress, began the Niagara Movement - called for:

§         full civil liberties§         and end to racial discrimination

§         recognition of human brotherhood 3. the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) originated - by 1914, the NAACP had 50 branches

African American Response to Segregation 

4. NAACP’s early victories-> Norris v. Alabama (1935)-> ruled that

Alabama couldn’t exclude A.A.’s from juries in court

Morgan v. Virginia (1946)-> ruled segregation on interstate buses was unconstitutional

Sweat v. Painter (1950)-> ruled that state law schools had to admit qualified A.A.’s

African American Response to Segregation 

c. Ku Klux Klan was reborn in 1915 1. first reorganized by William J. Simmons   2. Ku Klux Klan targeted Catholics, Jews, blacks, and immigrants 3. Indiana had largest Klan membership 4. by 1927, Klan activity had diminished  

d. During the Depression, during World War II, and immediately after World War II, hundreds of thousands of blacks left the South and migrated to northern cities-> Great Migration 1. the North had fewer laws enforcing segregation, but blacks in the North faced discrimination in employment, education, and housing - many ended up living in->urban ghettos

African American Response to Segregation 

e. 1942 - Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) was founded in Chicago by James Farmer - believed in using non-violent techniques to end racism

f. June 1943, race riots in Detroit killed 34 people and did millions of dollars worth of damage later the same summer, race riots broke out in New York City

g. In the military white and black troops were segregated 1. The Pittsburgh Courier, a black newspaper, started a Double V campaign the first "V" was for victory against the Axis powers, the second was for victory in winning equality at home

h. After World War II blacks began to seek more legal rights, greater equality, and an end to segregation 1. black soldiers returning from the war saw hypocrisy in fighting for freedom in Europe when they did not have freedom in the U.S. 2. black soldiers had also experienced European culture which, in most cases, was not segregated and was more accepting of racial differences 3. race relations became a national issue and no longer exclusively a southern issue

African American Response to Segregation

i. 1947, Jackie Robinson became the first black player in major league baseball

j. July 26, 1948 President Harry S Truman signed Executive Order 9981 establishing the President’s Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services and ordering the desegregation of the military

1. the Secretary of Defense announced on September 30, 1954 that the last all- black unit had been abolished

2. the president’s directive put the armed forces at the forefront of the growing civil rights

movement

African American Response to Segregation

k. Election of 1948 - many southern democrats withdrew from the Democratic Party in protest of Truman’s civil rights policies - formed The States’ Rights Party or “Dixiecrats”          

1. met in Birmingham, AL and nominated Gov. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina for president - received 39 electoral votes with 1,169,032 popular votes  

The Civil Rights Movement Beginsa. May 17, 1954 Supreme Court overturned the decision of

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) in the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, KS (1954)->Brown’s attorney=Thurgood Marshall-> 1st African American Supreme Court Justice

Linda Brown was denied admission to her neighborhood school in Topeka, KS-> because she was black

1. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote the unanimous decision

2. said that separate educational facilities are inherently unequal

3. followed up with a second ruling in 1955 that said that the South must use “all deliberate speed” to obey the Brown decision

b. 1954, 101 southern congressmen signed the Southern Manifesto denouncing the court’s “unwarranted decision” in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) as a “clear abuse of judicial power” that “substituted the Justices’ personal political and social ideas for the established law of the land”

1. had no legal standing, encouraged white southerners to defy Supreme Court

The Civil Rights Movement Beginsc. December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a Montgomery seamstress, was

arrested for refusing her seat to a white man on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama 1. Martin Luther King, Jr. - a 27-year old Montgomery minister - helped organize the Montgomery Bus Boycott of city buses

a. the city’s bus system was severely affected - 80% of bus riders were black

2. black community leaders help organize alternative transportation - carpools, walking, black cab drivers charged bus fare to black customers

3. many whites were angered by the boycott - hurt financially 4. the White Citizens Council worked against the boycott a. members included the mayor, city council members, businessmen 5. January 30, 1956 King’s house was bombed 6. 88 black leaders were arrested 7. November 1956, the Supreme Court ruled that segregation on

Montgomery buses is unconstitutional - the 361 day boycott ended soon after

8. the boycott marked the beginning of the organized civil rights movement and the emergence of Martin Luther King, Jr. to national prominence as a civil-rights leader

d. 1956, Autherine Lucy became first black student admitted to the University of Alabama - she was expelled three days later "for her own safety"

The Civil Rights Movement Begins

f. Southern Christian Leadership Conference  1. January 1957, Martin Luther King, Jr. called for a meeting to discuss nonviolent integration

a. 60 southern ministers met at an Atlanta conference b. among the attendees were Northern activists Bayard Rustin, Ella

Baker, and Stanley Levison, and Southern civil rights veterans Martin Luther King Jr., Fred Shuttlesworth, Ralph Abernathy, C. K. Steele, and Joseph Lowery.2. the group established a permanent organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)

a. elected King as president b. the goal was to "to redeem the soul of America" through

nonviolent resistance based on the teachings of Mohandas Gandhi

1. Gandhi was an Indian nationalist and spiritual leader who worked to gain Indian independence from Great Britain

c. used sit-ins, boycotts, picket lines d. drew its strength from the black churches of the South, whose

ministers were said to mirror the spirit of the community

The Civil Rights Movement Begins

d. 1956, the national headquarters of the NAACP asked the U.S. district court to force immediate and complete desegregation in Little Rock, Arkansas 1. September 1957, the Little Rock, Ark. School Board decided to let nine black students enroll at Central High School 2. Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus refused to let the students in 3. September 3, Arkansas Governor Faubus called out the National Guard to prevent desegregation of Central High School 4. ordered to remove National Guard, by the Federal Government 5. President Eisenhower met with Faubus

a. Faubus agreed to remove the national guard b. the students were left to the mercy of the angry mob outside the schoolc. police escorted “the Little Rock Nine” out of the school

6. September 24, Eisenhower federalized the National Guard and called in 101st Airborne - guard remained at the school for the rest of the school year 7. 1958-1959 - Little Rock public schools were closed for the year under Governor Faubus' orders - reopened integrated in 1959

e. Civil Rights Act of 1957->intended to protect A.A.’s right to vote1. brought the power of federal gov’t into the Civil Rights Movement->created civil rights division in the Dept. of Justice-> created the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights-> investigated allegations of denying voting rights

 

Origins of the Civil Rights Movement 

1. Explain the significance of the 14th and 15th Amendments.  2. What case, in 1896, established the "separate but equal"

doctrine? What is meant by separate but equal?3. Why were poll taxes and literacy tests used in southern states

prior to the 1960s?  4. Begun in Niagara Falls, Ontario in 1905, it called for full

civil liberties for blacks and an end to racial discrimination.  5. What organization, formed in 1909, worked to gain legal and

civil rights for black Americans?  6. What event led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott?7. What is meant by the term civil rights?  8. How did migration patterns during the Depression and World

War II affect the civil rights movement?  9. What was Executive Order 9981? What did it do? When? Why

was it significant?  10. Who was Mohandas Gandhi? What effect did he have on the

American civil rights movement?

The Election of 1960 

Democratic Party John F. Kennedy ---- Republican Party Richard Nixon->neither candidate took a strong stance on civil rights at first, wanted to please both sides for votes Kennedy chose Lyndon B. Johnson (a southerner) as the vice-presidential

candidate to appeal to southern voters Kennedy decided to make an all-out effort for the northern black vote

October l9, l960 Martin Luther King is arrested at a sit-in at a lunch counter in Atlanta police claimed he was violating probation which he was on for driving without a license a year earlier Kennedy called King’s wife to express sympathy Robert Kennedy (an attorney) talked to a judge and King was released Nixon did nothing Kennedy won a very narrow victory won 70% of the black vote carried 7 of the 11 deep south states

Kennedy did not fully follow through on his campaign promises to fight segregation appointed some blacks to his administration did little for voting rights yet only 5% of blacks were registered in the Deep South as Attorney General, Robert Kennedy filed 50 voting rights cases On civil rights, Kennedy generally acted only after events forced him to

Sit-ins  First sit-ins occurred in the late 1940s, but were largely unsuccessful the first successful sit-in of the civil rights movement was in Greensboro, NC

in 1960 February 1, 1960, a group of black college students from North Carolina A&T University were denied service at a Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina they refused to leave sparked a wave of other sit-ins in college towns across the South the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) [pronounced "snick"], was created April 1960 to coordinate sit-ins, support their leaders, and publicize their activities practiced civil disobedience - intentionally violating laws they felt were immoral slogan was “jail not bail” jail got press coverage and inconvenienced the local officials Stokely Carmichael was a SNCC leader (later becomes involved in the Black Power Movement) both black and white students were involved in SNCC they ordered food or coffee and stayed until they were served, removed or attacked started with a few people but grew to 300 working in shifts the idea spread to other places besides drug stores - swim-ins, pray-ins, theaters, parks - by the end of 1960, 50,000 young people were involved in sit-ins

Freedom Riders   Supreme Court declared segregation on interstate

buses is unconstitutional 1. the ruling was largely ignored in the South - segregated

buses and terminals still existed Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)

1. civil-rights organization founded (1942) in Chicago by James Farmer 2. decided to test the Supreme Court’s 1946 decision 3. Freedom Riders a group of black and white CORE members would ride interstate buses and would intentionally violate the “for colored” and “for whites” signs on the buses and in the terminals 4. chose a route form Washington DC to New Orleans 5. met little resistance in the upper South 6. May 14 [Mother's Day], the Freedom Riders split up into two groups to travel through Alabama

Freedom Ridersa. first group was met by a mob of about 200 angry people in Anniston

the mob stoned the bus and slashed the tires the bus managed to get away, but when it stopped about six miles

out of town to change the tires, it was firebombed b. the second bus was attacked in Birmingham by an angry mob

riders were severely beaten after two days of unsuccessful negotiations, the Freedom Riders, fearing for their safety, flew to New Orleans

c. group of Nashville sit-in students decided to go to Birmingham and continue the Freedom Ride

May 17, the Birmingham police arrested the Nashville Freedom Riders and placed them in protective custody

in the middle of the night, the police drove the Riders back to Tennessee and dumped them by the side of the highway at the state line

the Freedom Riders went right back to Birmingham. the Nashville Freedom Riders left Birmingham on Saturday, May 20 Nashville Freedom Riders were beaten in Montgomery Justice Department official John Seigenthaler was beaten

unconscious and left in the street for nearly a half an hour after he stopped to help two Freedom Riders

Freedom Riders Robert Kennedy decided to send federal marshals to the city Martin Luther King, Jr., flew to Montgomery and held a mass meeting, surrounded by federal marshals, in support of the Freedom Riders a mob of several thousand whites surrounded the church

at 3 AM, King called Robert Kennedy and Kennedy called Alabama Governor John Patterson - he declared martial law and sent in state police and the National Guard Freedom Riders, however, decided to continue on to Mississippi were given good protection as they entered the state, and no mob greeted them at the Jackson bus terminal Robert Kennedy and Mississippi Senator James O. Eastland had reached a compromise Kennedy promised not to use federal

troops if there was no mob violence the Nashville Freedom Riders were arrested by local police -

May 25, they were tried - as their attorney defended them, the judge turned his back

Freedom Riders never made it to New Orleans

Freedom Riders

Forced the Kennedy administration to take a stand on civil rights

September 22, 1961 - the Interstate Commerce Commission made a ruling against segregated facilities

After the Freedom Rides, Robert Kennedy focused on black voter registration

he hoped it would be less violent SNCC workers were trained to help blacks

register whites respond violently (including the

murder of 3 voting rights workers in MS) (Mississippi Burning) 

University of Mississippi 1961 

a. January 1961, James Meredith applied for admission to the University of Mississippi officials at the school returned his application b. Meredith took his case to court September 10, 1962, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that he had the right to attend the University of Mississippi the Governor of Mississippi, Ross Barnett, personally blocked Meredith from registering at the University c. Kennedy sent in Federal Marshals September 30, 1962, a Sunday, Meredith was escorted onto the campus by federal marshals and Civil Rights Division lawyers stationed on or near the campus to protect him were 123 deputy federal marshals, 316 US Border Patrolmen, and 97 federal prison guards

University of Mississippi 1961 

d. federal forces were attacked by a mob that would grow to number 2,000 and who fought them with guns, bricks, bottles, and Molotov cocktails

2 people were dead, 28 marshals had been shot, and 160 people were injured e. Kennedy sent 16,000 federal troops to the campus f. when it was over, James Meredith became the first black student to attend the University of Mississippi 

Birmingham 1963 

Birmingham was known nationally for racism and violence

closed public parks, pools, playgrounds rather than integrating

department stores practiced discrimination The city government was in a state of turmoil The three-man city commission system was voted out by the

voters in the spring of 1963 - to force Bull Connor, commissioner of public safety and the man largely responsible for the attack on the Freedom Riders, out of office

Connor ran for mayor but the voters elected the more moderate Albert Boutwell The old mayor and commissioners refused to leave office so two city Governments were operating at the same time until the courts decided which was the legitimate one.

Birmingham 1963 

Martin Luther king decided to stage a march in Birmingham – to take advantage of the chaos in B’ham.

 King knew the whites would react in Birmingham, King knew the press would cover it

SCLC launched "Project C" (for Confrontation) April 3, 1963, SCLC staged sit-ins and released a "Birmingham

Manifesto" April 6, police arrested 45 protesters marching from Sixteenth

Street Baptist Church to City Hall April 7, Palm Sunday, more people were arrested - two police

dogs attacked nineteen-year-old protester Leroy Allen as a large crowd looked on

Judge W.A. Jenkins, Jr., issued an order preventing 133 of the city's civil rights leaders, including King, fellow SCLC leader Ralph Abernathy, and Shuttlesworth from organizing demonstrations

Birmingham 1963 April 12, 1963,- King was arrested for violating the court's

order Local white church leaders wrote a letter to the paper saying

King was just stirring up trouble and if he would be patient, change would come King responded with Letter From A Birmingham Jail

1. written on scraps of paper

2. said that we can’t wait for change because wait has always meant never

King was released on April 20

SCLC organizers started to plan "D Day" All of the D Day demonstrators would be children – a controversial

decision. decided to use children in the march so that adults would not lose their jobs

May 2, children, ranging in age from six to eighteen, gathered in Kelly Ingram Park, across the street from Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Demonstrators left Kelly Ingram Park in waves and were arrested and

placed in police vans

Birmingham 1963 May 3, over a thousand more children stayed out of

school and went to Kelly Ingram Park Bull Connor was determined not to let them get downtown, but

he had no space left in his jails-> ordered the police and firemen to use attack dogs and fire hoses on the marchers - pictures of these attacks were shown all over the world

Fearing damage to downtown stores, the Birmingham business community agreed to integrate lunch counters and hire more blacks

Bull Connor urged whites to boycott the cooperating stores Some whites reacted by bombing King’s motel and his

brother’s house Because it was the site of eighteen unsolved bombings in

black neighborhoods over a six-year span and of the vicious mob attack on the Freedom Riders on Mother's Day 1961, Birmingham earned the nickname "Bombingham"

Riots ensued and JFK sent in the National Guard to make peace 

University of Alabama 1963  Alabama Governor George Wallace made a campaign

promise in 1962 to stand in the schoolhouse door to block integration In his inaugural address, Wallace promised, "segregation today,

segregation tomorrow, segregation forever"

 June 11, 1963 - Wallace stood at the door of the registration building at the University of Alabama and gave a speech in protest of two black students attending the school he said that integration is a state’s rights issue, not a federal issue the “stand” was symbolic because President Kennedy had

federalized National Guard they were there to make sure the students were allowed to enter after the speech, Wallace stepped aside and Vivian Malone and James Hood entered the building - the first sustained enrollment of black students at UA

May 30, 1965, Vivian became the first black student to graduate from the University of Alabama

James Hood returned to campus in 1995 and received a Ph.D. in interdisciplinary studies in 1997 

“I Have a Dream”

August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. led a march of 250,000 in Washington D.C.marching to support the passage of the Civil Rights

bill Martin Luther King gave the “I Have a Dream”

speech Led to passing of The Civil Rights Act of 1964

gave the federal government broad power to stop racial discrimination in the segregation in public places, to bring lawsuits to end school segregation, and to require employers to end discrimination in the workplaceCreated the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

(EEOC)

Medgar Evers 

President Kennedy went on TV the night of June 11, 1963 called segregation a “moral crisis” asked Congress to pass the Civil Rights bill

Medgar Evers was a leader in the Mississippi NAACP organized economic boycotts, meetings, marches, prayer

vigils, and picket lines he was shot and killed in his driveway by Byron de la

Beckwith late on the night of June 11 while getting out of his car

stood trial twice in the 1960s in both cases the all-white juries could not reach a verdict in a third trial in 1994 Beckwith was convicted and

sentenced to life in prison 

The Struggle for Voting Rights

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 did little to guarantee the right to vote Many African American voters were attacked, beaten, and killed Bombs exploded in many African American businesses and churches Martin Luther King, Jr., decided it was time for another protest to protect

African American voting rights The protest was staged for Selma, Alabama, where African

Americans were the majority of the population while only 3 percent were registered to vote. march for freedom began in Selma and headed toward the state capitol

in Montgomery Sheriff Jim Clark ordered 200 state troopers and deputized citizens to

rush the peaceful demonstrators brutal attack became known as Bloody Sunday, and the nation saw the

images on television

On August 3, 1965, the House of Representatives passed the voting bill, with the Senate passing the bill the following day The Voting Rights Act of 1965 gave the attorney general the right to send

federal examiners to register qualified voters, bypassing the local officials who often refused to register African Americans

resulted in 250,000 new African American voters and an increase in African American elected officials in the South

16th Street Baptist Church Bombing

September 15, 1963, the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama was bombed killing four young girls and

injuring 14 teenagers a Klansman was convicted of the

bombing in 1976

Problems Facing Urban African Americans

A. Even after the passage of civil rights laws in the 1950s and 1960s, racism, or prejudice or discrimination toward someone because of their race, was common The civil rights movement had resulted in many positive gains for

African Americans, but their economic and social problems were much more difficult to address

B. Race riots broke out in many American cities between 1965 and 1968

A race riot in Watts, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, lasted six days The worst of the riots occurred in Detroit when the United States

Army was forced to send in tanks and soldiers with machine guns to gain control

C. The Kerner Commission was created to make recommendations that would prevent further urban riots It concluded that the problem was white society and white racism The commission suggested the creation of two million new jobs in

inner cities and six million new units of public housing However, with the massive spending in the Vietnam War, President

Johnson never endorsed the recommendation

The Shift to Economic RightsA. By the mid-1960s, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was criticized

for his nonviolent strategy because it had failed to improve the economic condition of African Americans. he began focusing on economic issues affecting African Americans

B. The Chicago Movement was an effort to call attention to the deplorable housing conditions that many African Americans faced Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and his wife moved into a slum

apartment in an African American neighborhood in Chicago

C. Dr. King led a march through the white suburb of Marquette Park to demonstrate the need for open housing Mayor Richard Daley had police protect the marchers, and

Daley met with King to propose a new program to clean up slums

Black PowerA. After 1965 many African Americans began to turn away from

the nonviolent teachings of Dr. King sought new strategies, which included self-defense and the idea that

African Americans should live free from the presence of whites

B. Young African Americans called for black power, a term that had many different meanings some it meant physical self- defense and violence For others, including SNCC leader Stokely Carmichael, it meant they

should control the social, political, and economic direction of their struggle for equality

C. Black power stressed pride in the African American culture and opposed cultural assimilation, or the philosophy of incorporating different racial or cultural groups into the dominant society These ideas were popular in poor urban neighborhoods, although Dr.

King and many African American leaders were critical of black power

D. In the early 1960s, Malcolm X had become a symbol of the Black Power movement Malcolm X was a member of the Nation of Islam, known as the Black

Muslims, who believed that African Americans should separate themselves from whites and form their own self-governing communities

Black Power

E. Malcolm X later broke from the Nation of Islam and began to believe an integrated society was possible In 1965 three members of the Nation of Islam shot and

killed Malcolm X would be remembered for his view that although

African Americans had been victims in the past, they did not have to allow racism to victimize them now

F. The formation of the Black Panthers was the result of a new generation of militant African American leaders preaching black power, black nationalism, and economic self-sufficiency believed that a revolution was necessary to gain equal

rights

The Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

A. By the late 1960s, the civil rights movement had fragmented into many competing organizations resulted in no further legislation to help African

Americans

B. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated by a sniper on April 4, 1968 creating national mourning as well as riots in more than

100 cities

C. In the aftermath of King’s death, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1968 contained a fair housing provision outlawing

discrimination in housing sales and rentals Gave Justice Dept. authority to bring suits against such

discrimination