14-3 New Successes & Challenges

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and The Civil Rights Movement in general, made great strides –

racial injustice was not gone.

Push for Voting Rights• Freedom Summer– 1,000 volunteers attempt to get blacks

in Mississippi to register to vote.– 3 Civil Rights workers disappear

Violence struck the campaign almost as soon as it started. On June 21, 1964, James Chaney (a black CORE activist from Mississippi), CORE organizer Michael Schwerner, and summer volunteer Andrew Goodman (both of whom were Jews from New York) were arrested by Cecil Price, a Neshoba County deputy sheriff and member of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. They were held in jail until after nightfall, then released into a waiting ambush by Klansmen who abducted and killed them. Goodman and Schwerner were shot at point-blank range. Chaney was chased, beaten mercilessly, and shot three times. Reported on TV and on newspaper front pages, the triple disappearance shocked the nation and drew massive media attention to Freedom Summer and to "the closed society" of Mississippi.As soon as the men had turned up missing, SNCC and COFO workers began phoning the FBI asking for an investigation. FBI agents refused, saying it was a local matter. Finally, after some 36 hours, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy ordered an investigation and FBI agents began swarming around Philadelphia, Mississippi, where Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney had been arrested. For the next seven weeks, FBI agents and sailors from a nearby naval airbase searched for the bodies, wading into swamps, and hacking through underbrush. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover came to Mississippi on July 10 to open the first FBI branch office there.Throughout the search, Mississippi newspapers and word of mouth perpetuated the common belief that the disappearance was "a hoax" designed to draw publicity. But the search turned up the bodies of eight other black men found in rivers and swamps. One of them, 14-year old Herbert Oarsby, was found wearing a CORE T-shirt. Two others, Henry Hezekiah Dee and Charles Eddie Moore, had been expelled from Alcorn A&M for participating in civil rights protests. The other five men were never identified. On August 4, 1964, the bodies of Chaney, Schwerner, and Goodman were found buried beneath an earthen dam.

• March on Selmao Pressure the federal government to enact voting

rightso Protestors clashed with state trooperso “Bloody Sunday”o Outraged the nation & President Johnson

• New Legislationo Voting Rights Act of 1965 – banned literacy testso 24th Amendment – banned poll tax,

gerrymandering

Frustration Explodes Into Violence

• Racial Violence in Cities– Looting and arson for days– National Guard restored order– LA, Newark, Detroit– Fueled white back lash

• Kerner Commission– Looked into causes– Long-term racial discrimination– Vietnam becomes distraction

• Malcolm X• Malcolm Little• Difficult Childhood• Convert to Nation of Islam – no

drugs, alcohol, separation of races

• Broke from Nation of Islam• Mecca – limited acceptance of

whites• Shot and killed by nation of

Islam members

• Black Power• Term used by Stokely Carmichael• Use political and economic power

collectively to gain equality• Move away from nonviolence• Question goal of integration• “ . . .the fact that in order to have a decent

housing and education blacks must be in white neighborhoods and schools reinforces the idea that white is better.”

• Black Panthers• Formed by Huey Newton & Bobby Seale• Symbol for young militant African

Americans• Organized armed patrols of urban

neighborhoods against police abuse• Created anti poverty programs

Martin Luther King’s Final Days• Disagreed with “black power”

continued to push for non violence• Shot and killed by James Earl Ray

while in Memphis to support striking sanitation workers

• Riots broke out in hundreds of cities

Check Point

• What impact did protests in Selma have on the nation?

• Why was the Kerner Commission formed?• What impact did Malcolm X have on the Civil

Rights movement?• Why did King go to Memphis?

Compare Martin Luther King, Jr. & Malcolm X

Malcolm X Martin Luther King, Jr.

Early Life

Approach to Civil Rights

Goals

Religion

Death

Use the information from the chart you created to draw visuals representing similarities and differences. Similarities should be placed between the two men, differences by their shoulders.

Significant Gains & Controversial Issues

• Civil Rights are Advanced– End of legal segregation– Voting Rights protected– Poverty rates down– Fair Housing Act– 1st AA appointed to the Supreme Court

• Controversial Issues Remain– Affirmative Action programs established

Successes & ChallengesSuccesses

• Voting Rights Act of 1964• School desegregation• Desegregation of public

services (busses) and facilities

• Fair Housing Act of 1965• Affirmative Action

Challenges• Murder of Martin Luther

King, Jr.• Murder of Malcolm X• Rejection of nonviolent

protest• Riots tore apart cities• Affirmative action

controversial