AKS 50b – 51; 53aThe Civil Rights

Movement

I. Beginnings of the Movement

A. Post World War II America

1. Over 1 million African-Americans served in U.S. military during World War II

2. Came back to a segregated America; began to demand change

3. A. Phillip Randolph – Labor leader; became outspoken critic of segregation and Jim Crow laws; early leader of

Civil Rights Movement

4. Planned a March on Washington in 1941; to stop it FDR made changes in government

B. Early Changes

1. October 29, 1947 – The President’s Committee on Civil Rights Issues condemns segregation everywhere, especially the military

2. July 26, 1948 – President Truman issues an executive order that desegregates the Federal government and the military

C. Jackie Robinson

1. All-American athlete from UCLA – 4 sports

2. Joined U.S. Army after Pearl Harbor

3. Was court-martialed for refusing to move to the back of a military bus; eventually acquitted

C. Jackie Robinson

4. 1946 – signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers

5. 1947 – breaks color barrier in Major League Baseball; opens doors for later players

C. Jackie Robinson

6. Other early African-American players

a. Roy Campanella

b. Don Newcombe

c. Both join Robinson on Dodgers

d. Larry Doby – first African-American in the American League – joined Cleveland Indians in July of 1947

e. All four are in the Baseball Hall of Fame

II. Important Events

A. 1954 – Brown vs. Board of Education

1. Actually combined five cases into one

2. Supreme Court reversed Plessy vs. Ferguson and said that “separate but equal is unequal”

3. Led to the desegregation of public schools

4. Brown II – 1955 – Supreme Court orders that integration take place “with all deliberate speed”

B. 1955 – Murder of Emmett Till

1. 14 year old from Chicago

2. Brutally murdered in Mississippi for whistling at a white woman

3. Two men arrested and tried – acquitted

4. Later admitted to the murder in Look magazine

C. Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott

1. December 1, 1955 - Parks violates law by refusing to give up her seat at the front of a

Montgomery bus

2. She is arrested and charged; fined $14

3. A. Phillip Randolph and Martin Luther King, Jr. come to her defense

4. The Montgomery Bus Boycott – December 5, 1955

a. Idea of Randolph and King (preacher in Montgomery)

b. hoped that by not using the busses pressure would mount to end segregation

c. Montgomery Improvement Association – created to help those in the boycott

4. The Montgomery Bus Boycott

d. People had to walk to work – many lost their jobs

e. Whites began helping by providing rides

f. After 381 days the Supreme Court ruled that segregation on busses was unconstitutional

D. September 25, 1957 – Little Rock Nine

1. Nine African-Americans try to enter Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas

2. Governor Orval Faubus calls in National Guard to block them from entering

3. President Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne to protect the students as they enroll in school

Hazel Bryan and Elizabeth Eckford

E. February 1, 1960 – The first Sit-In

1. Ezell Blair, Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, and David Richmond sit down at a lunch counter at Woolworth’s in Greensboro, North Carolina

2. They are refused service and they sit at the counter until closing

3. Other students join the sit-in; eventually spreads through several states – 50,000 eventually sit-in; led to formation of SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee)

III. Martin Luther King, Jr.

A. Entered Morehouse College at 15

B. Ordained as a Baptist Minister at 19

C. 1953 – marries Coretta Scott

D. Serves as pastor of Dexter Street Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama from 1954-60

III. Martin Luther King, Jr.

E. 1957 - Helped begin the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to fight segregation in the South

F. Top aides include Ralph David Abernathy, Andrew Young, Joseph Lowery, Jesse Jackson

III. Martin Luther King, Jr.

G. 1958 – called to White House with A. Phillip Randolph and others to meet with Eisenhower

H. 1959 – went to India to study Gandhi’s ideas of Civil Disobedience ; wins Nobel Peace Prize in 1964

IV. JFK, Civil Rights, and the Early 60’s

A. Had won the support of King during the campaign by working to get his release from an Atlanta jail

B. 70% African-Americans voted for JFK

C. Did not act quickly; frustrating King and others

D. The Freedom Riders - May, 1961

1. Planned by CORE – Congress of Racial Equality

2. wanted government to enforce anti-segregation laws in Interstate travel

3. Established Freedom Rides to Southern states to show problems

4. Busses were attacked and bombed

D. The Freedom Riders - May, 1961

5. JFK sent Justice Department official John Seigenthaler to try and keep the peace – was beaten unconscious by mob

E. 1962 - Supreme Court rules that segregation is unconstitutional in all transportation facilities

F. JFK sends federal marshals to Ole Miss to protect James Meredith when he tried to enroll

V. Summer, 1963

A. Birmingham, 1963 – also known as “Bombingham”

1. Between 1957-1962 at least 17 churches and homes had been bombed

2. April 3 - King and the SCLC decided to lead marches in protest – 42 arrested

3. Friday, April 12 – another march leads to the arrest of King and Ralph David Abernathy

4. Some local clergy criticize King and other “outsiders” for coming into Birmingham and stirring up trouble

5. King responds with a “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”

6. Explains motives and reasons for the movement; “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

7. Once posting bail, plans another march involving children and students

8. “Bull” Connor – racist sheriff; arrested over 900; turned attack dogs and fire hoses on demonstrators

9. TV cameras showed violence to the nation - increases sympathy for the marchers

B. University of Alabama

1. Governor George Wallace (“Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!”)stands at door of University refusing to allow African-Americans in

2. JFK sends in troops and federal government

3. June 11, 1963 – JFK speech on Civil Rights

4. Events in Birmingham and at the University of Alabama convince JFK to give speech to nation

5. Tells nation that it is a moral, as well as legal, issue

6. Announces he will ask for a Civil Rights Bill

'We are confronted primarily with a moral issue. It is as old as the scriptures and is as clear as the American Constitution. The heart of the question is whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities … One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs, their grandsons, are not fully free. They are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice. They are not yet freed from social and economic oppression. And this Nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free … Now the time has come for this Nation to fulfill its promise … The fires of frustration and discord are burning in every city, North and South, where legal remedies are not at hand … A great change is at hand, and our task, our obligation, is to make that revolution, that change, peaceful and constructive for all … Next week I shall ask the Congress of the United States to act, to make a commitment it has not fully made in this century to the proposition that race has no place in American life or law.'

C. Medgar Evers – President of N.A.A.C.P. in Mississippi

1. Murdered in his driveway June 12, 1963

2. Assassin is not convicted until 1994

D. March on Washington – August 28, 1963

1. Planners – Big Six

a. A. Phillip Randolph – original idea

b. Martin Luther King, Jr. – SCLC

c. John Lewis – President of SNCC

(Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee – mostly college students under 22 years old)

d. Roy Wilkins – N.A.A.C.P.

e. Whitney Young – National Urban League

f. James Farmer – CORE

2. Speeches and entertainment at the Lincoln Memorial

3. @250,000 people, black and white; marched for jobs, freedom, and support for JFK’s Civil Rights Bill

4. Culminates with King’s “I Have a Dream” speech

E. September 16, 1963 – 16th Street Church Bombing , Birmingham

1. Church was used for meetings; Four little girls killed in bombing

3. One bomber convicted in 1977, others in 2002 and 2003

Murder of Lemuel Penn

July 11, 1964

• Lt. Colonel in U.S. Army Reserves

• Had been in Columbus training for two weeks at Fort Benning, Ga

• Was on his way back to Washington, D.C. where he was a husband, father, and an assistant superintendent of schools

• Is shot and killed while crossing the Broad River Bridge between Madison County and Elbert County

• He is targeted because he has Washington, D.C. license plates

• Georgia governor Carl Sanders declared that he was "ashamed for myself and the responsible citizens of Georgia that this occurrence took place in our state.“

• After weeks of investigation, state prosecutors brought first-degree murder charges against two local white men, Cecil Myers and Joseph Howard Sims

• Despite considerable evidence indicating their guilt, an all-white jury in Madison County acquitted both men on September 4, 1964.

• On the basis of the recently enacted Civil Rights Act of 1964, federal authorities charged Sims, Myers, and four other local Klansmen, Herbert Guest, James S. Lackey, Denver Phillips, and George Hampton Turner, with violating the federal law, which made it illegal for two or more persons to conspire to abridge or threaten another person's civil rights.

• U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Federal Government had the right to bring charges - Sims and Myers were convicted and sentenced to ten years

• Due in large part to Penn's murder and similar acts of violence, the House Committee on Un-American Activities launched a full-scale investigation into the Klan's activities in 1965.

• Membership declined and the organization never regained the prominence and legitimacy it had previously enjoyed in some communities throughout the South.

V. LBJ and Civil RightsA. JFK assassinated November 22, 1963; LBJ takes over

B. Freedom Summer – 1964

1. Volunteers from colleges in the north come to Mississippi

2. Plan to help African-Americans register to vote

3. 3 workers disappear in Philadelphia, Mississippi

4. After massive manhunt, bodies are found

C. Johnson has Civil Rights Act passed in memory of JFK

D. Mississippi Democratic Freedom Party

1. Began by Fannie Lou Hamer; daughter of sharecroppers in Mississippi

2. Had been arrested and beaten in 1962 for trying to register to vote

3. Led a delegation of the MDFP to the 1964 Democratic Convention

4. Wanted to represent Mississippi instead of traditional Democratic Party

5. LBJ tries to get SNCC to work out a compromise – two seats and a promise of desegregating the 1968 convention

6. Hamer refuses – “We didn’t come all this way for no two seats”

7. Gives speech for television – gets sympathy from around the country

8. Eventually leaves as a result of the compromise but feels betrayed by SNCC

U.S. HISTORY

Quiz in 5 minutes over notes on Civil Rights Movement

You need a clean sheet of notebook paper

The quiz you just completed in the 1965 Alabama Literacy test. African-Americans wishing to vote had to take and score 90% on it in order to register. If you answered more than seven (7) questions incorrectly then you would not have been allowed to register.

You were probably upset when you thought this quiz would harm your grade. Imagine how you would feel if it robbed you of your right to vote – a right guaranteed by the Constitution. Keep in mind white people were exempt due to “grandfather clauses”.

Also, keep in mind that trying to register or complaining about the system would usually lead to violence against you and your family. This system kept power in the hands of the white supremacist and you had no way to fight back that did not include threats to you.

At the bottom of your quiz, write a short description of how you felt when you first saw the quiz and whether you thought it was fair. Then, describe how you would feel if it were tied to your right to vote. Finally, explain why you believe the white power tried so hard to limit the right to vote for African-Americans.

E. Selma, 1965

1. Marchers planned to march from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery, Alabama for voting rights

2. “Bloody Sunday” – March 7, 1965

a. Marchers are attacked by police when they cross the Edmund Pettis Bridge

b. TV news and photographers capture the images

c. Marchers tried again on March 9 – again stopped by troopers

d. March 25, 1965 – 25,000 make the march

http://205.188.238.109/time/photogallery/0,29307,1973747_2091485,00.html

e. Because of Freedom Summer and Selma, LBJ announces the Voting Rights Act of 1965 – “We Shall Overcome”

f. Specifically ended literacy tests

F. Malcolm X

1. Converted to Nation of Islam while in prison

2. Became a national spokesman for Black Muslims

3. More militant than King and the SCLC

4. Did not agree with MLK and ideas of Civil Disobedience – “by any means necessary”; called for black separatism and armed self-defense

5. Changed after pilgrimage to Mecca; wanted to get along with whites instead of separate; left the Nation of islam

6. Assassinated by Black Muslims after breaking from group

G. Watts – August 11, 1965

1. Poor area of Los Angeles

2. Riots break out after a traffic stop

3. Lasts 6 days, 34 are killed, 1,000 wounded

4. $50 - $100 million in damage

H. The Movement in the Late 60’s

1. 1967 – Riots in Detroit, Newark, and New Jersey; primarily due to economic inequality

2. Rise in Black Militants – upset with continuing problems and growing black pride

3. Black Power Movement – led by Stokely Carmichael

a. Had been a Freedom Rider

b. 1966 – chairman of SNCC; becomes more confrontational

c. By June, 1966 had been arrested 27 times

c. By June, 1966 had been arrested 27 times

d. June 16, 1966 – Black Power speech

e. Broke away from SNCC, SCLC and NAACP

f. Promoted African pride and culture and rejected white culture – “We Shall Overrun”

g. “Black is Beautiful”; afro hairstyle

h. Eventually joined the Black Panthers

3. The Black Panthers

a. militant group begun in Oakland by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton

b. protested police brutality

c. started day care centers, free medical clinics, and free breakfast programs

H. Thurgood Marshall1. Had been a part of the legal team in Brown vs. Board of

Education

2. Appointed to Supreme Court by LBJ in 1967

I. April 4, 1968

1. Martin Luther King, Jr. went to Memphis to help sanitation workers on strike

2. Had been planning another march on Washington for poor people

3. Assassinated in Memphis - James Earl Ray is accused of the murder; pled guilty and served life in prison

4. Led to riots breaking out all over the country

“For those of you who are black---considering the evidence. . .that there were white people who were responsible---you can be filled with bitterness, with hatred, and a desire for revenge. We can move in that direction as a country, in great polarization---black people amongst black, white people amongst white, filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and comprehend, and to replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand with compassion and love.”

---Robert Kennedy,

“A Eulogy for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,”

a speech delivered on the

night of MLK’s assassination