Civil Rights

Aim: What strategies were used by Civil Rights leaders to achieve

their goals?

Review

• Segregation was made legal by the plessy v. ferguson decision.

• WWII caused many African Americans to defend their rights and fight for equality.

• 1954 supreme court decision brown v. board of ed. Declared segregation unconstitutional.

• This set the stage for major battles over desegregation.

II. James Meredith

• James Meredith: 1962 Meredith enrolled in an all white university in Mississippi.

• The governor of the state personally tried to intervene.

• Riots broke out and the national guard was called in.

JamesMeredith

Little Rock 9 and James Meredith Clip

• Homework Read 580-587 and answer question #1

II. Emmett Till

• The 1955 Murder of 14 year old Emmett Till energized the civil rights movement.

• Till, spending a summer in Mississippi said goodbye to a white woman in a store.

• He was later beaten, had his eye gauged out, was shot through the head and thrown into a river with a fan tied around his neck with barbed wire.

• His murderers were acquitted in just over an hour.

Emmett Till

III. Martin Luther King Jr.

• SCLC: Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is an American civil rights organization. It played a prominent role in the Civil Rights Movement.

• Martin Luther King Jr., a preacher from Atlanta Georgia was its first president.

IV. Tactics

• The SCLC adopted the ideas of Mohandas Gandhi in order to achieve equality.

• Civil Disobedience: refusal to obey laws you believe are unjust.

• Passive resistance: peaceful resistance to a government by fasting or refusing to cooperate.

• Boycott: the act of refusing to use, buy or deal with an organization or its products as an expression of protest.

V. Early Activism

• Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-56): After Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man and was arrested.

• Martin Luther King lead a 381 day boycott of the bus system.

• In the end, the Supreme Court ruled that segregation of public buses was illegal.

Rosa Parks

Montgomery Bus Boycott

VI. Greensboro

• SNCC: Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

• Greensboro: 1960 student organizers and demonstrators protested discrimination such as segregated lunch counters and busses by organizing sit-ins.

Eyes on the Prize

• "Keep Your Eyes on the Prize" was adapted from a traditional gospel song called "Keep Your Hand on the Plow." The song had particular meaning for the sit-in students who were the first to be "locked in jail" for long periods of time. This version is sung by organizers in Greenwood, Mississippi. "Barnett" refers to Ross Barnett, Governor of Mississippi in 1963.

THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES…

Birmingham

• Birmingham: 1963 MLK and the SLCC began a campaign to bring integration to Birmingham, Alabama.

• At a protest march safety commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor used dogs and fire hoses to break up the marches.

• Thousands were arrested.

Civil Rights Demonstrations in

Birmingham, Alabama

March on Washington

• 1963 President Kennedy sent the most comprehensive civil rights bill in the nation’s history to congress.

• Civil rights groups organized a huge march on D.C.

• At the march MLK delivered his famous “I have a dream speech” for more than 200,000 marchers.

• I have a dream…

Civil Rights Legislation

Civil Rights Act (1964):

• Protection of voting rights

• Opening of all public facilities

• Commission to protect equal job opportunities.

Assassinations

• 1968- Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis Tennessee.

• Robert F Kennedy, presidential candidate and civil rights supporter, was assassinated just two month’s later.

• The shock of these deaths lead to increasing urban violence and made the goals of these men seem distant.

Activity

• Eyes on the prize! Sitting in to Stand Up.

• HW: 589-596 Answer Questions #1 on pg 596.

Activity

• Case Study: Mohammad Ali Episode …Eyes on the Prize.

The Shift

• During the late 1960s the character of the civil rights movement began to change.

• Many African Americans embraced separatism, or the racial separation of blacks and whites.

• Some of these freedom fighters saw Malcolm X as a hero.

Malcolm X• Malcolm X was born

Malcolm Little. • His father was murdered

by a group of white men when he was 6.

• Malcolm joined the national of Islam after spending time in Jail.

• He advocated fighting racism any way necessary including with violence.

Black Panthers

• The Black Panther Party (originally called the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense) was an African American organization founded to promote civil rights and self-defense.

• Founded by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale in October 1966, the organization initially called for armed resistance to societal oppression in the interest of African American justice.

Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton

Black Panther Tactics

• Took on a more militant approach.

• Tired of slow progress

• Carried guns and monitored police actions within community

• Patrolled neighborhoods for security

• Began free breakfast and lunch programs for children

MLK vs Malcolm X

MLK• “Soul Force:” Love

ones enemy • Violence of any kind

increases violence• Civil disobedience, • Large

demonstrations = increase attention

• Fed legislation• Shame haters into

seeing as equal

MLK

• “We will not hate you, but we cannot…obey your unjust laws. We will soon wear you down by our capacity to suffer. And in winning our freedom, we will so appeal to your heart and conscience that we will win you in the process.”

MLK Jr Accomplishments

• Birmingham bus boycott

• Civ Right Bill 1964 and March on DC

• Voting Rights Act of 1965

• All with help of SLCC, SNCC and others

MLK vs Malcolm XMalcolm X

• Early = Separation of race. Later integration

• Any means necessary for rights including violence if threatened

• “Black Nationalism” = control own community

• Black pride, felt non-violence shows weakness that can be exploited.

• Take control of own destiny not wait for Govt legislation

Malcolm X

• “concerning non-violence: it is criminal to teach a man to to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks. The time has come for the American Negro to to fight back in self-defense whenever & wherever he is being unjustly & unlawfully attacked.”

Malcolm X Accomplishments

• No direct legislation but voiced the discontent felt by many.

• Was held up as voice of the Black Power Mvt

• Highly influenced the Black Panthers (security, community based effort, take control of own destiny not wait for govt)