How does Darwin’s “Survival of the Fittest” theory relate to the concepts of equality?

Timeline for the Struggle for Civil Rights in AmericaIn poet Dudley Randall’s "Booker T. and W.E.B.," Booker T. Washington argues that African

Americans should work quietly on the plantation for Mr. Charlie and Miss Ann and save money to buy a house, among other things, as part of a fictional conversation with W.E.B. DuBois, who constantly disagrees, citing education as the goal to which Afircan Americans should aspire. Randall ends the poem with a nod to the latter, W.E.B.:

"I don't agree," said W.E.B."For what can property availIf dignity and justice fail?Unless you help to make the laws,They'll steal your house with trumped-up clause.A rope's as tight, a fire as hot,No matter how much cash you've got.Speak soft, and try your little plan,But as for me, I'll be a man."

"It seems to me," said Booker T.--

"I don't agree,"Said W.E.B.

186513th Amendment outlaws slaveryKu Klux Klan founded to maintain white supremacy through intimidation & violenceFreedman’s Bureau formed during Reconstruction to assist freed slaves in the South

1866Civil Rights Act 1866 grants citizenship to native-born Americans except Indians

186814th Amendment grants equal protection of the laws to African-Americans187015th Amendment establishes right of African American males to vote

Anti-Negro cartoon of 1900, portraying the Negro as a demon who should not be permitted to vote. The outcome: North Carolina disenfranchised the Negro.

Civil Rights Act 1875 grants equal access to public accommodations. In 1883 – All white Supreme Court declared this law unconstitutional!

"How does it feel to be a problem?"—is the question with which Du Bois begins The Souls of Black Folk

Winslow Homer: The Gulf Stream 1899

Plessy v. Ferguson 1898 Perhaps the single most telling moment of the 1890s for black citizens was the Supreme Court's decision that segregated public facilities did not violate the Constitution.

Why a "telling moment?”

Because it said to African Americans "you're on your own." The federal government would not enforce integration, just as it would not pass an anti-lynching law or, later, maintain integrated federal workplaces.

-WW II exposed racismEvents of WWII set the stage for the civil rights movementAfter this experience – fighting ag fascism – they came home

prepared to fight for their own freedomDuring the war, civil rights organizations actively campaigned

for AA voting rights and an end to Jim Crow lawsFDR issued presidential directive prohibiting racial

discrimination by federal agencies and all companies engaged in war work

THE GROUNDWORK WAS LAID FOR ORGANIZED CAMPAIGNS TO END SEGREGATION!

1946

Morgan v. Virginia, 1946 Supreme Court finds laws requiring segregated seating on interstate buses are unconstitutional

1948

President Harry Truman ends segregation in the US militaryUniversity of Arkansas admits African American students to state

university w/o court order

1950In Sweatt v. Painter,1950 Supreme Court finds that state law

schools must admit black students even if separate black schools exist

1954In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka,1954 the Supreme Court

overturns the principle of “separate but equal”SC unanimously struck down segregation in schools as unconstitutional – violation

of 14th amendment Equal Protection Clause

Thurgood Marshall

MLK

RESISTANCE TO SCHOOL DESEGREGATIONWithin a year more than 500 school districts had desegregated their schools.

Where AAs were a majority, whites resisted desegIn some places Klan reappearedWhite Citizens Councils boycotted businesses that supported deseg

Second Brown ruling – to speed up the process – Brown II – implement with “all deliberate speed”Initially, Eisenhower refused to enforce complianceEvents in Little Rock, AK forced him to comply

Little Rock Central 1957 -Little Rock NineGovernor orders National Guard to stop black studentsUse of Federal troops by Eisenhower to integrate

Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott 1954AAs filed a lawsuit – for 381 days they refused to ride

the busesBoycott remained nonviolent -even after someone

bombed King’s home!SC outlawed bus segregation in 1956-SCLC-SNCC

Jesus: love your enemiesThoreau: refuse to obey unjust lawsA. Philip Randolph: how to organize massive demonstrations Mohandas Ghandi: resist oppression w/nonviolence

Politics and the Election of 1960Michael Beschloss Presidential Courage

Freedom Riders 1961James Farmer, CORE director, announced

that a group of SNCC volunteers in Nashville

were set to continue where the others had left off - create a crisis

The violence got just the result the freedom riders had hoped for: newspapers at home & abroad denounced the beatings.

The Attorney General & ICC banned segregation in all interstate travel facilities: including waiting rooms, restrooms, & lunch counters

University of Mississippi 1962-Oxford, Miss.

James Meredith: September 1962, Air Force vet, James Meredith won a federal court case to enroll in the all-white University of Mississippi

When Meredith came on campus he was met by MI governor, Ross Barnett, who refused to let him register

Is this Civil War?

Is This Civil War?•“JFK addresses the people on TV as the riots carry on. Looking into the camera, he declared that the “orders of the court” were being “carried out” at Ole Miss. He crisply noted that “few laws are universally loved,” but Americans could not “disobey” them.

•It was his first major civil rights speech as President.” Michael Bescholoss Presidential Courage

--Trouble continued in Birmingham, ALThe city is known for its strict enforcement of total segregation in public life & for its reputation for racial violence.

-May 2, 1963 more than 1000 AA children march in Birmingham. 959 were arrested

- May 3, 1963 a second “children’s crusade” came face-to-face w/police

TV CAMERAS CAPTURED IT! HEARD CHILDREN SCREAMING

It is looking like Civil War II

It is looking like Civil War IIFront Page News

Kennedy warned the Russians would exploit the “terrible” new photograph

May 12, 1963 - Birmingham is nearing complete chaos!

Letter From a Birmingham Jail

1963•While King sat in a Birmingham jail, a group of 8 white ministers implored him to cancel the demonstrations. Denied writing paper by the prison guards, King composed his reply in the margins of a copy of the New York Times and on pieces of scrap paper.

•Later, King will win the 1964 Nobel Peace prize

It is looking like Civil War II

Courts order University of Alabama to admit 2 black students

Gov Wallace wanted to block it and make dramatic political press...presidential aspirations

The last thing JFK wants is another Oxford case.In 100 degree heat U.S. Marshal Katzenbach asked Wallace to step aside. Wallace delivered a 7 minute diatribeagainst Kennedy’s “military dictatorship”

Boldest Speech Ever

“ We are confronted primarily with a moral issue...as old as the Scriptures and ...as clear as the

American Constitution”“ If an American, because his skin is dark, cannot eat lunch in a restaurant...if he cannot vote...if he cannot send his children to the best public school...then who among us would be content to have the color of his skin changed and stand in his place?”

Highlighting the need – just hours after Kennedy’s speech – Medgar Evers is shot•He was field sec for NAACP and a WWII vet•Police arrest a white supremacist: Byron de la Beckwith – but he was released after trials resulting in 2 hung juries •His release brought a militancy to the mov’t AAs wanted “freedom now”

3 dozen cities erupt!

MLK proposes a march to show support for the civil rights bill

August 1963March on Washington

Emancipation in 1863

August 28, 1963 – 250,000 people, including 75,000 whites converge on the nation’s capital -listened to speeches about the passage of the Civil Rights Bill

MLK’s “I have a Dream” speech is given here. Appeal for racial harmony

2 weeks later, 4 young girls from Birmingham were killed when a bomb was thrown into the church through the window. 17th Street Baptist Church bombing Sept 1963• JFK has to carry the Southern States in election of 1964. They want a corrupt bargain like Hayes in 1876 to remove reconstruction/civil rights bill.•November 1963, assassin shot & killed JFK - LBJ pledges to carry on his work• July 2, 1964 – LBJ signs Civil Rights Act of 1964•Prohibited discrimination b/c race, religion, national origin, gender•Gave all citizens the right to enter libraries, parks, washrooms, restaurants, theaters, all other public accommodations

1964• 24th Amendment outlaws poll taxes for national elections

• Organization for African American Unity (OAU) formed to promote closer ties between African Americans and Africa

• Freedom Summer 1964- massive effort to register black voters; Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party send delegates to DNC (Democratic National Caucus)

• 3 Mississippi civil rights workers are found murdered

Andrew GoodmanJames CheneyMichael Schwerner

1965

• Malcolm X assassinated• Blacks begin a march from Selma to Montgomery, AL,

but are stopped by police blockade that turns violent. It is seen on TV - interrupts the showing of the Academy Award winning movie The Nuremberg Trials.

• Voting Right Act 1965 nullifies local laws and practices that prevent minorities from voting (literacy tests, etc)

1967In Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court rules that

prohibiting interracial marriages is unconstitutional

1988Overriding President Reagan’s veto, Congress

passes the Civil Rights Restoration Act, which expands the reach of non-discrimination laws within private institutions receiving federal aid

1991After 2 years of debates, vetoes, and threatened

vetoes, President Bush reverses himself and signs the Civil Rights Act of 1991, strengthening existing civil rights laws and providing for damages in cases of intentional employment discrimination

2003Supreme Court upholds Affirmative Action in Higher

Education in the most important affirmative action decision since the 1978 Bakke case

U of Michigan can consider race as one of many factors when selecting their students vecause it furthers a “compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a more diverse student body

BALLAD OF BIRMINGHAM

"Mother dear, may I go downtowninstead of out to play,and march the streets of Birminghamin a Freedom March today?"

"No, baby, no, you may not go,for the dogs are fierce and wild,and clubs and hoses, guns and jailsain't good for a little child."

"But, mother, I won't be alone.Other children will go with me,and march the streets of Birminghamto make our country free."

"No, baby, no, you may not go,for I fear those guns will fire.But you may go to church insteadand sing in the children's choir."

She has combed and brushed her nightdark hair,and bathed rose petal sweet,and drawn white gloves on her small brown hands,and white shoes on her feet.

The mother smiled to know her childwas in the sacred place,but that smile was the last smileto come upon her face.

For when she heard the explosion,her eyes grew wet and wild.She raced through the streets of Birminghamcalling for her child.

She clawed through bits of glass and brick,then lifted out a shoe."O, here's the shoe my baby wore,but, baby, where are you?"