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TOPICS:Harlem Renaissance

Segregation

School Desegregation

The Montgomery Bus Boycott

Sit-Ins

Freedom Riders

Desegregating Southern Universities

The March on Washington

Voter Registration

The End of the Movement

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To enter class today, you need your ticket:

“ADMIT ONE TO CLASS”My topic is_____________ and I found

out the following information: ______________________________

______________________________

______________________________

Two questions I have about this:

1.______________________________

2.______________________________

Get prepared to share!

Opening Discussion Questions:

1) Why were some facilities and areas, especially in the South, once segregated?

2) What are civil rights?

3) Have your civil rights ever been violated? How? How did this make you feel? Did you do anything about it?

4) What groups do you believe have yet to realize their equal rights today?

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Segregation

Segregation was an attempt by many white Southerners to separate the races in every aspect of daily life.

Segregation was often called the Jim Crow system, after a minstrel show character from the 1830s who was an African American slave who embodied negative stereotypes of African Americans.

The beginnings of legalized segregation: Introduction to

Plessy V. Ferguson

Warm Up: Predict what you think this case is about, by analyzing the political cartoon to the right.

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Video Clip: Intro. to Plessy Case

Q. How did segregation become legal?

Segregation is legalized!

In the late 1800s, African Americans sued to stop separate seating in railroad cars, states’ disfranchisement of voters, and denial of access to schools and restaurants.

One of the cases against segregated rail travel was Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that ―separate but equal‖ accommodations were constitutional.

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Plessy Decision

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The Impact of the Case: "Separate But Equal"

Although not specifically written in the decision, Plessy set the precedent that "separate" facilities for blacks and whites were constitutional as long as they were "equal." The "separate but equal" doctrine was quickly extended to cover many areas of public life, such as restaurants, theaters, restrooms, and public schools.

The Supreme Court of the United States determined that if legislation makes distinctions based on race, but does not deprive anyone of rights or privileges, it is constitutional. The Court seemed to believe that the common practice of separation was an inconvenience, not something that abridged the rights of African Americans. The Court also presumed that legislation was powerless to do away with racial instincts or to abolish distinctions based on physical differences.

Warm Up: Plessy Case Extension-- What do you think about the following situations?

Write your response to each.Introduction: Think about the following situations. Each situation offers separate accommodations for the people involved. Are those accommodations equal? Do you think the Supreme Court of the United States considered all possible situations when they rendered their decision in Plessy v. Ferguson? Discuss each situation with your classmates.

A black woman is thirsty, so she walks over to the water fountains. There is one fountain for blacks and one for whites. The black woman uses the fountain for whites because the other one is out of order.

A black man has been traveling for many hours. He stops at a diner to eat and use the restroom. This diner only serves whites. In order to eat, the black man must travel another two hours to another diner that serves blacks. The black man cannot wait two hours to use the restroom, so he uses the diner's restroom despite the posted signs.

A white man is not allowed to have his colored attendant with him in the same train coach even though the white man's health condition requires constant supervision. The colored attendant ignores the rules and sits beside his employer in the coach for white passengers.

A black seven-year-old girl must walk two miles to the nearest school for blacks even though there is a school two blocks away. The school two blocks away is only for white students. The girl's parents worry about their daughter walking such a long distance to and from school everyday.

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Water cooler in the street car terminal, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. 1939.

Segregation in the South

What were Jim Crow laws?

•From the 1880s into the 1960s, most American

states enforced segregation through "Jim Crow"

laws.

•From Delaware to California, and from North

Dakota to Texas, many states (and cities, too)

could impose legal punishments on people for

mingling with members of another race.

•These laws forbade intermarriage between the

races and ordered business owners and public

institutions to keep blacks and whites

separated.

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Segregation

Segregation became common in Southern states following the end of Reconstruction in 1877. These states began to pass local and state laws that specified certain places ―For Whites Only‖ and others for ―Colored.‖

Drinking fountain on county courthouse lawn, Halifax, North

Carolina;

Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA/OWI

Collection, [reproduction number, e.g., LC-USF34-9058-C]

Segregation

African Americans had separate schools, transportation, restaurants, and parks, many of which were poorly funded and inferior to those of whites.

Over the next 75 years, Jim Crow signs to separate the races went up in every possible place.

Negro going in colored entrance of movie house on

Saturday afternoon, Belzoni, Mississippi Delta, Mississippi

Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division,

FSA/OWI Collection, [reproduction number, e.g., LC-

USF34-9058-C]

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Some Facilities that Were Separate:

Bus station waiting rooms and ticket

windows

Railroad cars or coaches

Restaurants and lunch counters

Schools and public parks

Restrooms and water fountains

Sections of movie theaters

There were even separate cemeteries

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At the bus station, Durham, North Carolina, 1940.

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Greyhound bus terminal, Memphis, Tennessee. 1943.

A rest stop for bus passengers on the way from

Louisville, Kentucky to Nashville, Tennessee,

with separate entrance for Blacks. 1943.

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A sign at bus station,

Rome, Georgia. 1943.

A highway sign advertising tourist

cabins for Blacks, South Carolina. 1939.

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Cafe, Durham, North Carolina. 1939.

Drinking fountain on the courthouse lawn, Halifax, North

Carolina. 1938.

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Movie theater’s "Colored" entrance,

Belzoni, Mississippi. 1939.

The Rex theater for colored

people, Leland, Mississippi.

June 1937.

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Restaurant, Lancaster, Ohio.

1938.

Sign above movie theater, Waco,

Texas. 1939.

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Beale Street, Memphis, Tennessee.

1939.

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Voting discrimination

The system of segregation also included the denial of voting rights, known as disenfranchisement.

Between 1890 and 1910, all Southern states passed laws imposing strict requirements for voting.

• Used to prevent African Americans from voting

• This contradicted the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which had been designed to protect African American voting rights.

Literacy Tests and the Poll Tax

The voting requirements for African-Americans included:

• 1) Passing a literacy test--demonstrating the ability to read and write, which disqualified many African Americans who had not had access to education

• 2) property ownership, which excluded most African Americans

• 3) paying a poll tax—paying to vote--which prevented most Southern African Americans from voting because they could not afford it.

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Is this test fair?

Why not?

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What’s the deal with the literacy test?

The National Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed discriminatory voting practices that had been responsible for the widespread disenfranchisement—the inability to vote--of African-Americans in the U.S.

The Act prohibited states from imposing any "voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure... to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color.―

The Act outlawed the practice of requiring otherwise qualified voters to pass literacy tests in order to register to vote, a principal means by which southern states had prevented African-Americans from exercising their voting right, as guaranteed by the 15th

Amendment.

Segregation in the North?

Conditions for African Americans in the Northern states were somewhat better, though up to 1910 only ten percent of African Americans lived in the North.

Segregated facilities were not as common in the North, but African Americans were usually denied entrance to the best hotels and restaurants.

African Americans were usually free to vote in the North.

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Northern Life

Perhaps the most difficult part of Northern life was the economic discrimination against African Americans.

They had to compete with large numbers of recent European immigrants for job opportunities, and they almost always lost because of their race.

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Video: “America’s Civil Rights Movement”

Directions—Watch the movie and then answer this prompt in 200 words:

• People use the word ―change‖ very loosely nowadays. However, how did just a few civil rights activists changeand partially reverse over 100 years of racism and segregation in the United States? What’s more important: the people or the movement?

The Civil Rights Movement

The civil rights movement was a political, legal, and social struggle to gain full citizenship rights for African Americans.

The civil rights movement a challenge to segregation, the system of laws and customs separating African Americans and whites.

During the movement, individuals and civil rights organizations challenged segregation and discrimination with a variety of activities, including protest marches, boycotts, and refusal to abide by segregation laws.

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Early Civil Rights Organizations--NAACP

In order to protest segregation, African Americans created national organizations.

The National Afro-American League was formed in 1890; W.E.B. Du Bois helped create the Niagara Movement in 1905 and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.

In 1910, the National Urban Leaguewas created to help African Americans make the transition to urban, industrial life.

In 1942, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) was founded to challenge segregation in public accommodations in the North.

Early Civil Rights Organizations

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The NAACP became one of the most important African American organizations of the twentieth century. It relied mainly on legal strategies that challenged segregation and discrimination in the courts.

20th Annual session of the N.A.A.C.P., 6-26-29, Cleveland, Ohio

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.; LC-

USZ62-111535

Early Civil Rights Organizations

W.E.B. Du Bois

Historian and sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois was a founder and leader of the NAACP. Starting in 1910, he made powerful arguments protesting segregation as editor of the NAACP magazine The Crisis.

[Portrait of Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois]

Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Carl Van

Vechten Collection, [reproduction number, e.g., LC-USZ62-

54231]

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Video Clip: Du Bois and the NAACP

Q. What kinds of struggles did Dubois and the NAACP

face during Wilson’s presidency in the early 1900’s? Did

they accomplish their goals?

Assignment: What was W.E.B. DuBois vision for

African Americans?

Directions: Read ―Three Visions for African Americans‖ and answer the accompanying comprehension questions.

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Jackie Robinson: The story of how a black ballplayer changed

history

Stay tuned for the cool activity which follows!

Jackie Robinson

Born in Cairo, Georgia, in 1919.

Robinson’s family moved to California after his father deserted the family.

At the University of California in Los Angeles, Robinson starred in football, track, basketball and baseball.

In 1944, Robinson played in the Negro leagues on a team called the Kansas City Monarchs.

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Playing for the Dodgers

Branch Rickey, president and General Manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, noticed Robinson’s exceptional talent.

In 1946 Branch Rickey signed Jackie Robinson.

Jackie Robinson, at the age of 27, became the first Black Baseball player in Major League history.

A Strange Choice

Jackie Robinson was not exactly a logical choice to become the first African American ball player.

• He was not a prospect. Robinson was already 27 when he entered the league.

• He had a somewhat inflammatory temper.

• Rickey believed that Robinson’s outspoken mentality would benefit the cause in the long run.

• However, Rickey did urge Robinson to maintain a level head in his first few years. Knowing the importance of his actions, Robinson listened.

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Jackie’s Courage

Jackie Robinson faced virulent racism.

Members of his own team refused to play with him.

Opposing pictures tried to beam his head, while base runners tried to spike him.

He received hate mail and death threats daily.

Fans shouted Racist remarks at him in every ball park.

Hotels and restaurants refused to serve him

Teammates

One game in Cincinnati the crowd was especially insulting. They were yelling unimaginable insults at Jackie Robinson.

Jackie’s teammate Pee Wee Reese recognized that the crowd was getting to Jackie.

Pee Wee Reese walked across the field and put his arm around Jackie. The two smiled at each other. Their compassion silenced the crowd.

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Jackie and Civil Rights

Jackie Robinson’s Actions effected the world far beyond Major League Baseball.

His courage and discipline in standing up against racism were a preview of the actions taken by many members of The Civil Rights Movement.

The success of the Jackie Robinson experiment was a testament to fact that integration could exist.

Video: ―The Playing Field:‖ The story of the Negro League

and Jackie Robinson!

Pay attention! Your assignment follows!

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Design your own Jackie Robinson baseball card!

Directions: Read “Jackie Robinson Breaks Baseball’s Color Barrier.” (10 minute silent read, right now!)

You will design a two-sided baseball card! The front side will feature a heroic illustration of Jackie Robinson as the first black baseball player.The rear will feature the following information: 1) A brief biography of his early life, 2) his career stats as a baseball player, 3) A summary of how he helped to break the “color barrier” and forward the cause of civil rights.

Jackie Robinson

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Video Segment: Brown V. Board—5 minutes.

Complete the “Cubing Activity”

while watching this video!

School Desegregation

After World War II, the NAACP’s campaign for civil rights continued to proceed.

Led by Thurgood Marshall, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund challenged and overturned many forms of discrimination. Thurgood Marshall

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School Desegregation

The main focus of the NAACP turned to equal educational opportunities.

Marshall and the Defense Fund worked with Southern plaintiffs to challenge the Plessy decision, arguing that separate was inherently unequal.

The Supreme Court of the United States heard arguments on five cases that challenged elementary and secondary school segregation.

What’s the meaning of this cartoon?

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School Desegregation

In May 1954, the Court issued its landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, stating racially segregated education was unconstitutional and overturning the Plessy decision.

White Southerners were shocked by the Brown decision.

Desegregate the schools! Vote Socialist Workers :

Peter Camejo for president, Willie Mae Reid for vice-

president.

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

Washington, D.C.; LC-USZ62-101452

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Video: ―How Congress Operates.‖ (10 minutes)

Q. Why are we watching this video? Answer: You will be writing some anti-segregations bills with the intention of getting them passed into law in a mock congress. So, pay attention!!!

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Desegregation of Schools Bills:

1) Working in groups of 2-3, write your bills--30 minutes.

2) Attempt to collect signatures (supporters) of your bill.

3) We will meet as a whole class again. Bills will be presented. Presenters of the bills will answer a few questions from our mock senate participants (classmates)-- Until the end of class.

4) I will either sign your bill into law or veto it, requiring you to revise the bill and to present it to me again.

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School Desegregation continued…

By 1955, white opposition in the South had grown into massive resistance, using a strategy to persuade all whites to resist compliance with the desegregation orders.

Tactics included firing school employees who showed willingness to seek integration, closing public schools rather than desegregating, and boycotting all public education that was integrated.

School DesegregationVirtually no schools in the South segregated their schools in the first years following the Brown decision.

In Virginia, one county actually closed its public schools.

In 1957, Governor Orval Faubus defied a federal court order to admit nine African American students to Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.

President Dwight Eisenhower sent federal troops to enforce desegregation. The event was covered by the national media, and the fate of the nine students attempting to integrate the school gripped the nation.

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Ruby Bridges In 1960, at the age of 6, Ruby Bridges became the first

black elementary school child to attend a white school.

Due to White opposition of integration, Ruby needed to be escorted to school by federal marshals.

After Ruby entered the school, many of the teachers refused to teach and many of the White students went home.

Ruby went to school everyday.

The Problem We All Live With, By Norman Rockwell

Activity: The Stories of Melba Pattilloand Ruby Bridges Hall

Introduction: The stories of Melba Pattillo and Ruby Bridges Hall both feature young African American girls who struggled to integrate into schools which had previously admitted ―white‖ students only.

Directions: 1) Read the two stories and create a Venn diagram,

comparing and contrasting the stories of the two girls. 2) Then,

imagine that you are a talented artist who wishes to promote

awareness of racial discrimination against black children attempting

to integrate into schools. You and a partner must design a “mural”

to display, representing the struggles these children faced in schools during

the 1950’s and 1960’s. This must be completed on a large sheet of paper and

colored. No stick figures, outrageous political cartoons, or racial profanity is

allowed! Remember, this is an anti-racist message! Draw upon your

knowledge of historical facts from this period! This must be an intelligent ,

well-thought-out drawing!

Ruby Bridges Hall painting by Norman Rockwell

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School Desegregation: Conclusion

Not all school desegregation was as dramatic as Little Rock or William Frantz Elementay; schools gradually desegregated.

Often, schools were desegregated only in theory because racially segregated neighborhoods led to segregated schools.

To overcome the problem, some school districts began busing students to schools outside their neighborhoods in the 1970s.

The reaction against desegration: The Ku Klux KlanKu Klux Klan (KKK) is the name of the white supremacist organizations in the United States, generally in the southern states. Dressed in conical masks and white robes, the KKK has a record of terrorism, violence, and lynching to intimidate and oppress African Americans, Jews, and Roman Catholics during periods of turmoil.

As desegregation continued in the South, the membership of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) grew.

The KKK used violence or threats against anyone who was suspected of favoring desegregation or African American civil rights.

Ku Klux Klan terror, including intimidation and murder, was widespread in the South during the 1950s and 1960s, though Klan activities were not always reported in the media.

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Racial Violence in the South

Emmett Louis "Bobo" Till(July 25, 1941 – August 28, 1955) was a black fourteen year old from Chicago, Illinois who was murdered in Money, Mississippi, a small town in the state's Delta region.

The murder of Emmett Till was noted as one of the leading events that motivated the nascent American Civil Rights Movement.

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Mock Trial: The Emmitt Till murder case!

Introduction: Yes, we are going to conduct a murder trial! Here’s what we need:

Participants:

• Judge (1-5), prosecutor(s) (1-3), defense attorney(s) (1-3), The Accused: J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant (2), witnesses for the prosecution (1-2), witnesses for the defense (1-2), bailiff (swears in witnesses and marks evidence) (1), Jury (up to twelve), one of whom should be named jury foreman; alternates may also be designated.

Mock Trial Preparation requirements for your group, below. I will check for completion towards the end of class!

Trial is scheduled for tomorrow!Everyone: Read ALL articles on the Emmitt Murder Case. Highlight important people and facts presented in the readings!

Judges: You must master court trial procedure and direct every step of the trial! You are in charge! In addition, if an attorney cries ―objection!‖ you must decide to ―sustained‖ (agree with the objection) or ―overruled‖ (disagree with the objection). Prepare a two-column chart, one column with 10 fact-based arguments for the defense, the other column with 10 fact-based arguments for the prosecution.

Prosecution Team: Prepare an opening statement, 10 good arguments with evidence, fact-based questions for witnesses, closing statement.

Defense Team: Prepare an opening statement, 10 good arguments with evidence, fact-based questions for witnesses, closing statement.

Witnesses and the Accused: Become a master of your role in the trial. If you are a murder suspect, you must KNOW him and how he would respond to questions. You must provide factual answers! Develop 10 facts about the person you are roleplaying.

Jury: Review the grading rubric for the court trial. Prepare a two-column chart, one column with 10 fact-based arguments for the defense, the other column with 10 fact-based arguments for the prosecution. You should expect to see some of the these arguments presented during the trial. You will unanimously reach a verdict towards the end of the trial.

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