The Civil Rights Movement

Civil Right Movement

• Early vs. Modern Civil Rights Movement

• Searching for an Identity and Leadership

• Leaders, Activities, and Organizations

Civil Right Movement• Plessy v Ferguson

– 1896– “14th amendment does not prevent

private organization from discriminating”– Legalized Jim Crow Laws– Segregated accommodations were legal

provided they were equal– “separate but equal”

Civil Right Movement

• Booker T. Washington– Not for social equality– Remain apart– Founder of Tuskegee

Institution in 1891– Focus – industrial

education/learn a skill– Vocational jobs to

improve economic situation

– Problem?

Civil Right Movement

• W.E.B. Du Bois– Ph.D. from Harvard– Founder of the NAACP

in 1910• Grew out of the Niagara

Movement

– Never except inferiority– Use courts to fight

discrimination– Rejected Washington’s

ideas– “The Talented Tenth”

Civil Right Movement

• Marcus Garvey– Black nationalist– United Negro

Improvement Association in 1914

– Stressed racial separation from white

– Black only businesses etc.

– Encouraged a return to Africa

Civil Right Movement

• In the 1950s – 15 million African

Americans living in the United States

– 2/3 living in the south– Jim Crows laws ruled

their lives– Legal segregation in

schools, parks, transportation, hospitals etc

Civil Right Movement

• Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)– Bring about change through

peaceful measures– Founded by James Farmers in 1942

James Farmer 1920-1999

Civil Right Movement

• Brown v Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas– May 17, 1954 – Supreme Court

unanimously decided segregation violates the 14th amendment

Brown Family

Civil Right Movement• Chief Justice Earl Warren

• 1. Education plays a vital role in training children for citizenship, employment and leisure-time activities

• 2. Separating black children from others solely on the basis of race “generates a feeling of inferiority that may affect them in a way unlikely to be undone”

• 3. therefore, separate educational facilities are inherently unequal

– Reversed Plessy v Ferguson– Thurgood Marshall argues

the case

Civil Right Movement

• Emmett Till – Killed in 1955– Brings the problem to the attention

of the nation

Civil Right Movement

• Montgomery Bus Boycott 1955-1956– Rosa Parks “mother of the civil rights

movement” refused to leave seat for a white man

– Arrested for violating the city’s segregation law

– Year long boycott of the bus company– Calls by pastors of church to lead

resistance– City agreed to change the law to allow

black to sit anywhere– Event produced a leader, an organization,

technique• Martin Luther King Jr.• SCLC• Non- violent civil disobedience

Civil Right Movement

• Integration at Little Rock 1957– Orval Faubus, gov. of Arkansas,

mobilized the National Guard to prevent nine African-Americans students from attending

– Direct challenge to federal authority

– Eisenhower sent in army (paratroopers) to restore order and protect the “Little Rock Nine”

Civil Right Movement• Woolworth lunch counter

in Greensboro, North Carolina– Greensboro four– Feb. 1st Bought items at

Woolworth than sat down to order coffee

– Not served– Result

• July desegregated lunch counters

• Over 70,000 people participated in sit-in through out the South

• Press they received

Civil Right Movement

• Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee (SNCC)– Grew out of SCLC– For students– Leaders was Robert Moses– was organized to advance the "sit-

in" movement

Civil Right Movement

• Freedom Rides– Spring of 1961– SNCC members joined with activists from

the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), a New York-based civil rights organization to encourage the Freedom Rides

– Placed white and black students on interstate busses to test the new court decision to desegregate waiting rooms and dining facilities at bus stops

– In deep South response was violent– Attorney General Robert Kennedy

assigned federal marshals to protect riders

Civil Right Movement

• Integration of “Ole Miss”– 29 yr old veteran James Meredith– Arrival touched off riots

• Mostly KKK members NOT students• Gov Ross Barnett refused to allow to register• Announced state laws were superior to federal

laws

– Pres. Kennedy federalized Miss. National Guard

– Took 400 Marshals and 3000 troops to enroll him

– Meredith remained and graduated in 1963– Cost 200 lives and 4 million in taxpayer’s $

Civil Right Movement

• University of Alabama– Vivian Malone– Gov George Wallace stood in

doorway– National Guard was federalized– Wallace walked away

Civil Right Movement• Birmingham, Alabama

– Rev. Shuttlesworth asked MLK to come to city

– Most segregated big city in America

– Test nonviolence– It was a planned non-

violent campaign– Police Commissioner “Bull” Connor decided to crush the protest

– Police used fire hoses, police dogs and clubs

– TV carried scene to the nation

Civil Right Movement

• MLK arrested– Leaders felt MLK was

pushing too hard/too fast– Response “Letters from

Birmingham”– Kids march, 1000 arrested– Result

• End to segregation in Birmingham

• HUGE victory• Kennedy on TV asked

Congress to pass a Civil Rights Bill

• Nation saw racism in the South at its worst

Civil Right Movement

• March on Washington (Aug 1963)– To support and pressure Kennedy– 250,00 African Americans marched

on nation’s capital– “I have a Dream”

Civil Right Movement

• Civil Rights Act – Three months later Kennedy was

assassinated– Bill wasn’t close to passing

• Southern Congressmen had a filibuster going

– Johnson addressed Congress• “…couldn’t more eloquently honor Pres.

Kennedy’s memory”

– Passed in June 1964

Civil Right Movement• Civil Rights Act of 1964

– Elections:• Prohibited election officials from applying different

standards to blacks and whites voting– Public Accommodations:

• Forbade discrimination in public places• Forbade discrimination in government owned or

operated facilities– Federally Assisted Programs

• Allowed the government to withhold aid from states involving discrimination

– Employment• Prohibited discriminatory practices by employers,

agencies, and labor union• No discriminatory hiring on basis of race, sex ,

religion or nationality

Civil Right Movement

• 24th Amendment– Passed in 1964– Prohibited the

use of poll taxes as a requirement for voting in a federal election

Civil Right Movement

• Voting Act of 1965– A result of Selma, Alabama

incident– State troops assaulted

demonstrators as they marched to the state capital

– President Johnson “We shall over come”

– Outlawed literacy test– Federal examiners in to

register voters where irregularities existed

– Signed 100 years after the Civil War ended

Civil Right Movement

• Results of Civil Rights– Right to vote

• South would never be the same again• Served in politics at all level

– Segregation became illegal– Ended an Era

• Civil Rights campaigns in the South led by peaceful moderates

• Lets go North!

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. The chain reaction of evil………must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation."

» Martin Luther King Jr.