The Struggle for Equality

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The Cold War, Civil Rights and Emancipation External threat stresses

conformity within society

External criticism and competition within the international arena demands change

Legal Discrimination and Disfranchisement

1890: Mississippi adopts a literacy test. Other states follow

Grandfather clauses Legal segregation

from the late 1880s (Jim Crow laws)

1896: Plessy v. Ferguson: Doctrine of ‘separate but equal’

1898: Williams v. Mississippi: legality of disfranchising acts

Segregation

The Civil Rights Movement in Perspective(Photo: William E.B. Dubois)

NAACP: founded in 1909 as pressure group against discrimination

From the 1940s on: most important social movement of the post-war period

Reasons: expectations raised by wartime

opportunities; symbolic victories in the field of

baseball and sports; migration to northern cities; worldwide condemnation

Implications for society, politics and government

Early Federal Action 1946: Truman appoints a national Civil

Rights Commission: report of 1947 calls for expanded federal role in civil rights and foreshadows much of the legislation of the 1960s.

1948: Beginning of desegregation of the armed forces

1949: Administration proposes a federal anti-lynching law; federal protection of voting rights; permanent agency to guarantee equal employment opportunities. Southern conservative Democrats block legislation in Congress (by filibuster).

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (Photo: Chief Justice Earl Warren)

NAACP: segregated schools were inherently unconstitutional

Unanimous decision on May 17, 1954: Overturn of the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’

Reasoning: segregation seriously affects the self-esteem of children and creates lasting psychological and social defects. Separate schools are inherently unequal.

Legal Action and Politics NAACP files law suits in order to overturn

segregation at city parks, public beaches, golf courses, interstate and intrastate transportation, public housing

Difficult public climate: in the South, white resistance increases.

101 members of Congress sign Southern Manifesto which denounces “Brown v Board of Education” as a “clear abuse of judicial power” (1956).

500.000 southerners join ‘White Citizens’ Councils to block school integration and other civil rights measures. Revival of the Ku Klux Klan

President Dwight D. Eisenhower not interested

Photos(left to right: NAACP chief legal counsellor Thurgood Marshall, NY, 1958; Dwight D.

Eisenhower; Ku Klux Klan members)

Little Rock, Arkansas 1957 Racial moderates on the

school board decide to desegregate

White Citizens’ Councils and governor of Arkansas, Orval Faubus, object

Governor calls out National Guard to bar nine black students from attempting to enrol in the all-white school.

Eisenhower sends in federal troops and loyal National Guards men (all in all 11.000 men). Reason: concerned about international image and defiance of federal authority

The First Phase of the Movement:Evaluation

Legal action does not change much at first But: sensitizes public opinion especially in the

North and ushers in a change of consciousness Public opinionNew meaning of “liberal”

Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955)

Effect Mobilization of black

community in Montgomery

Assumption of leadership by Martin Luther King, Jr.

Economic squeeze Supreme Court decision:

segregation in public transport is unconstitutional

Martin Luther King and the SCLC (founded 1957)

Catapulted MLK to national prominenceFocus of media attentionFew victories outside courtroom

The Second Phase of the Civil Rights Movement: Mass Social Protest

Southern resistance prompts media to focus on civil rights issues

Charismatic leadership: Martin Luther King

Non-violent resistance: modeled on Mahatma Gandhi

Emergence of a mass movement in southern cities and towns

Alignment of church-based groups with students (students formed the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, SNCC)

Credo of movement: “strong people don’t need strong leaders” (Ella Baker)

The Kennedy Administration and Civil Rights

Focus on foreign policy

The Activist Phase of the Civil Rights Movement

Anne Moody on a Sit-in in Jackson, Mississippi (excerpted from her Coming of Age in Mississippi, 1968)

Out waitress walked past us a couple of times before she noticed we had started to write our own orders down and realized we wanted service. She asked us what we wanted. We began to read to her from our order slips. She told us that we would be served at the back counter, which was for Negroes. “We would like to be served here”, I said.

At noon, students from a nearby white high school started pouring in to Woolworth’s. When the first saw us they were sort of surprised. They didn’t know how to react. A few started to heckle and the newsmen [who had arrived earlier] became interested again. Then the white students started chanting all kinds of anti-Negro slogans. We were called a little bit of everything. The rest of the seats except the three we were occupying had been roped off to prevent others from sitting down. A couple of the boys took one end of the rope and made it into a hangman’s noose. Several attempts were made to put it around our necks.

Memphis suggested that we pray. We bowed our heads, and all hell broke loose. A man rushed forward, threw Memphis from his seat, and slapped my face. Then another man who worked in the store threw me against an adjoining counter.

Down on my knees on the floor, I saw Memphis lying near the lunch counter with blood running out of the corners of his mouth. As he tried to protect his face, the man who’d thrown him down kept kicking him against the head. …

We sat there for three hours taking a beating when the manager decided to close the store because the mob had begun to go wild with stuff from other counters.

After the sit-in, all I could think of was how sick Mississippi whites were. They believed so much in the segregated Southern way of life, they would kill to preserve it.

Freedom Rides 1961 Congress of

Racial Equality (founded 1942)

Birmingham, Alabama (April 1963)

Kennedy and King

JFK: realizes rather late that action is necessary

King: mobilizes millions with his speech “I have a dream” (August 1963)

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 Banned discrimination on account of race, skin color,

religion, national origin or sex Explicitly banned segregation in public Put a ban on federal funds to state programs which

discriminated against minorities 24th Amendment of 1964: ban of the poll tax Voting Rights Act of 1965: bans all remaining legal

restrictions that African Americans faced in order to vote

Voter Registration

Fracturing and Radicalization Vietnam war Disillusionment with achievements of

desegregation Emergence of new movements grouped

under the heading “New Left” Some black leaders call for violent

action. Black Power Black Panthers

black ghettoes and deplorable living conditions. Riots in many cities, especially in Los Angeles (Watts) and Detroit with hundreds of casualties

Reflection of continuing socio-economic deprivation

Radical Voices and Black Power(Photos: Stokely Carmichael [1941-1998], Malcolm X [1925-1965], Olympic Games Mexico City 1968

PLAYBOY: If Muslims ultimately gain control as you predict, what do you plan to do with white people?

MALCOLM X: It's not a case of what would we do, it's a case of what would God do with whites. What does a judge do with the guilty? Either the guilty one repents and atones, or God executes judgment.

PLAYBOY: You refer to whites as "the guilty" and "the enemy"; you predict divine retribution against them; and you preach absolute separation from the white community. Do not these views substantiate the fact that your movement is predicated on race hatred?

MALCOLM X: Sir, it's from Mr. Muhammad that the black masses are learning for the first time in 400 years the real truth of how the white man brainwashed the black man, kept him ignorant of his true history, robbed him of his self-confidence. The black masses for the first time are understanding that it's not a case of being anti-white or anti-Christian, but it's a case of seeing the true nature of the white man. We're anti-evil, anti-oppression, anti-lynching. You can't be anti-those things unless you're also anti-the oppressor and the lyncher. You can't be anti-slavery and pro-slavemaster; you can't be anti-crime and pro-criminal. In fact, Mr. Muhammad teaches that if the present generation of whites would study their own race in the light of their true history, they would be anti-white themselves.

PLAYBOY: What motives do you impute to PLAYBOY for providing you with this opportunity for the free discussion of your views?

MALCOLM X: I think you want to sell magazines. I've never seen a sincere white man, not when it comes to helping black people. Usually things like this are done by white people to benefit themselves. The white man's primary interest is not to elevate the thinking of black people, or to waken black people, or white people either. The white man is interested in the black man only to the extent that the black man is of use to him. The white man's interest is to make money, to exploit.

Excerpts from Playboy Interview (Alex Haley), May 1963

Women’s Movement National Organization of American Women (founded 1966 by

Betty Friedan): promoted “equal partnership with men” Successes

slow but continuous change in perception of roles. Establishment of women’s studies programs at universities Increase in the overall female student population

Women’s Liberation Movement: more radical and less mainstream. Prevention of “Miss America” elections Call for overthrow of patriarchal system and society Introduced “gender” as category

Betty Friedan (1921-2006): The Feminine Mystique (1963)

The Problem that has no name

Statistical Profiles