The Black Civil Rights Movement
The Jim Crow South
Right after Reconstruction state legislatures passed laws aimed at keeping blacks from voting.
Jim Crow Laws
Poll tax Literacy test Grandfather clause
Segregation= forced separation of races.
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) Homer Plessy arrested for
sitting on a train in a “white” coach.
Court rules that the law could require separate facilities as long as they were equal.
Integration= an end to racial segregation
Brown v. Board of Education Segregation makes equal education impossible. Schools must desegregate with “all deliberate speed.”
The Late 1800’s
Jump Jim Crow
The Age of Jim Crow
Legal Segregation laws were passed in various Southern States- named after a blackface minstrel’s famous song
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)upheld the Jim Crow laws & deemed “separate but equal” constitutional
Institutionalized segregation and lynching became common place.
Foremothers and Forefathers of the Civil Rights Movement
Ida B. Wells-Barnett
Black Journalist who led the Red-Crusade
Co-founder of the NAACP
Called for immediate equality for Blacks
Booker T. Washington
Preached Accomodationism/Gradualism
Stressed vocational training- Tuskeegee Institute.
Saw economic success as the key to white acceptance
W.E.B. Du Bois
Co-founder of the NAACP
Preached immediate equality
Aggressive political agenda: black suffrage, abolition of segregation, and social equality
Marcus GarveyEstablished the UNIA-Universal Negro Improvement
Association
Stressed racial unity and influenced many of the black power/pride groups of the 1960’s
Dark Days: The Great War, Roaring 20s
WWI: 400,000 African Americans served in segregated units- questioned why they were denied the freedoms they fought to secure for others
Black Migration 1910-1940s: Almost 2 Million African Americans migrated North due to low wages, crop failures and unemployment
1920s: Rise of the KKK- once again target blacks amongst others
Harlem Renaissance: Culture movement in NYC reflected black pride, identity & unity. Many black icons emerged.
The Great Depression, New Deal & WWII
New Deal: FDR didn’t support black efforts to eliminate poll taxes or pass anti-lynching laws. However, the Fair Employment Practices Commission was passed. Many African Americans joined the Democratic Party.
WWII: I million black Americans served; discrimination grew & lynchings increased; black enrollment in civil rights organization increased dramatically
Truman Administration: Appointed a presidential commission on Civil Rights; banned segregation in the armed forces; biggest impact-appointment of Supreme Court Justices
Black Icons & Sports Heroes
Jessie Owens
Joe Lewis
Jackie Robinson
Brown V. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas 1954
Supreme Court ruled unanimously that segregation is not equal over turning Plessy
NAACP legal defense led by Thurgood Marshall
Brown II (1955)- Schools must integrate “with all deliberate speed”
Lynching of Emmett Till August 27, 1955
14 yr. Old boy who talked and perhaps whistled at a white woman
Beaten and shot to death by white men
Became a martyr for the cause as the media publicized the story shocking many Northerners
Montgomery Bus Boycott 1955-56
Montgomery, Alabama: Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat & her arrest inspired the boycott of city busses
The SCLC led by Dr. Martin Luther king, Jr. used civil disobedience to protest segregation of public facilities
381 days of boycotting the AL bus company desegregated
Little Rock Crisis-1957
Arkansas governor resists integration of Little Rock Central High School
President Eisenhower called in the National Guard to enforce Brown
The Greensboro Four-1960 4 students from NC A&T
State University sat at a whites-only lunch counter at the Woolworth Store
They were beaten & arrested
By the 4th day the original four grew to hundreds and more sit-ins grew
Led to the integration of lunch counters at Woolworth’s and other chains
JFK Civil Rights Address 1963
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYuVKbEPgoc
March on Washington- August 3rd 1963
Sponsored by many Civil Rights organizations
Over 200,000 blacks and white brethren marched on DC demanding “freedom now”
King gave his “I have a Dream” speech
Revealed growing restlessness and division w/in the ranks of black leadership
Malcolm X & Black PowerJoined Elijah Muhammad’s
Black Muslim movement
“The day of nonviolent resistance is over. If they have the Ku Klux Klan nonviolent, then I’ll be nonviolent…”
Assassinated on Feb. 21, 1965 after breaking from the Nation of Islam and establishing his own organization
Voting Rights Act of 1965
Voting Rights Act signed into law by LBJ
Act makes literacy tests illegal
Authorizes the federal govt. to register voters where local registrars refuse to do so
Number of Black Southern Legislators, 1868-1900 and 1960-
1992
1967 Riots
Riots had previously broke out in 65 & 66
Summer of 67- racial rioting hit 65+ cities across the nation
Reflection of the frustration of poor blacks
Army tanks were used to quell the violence in Detroit
Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
• April 3rd, 1968King gave his last and one of his most famous speeches: “The Mountain Top”
• MLK was shot and killed the next day by James Earl Ray
The End of the Civil Rights Movt.
Many people mark the end of the movement with the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Although the movement brought political equality, many argue that it did not go far enough in securing economic and social equality
Urban poverty still a major problem and even with the passage of the Civil Rights Acts of 64 & 68 which forbade race discrimination in industry, employment, housing, and edu. institutionalized racism continued
Affirmative Action Programs
Emerged in the 1970s and have been debated and litigated since
Supported hiring and promotion of minorities and women
Regents of University of CA v. Bakke (1978):Upheld affirmative action but made the quota system illegal
Top Related