The Modern Civil Rights Movement
Beyond Voting Rights
Northern Segregation
• De facto segregation– By practice and custom– Harder to fight--required changing people’s
attitudes– Mostly in urban north
Northern Segregation
• “white flight”– Wealthier whites moved to suburbs– Took money with them– Urban property values fell– Urban tax bases shrank
• Jobs left
• Schools, neighborhoods decayed
Northern Segregation
• Successes in south lead to frustration in the north– No economic opportunities– Poor housing and education– Great Society
• hadn’t lived up to promise
• Lost money to Vietnam War
Urban Riots: 1964-67
• Harlem--July 1964– White police kill 15 yr. old
black teen
– Sparked rioting
• Watts Riots (Los Angeles)--August 1965– White police argue with
drunken black driver
– Sparked six days of riots
– 34 killed; $30 million property damage
National Guard in Watts
Watts on fire
Urban Riots: 1964-67
• 1966-1967– Riots in over 100 cities
– Cleveland and Detroit were the worst
Urban Riots: 1964-67
• Kerner Commission--1968– Appointed in 1965 by
LBJ to study causes of riots
– Dr. King’s view: “Riots are the language of the unheard. What is that America hasn’t heard?”
Urban Riots: 1964-67
• Kerner Commission--1968– Conclusions
• Caused by white racism• “Our nation is moving to two societies, one black,
one white--separate and unequal.”
– Suggestions• Federal creation of new jobs• New housing• End de facto segregation--wipe out ghettos
Civil Rights--Alternative Views
• Not all activists supported nonviolence and gradual change
• Nation of Islam (“Black Muslims”)– Grew out of Marcus
Garvey movement of the 1920s
– Formed by Elijah Muhammad in 1940s
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad
Civil Rights--Alternative Views
• Nation of Islam (continued)– Called for separate black society based on
Islam– Considered whites to be “devils”
Malcolm X Elijah Muhammad
Civil Rights--Alternative Views
• Nation of Islam--Malcolm X– Born Malcolm Little– Had been drug dealer, criminal– Went to prison for burglary– Converted to Islam
Civil Rights--Alternative Views
• Nation of Islam--Malcolm X– Charismatic speaker
– Changed “slave name”--became Malcolm X
– Advocated armed self-defense
– “By any means necessary”
– Other Black Muslims became jealous
Civil Rights--Alternative Views
• Nation of Islam--Malcolm X– March 1964
• Broke with Elijah Muhammad
• Differences in strategy
• Learned Elijah had fathered illegitimate children
• Malcolm was forbidden to preach
Famous Malcolm X poster
What they don’t usually tell you: this was taken shortly after someone had tried to bomb his home with his children in it.
Civil Rights--Alternative Views
• Nation of Islam--Malcolm X– Went on the “haj”--the pilgrimage to Mecca– Learned that Islam preached racial equality– Changed his view about whites
Malcolm prays
Civil Rights--Alternative Views
• Nation of Islam--Malcolm X– Ballots or Bullets
• “…if you and I don’t use the ballot, we’re going to have to use the bullet. So let us try the ballot.”
– Feb. 1965• Assassinated by 3
members of Nation of Islam
• Ordered by superiors?--we don’t know
Civil Rights--Alternative Views
• Black Power Movement– Militant members of SNCC
and CORE break with Dr. King
– Frustrated with the slow pace of nonviolence
– SNCC president Stokely Carmichael arrested and beaten
– Called for SNCC to stop recruiting whites
Black Power salute
Stokely Carmichael
Civil Rights--Alternative Views
• Black Panther party– Founded by Huey
Newton and Bobby Seale
– To fight police brutality
– Used revolutionary words from Chairman Mao: “Power flows out of the barrel of a gun.”
Huey Newton Bobby Seale
Civil Rights--Alternative Views
• Black Panther party– Called for black self-help
– Decent housing, jobs, soup kitchens, day care
– Preached armed revolt
– Stokely Carmichael joined in 1967 On the march
At the Capitol
Civil Rights--Alternative Views
• Black Panther party– FBI investigates--uses
illegal methods
– Leads to several gun battles
– Newton, Seale arrested
Poor Peoples’ Campaign
• Dr. King goes north– Worked for jobs, better housing– Went to Memphis, TN to support garbage
workers’ strike
Dr. King Assassinated
• April 4, 1968– Murdered by James Earl Ray– Led to riots in 125 cities– “Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty,
I am free at last.”
Civil Rights Act of 1968
• Banned discrimination in housing
Marching for Open Housing in Chicago
Accomplishments
• Significant improvement in high school and college graduation rates for African Americans
• Racial pride increased dramatically• Political gains
– By 1970, 2/3 of eligible blacks were registered voters
– Increased #s of black political leaders
New Issues
• More money for inner cities
• Forced busing to integrate schools
• Affirmative action programs– Special efforts to hire or enroll groups that had
suffered discrimination– Especially minorities and women– Led to charges of reverse discrimination
And so it goes…
ON…
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