Civil Rights Movement Reading Review #2: Legal Equality is Not Enough

Civil Rights Movement Reading Review #2:Legal Equality is Not Enough

I. The Civil Rights Movement in the North

Jobs

A. The Problem in the North

– Unequal & Segregated Housing– Unequal & Segregated Schools– Access to Good Jobs

B. The Watts Riot and Violence in the North

C. Martin Luther King’s Failed Chicago Campaign

II. New Leaders, New Organizations, New Goals

A. Malcolm X: White “Devils” & Black Separatism

B. The Black Panthers Protest Police Brutality

C. A More Controversial King: Anti-War Protests and the Poor People’s Movement

There are forty million poor people here. And one day we must ask the question, ‘Why are there 40 million poor people in America?’ And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth. When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalist economy.

King Protests the Vietnam WarSomehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam.I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted…. Ispeak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to theleaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours.

III. Was the Civil Rights Movement a Success?

A. Yes: Victory for Legal Equality: Brown v. Board, Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act

B. No: Assassinations and Resistance to Change

The Death of Malcolm X