The Civil Rights Movement › cms › lib5 › NJ01000179...The Civil Rights Act of 1875 Crime for...

The Civil Rights Act of 1866 ◦ the first United States federal law to define US

citizenship ◦ affirmed that all citizens were equally protected by

the law ◦ It was mainly intended to protect the civil rights of

African-Americans, in the wake of the Civil War The first major legislation enacted over a

presidential veto ◦

The Civil Rights Act of 1875 ◦ Crime for any individual to deny full & equal use

of public conveyances and public places. ◦ Prohibited discrimination in jury selection. ◦ It lacked a strong enforcement mechanism ◦ 1883: The Supreme Court ruled it was

unconstitutional

◦No new civil rights act was attempted for 90 years!

Slaughterhouse Cases (1873)- ◦ Stated Fourteenth Amendment protected citizens

from rights infringements only on the federal level, not the state level ◦ Allowed state legislatures to suspend blacks' legal

and civil rights as outlined in the Constitution

US v. Reese (1876)- ◦ Stated that the Fifteenth Amendment did not

guarantee suffrage but only the right not to be discriminated against by the state on account of race, color, or previous conditions of servitude

US v. Cruikshank (1876)- ◦ Restricted Congress' ability to enforce the Ku Klux

Klan Act of 1871; ◦ Ruled that only states, not the federal government,

had the right to prosecute Klansmen under the law

Plessy v. Ferguson 1890 - Louisiana passed the Separate Car Act

requiring separate accommodations for blacks and whites on railroads, including separate railway cars.

1892 - Homer Plessy (7/8 white & 1/8 black) bought a first-class ticket and boarded a "whites only" car

The railroad, which opposed the law on the grounds that it would require the purchase of more railcars, had been previously informed of Plessy's racial lineage, and the intent to challenge the law.

A private detective with arrest powers was hired by the black community to detain Plessy, to ensure he was charged for violating the Separate Car Act, as opposed to a vagrancy or some other offense.

Plessy v. Ferguson After Plessy took a seat in the whites-only railway

car, he was asked to vacate it, and sit instead in the blacks-only car

Plessy refused and was arrested immediately by the detective.

As planned, the train was stopped, and Plessy was taken off the train

Plessy was remanded for trial in New Orleans

Plessy v. Ferguson Civil Rights Act of 1875 outlawed segregation But in 1883, the all-white US Supreme Court

declares Act the unconstitutional 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson ruling: declares that

separate but equal is constitutional Many states pass Jim Crow laws separating the

races Facilities for blacks always inferior to those for

whites

After the Civil War AA’s tried to escape Southern racism by moving north

The rate increased during WWI as sharecroppers abandon farms for promise of Northern industrial jobs

They are relegated to all-black neighborhoods Whites resent competition for jobs and this at

times leads to violence

Booker T. Washington Washington supported policy of accommodation. Social equality between Blacks& Whites is not #1 goal. Urged Blacks to abandon their efforts to win full civil

rights and political power and instead to cultivate their industrial and farming skills so as to attain economic security.

Their eventual acquisition of wealth and culture would gradually win for them the respect and acceptance of the white community

Blacks and Whites “as separate as the fingers” but, like the fingers on a hand, inevitably linked.

Found Tuskegee Normal & Industrial Institute – teaching degrees & useful skills like agricultural, domestic & mechanical work

W.E.B. DuBois “Talented tenth” of the Black population should lead in education, the ministry, politics, and business. Critical of B. Washington’s ‘compromise’- It threatened the political power of African Americans, their civil rights, and the possibility of higher education and its benefits. 1905 - Founded the Niagara Movement, a group of African-American activists who advocated a liberal arts education for AA’s who would become leaders of the movement 1909 – Founded the National Association of Colored People (NAACP). It aimed for FULL EQUALITY with whites

Marcus Garvey Jamaican born black nationalist

leader; Popular during the World War I

era Founded Universal Negro

Improvement Association (UNIA) He wanted to establish an

independent black economy based on capitalism.

Black Star Line (failed) Ideology of racial purity and

separatism alienated W.E.B. Du Bois

JACK JOHNSON an American boxer who—at the height of the Jim

Crow era - became the first Black world heavyweight boxing champion

Johnson was faced with much controversy when

he was charged with violating the Mann Act in 1912, even though there was an obvious lack of evidence and the charge was largely racially based.

Jackie Robinson Baseball was segregated since 1880s JR served in US Army 1942-1944 ◦ Court-martialed for refusing to move to back of bus. (Later

acquitted) Brooklyn Dodgers VP, Branch Rickey chose Robinson ◦ He promised to never fight back racist taunts

April 15, 1947- first major league game Was voted Rookie of the Year Was MVP in 1949 & a 6 time All-Star

Franklin D. Roosevelt FDR’s “New Deal” programs helped bring the country out of the

Depression He failed the Blacks --- he was never committed to helping them

due to his fear of upsetting Southern Democratic voters. He refused to approve ◦ Federal anti-lynching laws ◦ An end to the poll tax

New Deal programs discriminated against Blacks (paying lower wages)

HOWEVER, Blacks supported him as they saw him as their best hope for the future

Demand for soldiers creates a shortage of white laborers. Blacks (and Latinos and white women) take advantage

1 million AA serve in the military. After WWII they are determined to now fight for their own freedom

Civil Rights leaders challenge for end of Jim Crow laws

FDR prohibits racial discrimination by federal agencies & all companies engaged in war work

A Developing Civil Rights Movement Returning black veterans fight for civil rights 1946: Truman tries to promote Civil Rights ◦ Congress blocks anti-lynching law ◦ Congress blocks an end to poll taxes ◦ Congress blocks military

desegregation More Black migration to

Northern cities ◦ “White flight”

Desegregates American military in 1948 via Executive Order 9981

Ordered an end to discrimination in the hiring of gov’t employees

ALSO: Supreme Court rules that African Americans (AA’s) can’t be barred from residential neighborhoods

These actions are beginnings of federal commitment to deal with racial issues

The NAACP Legal Strategy Professor Charles Hamilton Houston leads NAACP

legal campaign Focuses on most glaring inequalities of segregated

public education Places team of law students under Thurgood

Marshall in 1938 Wins 29 out of 32 cases argued

before Supreme Court

Brown v. Board of Education Marshall’s greatest victory isBrown v. Board of

Education of Topeka In 1954 case, Court unanimously strikes down school segregation in a unanimous decision Supreme Court “sidestepped” Plessy – said that

schools were NOT and NEVER COULD BE equal

Resistance to School Desegregation Within 1 year, over 500 school districts

desegregate Some districts, state officials, pro-white groups

actively resist Court hands Brown II, orders desegregation at

“all deliberate speed” Eisenhower refuses to enforce compliance;

considers it impossible

News Report: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTGHLdr-iak

9/4/57: the “Little Rock Nine” (recruited by NAACP) attempt to integrate Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas

A white mob gathered in front of the school, and Gov. Orval Faubus deployed the Arkansas National Guard to prevent the black students from entering.

NAACP lawyers won a federal injunction to prevent the governor from blocking the students’ entry.

9/23/57: With the help of police, the students successfully entered the school through a side entrance….. Fearing mob violence, the students were rushed home soon afterward.

M.L. King sent a telegram to Pres. Eisenhower urging him to “take a strong forthright stand in the Little Rock situation.” He noted that if the federal government didn’t, it would “set the process of integration back fifty years”

Aware that this was an int’l embarrassment, Eisenhower ordered troops from the Army & the Arkansas National Guard for the remainder of the school year

Fall of 1958 - Faubus closed all four of Little Rock’s public high schools rather than proceed with desegregation

December 1959, the Supreme Court ruled that the school board must reopen the schools

Elizabeth Eckford becomes the face of the Little Rock Nine due to this famous picture of her arriving

alone at the school

News report: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oodolEmUg2g

Fourteen-year-old Emmett Till was visiting relatives in Money, Mississippi, on August 24, 1955, when he reportedly flirted with a white cashier at a grocery store.

Four days later, two white men kidnapped Till, beat him and shot him in the head.

The men were tried for murder, but an all-white, male jury acquitted them.

Till's murder and open casket funeral galvanized the emerging Civil Rights Movement.

Boycotting Segregation 1955 NAACP officer Rosa Parks arrested for not

giving up seat on bus for a white rider Montgomery Improvement Association formed,

organizes bus boycott Elect 26-year-old Baptist pastor Martin Luther

King, Jr. leader Walking for Justice African Americans file lawsuit, boycott buses (for

381 days) …..use carpools, walk Get support from black community, outside

groups, sympathetic whites 1956, Supreme Court outlaws bus segregation

Rosa Parks Mini Bio: https://youtu.be/v8A9gvb5Fh0

Jesus – Love one’s enemies Henry David Thoreau (writer) – The refusal to

obey an unjust law A. Philip Randolph (labor organizer) – How to

organize massive demonstrations Mohandas Gandhi – How to resist oppression

without violence

MLK Biography: https://youtu.be/3ank52Zi_S0

From the Grassroots Up King, others found Southern Christian

Leadership Conference (SCLC) “to carry on non-violent crusades against the evils of second class citizenship”

By 1960, African-American students think pace of change too slow

Join Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

Demonstrating for Freedom SNCC adopts nonviolence, but calls for more

confrontational strategy Influenced by Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) to use

sit-ins Feb. 1960 - refuse to leave segregated lunch counter

at Greensboro, NC Woolworth’s until served First sit-in shown nationwide on TV

In spite of abuse, arrests, movement grows, spreads to North

Late 1960, lunch counters desegregated in 48 cities in 11 states

1961, CORE tests Court decision banning interstate bus segregation Two bus trip, called Freedom riders Blacks, whites sit together on bus Use facilities together in bus terminals Bus One riders - beaten by mobs in Birmingham, AL

Bus Two continued on Bus firebombed in Anniston, AL

New Volunteers from SNCC Bus companies refuse to continue carrying CORE

freedom riders SNCC volunteers replace CORE riders on a new bus Police pull them from bus in Birmingham Beat them Drive them to Tennessee They return, but bus driver refuses to get on bus

US Attorney General, Robert Kennedy pressures bus company to continue transporting riders

Arrival of Federal Marshals Alabama officials don’t give promised

protection; mob attacks riders in Montgomery Newspapers throughout nation denounce

beatings JFK sends 400 U.S. marshals to protect riders Dept. of Justice & Interstate Commerce

Commission take action: - ban segregation in all interstate travel

facilities

April 1963, SCLC peacefully demonstrate to desegregate Birmingham (MLK: “The most segregated community in America”)

King arrested, writes “Letter from Birmingham Jail” ◦ The open letter was widely

published and became an important text for the Civil Rights Movement

“Letter from Birmingham Jail” “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are

caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

“We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”

“So I have tried to make it clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends. ”

“One has not only a legal, but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”

4/20/63– MLK released, plans more demonstrations 5/2 – 1,000+ AA’s march ◦ Eugene “Bull” Connor’s police arrest 959

5/3 – “Children's Crusade: a march by hundreds of school students ◦ TV shows police attacking marchers with fire hoses,

dogs & clubs Continued protests, economic

boycott, bad press end segregation

June ‘63, JFK sends troops to force racist Gov. George Wallace to desegregate Univ. of Alabama

JFK: “We preach freedom around the world, and we mean it, and we cherish our freedom here at home, but are we to say to the world, and much more importantly, to each other that this is the land of the free except for the Negroes; that we have no second-class citizens except Negroes; that we have no class or caste system, no ghettoes, no master race except with respect to Negroes?"

Night of JFK’s speech: NAACP’s Medgar Evers murdered TWO hung juries lead to killer’s release

Release brought new militancy to African Americans Demanded: “Freedom now!”

The Dream of Equality 8/23/63: over 250,000 (incl. 75,000 whites)

people converge on Washington Speakers demand immediate passage of civil

rights bill King gives

“I Have a Dream” speech

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." . . . I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. . . I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers

More Violence Sept. ‘63: 4 Birmingham girls killed when bomb

thrown into 16th Street Baptist Church LBJ signs Civil Rights Act of 1964 - prohibits discrimination because of race,

religion, national origin & gender - Gives all citizens the right to enter libraries,

washrooms, restaurants, theaters & other public accommodations

Freedom Summer Freedom Summer—CORE, SNCC project to

register blacks to vote in south, (focusing on MS) 1000’s of student volunteers (mostly white, 1/3

female) trained in nonviolent resistance Volunteers beaten, killed; businesses, homes,

churches burned

Selma, AL Early 1965: SCLC conducts a major voting rights

campaign 2,000 AA’s arrested in SCLC demonstrations MLK announces a 50 mile march to Montgomery

AL ………. 3/7/65 – 600 set out TV captures scenes of

police using clubs, whips & tear gas

Selma, AL 3/17 – LBJ asks Congress for swift passage of a

new voting rights act 3/21 – 3,000 marchers set out for Montgomery –

protected with federal troops – number swells to 25,000

Voting Rights Act of 1965 Congress finally passes Voting Rights Act of

1965 Stops literacy tests, allows federal officials to

enroll voters Increases black voter enrollment Selma AA voters go from

10% in ‘64 to 60% in ‘68 Southern AA voters triple

Segregation Continues intensifies after WWII De jure segregation is segregation required

by law De facto segregation

exists by practice, custom

White flight urban areas become decaying slums ◦ Absentee landlords don’t comply with housing & health

ordinances ◦ Schools deteriorate ◦ Businesses move out 2x unemployment for Blacks

1966: MLK leads 30,000 on march on Chicago city hall . . . Nothing accomplished

Racial tensions boil over in Northern cities Riots in: ◦ July ‘64 - Harlem (New York city) ◦ Aug. ‘65 - Watts (Los Angeles) 34 killed, 100’s on millions on $ of damage ◦ 1966 & 1967 – 100+ other cities see riots

MLK: “(LBJ’s) Great Society has been shot down on the battlefields of Vietnam”

African-American Solidarity Nation of Islam, aka, Black Muslims Elijah Muhammad / founder Advocates blacks separate from whites Believes whites source of black problems

Malcolm X —controversial Muslim leader, speaker; gets much publicity o Advocated armed self-defense o Frightens whites, moderate

blacks; resented by other Black Muslims

Malcolm X Mini Bio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9a3hT8f6Kkk

3/64 – Breaks with Elijah Muhammad over differences in strategy & doctrine

Does pilgrimage to Meca, learned that orthodox Islam preached racial equality

New slogan: “Ballots or bullets” Due to his split with Black Muslims, he felt his

life was in danger 2/21/65 – He was shot & killed

Black Power CORE, SNCC become more militant; SCLC

pursues traditional tactics Stokely Carmichael, head of SNCC, calls for Black

Power: African Americans control own lives, communities,

without whites MLK urges restraint, saying this will provoke AA’s

to violence & antagonize whites Carmichael refuses. Urges

SNCC to stop recruiting whites & to focus on Black Pride

Huey Newton & Bobby Seale found Black Panthers ◦ Wore all black & carried rifles ◦ Fight police brutality in ghettos ◦ Gain black self-sufficiency ◦ Full employment & decent housing ◦ AA’s exempt from military as disproportionate

served in Vietnam ◦ Preach ideas of Mao Zedong ◦ Have violent confrontations

with police ◦ Provide social services in

ghettos Wins popular support

in the ghettos

King’s Death Seems to sense own death in Memphis speech to striking

workers Is shot, dies the following

day, April 4, 1968 Reactions to King’s Death King’s death leads to worst urban rioting in U.S.

history - over 100 cities affected (Baltimore, Chicago,

Kansas City & Wash. DC hardest hit) Robert Kennedy assassinated two months later

Civil Rights Gains Civil Rights Act of 1968 prohibits discrimination

in housing More black students finish high school, college;

get better jobs Greater pride in racial identity leads to Black

Studies programs More African-American participation in movies,

television

Affirmative Action Programs (1960’s) – special efforts made to hire those that have suffered discrimination

1970’s –Some criticize Affrm. Action as “reverse discrimination

1980’s – Republican administrations ease Affrm. Action requirements for gov’t contractors

1972 election – Nixon had barely won 1968 election, decides on “Southern strategy” ◦ So. Dems had grown disillusioned with liberal

platform ◦ Nixon decides to “woo them” ◦ His policy is to slow desegregation, going as far

as defying Supreme Courts ruling of to proceed “with deliberate speed”

Carter works to reverse Nixon’s actions

By 1980’s – African American’s are mayors of many cities (including: LA, Detroit, Chicago, Atlanta, New Orleans, Phila., & Wash. D.C.)

100’s have prominent federal, state & local positions

1990 – L. Douglas Wilder (VA) is first African American governor

Many hold key professional & managerial positions

2008 – Barack Obama elected President