African American

Civil Rights Movement

I. Quickly Review

Previous Black Civil Rights Struggles

(1850’s – 1940’s)

Pre Civil War Abolition Movement

Starts push for black rights

Reconstruction Erahas mixed legacy

• 13th, 14th & 15th Amendments passed

• Federal Gov’t mainly ignores

black civil rights during “Gilded Age”•Jim Crow Laws

become entrenched• Plessy v. FergusonSupports segregation

WEB DuBois Booker T. Washington

Progressive Era Black Civil Rights ActivistDiffer in Goals & Tactics

1920’s & 1930’sGreat Migration

NAACPFounded

Harlem Renaissance

&“New Negro”

Marcus Garvey &

UNIA

WWII “Double V” Promotes Integration beginning in 1940’s

WHY WERE THESE INJUSTICES LIKELY TO RESULT IN A SOCIAL MOVEMENT?

Consider the context of the 1940s and 1950s.

Still, “Jim Crow” laws in South & “de facto” segregationin North strong into the mid 20th Century

II. Non-Violent Civil Disobedience

(mid 1950’s & early ’60’s)“Grassroots” action gradually

garners media attention and leads to federal involvement & legal change

Emmett Till Murder Trial (‘55) shocks nation

Ordinary Americanspp. 224-225

Montgomery Bus Boycotts (‘55)Martin Luther King & SCLC

Rosa Parks

Civil Disobedience

Ordinary Americanspp. 225-226

Little Rock Nine (‘57)

Confrontation Results from

Brown v. Board (‘54)

“Dixiecrats” criticalof violation

of “states Rights”In

“Southern Manifesto”

Ordinary Americanspp. 226-228

Lunch Counter Sit-Ins (‘60) Organized byCORE & SNCC

Freedom Rides (‘61)

ForceFederal Action

Boycotts/Marches & Reactionsgarner publicity and enhance political pressure on JFK & LBJ

Birmingham Church Bombing (‘63)

Freedom Summer

(1964)& Civil Rights

Workers Murdered

Ordinary Americanspp. 228-229

“Bloody Sunday” & Selma March(1965)

Ordinary Americanspp. 232-233

“High Tide” ofNon-Violent Black

Civil Rights MovementMarch on Washington

& “I Have a Dream” Speech

1963

Landmark Legislation:Civil Rights Act (1964)

Voting Rights Act (1965) 24th Amendment (1965)

Limits of Success???Laws change faster than attitudes…rising expectations leads to growing frustration & militancy by mid/late 1960’s