Civil Rights means equal rights and fair

treatment for all citizens as

guaranteed by our Constitution

regardless of race or other distinctions (such as gender,

religion, sexuality, etc.)

• 1869• The right of citizens to vote shall not be denied on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

a fee charged for voting

• Reading tests given to prove a person was literate (able to read) in order to register to vote

• Often included questions, such as– “How many words are in the

Constitution?” – “How many bubbles are in a bar of

soap?”– “Write a one page essay explaining

Article II of the Mississippi State Constitution.”

• Laws that exempted voters from the literacy test or poll tax if they had voted before or if their grandfathers had voted

• This ensured that even poor illiterate whites could vote.

1896 - Supreme Court ruled that segregation of the races was legal as long as the public facilities provided were essentially equal.

“Separate but equal” became the standard as several more Southern states legalized segregation.

After the Civil War ex -Confederate states passed laws that required

separation of the races.

Bus Station in Dallas, Texas

When the Supreme Court ruled that such laws were legal (Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896), several more southern states began to separate Blacks and Whites.

• A policy of keeping the races separated in public facilities.

• Different schools, parks, restaurants, hospitals, etc. for different races

Unfair treatment because of differences in race, religion,

gender, sexuality, etc.

• First Black man to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard University

• Founded the NAACP in 1909

• Demanded immediate and full equality for African Americans

• Founded in 1909• National Association

for the Advancement of Colored People

• Organization dedicated to achieving equality for people of all races and ending racial violence in the South

Oliver Brown

9 year old Linda Brown

• May, 1954 • Supreme Court case • Ruled that separate facilities

could never really be equal. (Overturned Plessy v. Ferguson )

• Declared segregated schools were illegal

• The Court ordered schools to integrate the races with “all deliberate speed.”

The process of combining the races in public

facilities(de-segregation)

Clinton, TN Schools Integrated: Dec. 1956

• 1957• The Governor of Arkansas defied

the Supreme Court and President Eisenhower by refusing to integrate Central High.

• The Governor used National Guard troops to block the entry of 9 African-American students who had volunteer to be the first to attend this all white school.

• Mobs of angry Whites swarmed the high school to protest integration.

• President Eisenhower placed the National Guard under federal control.

• He then sent more federal troops (101st Airborne) to Little Rock to escort the “Little Rock Nine” to classes.

Army transport of Black students to Central High School was necessary for their

protection all year.

101st Airborne escort the Little Rock Nine into

Central High School and stand guard outside their classrooms throughout

the day.

Whites protest integration at the Arkansas State Capitol.

The Little Rock Nine

Teacher – not a student

The Little Rock Nine 50 years later attend the dedication ceremony of a museum built in their

honor (2007).

1849

Unjust laws exist; shall we be content

to obey them, or shall we endeavor to

amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress

them at once?

• Citizens have a duty to disobey a law when it is unjust, especially when it’s unjust to others.

• Always involves non-violence • Method adopted by many civil

rights leaders and activists• Those who choose to break the

law must be willing to suffer the consequences.

Ancient strategy of non-violent protest and civil

disobedience use throughout history to bring about social and political change. Made

famous by Mahatma Gandhi in overthrowing

the British control of India.

• People refuse to buy goods and services from a business.

• This causes an economic hardship on the company and sometimes forces them to change their policy.

• It’s a very effective strategy when large numbers of people participate.

• This strategy was used by the American colonists before the Revolutionary War to force England to repeal tax laws.

• Non violent strategy in which protestors (both Black and White) go to a segregated business (such as a restaurant), sit down, and attempt to place an order.

• If they are refused service, they just sit there until forced to leave by the police.

• Business operators must choose between serving Black customers or having their business disrupted and loosing profit.

February 1960 - Sit-in at a lunch counter in Greensboro North Carolina

A sit-in at a Nashville lunch counter becomes violent.

April, 1960Home of Nashville

attorney who defended sit-

in participants was bombed.

A form of non-violent protestA large group of people walk together and meet at a designated endpoint.

Usually the march ends in a rally with motivational speakers.

Our 1st Amendment right to peaceful assembly gives protestors the right march peacefully.

Congress Of Racial Equality It was the first Civil Rights organization. 1942 – Founded by an interracial group of students at University of Chicago.

Its early work was in the North and Midwest, and the majority of its members were middle class Whites.

They were devoted to Gandhi’s teachings on non-violence and were the first to organize sit-ins.

In the 1950s they began working for racial equality in the South, and their membership became mostly African American.

The were directly involved in organizing the Freedom Rides (1961), the March on Washington, (1963) and Freedom Summer (1964).

When their national director changed in 1968, they became somewhat more militant and adopted the “Black Power” ideology.

• Dec. 1, 1955 – Montgomery, Alabama

• State segregation law required Blacks to sit in the back of city buses and give up their seats to white passengers if told to do so by the driver.

• Rosa refused to give up her seat to a white man and was arrested.

Rosa Parks

Secretary for the local

chapter of the NAACP

Criminal

The bus on which Rosa Parks was riding on December 1, 1955

National City Lines Bus # 2857

• Dec. 1955 - After the arrest of Ms. Parks, Civil Rights leaders organized a boycott of the city bus system in Montgomery, Alabama.

• 50,000 Blacks refused to use buses for a year.

• The bus company lost huge amounts of money, but the city still refused to integrate until a Supreme Court ruling declared segregation on buses (as in schools) was unconstitutional.

• Dec. 1956 – The Supreme Court ruling took effect and the boycott ended.

Rosa Parks finally takes her place at the front of the bus.

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

In Jan 1957, 60 black ministers met in Atlanta to organize non-violent action to continue de-segregating buses throughout the South.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. - PresidentMany Black churches were afraid to join because of threats from White groups.

Some Black religious leaders believed that political activism was not the proper role of the church.

Dr. Martin Luther King,

Jr.

• 1929 – Born in Atlanta, GA, the son of a Baptist preacher.

• 1944 – Age 15 – Enrolled in college after skipping 9th and 12th grades in high school.

• 1948 – Age 19 – Received a Bachelor’s Degree in sociology.

• 1951 – Age 22 – Received a Bachelor’s Degree in divinity.

• 1954 – Age 25 – Becomes a Baptist preacher in Montgomery, Alabama.

• 1955 – Age 26 - Helped organize the Montgomery bus boycott.

• 1957 – Age 28 – Became president of the SCLC.

• 1959 – Age 30 – Visited the birthplace of Gandhi in India and became even more committed to non-violence and passive resistance.

• 1963, April – Arrested and jailed during protests in Birmingham, AL.

• 1963, August – Helped organize the March on Washington where he delivered his “I Have a Dream Speech.”

• 1964 – Age 35 - Won the Nobel Peace Prize.

• 1968 – Age 39 - Assassinated in Memphis, TN.

• Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (“Snick”)

• Organized in 1960 • Created so college students

could actively participate in the struggle for racial equality.

• They organized sit-ins, marches, boycotts and other peaceful protests.

• Organized by SNCC and CORE• May 4, 1961 - 2 buses filled with

black and white activists depart Washington D.C. destined to travel through 7 southern states on the way to New Orleans.

• Their goal was to test whether the South would obey the Supreme Court rulings to desegregate buses and other facilities.

“Freedom Ride” route through the South

• Riders were beaten by angry white mobs and arrested along the way

• One bus was disabled and firebombed in Alabama, and escaping riders were attacked.

• A new bus was sent out and other riders took the places of the injured to continue.

• The “freedom riders” continued throughout the summer of 1961.

Freedom Rider bus burns in Alabama, May 1961

Freedom Riders protected by National Guardsmen

• C = Confrontation• April, 1963 – MLK and the SCLC

organized peaceful protests, demonstrations, and sit-ins to protest segregation and unfair hiring practices in Birmingham, Alabama.

• MLK and the SCLC decided to allow children to participate in the protests.

Peaceful protestors in Birmingham, April 1963

• Public Safety Commissioner, Bull Conner, a bigoted racist ordered the police and firemen to stop the protestors.

• They used attack dogs and high-pressure fire hoses to disperse crowds.

• Protesters were beaten with clubs.

• 900 protesters were jailed, including children as young as 6 years old.

Thaddeus “Bull”

ConnerA symbol of

southern white

bigotry and hatred

Birmingham: “The Citadel of Segregation”

Passive Resistance: When attacked, do not fight back.

Fire hoses turned on protestors in Birmingham, April, 1963

Fire hose water pressure can be as great 1200 pounds of force. Professional boxers punch with a force between 700 and 1200 pounds, often causing injury to internal organs.

• King spent a week in jail where he wrote the famous essay, “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”

• The public was shocked by the police violence they witnessed on TV.

• President Kennedy said it made him “sick.”

• Led to desegregation and changes in fair hiring practices in the city.

MLK spends a week in a Birmingham jail.

• August 1963 - Over 200,000 people gathered in the capital city to support the civil rights bill proposed by JFK.

• Kennedy was afraid there would be violence.

• Protesters adopted the slogan “jobs and freedom.”

• MLK delivered his “I have a dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

200,000 marchers gather before the Lincoln Memorial.

The Washington Monument in background

Speakers on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial

Folk singers Joan Baez and Bob Dylan sing “Blowing in the Wind.”

“Blowing in the Wind”• How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?• How many seas must the white dove sail before she sleeps in the sand?• How many times must the cannon balls fly before they’re forever banned?

• The answer my friend is blowing in the wind.• The answer is blowing in the wind.

• How many years can a mountain exist before it is washed to the sea?• How many years can some people exist before they’re allowed to be free?• How many times can a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn’t

see?

• The answer my friend is blowing in the wind.• The answer is blowing in the wind.

• How many times can a man look up before he can see the sky?• How many ears does one man have before he can hear people cry?• And how many deaths will it take till he knows that too many people have

died?

March on Washington, August 1963

Martin Luther King – “I have a dream.”

Video: March on Washington, MLK’s “I have a dream” speech

11:00

Some historians consider this the greatest speech ever given in American history.

• 1965 - Blacks in Selma, Alabama were arrested for trying to register to vote.

• John Lewis organized a 50-mile march from Selma to the capital, Montgomery.

• Sunday, March 7 - Started with 545 marchers

• Armed state troopers on horseback rode into the crowd with whips, clubs and tear gas

• “Bloody Sunday”

Marchers start out peacefully from Selma, Alabama

Alabama National Guard moves in on marchers.

Marchers cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge leaving Selma.

“Bloody Sunday “

Marchers attacked by the Alabama National Guardsmen.

John Lewis

clubbed in the head

• President Johnson immediately put the Alabama National Guard under federal control and sent federal troops and marshals to protect the protesters on the rest of their march.

• MLK arrived to encourage the protestors and march with them.

• Marchers began again.• By the time they reached

Montgomery, 25,000 marchers had gathered.

MLK speaks to the failed marchers and promises to march with them.

The march begins again from Selma.

This time 25,000 cross the bridge on their way to the capital.

Democratic Governor of Alabama from 1963 – 1968.

June 1963, he attempted to block the entrance of two Black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood to the University of Alabama.

President Kennedy nationalized the Alabama National Guard and they forced Wallace to step aside.

He ran for President in 1968 and 1972. He was shot and paralyzed by an assassin in 1972.

In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in

the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of

tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation

tomorrow, segregation forever.

Wallace’s 1963 Inaugural speech as Alabama Governor

Governor George Wallace blocks the doorway of the University of Alabama to prevent the entrance of Black

students in 1963.

• President 1961 – 1963• He promised to end housing

discrimination “with the stroke of a pen” (Executive Order).

• But as President, he was cautious about civil rights protests, preferring that progress be made peacefully through the court system instead.

• Submitted a Civil Rights bill to Congress in June 1963 but was assassinated in November.

• LBJ became President in Nov. 1963 when JFK was assassinated.

• He pushed through Congress the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

It is wrong—deadly wrong—to deny any of your fellow Americans the right to vote in this country. There is no

issue of States' rights or National rights. There is only the

struggle for human rights.

• African American Muslims, also called “Black Muslims”

• Founded by Elijah Muhammad in 1930• Had 500,000 members by 1964• Taught that Africans were the original

people but the Bible had prophesied that they would be in captivity “in a strange land” for 400 years.

• Believed that white society was the enemy

• They promoted “black nationalism” (a separate nation of Africans within America).

• Malcolm Little – b. 1925• Son of a Baptist preacher who

had been a follower of Marcus Garvey’s “back to Africa” movement in the 1920s.

• Grew up in ghettos of Detroit, Boston and New York

• Joined the Nation of Islam while in jail for burglary from 1945 to 1952

• 1952 – He replaced his surname “Little” with an X, because all black surnames were imposed by white masters in place of their original African names .

• He soon became First Lieutenant in the Nation of Islam (2nd to Elijah Muhammad)

• Rejected passive resistance • “No sane black man really wants

integration.”

“But once we all realize that we have this common enemy, then we unite on the basis of what we have in common. And what we have foremost in common is that enemy —— the white man.”

Oct. 1963

Our religion teaches us to be intelligent. Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery. That’s a good religion.

Oct. 1963

Video: Malcolm X explains “Black Nationalism”

3:44

• 1964 – traveled on a pilgrimage to Mecca, the holy city of Islam

• Came home with changed ideas about his hatred of whites

• He returned with a new vision of blacks and whites working together for civil rights.

• Left the Nation of Islam

Video: Malcolm X speaks of leaving the Nation of Islam

3:00

Video: Malcolm X “I am a dead man already”

2:00

February 1965 - Assassinated by three members of the

Nation of Islam

Malcolm X shot in chest and taken to hospital

Malcolm X, aged 39

• Founded in 1966 by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton who met at Oakland City College in California.

• Their philosophy was militant pride – “Black Power” and “Black is beautiful.”

• Their strategy was to encourage Blacks to carry guns and protect blacks from police brutality in inner city neighborhoods.

Bobby Seale

and Huey

Newton

Black Panther

Party founder

s

Video: Huey P. Newton speaks of police brutality

2:00

Black Panther poster promoting armed resistance to police

authority

Raised fist becomes the symbol of “Black Power”

• 1968 – Huey Newton killed a policeman in a New York City march and was convicted of voluntary manslaughter.

• His conviction sparked protests throughout country.

• His conviction was later overturned.

1962abolished the poll tax

• Signed by LBJ in 1964• It gave federal govt. the power

to enforce desegregation laws and voting rights. (denial of states’ rights)

• It required the same voter registration standards in all states.

• It prohibited discrimination in public facilities such as theaters, motels, and restaurants.

• It banned discrimination by employers on the basis of race, religion, or gender.

• It created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to investigate charges of discrimination.

• It allowed the federal government to withhold funds from institutions (such as schools) that violate civil rights laws.

Lyndon Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act, 1964

• 1965• LBJ promised this act in

response to the Selma March.• Federal officials would register

voters in places where local officials were blocking the registration of Blacks.

• It abolished literacy tests.• In 1966, 400,000 African

Americans registered to vote in the South.

First African American Supreme

Court Justice

Appointed by LBJ

in 1967

What other groups were demanding

equality during this time period

term for people whose family origins are in

Spanish-speaking Latin America

A term used in the 1960s and 70s for

Mexican-Americans

During World War II there was a shortage of farm workers in American and widespread poverty in Mexico.

A U.S. and Mexican governments agreed to bring 1000’s of peasant farmers in from Mexico to work on farms for a limited time in the Southwest (Texas, New Mexico, Arizona California).

Program lasted from 1942 to 1964.

Migrant workers from Mexico travel by train to Los Angeles 1942

• Workers who “migrate” or travel from farm to farm, and often state to state

• Provide the labor required to grow and harvest many of our nation’s crops

• Extremely low pay• Little or no education

opportunity for their children

Children of Mexican migrant workers

School for white migrant workers’ children , 1945

Migrant child picks grapes in California

Migrant melon picker in California, 1980

Migrant workers picking parsley for .90 per crate, 1986

Migrant vineyard workers in California

• 1927 - Born in Arizona• 1937 – His family lost their

farm during the Dust Bowl.• They became migrant workers

in California.• He attended 30 different

schools.• He grew up determined to

improve working conditions for farm workers.

• In the 1960’s Cesar began to organize Mexican field hands to form a union.

• 1965 – Formed the United Farm Workers (UFW)

• UFW soon had 1,700 members.• The used nonviolent methods,

such as protests and boycotts.

Cesar and his sister as children

Native American tribes

wanted protection of tribal lands to

preserve hunting,

fishing, homes and sacred

burial sites.

• Native American wanted their individual tribes restored and self-government by tribal leaders as it had been before assignment to reservations controlled by federal and state governments.

Indian nations re-formed and created

tribal flags.

• American Indian Movement• Began in cities,

encouraging racial and cultural pride in young Native American people.

• Later, AIM joined in more militant protests for the return of land to tribes across the nation and for better treatment of those living on reservations.

• Over time, Native Americans regained some land along with mineral and water rights.

• 1973 - AIM leaders descended upon Wounded Knee, South Dakota to protest the poverty and poor living conditions on the reservation.

• The protesters refused to leave until the government took action to better living conditions and review over 300 Indian treaties.

• Federal marshals and FBI agents besieged the city until it surrendered.

• In exchange, the government launched investigations of treaties and living conditions on the reservation.

AIM protestors block the road at Wounded Knee

Protestors at

Wounded Knee

1973

AIM representatives and government authorities negotiate at Wounded

Knee

1972 - gave parents and tribal councils more control

over schools and school programs rather than the

federal and state governments.