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Does the election of President Obama mark the end of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, or simply serve at it's greatest victory?
Plessy v. Ferguson
• 1896 – Homer Plessy was arrested for riding on a white railroad car
• Court rules that Louisiana’s “separate but equal” laws are constitutional and did not violate the 14th amendment
Jim Crow Laws
• Laws aimed at separating the races
• Some examples:– Forbade marriage between blacks and whites– Restrictions on social contacts in public
places– Separate schools, waiting rooms, railroad
coaches, and drinking fountains
• Facilities for blacks were usually inferior
NAACPoSince 1909 fought for desegregation
oThurgood Marshall oBrown v Board of Education (1954)
o2nd Brown ruling: “with all deliberate speed”
o Southern Manifesto – 90 Southern
members resist rulings by “all lawful
means”
Problems Desegregating Society
•Little Rock, Arkansas
•Montgomery Bus Boycott
•Civil Rights Act of 1964
Freedom Riders• Montgomery Bus
boycott = right to ride bus/sit
• Freedom Riders challenge the right to ride on interstate buses
• JFK’s response to the buses being attacked?
Freedom Summer•Robert Moses: leads
voting registrations in South
•Mississippi called “Closed Society” b/c can’t vote
•Violent Opposition (Mississippi Burning)–By the end of the summer 4 had died, 4 critically wounded and 80 beaten
Selma Campaign•Selma Sheriff brutally
attacked demonstrators•Jimmie Lee Jackson was shot
and killed–MLKJ responded w/ a 50 mile march from Selma to Montgomery
Voting Rights Act of 1965
•Eliminated the literacy test
•Federal examiners could enroll voters denied suffrage by local officials
Let’s see if you could have voted in Alabama:
• http://kpearson.project.tcnj.edu/interactive/imm_files/test.html
Northern Segregation
• De facto segregation: exists by practice
–Rid racist attitudes
–Increased after “white flight”
• De Jure segregation: segregation by law
Urban Violence• NYC July ’64
– White police v black teenagers, ended in death of 15 yr old, sparked race riot in Harlem
• Watts Riot – August 11, 1965– Riot after police was arresting a man for
drunk driving, lasted 6 days, 34 dead, $30 million in damage
• 1967 most violent year: violence in +100 cities
• But didn’t LBJ announce his War on Poverty?
Malcolm X stated at the end of his autobiography- I know that societies often have killed the people who have helped to change those societies... if I can die having
brought any light, having exposed any meaningful truth that will help to destroy the racist cancer that is malignant in the body of
America... then all of the credit is due to Allah. Only the mistakes have been mine.
How do you interpret these words?
• Nation of Islam• Released from prison in ’52• Elijah Muhammad• Believed blacks should be armed for self-
defense• Ballots or Bullets?
– If we can’t use the ballot, we turn to bullets so let them vote
• Why he left the Nation of Islam: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNIqAzQDvs0&feature=related
Stokely Carmichael: "Black Power"
• "Racism must die. The economic exploitation by this country of non-white people around the world must also die."
• delivered October 1966, Berkeley, CA
“I knew that I could vote and that that wasn’t a privilege; it was my right. Every time I tried I was shot, killed or jailed, beaten or economically deprived. So somebody had to write a bill for white people to tell them, "When a black man comes to vote, don’t bother him." That bill, again, was for white people, not for black people; so that when you talk about open occupancy, I know I can live anyplace I want to live. It is white people across this country who are incapable of allowing me to live where I want to live. You need a civil rights bill, not me. I know I can live where I want to live.”
Black Panthers
• Goal: fight police brutality in the ghetto
• Offers “a program for the people” – help communities/provide support
• Angry at the large #s of blacks drafted to fight in Vietnam
• Mao Zedong “power flows out of the barrel of the gun”
• FBI investigates – usually illegal searches
Dr. King (1929-1968)
• spread ideas of non-violence to Northern cities: planning “Poor Peoples March” to D.C.
• April 4, 1968 – King on balcony of hotel room in Memphis, Tenn.
• James Earl Ray shot a bullet into King’s neck, King died an hour later
Reaction to his death
• Bobby Kennedy (campaigning for Democratic nomination) urged people to keep King’s ideas of nonviolence alive
• His death led to worst urban riots in US history
• June 1968 Bobby Kennedy assassinated by Jordanian immigrant who was angry w/ RFK’s support of Israel
Kerner Commission• LBJ; to study the causes of urban
violence• Conclusion: 1 main cause: white
racism; moving towards 2 separate societies – 1 white, 1 black
• LBJ Admin chose to ignore many of the recommendations b/c of strong white opposition
Impacts of the Movement• Huge increase in the #s of African-Americans
graduating high school and college
• Increase in African pride/identity: – Afro– Dashiki– New Black Studies programs in schools– More appearances on TV
• Political Gains: Jesse Jackson ran for Pres. 1988; 2/3 eligible voters were registered; today - OBAMA
Unfinished Work• Much of school
desegregation reversed by 1990s: 50-75% of African Americans attend almost completely black schools
• Poverty rate = 3x’s whites
• Affirmative Action – began 1960s– 1970s criticized as
“reverse discrimination”
http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/raceneutral2/image014.gif
Latinos• 1960s – jobless rate
nearly 50% higher than whites as well as % of families in poverty
• Farm Worker Movement – Cesar Chavez
• 1968 Bilingual Euducation Act
• La Raza Unida – political movement to get Latinos in public office
Native Americans• Have been the poorest of Americans and
have the highest unemployment rate• 1950s (Ike) Termination policy to get them
off reservations into mainstream Amer. – big failure
• American Indian Movement – often militant • Indian Education Act• Gained rights to land through court action
Gay rights
• By 1986 – 26 states had reduced criminal penalties for sexual relationships between consenting adults
• Bush – increased funding for AIDS and called for a study on hate crimes to include homosexuals
• By 1993 – 7 states and 110 communities outlawed discrimination against homosexuals
Feminism• Betty Friedan – The
Feminine Mystique• NOW• ERA (opponent –
Phyllis Schlafly)• Geraldine Ferraro• “feminization” of
poverty – how much do women earn compared to men?
• Pay equity• Title IX (1972)
Roe v Wade• NOW and other
feminist groups supported the women’s right to have an abortion
• 1973 Supreme Ct. ruled women have the right to choose an abortion during 1st 3 months of pregnancy
• Norma McCorvey, "Jane Roe" in Roe vs. Wade