CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

Emmitt Till Story

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONJ9CUj6h-w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMdSYxZqIXc

Brown v. B.O.E. Intro

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTGHLdr-iak

Brown v. Board of Education

1951, Oliver Brown sued Topeka Kansas BOE to allow his 8 year old daughter Linda to attend a nearby school for whites only

Linda Brown

Parents were upset that she could not attend the all white school nearby

Forced to walk over a mile away to the black school

Wanted to challenge the “separate but equal” decision

Supreme Court

May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court issued its historic ruling

Declared “Separate but Equal” unconstitutional

Deliberate Speed

Made all public schools desegregate “with all deliberate speed”

Meant that Southern schools did not have to desegregate immediately

Reaction

Eisenhower privately disagreed

“The Supreme Court has spoken and I am sworn to uphold the constitutional processes in this country and I am trying. I will obey.”

Wasn’t racist, just did not think the country was ready for this yet; Believed in states’ rights

Southern Manifesto

Georgia governor Herman Talmadge made it clear that his state would not tolerate race mixing

Southern Manifesto Southern congressmen and senators who resisted this change

First Crisis

Little Rock, Arkansas in September 1957

Arkansas governor Orval Faubus declared that he could not keep order if he had to enforce integration

Little Rock 9 Intro

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zkUpBctt0A

Little Rock 9

Faubus had AR national guard troops at Central High School and instructed them to turn away the 9 little rock students who were set to attend

Little Rock 9

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HH-eC4LgZT4

Eisenhower could no longer avoid the issue

Eisenhower place the national guard under federal command

Faubus Backs Down

Under intense national pressure, Faubus withdrew the national Guard from the school

Students made it through two hours of class before a mob forced the police to sneak them out

Montgomery Bus Boycott

December 1955

Rosa Parks took a seat in the middle section of a bus, where both African Americans and whites were allowed to sit

Arrested

Blacks were expected to give up their seat for white passengers if no other seats remained

Bus driver ordered Parks to give up her seat

She refused; at the next stop police arrested her

Bus Boycott

The idea of a boycott was proposed

Thought if they didn’t give the bus company business, then it would be forced to change its policy

Martin Luther King Jr

MLK

26 yrs old

Minister at Baptist Church where first boycott meeting was held

over the next year, 50,000 blacks walked, rode bicycles, or joined car pools to avoid the buses

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QZik4CYtgw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ1OO5iBWCQ

Supreme Court Decision

In 1956, the United States Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional

SCLC

The Montgomery Bus Boycott make MLK famous

His next move was to form the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)

Advocated the practice of nonviolent protest, peaceful way of protesting against restrictive racial policies

Woolworth’s Sit-in

Sit-in

4 black college students sat down at a segregated lunch counter

Waited the entire day without being served

Their patience encouraged others to join; In two days 85 more had joined

Woolworth Sit In Clip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbbcjn4d1cE

Letters From Birmingham Jail

1963

Birmingham Alabama, “Most segregated city in America” – MLK

Faced fierce protest from public safety commissioner Bull Connor

Role of JFK

JFK intervenes to ask that he not be sent to a labor camp

MLK’s wife feared he would be killed

Bull Connor

Used fire houses to blast protestors, would roll children down streets

Chased them with dogs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9kT1yO4MGg

MLK is Arrested

TV broadcast this across the nation, Americans were appalled

The protestors had won in achieving the attention they were seeking

America finally saw how bad it was