If racism is institutional, then explain the success of minority groups in the US.

1896: Plessy v Ferguson 1890 LA passed law requiring RRs to provide ‘equal but separate

accommodations for white and blacks

Following enactment New Orleans’s formed “Citizen’s Equal Rights Association” to try and overturn the law. RR worked in quiet collusion with a group that also opposed the law due to the added expense it imposed on RR costs

Initiated a test case on June 7, 1892 when Homer A Plessy (a very light-skinned mulatto) boarded the ‘whites only’ car. Conductor was alerted, asked him to leave, he refused and was peacefully arrested

Albion Tourgee, the defense attorney, argued that the arrest was illegal and the law unconstitutional

Judge Ferguson disagreed and case was moved to Supreme Court for May 18, 1896

Philip Randolph

In 1941, A. Philip Randolph, leader of Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, called on 50,000 blacks to march on Washington and compel federal government to insure equal job opportunities for blacks in defense industry.

FDR persuaded Randolph to call off the march with establishment of Executive Order #8802

Executive Order #8802 This was the Fair Employment Practices Committee that said

the government intends to help Negroes by barring discriminatory hiring in defense industries. Served later as model for civil rights measures

War Department policy became clearer in fall of 1940 when a statement issued that Negroes would be received into the army on the general basis of the proportion of the Negro population in the country.

Blacks organized into separate units

No black officers in units where white officers already present

Civil Rights in Post-War America

North—customary segregation in inns and restaurants begins to subside

South—Support for the growing movement to end segregation in armed services and call for enactment of federal civil rights act

CORE: Congress of Racial Equality, 1942

Formed by civil rights militants espousing direct action in pursuit of black goals.

Developed tactics of passive resistance against local discriminatory laws and customs that would later become a model for other civil rights activities

1961, Freedom Rides

1954: Brown v Board of Education Henry Brown, ruling with 8-man majority,

“separate but equal accommodations” a “reasonable use of state power”.

Thus... he denied that the 14th Amendment was designed to abolish “distinctions base don color or to enforce social as distinguished from political equality.”

1955-56, Montgomery Bus Boycott Watershed event that opened civil rights movement Rosa Parks, December 1, 1955 Board an almost empty bus in Montgomery AL Sat in First empty seat, she was laden with packages and tired and sat in “white

only” section After several stops the bus began to fill and a White man unable to find seat. Driver yelled for all blacks to move to back of bus and stand but She wouldn’t

budge Police called and she was booked for violating local laws

News spread rapidly through black community—Ralph Abernathy and MLK Jr alerted to her move

Meetings called to map out protest (protests spurred forth by previous years’ decision to end separate but equal in schools)

Led by black churches—decided to stage one-day boycott of city buses on the day Parks was to be tried (December 5, 1955)

She was found guilty and fined $10 and an appeal immediately filed Boycott highly effective as a primary mode of transportation for blacks

MLK, Jr and the Montgomery Improvement Association

Led by King, blacks settled in for siege—formed car pools, black taxi companies agreed to carry blacks for .10—the price of a bus seat—many more walked to work

Boycott lasted 12 months and Bus Company lost 65% business

City fought back by obtaining an injunction against car pools and reduced taxi fares and arrested boycott leaders for conspiracy

Diehard segregationists bombed black churches supporting boycott

November 13, 1956: Supreme Court upheld lower federal court decision that declared AL segregated seating unconstitutional (about 1 month to reach Montgomery)

December 21, 1956 the order arrives and King and others seated with whites without incident

March for Freedom

1963, March on Washington MLK called for March on Washington 150,000+ people to rally for an end to

discrimination Famous “I have a dream speech” Kennedy and then Johnson responded timidly

at first and then with boldness Begin legislative movement against

discrimination and the material poverty it spawned

Enforce voting rights, 1957-64

1964, Civil Rights Act

Most sweeping legislation since Reconstruction Outlawed discrimination in public

accommodations Required that literacy test for voting be

administered in writing and defined as literate anyone who had finished 6th grade

Equal Employment Practices Committee (later EEOC)

Redo of WWII committee to stop discrimination in federal jobs due to race, religion and sex

SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee)

Centered more in urban centers of north (it’s parallel is SCLC)

Established to coordinate student sit-ins of 1960s

By 1966 it would reject integration and adopt “Black Power” as its goal

1964, Freedom Riders SNCC in early years battled to integrate stores

and restaurants and joined with CORE, NAACP and SCLC in undertaking Freedom Rides

More SNCC SNCC entered bastions of segregation to take part in sit-in

demonstrations and other civil rights activities—great sympathy for the movement

Brought 1000 student volunteers to rural MS to enroll Negro voters and end segregation

1000 arrests 30 bombings 35 churches burned 80 beatings 6 murders 1966, yet, SNCC members became more frustrated by the

slow progress of racial integration SNCC chairman, Stokely Carmichael, began preaching the

doctrine of “Black Power” and rejecting integration as a ‘middle-class goal’

1965-67: Riots broke out all over the country Watts: August 1965; 34 dead, 4000 jailed, $35

million property damage Chicago and Cleveland: 1966 Newark and Detroit: 1967—101st

Airborne brought in Riots focus attention on plight of urban blacks 1960s 70% black in large cities concentrated

in inner city ghettos thus defacto segregation via residential pattern not dejure segregation amenable to change in law as in the South

Thus...increasing militancy

Black Panthers

Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, 1966 Negro advancement can come only through

violent confrontation with civil and police authority

Oakland, CA: Quasi-military organization Hold that Negro communities in US should

acquire full control of their own economic, social, political and educational institutions and must have own self-defense or police forces

1960-70s number of members indicted for acts of violence or conspiracy to commit violence—few convicted

In-class Exercise Using your text and lecture, create

a timeline of African American Minority-Dominant Relations noting legal, social and economic changes.