III. The Struggle for Equal Rights

• Many struggles for minority groups in 1960’s to gain equal rights:A. Civil rights for African AmericansB. American Indian MovementC. Equal rights for Hispanic AmericansD. Women’s Liberation Movement

A. Black Civil Rights Movement1. JFK’s Civil Rights Record• Kennedy’s hand forced by civil rights groups• 1961: JFK sends federal troops to the south

after white mobs savagely attack CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) freedom riders in Alabama (defying unconstitutional segregation of interstate buses)

• JFK hesitated to support civil rights fully: afraid of splitting up the Democratic Party & setting of filibusters in the Senate and losing the re-election

• Appointed many African Americans to federal offices, but also placed white segregationists to many positions

• Took 2 years to fulfill his campaign promise of signing an executive order to end segregation in federally funded housing

• 1962 JFK sends troops to Univ. Mississippi to protect James Meredith (1st black student enrolled)

• 2. Baptist Pastor, head of Southern Christian Leadership, Conference fall of 1960 MLK joins forces with CORE

• Mississippi Freedom Summer Project (volunteer college students to run freedom schools (literacy skills to blacks)

• used sit-ins, etc to challenge the status quo in MI & GA to encourage Blacks to resist segregation and to register to vote.

2. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Video: SNCC Brown University video

• 1963 – MLK Jr exposes viciousness of black racists in the south and compels JFK to act,

• Leads marches, sit-ins, and pray-ins in Birmingham, Alabama

• Birmingham Police Chief Bull Conner send police in front of cameras with electric cattle prods, pressure water hoses and attack dogs against the peaceful demonstrators

• Televised brutality aroused intl indignation

• Allows Kennedy to convince Alabama leaders to desegregate stores and upgrade African American employees

• Concessions won encourage Freedom NOW protest in hundreds of other cities

• Kennedy begins to realize that if the federal govt didn’t commit the nation to peaceful and constructive reform of racial relations, African Americans might begin to follow leaders who preached the need for violence

• JFK forces segregationist governer George Wallace (Alabama) to desegregate Univ. Of Alabama (Wallace attempted to block entry to 2 black students)

• June, 1963 JFK proposed a broad civil rights bill

• March on Washington, August 28, 1963MLK delivers “I have a Dream” speech

Video: I have a dream Speech

• MLK Unable to convince congress to pass the civil rights bill

• Southern white terrorism against African Americans continues:o Medgar Evers, head of MI chapter NAACP

assassinated by KKK in June 1963 oChurch bombing in Birmingham, killing 6

children in September 1963

Civil Rights Movement Under JFK• Mood of black movement insistent but goals

still moderate– Directed against segregation and inequality, not

against white America• MLK Jr by far most popular leader• 90% of black population supported JFK

Goal of the revolution = integration“wanted not to get out of white society but to get deeper into it.”

LBJ takes up the torch• LBJ urges Congress to pass Civil Rights Bill and

proposes Tax cut as a memorial to JFK• Johnson’s speech at Gettysburg:

“we do not answer those who lie beneath this soil – when we reply to the Negro by asking, ‘Patience’.”

• MLK :“I am happy to know that a fellow Southerner is in the White House who is concerned about civil rights.”

A Time of Revolution• Summer of 1963

‘vast majority’ of blacks now demanded an immediate end to all forms of discrimination. ‘We have woke up,” one Alabama woman said. Black leaders were all more or less militant, ‘partly by choice-and partly because they have no choice.’ Their followers wanted ‘complete equality, nothing less.’ They wanted it right away. And three out of four of them would not be deterred if that meant bloodshed. ‘Fights, shooting’, said an unemployed black man in Miami, shrugging, ‘it takes that to make the world better.’

Building Tensions• Nations’ resources deflected by Vietnam• Liberals and blacks frustrated by limits of

Great society• Race riots in hundreds of U.S. cities in

1964=alienating white middle class from movement

Race Riots 1965-1968

The Long, Hot Summers• (1965-1968)– Race riots in cities around the country– $5 M in property damage, 7,000 injured; 200

casualties

Johnson’s Response– Johnson’s investigation found causes: persisting

white racism which subjected black Americans to poverty, slum housing, poor education, police brutality

– Report recommended more Federal aid to poor urban African Americans

– Johnson did not act

Black Power– Radicalization of the civil rights movement– Initially influenced by teachings of the Nation of

Islam under Elijah Mohammed then Malcom X– Race pride, self determination– Rejected MLK’s non-violence

Malcolm X, Black Muslims, Nation of Islam– Questioned value of integration– After 1966, SNCC and CORE switch from interracial,

integrationists to all black militant separatists willing to engage in violent confrontations

– Angry rhetoric of Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown– Black panthers: same violent message

Video: Malcom X and MLK Debate

What are the main differences between their approaches concerning the following:

• Non-violent resistance• whites• desegregation• riots

B. American Indian Movement

• Inspired by Civil Rights Movement for African-Americans

• Sense of pride and redress of grievances• 1961 400 members of 67 tribes gather to denounce

Termination policy– Withdrawal of federal gov’t recognition of tribes as legal

entities– Subject to same local jurisdiction as whites– Policy of cultural assimilation, loss of cultural

distinctiveness

• Demands to include Indians in War on Poverty program

• Johnson responded by ending Indian Termination Policy and endorsing Indian self-determination

• Created National Council on Indian Opportunity: directed more Federal funding into improving conditions on Indian reservations

• 1968 because of persistent poverty, militant young native Americans organize AIM (American Indian Movement)

• Call for Red Power• 1968 Congress passes Indian Civil Rights Act

– Accords protection of Bill of Rights + legitimacy of tribal laws within reservations

• 1969 – Dissatisfaction – Occupy federal prison on Alcatraz Island offshore from San Francisco for 1 ½ years

• 1970 – Nixon promises increased tribal self-determination & federal aid

• 1972 – demonstrators occupy building of Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington 6 days

• 1973 - Wounded Knee, SD – AIM seizes and occupies town - symbolic place of suffering– Demand radical changes of administration of reservations– Federal gov’t treaty obligations– Hostages, starved out by federal troops

• Equality and Justice not attained but new legal rights and protections strengthen their position

Homework: Reading Assignments• Unfinished Nation, Chapter 30: The Other America, pp. 797-803

– Rural poverty; inner cities; The Rise of the Civil Rights Movement; The Brown Decision and Massive Resistance; The expanding movement; Causes of the Civil Rights Movement

• Unfinished Nation, Chapter 31: The ordeal of Liberalism pp. 819-824; 834-839– The Battle for Racial Equality, expanding protests, a national

commitment; the battle for voting rights; the changing movement; urban violence; black power

– The King Assassination; The Kennedy Assassination and Chicago• Unfinished Nation, Chapter 32: The Crisis of Authority pp. 848-

855– The mobilization of minorities; seeds of Indian Militancy; The Indian

Civil Rights Movement; Latino Activism; The New Feminism• Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, Chapter

19: Surprises (see blog)– Women’s Movement and Native American Movement