Race Relations& the Civil Rights Movement

Keeping the “movement” in the continuing struggle

for equality

Something to ponder…

Thomas Jefferson said, “All men are created equal…” If this is true, then why is legislation still necessary to guarantee what is already declared in the United States Declaration of Independence? Why are there groups of people who work to ensure that “man” be treated equally? Why is it that in the most democratic of all democracies, man still is not guaranteed life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?

Organizing for Civil RightsNational Association for the Advancement of Colored People

• January 1909: interracial group assembled at the New York apartment of William English Walling to discuss proposals for an organization that would advocate the civil and political rights of African Americans

• The organizational goals were the abolition of segregation, discrimination, disenfranchisement, and racial violence, particularly lynching.

• W.E.B. DuBois—Founding Father

Jim Crow: Legitimization of anti-black racism

• 1877-mid 1960s

Jim Crow Laws

• “It shall be unlawful for a negro and white person to play together or in company with each other in any game of cards or dice, dominoes or checkers.” Birmingham, Alabama 1930

• “Any white woman who shall suffer or permit herself to be got with child by a negro or mulatto…shall be sentenced to the penitentiary for not less than eighteen months.” Maryland, 1924

Integration of Armed Forces

July 26, 1948: President Truman issued executive order:

• “Equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed forces without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin." Chicago Defender, July 31, 1948.

• This was a major victory for civil rights advocates in the quest for full citizenship

School Segregationclick here for video

Psychological Effects of Racism

• In the "doll test," popularized by social psychologists Kenneth Bancroft Clark and his wife, Mamie Phipps Clark (1940s), children were given a black doll and a white doll and asked which one they preferred. Most black children preferred the white doll.

Brown v. Topeka Board of Education

Briggs v. Elliott (SC)

Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County (VA)

Gebhart v. Belton (Del)

Bolling v. Sharpe (DC)

• George E.C. Hayes, Thurgood Marshall, and James Nabrit, congratulating each other following Supreme Court decision declaring segregation unconstitutional.

• May 1954

President Harry S. Truman

• First 20th century president to actively support civil rights legislation

• July of 1948, passed a number of executive orders to attack discrimination and segregation in federal employment

• Appointed the first black judge to the federal bench

• Integrated military during World War II

• Proposed a bill to make lynching a federal crime

Rosa Parks & The Montgomery Bus Boycott 1955

• Failed to give up her seat on a public bus to a white person

• Arrested for violating a city ordinance

• Event sparked city-wide, 381-day, bus boycott

• “Mother of the Civil Rights Movement”

Little Rock 9

• Little Rock Arkansas begins desegregation of Central High School in September 1957.

• Arkansas governor Orval Faubus ordered the Arkansas National Guard to preserve order, a euphemism for keeping the nine prospective African American students out.

• September 25, 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower federalized the Arkansas National Guard and deployed paratroopers to carry out the desegregation orders.

Central High School Integration then now

• CNN article-click here

Sit-Ins• In 1960 four freshmen from North

Carolina Agricultural and Technical College in Greensboro strolled into the F. W. Woolworth store and quietly sat down at the lunch counter. They were not served. The next morning they came with twenty-five more students. Within weeks similar demonstrations had spread to over a hundred cities, in both the North and South.

• At Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, the students formed their own organization, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, pronounced "Snick"). The students' bravery in the face of verbal and physical abuse led to integration in many stores even before the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

May 1961 The "Freedom Riders"

• Civil rights activists-black and white sought to "test" enforcement of a recent Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation in bus terminals. 

• They boarded two busses in Washington, D.C. and were bound to New Orleans via South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama.

• At various bus terminals, the black "Freedom Riders" would go to the white dining areas and waiting rooms while the white "Freedom Riders" would go to the area reserved for blacks.

• During the journey, Freedom Riders were often accosted and beaten; one of their busses was firebombed.

Medgar EversBorn July 2, 1925, in Mississippi Drafted into U.S. Army in 1943: served

in WW IIAttended Alcorn College, began to

establish local chapters of the NAACP- 1952.

1954-appointed Mississippi’s first field secretary for the NAACP

June 12, 1963, shot in the back outside his home as his wife and children looked on, buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Accused killer-white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith, stood trial twice in the 1960s-both ended in mistrials

Beckwith was convicted in a third trial in 1994, and sentenced to life in prison-died 2001

August 28, 1963The March on Washington

• To pressure the government and Congress to act more quickly on the civil rights agenda, a massive march on the nation's capital was planned.

• According to estimates, over 250,000 participated in the demonstration which culminated in the speech given by Reverend Martin Luther King

click here to hear MLK speech

Civil Rights Act of 1964

President Kennedy proposed

legislation

President Johnson

signed into law

Selma MarchMarch 9, 1965

• Draw national attention to the struggle for black voting rights and support for the Voting Rights Act of 1965

• Police beat and tear-gassed the marchers just outside of Selma (Bloody Sunday)

• Two weeks later, more than 3,000 people set out again for Montgomery

• Arrived 5 days later, with MLK addressing the crowd of some 20,000 people

Malcolm (Little) X

• Born May 1925, Omaha Nebraska

• June 29, 1963, lead the Unity Rally in Harlem--one of the nations largest civil rights events

• Assassinated Feb. 21, 1965

• "I believe in the brotherhood of man, all men, but I don’t believe in brotherhood with anybody who doesn’t want brotherhood with me. I believe in treating people right, but I’m not going to waste my time trying to treat somebody right who doesn’t know how to return the treatment." -- Speech, Dec. 12 1964, New York City

Civil Rights Memorial‘Honoring the memory’

• The circular fountain provides a timeline of important events, beginning in 1954 with the Supreme Court decision to integrate schools and ending with Dr. King's murder in 1968.

• It also records the names of 40 men, women, and children who lost their lives working for social justice.

• A thin pool of water flows soothingly over this circular "table”.

• "We [those fighting for social equality] will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream."

Dr. Martin Luther King

Civil Rights Memorial

The End

Thank you for watching….this presentation is dedicated to every

person who has lost their lives in the courageous fight for racial equality.