Race and Ethnicity in America:Past and Present

Tim Standaert

U.S. Embassy Kyiv

12th American Studies Summer Institute

“The Idea of America: A Look at U.S. Government, Society, and Innovation in the Early 21st Century”

June 5-10, 2011

Approaches to fight segregation

Individuals citizens Groups, e.g., NAACP (National Association for the

Advancement of Colored People), Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

Government Judiciary (courts) Executive (President, federal government, governors,

mayors) Legislative

Approaches to fight segregation

Petition – asking government to fix an injustice Demonstrations and protest

Pickets – holding signs and marching Non-violent civil disobedience – willingness to go to jail Marches Boycott - economic pressure

Organizing, banding together (NAACP, SCLC, SNCC) Court cases Use of media Politics – supporting candidates, running for office, etc. Etc…

“Jim Crow” Laws

Mid-1880s Southern States Strict Segregation of

the Races State Laws violated

14th (civil rights) and 15th (universal suffrage) Amendments

Slave Trade

Slave Trade

Plessy v. Ferguson

1896 Lawsuits filed to

overturn “Jim Crow” segregation laws

Supreme Court ruled for segregation

Established “Separate but Equal”

Separate not Equal

Separate not Equal

Separate not Equal

Separate not Equal

Jackie Robinson

1944 Star athlete Jackie

Robinson served in the Army during WWII

Refused to move to the back of an Army transport bus when stationed at Ft. Hood, Texas

Court-martialed, but acquitted

Military Desegregation

Military Segregated Black soldiers weren’t

allowed to fight WWII and Korean War 1951 - Military

formally integrated

Shelly vs. Kraemer

1940s – Blacks migrated to northern cities

Restrictive covenants confined them to segregated ghettos

1948 – Supreme Court ruled that covenants were unconstitutional

Blacks began settling in formerly all-white neighborhoods

White Flight

New highways and suburban development in the 1940s and 1950s

Minorities moved into all-white schools and neighborhoods

Whites moved out to the suburbs

Inner cities became predominantly poor and black

Brown v. Board of Education

1954 Black family sued the

Board of Education in Topeka, Kansas over school segregation

Brown vs. Board of Education

1954 Supreme Court rules that

“Separate was not Equal” Overturned Plessy vs.

Ferguson, 1896 Supreme Court case that

Brown vs. Board of Education

“In the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently [by their very nature] unequal.”

“В сфері публічної освіти не може існувати доктрини ‘окремі, але рівні’. Окремі учбові заклади є нерівними за своєю природою.”

Rosa Parks

December 1, 1955 Segregated buses in

Montgomery, Alabama Rosa Parks arrested for

refusing to give her seat to a white man on a crowded bus

Led to Montgomery Bus Boycott

Montgomery Bus Boycott

December 3, 1955 – December 20, 1956

75% of bus passengers were black

Black community organized peaceful boycott

Received national attention Supreme Court ruled that

Alabama law was unconstitutional

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Leader of the Montgomery Bus Boycott

Organized nonviolent protests and marches against segregation

Attracted positive media coverage, and brought segregation to national attention

School Integration: Central High School

Little Rock, Arkansas

After Brown v. Topeka Board of Education ruling:

Some schools integrated peacefully

Other communities shut the public schools and sent all white students to private ‘academies.’

1957 – Arkansas Governor Faubus used soldiers to block 9 black students from Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.

School Integration: Central High School

Little Rock, Arkansas

1957 – President Eisenhower sends in the U.S. Army to integrate Central High School.

School Integration: Central High School

Little Rock, Arkansas

1957 – President Eisenhower sends in the U.S. Army to integrate Central High School.

School Integration: Central High School

Little Rock, Arkansas

Stand in the Schoolhouse Door

Alabama government resisted public school integration

1963 – Three black students registered at University of Alabama

Governor George Wallace blocked the doors

President Kennedy sent soldiers to force Wallace to admit the students

Sit-Ins

Technique Gandhi used in India. Black students used in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1960. Quickly spread.

Sit-Ins

Instruction sheet used for sit-ins in Nashville, Tennessee (first Southern city to desegregate public places):

•Don’t strike back or curse back if abused… Don’t block entrances to stores and aisles.•Show yourself friendly and courteous at all times.•Sit straight and always face the counter.•Remember the teachings of Jesus Christ, Mohandas K. Gandhi, and Martin Luther King.•Remember love and nonviolence, may God bless each of you.

Sit-Ins

Freedom Rides

1961 - Groups of Blacks and whites, riding together on interstate buses into the South, to test ability of Blacks to exercise their legal rights.

Violence: Anniston, Alabama – KKK, fire bombed the bus Atlanta, Georgia – beaten in “whites only” waiting

room. Montgomery, Alabama – mob attack

Kennedy Administration – directs Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) to enforce integration.

Birmingham

1963 – King led a two-month campaign against segregation in Birmingham

Birmingham chosen on purpose

White police used dogs and fire hoses against peaceful protesters

Birmingham

Birmingham

Birmingham

Birmingham

Birmingham

Public opinion turned against segregationists Local leaders decide to desegregate.

Birmingham

March on Washington

1963 – Coalition of civil rights groups marched on Washington, D.C.

Demanded an end to racial segregation in public school

Demanded meaningful civil rights legislation, including a law prohibiting racial discrimination in employment

March on Washington

Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights Act of 1965

Outlawed segregation in schools, workplaces and public facilities

Extended voting rights

Desegregation

Desegregation – officially abolished.

Real integration – an ongoing process.

De facto segregation. Racism not abolished. Policy debates:

Affirmative Action Education: buses, quotas,

school budgets.

Freedom Summer

Registering Black voters in the South June 1964 Murder of 3 Civil Rights workers:

Andrew Goodman James Earl Cheney Michael Schwerner

Edgar Ray Killen not convicted until 2005

Race, Ethnicity, and Tolerance

Race, Ethnicity, and Tolerance

•Treatment of Muslims-Americans, especially in post-Septermber 11th America.•“World Trade Center Mosque” controversy

Struggle For Gay Rights

Struggle For Gay Rights

America Today

Many members of minority communities have enjoyed great success in America

Many minorities still live in “unintegrated” communities

Racial stereotypes persist. Ideal remains: “All Men

Are Created Equal.”

Questions?