1. Taking a Stand! A look at Protest and Demonstrations during
the Civil Rights Movement Brian Henry and Ashley Reisinger Longwood
University
2. Related SOL Objective USII.9 The student will demonstrate
knowledge of the key domestic and international issues during the
second half of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries by a)
examining the Civil Rights Movement and the changing role of women;
b) describing the development of new technologies in communication,
entertainment, and business and their impact on American life; c)
identifying representative citizens from the time period who have
influenced America scientifically, culturally, academically, and
economically; d) examining American foreign policy, immigration,
the global environment, and other emerging issues.
3. Civil Rights Movement The Civil Rights Movement took place
in the United States and was at its peak from 1955 to 1968. This
was a movement to end the racial discrimination of blacks in the
United States of America
4. Claudette Colvin, March 1955 At the age of fifteen she
refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama for a
white person. Colvin was one of the first to really publicly
challenge the law of segregation, and she ended up getting
arrested. She was charged for violating segregation laws. This took
place nine months before the Rosa Parks demonstration
5. Emmitt Till, August 1955 Was an African-American boy who was
murdered in Mississippi at the age of fourteen He was kidnapped,
brutally beaten, shot, and dumped in the Tallahatchie River for
allegedly whistling at a white woman. Two white men, J. W. Milam
and Roy Bryant, are arrested for the murder and acquitted by an
all-white jury Many view the murder of Till and the court ruling of
the suspects to be the start of the Civil Rights Movement.
6. Rosa Parks, December 1955 Parks refused to obey bus driver
James F. Blake's order that she give up her seat in the colored
section to a white passenger, after the white section was filled
Called The First Lady Of the Civil Rights Movement by the US
Congress
7. Discussion Question Why do you think Rosa Parks is more
known then Claudette Colvin?
8. Answer For a long time, Montgomery's black leaders did not
publicize Colvin's pioneering effort because she was a teenager and
became pregnant while unmarried. Given the social norms of the time
and her youth, the members of the NAACP worried she wouldnt be a
good representative
9. Montgomery Bus Boycott, Dec. 1955Dec. 1956 Blacks boycotted
the city buses Boycott started after Rosa Parks arrest for refusal
to give up seat on bus Ended when the federal ruling of Browder v.
Gayle, took effect, and led to a United States Supreme Court
decision that declared the Alabama and Montgomery laws requiring
segregated buses to be unconstitutional
10. Little Rock Nine, September 1957 Ernest Green, Elizabeth
Eckford, Jefferson Thomas, Terrence Roberts, Carlotta Walls LaNier,
Minnijean Brown, Gloria Ray Karlmark, Thelma Mothershed, and Melba
PattilloBeals were the nine students who enrolled at Little Rock
Central High School These students were initially prevented from
entering the racially segregated school by OrvalFaubus, the
Governor of Arkansas. They then attended after President Eisenhower
sent troops to escort the Little Rock Nine into school
11. Greensboro Four, February 1960 Joseph McNeil, Franklin
McCain, Ezell Blair, Jr., and David Richmond These men sat at the
counter of Woolworths until closing, to protest segregation The
next day, twenty people took part in the sit ins. The number of
participants continued to grow until many of the businesses ended
their policies on segregated lunch counters.
12. Freedom Riders, May 1961 Civil rights activists who rode
interstate buses into the segregated southern United States in 1961
to challenge the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court
decisions Irene Morgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia and Boynton v.
Virginia, which ruled that segregated public buses were
unconstitutional Police arrested riders for trespassing, unlawful
assembly, and violating state and local Jim Crow laws, along with
other alleged offenses, but they often first let white mobs attack
them without intervention.
13. Birmingham Campaign, 1963 A movement organized by the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference to bring attention to the
integration efforts of the black Americans in Birmingham, Alabama.
Led by Martin Luther King, Jr. The campaign used a variety of
nonviolent methods of confrontation, including sit-ins at libraries
and lunch counters, kneel-ins by black visitors at white churches,
and a march to the county building to mark the beginning of a
voter-registration drive Birmingham, Ala., Commissioner of Public
Safety Eugene "Bull" Connor uses fire hoses and police dogs on
black demonstrators. These images of brutality, which are televised
and published widely, are instrumental in gaining sympathy for the
civil rights movement around the world.
14. Discussion Question The Birmingham campaign was a
nonviolent campaign that was met with violence from the police. Why
do you think it was so important that the protesters stayed
violence free?
15. March on Washington, August 1963 It took place in
Washington, D.C. Thousands of Americans headed to Washington on
Tuesday August 27, 1963. On Wednesday, August 28, 1963. Martin
Luther King, Jr., standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial,
delivered his historic "I Have a Dream Estimates of the number of
participants varied from 200,000 to 300,000.Observers estimated
that 7580% of the marchers were black
16. Selma to Montgomery March, March 1965 Blacks begin a march
to Montgomery in support of voting rights but are stopped at the
Pettus Bridge by a police blockade. Fifty marchers are hospitalized
after police use tear gas, whips, and clubs against them. The
incident is dubbed "Bloody Sunday" by the media. The march is
considered the catalyst for pushing through the voting rights act
five months later
17. Events in Virginia
18. Barbara Johns, April 1951 Farmville, VA A 16-year-old
student named Barbara Rose Johns covertly organized a student
strike. She forged notes to teachers telling them to bring their
students to the auditorium for a special announcement. When the
school's students showed up, Johns took the stage and persuaded the
school to strike to protest poor school conditions. Over 450
students walked out and marched to the homes of members of the
school board, who refused to see them. Thus began a two-week
protest The school did not have a gymnasium, cafeteria or teachers'
restrooms. Teachers and students did not have desks or blackboards,
and due to overcrowding, some students had to take classes in an
immobilized, decrepit school bus parked outside the main school
building. The all-white school board denied their plea for more
funding
19. Sit-Ins Across Virginia, 1960 Following the Greensboro Four
sit-in, the number of sit-in in Virginia rapidly increased Feb. 11,
1960 Hampton, Va. Hampton University Feb. 20, 1960 Richmond, Va.
Feb. 26, 1960 Petersburg, Va. March 26, 1960 Lynchburg, Va. April
12, 1960 Norfolk, Va.
20. Farmville Kneel-In, July 1963 Six adults and seventeen
students were arrested on July 28, 1963, for attempting to
desegregate downtown Farmville churches. The protests came just a
month before the March on Washington and Dr. Martin Luther Kings I
Have a Dream speech
21. Discussion Question What do you think is the best form of
protest?
22. Work Consulted Civil Rights Era Timeline.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/aaworld/timeline/civil_01.html. PBS.
Arlington, VA. Civil Right Demonstrations.
http://www.sitinmovement.org/index.asp. International Civil Rights
Center and Museum Greensboro, NC.