The Civil Rights Movement
Brown vs. Board of Education• Brought by 13 Kansas parents on
behalf of 20 children; recruited by NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People)
• Thurgood Marshall: Black lawyer, who would become first Black on Supreme Court
• Topeka High and middle schools already integrated
• Separate elementary schools were of equal quality: argument based on racial segregation alone
• 1954: Landmark 9-0 Supreme Court decision, overturning its earlier ruling, declaring separate public schools for blacks and whites inherently unequal
• Paved the way for integration and the Civil Rights Movement
Arkansas Crisis
• 1957: Arkansas governor Faubus ordered National Guard to exclude “Little Rock Nine” from Central HS
• Eisenhower used federal troops to force high school to accept them
• 1957: national school desegregation placed under federal control
• 1958-9: Faubus closed all high schools in Little Rock to avoid integration
• 1959: School re-opened, integrated
Little Rock Nine sculpture now on steps of Arkansas capitol
Montgomery Bus Boycott
• 1955: Rosa Parks, NAACP officer, refused to give up bus seat when asked
• NAACP organized boycott of Montgomery busses, led by Martin L. King
• Boycott 381 days, supported by UAW, Blacks nationwide, sympathetic Whites
• 1956: Supreme Court outlawed bus segregation
Martin Luther King, Jr• Baptist minister from
Montgomery, educated in Boston
• Used Henry David Thoreau’s civil disobedience, Gandhi’s non-violence: conflicted with Malcolm X et al who at times advocated violent actions
• Through impassioned speeches, often with Christian rhetoric, sought to
– force White majority to see injustice of racial policies
– unite Black community behind struggle for equality
– unify Americans of all races toward progress and peace
• 1963: “I have a Dream” speech – just three months before JFK killed
Malcolm X• Malcolm X rose to oppose
King’s non-violent approach. He believed:
– Blacks should separate from White society
– Blacks should arm themselves for self-defense against Whites
– Blacks should identify with Africa and African culture
• Allied with Nation of Islam, a Muslim organization largely made of Black Americans
• 1965: Assassinated. 3 Nation of Islam members convicted, but all maintain their innocence. (All free after serving sentences.)
Civil Rights Acts under Johnson
• Civil Rights Act of 1964: prohibited discrimination on race, religion, origin, gender
• Voting Rights act of 1965: eliminated voter literacy tests
• Civil Rights Act of 1968: Prohibited discrimination in housing, made it a federal crime to harm civil rights workers
SNCC Organizes for Black Rights
• Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, “Snick”)
• Stokely Carmichael led marches in south for voter registration
• First used a black panther as logo in campaign to increase black vote in Alabama
• “Black Power” – "It is a call for black people in this
country to unite, to recognize their heritage, to build a sense of community. It is a call for black people to define their own goals, to lead their own organizations.“
• In Oakland, CA: Black Panthers party, to advocate black self-reliance and armed resistance to oppression