The Civil Rights Movement

Chapter 181954-1968

AbolitionistsFrederick Douglas was the editor of an

abolitionist newspaper, The North Star.

Harriet Tubman Helped slaves escape via the Underground

Railroad.

John BrownHe and his sons

brutally murdered 5 slave masters in Kansas. (1858)

Tried to incite a slave revolt at Harper’s Ferry, but failed. The slaves did not rise up.

Reconstruction 1865-77

After the War Between the States 1861-1865, the federal government made strides toward equality.

Blacks voted, held many political offices.

The Freedmen’s Bureau was a government program to help Blacks find land, it established schools and colleges.

ReconstructionThe Fourteenth

Amendment guaranteed all citizens with equal protection under the law.

The Fifteenth Amendment said the right to vote shall not be denied on the basis of race.

However. . .The Supreme Court

decided in Plessy vs. Ferguson that separate institutions are okay if they are equal.

Jim Crow laws required that Blacks have separate facilities.

Dallas Bus Station

Jim Crow Laws

Texas sign

Jim Crow Laws

Jim Crow Laws

Jim Crow Laws

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

(NAACP)Started by four white

Progressives (socialists)

Joined in 1909 by W.E.B. Dubois

Fought for equality as a Progressive socialist, later communist and finally left the U.S. as a social pariah

4 The Great Migration- The movement of 1.75 million black Americans out of the Southern U.S. to the North and Midwest and West from the early 1900’s -1930.

Early Civil Rights Concept Map

Time Period

Reconstruction to the Great Migration

1865-1930

People and Leaders

Gov’t Policies/Acts

Early Civil Rights

Actions/ Agencies

Early Civil Rights Quiz1. Name an early civil rights leader and their

contribution.

2. Name the two amendments pertaining to freed blacks and what they concern.

3. What were the laws that allowed segregation?

4. What organization started fighting for civil rights?

5. What was the movement of southern blacks to the north and west?

School DesegregationBrown v. The Board of Education of Topeka, KS was the case in which, on 17 May 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that racial segregation in public schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which says that no state may deny equal protection of the laws to any person within its jurisdiction. The 1954 decision declared that separate educational facilities were inherently unequal. Based on a series of Supreme Court cases argued between 1938 and 1950, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka completed the reversal of an earlier Supreme Court ruling (Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896) that permitted “separate but equal” public facilities. The 1954 decision was limited to the public schools, but it was believed to imply that segregation was not permissible in other public facilities.

In 1957, Little Rock, AR became the focus of world attention over the right of nine black students to attend Central High School under a gradual desegregation plan adopted by the city school board in accordance with the 1954 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court holding racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional. The result was a test of power between the federal and state governments. Governor Orval E. Faubus ordered state militia to prevent blacks from entering the school, but the state was enjoined from interfering by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who sent federal troops to the city to maintain order. Within the next decade, desegregation was accomplished in all public schools.

NAACP fought in the courts

Thurgood Marshall was hired by the NAACP to argue in the Supreme Court against school segregation. He won.

He was later the 1st Black Supreme Court Justice.

Thurgood Marshall

Brown vs. Board of Education 1954

Civil RightsRights have been expanded through legislation. Since 1957, federal Civil Rights Acts and a Voting Rights Acts have been passed in an effort to guarantee voting rights, access to housing, and equal opportunity in employment. These have been accompanied by much state and local civil rights legislation.

Throughout recent history, people have organized to struggle for rights to which they felt entitled either by law or by a sense of justice. In the United states, black militancy spread in the 1950’s and ‘60’s through the activities of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) headed by Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). These groups achieved major successes in arousing national opinion against segregation in the South and in stimulating the civil rights legislation of the 1960’s. They failed, however, to eliminate some of the deep-rooted segregation patterns in urban areas of the country in the North primarily.

The FightMany black Americans and

whites risked their lives and lost their lives to remedy this situation.

Rosa Parks was not the first, but she was the beginning of something special.

Civil DisobedienceCivil disobedience is the act of disobeying a law on the grounds of moral or political principle. It is an attempt to force society to accept a dissenting point of view. Although it adopts tactics of nonviolence, it is more than mere passive resistance since it often takes active forms such as illegal street demonstrations or peaceful occupation of premises. It is distinguished from other forms of rebellion because the civil disobeyer invites arrest and accepts punishment.

The most ambitious and perhaps most successful examples of mass civil disobedience were those of Mohandas K. Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. Gandhi called civil disobedience—satyagraha, a term meaning “truth-force,” and taught it as an austere practice requiring great self-discipline and moral purity. With a versatile use of disobedience, Gandhi led the campaign for Indian independence. In the 1940’s, American blacks and their white sympathizers began to use forms of civil disobedience to challenge discrimination in public transportation and restaurants, but the major movement began in 1955 with illegal sit-ins in support of boycotts of segregated establishments. King was the chief advocate of nonviolent civil disobedience in the civil rights movement of the 1960’s.

Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955Rosa Parks was arrested for violating the

segregation laws of Montgomery, Alabama.

Free At Last, Free At LastAfter a black woman, Rosa Parks, was arrested for refusing to move to the Negro section of a bus in Montgomery, AL on 1 Dec 1955, blacks staged a one-day local boycott of the bus system to protest her arrest. Fusing these protest elements with the historic force of the Negro churches, a local Baptist minister, Martin Luther King, Jr., succeeded in transforming a spontaneous racial protest into a massive resistance movement, led from 1957 by his Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). After a protracted boycott of the Montgomery bus company forced it to desegregate its facilities, picketing and boycotting spread rapidly to other communities. During the period from 1955 to 1960, some progress was made toward integrating schools and other public facilities in the upper South and the border states, but the Deep South remained adamant in its opposition to most desegregation measures.

In 1960, the sit-in movement (largely under the auspices of the newly formed Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee- SNCC) was launched at Greensboro, NC, when black college students insisted on service at a local segregated lunch counter. Patterning its techniques on the nonviolent methods of Indian leader Mohandas K. Gandhi, the movement spread across the nation, forcing the desegregation of department stores, supermarkets, libraries, and movie theaters. In May 1961, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) sent “Freedom Riders” of both races through the South and elsewhere to test and break down segregated accommodations in interstate transportation. By September, it was

Free At Last, Free At Last (cont’d)estimated that more than 70,000 students had participated in the movement, with approximately 3,600 arrested; more than 100 cities in 20 states had been affected. The movement reached its climax in Aug 1963 with a massive march on Washington, D.C., to protest racial discrimination and demonstrate support for major civil-rights legislation that was pending in Congress.

In Response. . .For over a year,

Blacks boycotted the buses.

They carpooled and walked through all weather conditions

Many were arrested for an “illegal boycott” including their leader. . .

Martin Luther King Jr.

While the NAACP fought in the courts, MLK’s organization led the boycott.

http://www.africanaonline.com/Graphic/rosa_parks_bus.gif

King’s sacrificeKing was arrested

thirty times in his 38 year life.

His house was bombed or nearly bombed several other times

Death threats constantly

Success!

Gandhi inspired King to be direct and nonviolent towards whites.

Violence never solves problems. It only creates new and more complicated ones. If we succumb to the temptation of using violence in our struggle for justice, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness, and our chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos.

--Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Facing the Challenge of a New Age

Sit ins

This was in Greensboro, North Carolina

They were led not by MLK but by college students—Students Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

Sit-in TacticsDress in your Sunday best.

Be respectful to employees and police.

Do not resist arrest!

Do not fight back!

Remember, journalists are everywhere!

Students were ready to take your place if you had a class to attend.

Why march and risk personal injury?

Headlines!People around

the world will convert to your cause if they see you on TV or on the front page of the newspaper.

Birmingham, Alabama 1963

Police use dogs to quell civil unrest in Birmingham, Ala. in May of 1963. Birmingham's police commissioner "Bull" Connor also allowed fire hoses to be turned on young civil rights demonstrators.

Birmingham

BirminghamWhite America saw 500

kids get arrested and attacked with dogs.

There was much support now for civil rights legislation.

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Banned segregation in public places such as restaurants, buses

Everybody Gets to VoteThe Voting Rights Act was passed by the U.S. Congress in 1965. In 1957 and 1960, Congress had passed laws to protect the rights of black voters, and the 24th Amendment (1964) banned the use of poll taxes in federal elections. Nevertheless, in the presidential elections of 1964, blacks continued to have difficulty registering to vote in many areas. Voter registration drives met with bitter, and sometimes violent, opposition. In March 1965, Martin Luther King, Jr., led a march from Selma to Montgomery, AL, to dramatize the voting issue. Immediately after the march, President Lyndon B. Johnson sent a voting bill to Congress, and it was quickly passed.

The Voting Rights Act authorized the U.S. Attorney General to send federal examiners to register black voters under certain circumstances. It also suspended literacy tests in states in which less than 50% of the voting-age population had been registered or had voted in the 1964 election. The law had an immediate impact. By the end of 1965, a quarter of a million new black voters had been registered, one third by federal examiners. The Voting Rights Act was readopted and strengthened in 1970, 1975, and 1982.

Voter Registration

Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) volunteers came to Mississippi to register Blacks to vote.

These volunteers risked arrest, violence and death every day.

The FightThis man

spent 5 days in jail for “carrying a placard.”

Sign says “Voter registration worker”

"Your work is just beginning. If you go back home and sit down and take what these white men in Mississippi are doing to us. ...if you take it and don't do something about it. ...then *%# damn your souls."

— Mississippi CORE leader Dave Dennis delivering the eulogy for James Chaney, murdered by cops and Klan in Philadelphia MS, 1964.

Voter RegistrationIf blacks

registered to vote, the local banks could call the loan on their farm.

Lyndon B. Johnson ’63-’68

Pushed Civil Rights Act through Congress against his own Democratic party (Dixiecrats)

Passed more pro-civil rights laws than any other president

Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ)

Civil Rights Act of ’64

Civil Rights Act of ’68

Voting Rights Act of ’65

24th Amendment banning poll taxes

Not only were there sit-ins. .

Swim-ins (beaches, pools)

Kneel-ins (churches)

Drive-ins (at motels)

Study-ins (universities)

Hydrochloric Acid in a St. Augustine, FL Swimming Pool Swim-in

In 1964, a few young blacks decided to take a dip in a whites-only pool at a whites-only hotel in St. Augustine, Florida. The hotel’s owner, James Brock, reacted by emptying jugs of hydrochloric acid into the water to expel the unwanted swimmers.This act of civil disobedience was one among many in the small city on the northeast coast of Florida, which in 1964 was celebrating its 400th anniversary. Because of that anniversary, the national spotlight was already on America’s oldest settlement, and the leaders of the civil rights movement took advantage of that attention to bring some to their own cause.

Modern Civil Rights Begins Semantic Map

Civil Rights

Movement

School Desegregation

OrganizationsImpetus

Civil Disobedience

Legislation

Modern Civil Rights Begins Quiz1. Name 2 other civil rights leaders other than

Martin Luther King, Jr.

2. Whose arrest sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott?

3. Name one of the Civil Rights Groups formed during the 1950s-60s.

4. Who inspired MLK’s nonviolent strategies?

5. Which Supreme Court case integrated schools?

The Civil Rights Bill of 1957 The Civil Rights Act of 1957 was introduced in Eisenhower’s presidency and was the act that kick-started the civil rights legislative programme that was to include the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Eisenhower had not been known for his support of the civil rights movement. Rather than lead the country on the issue, he had to respond to problems such as in Little Rock. He never publicly gave support to the civil rights movement believing that you could not force people to change their beliefs; such changes had to come from the heart of the people involved, not as the result of legislation from Washington.

However, he did push through during his presidency the 1957 Civil Rights Act. Cynics have stated that this was simply to win the ‘Black Vote’. Up to 1957, and for a variety of reasons, only 20% of African Americans had registered to vote. In Britain, the government takes the initiative in sending out voter registration forms which individuals have to return. In America it is up to each person to take the responsibility to register their vote. In the South plain intimidation and official apathy and obstacles meant that very few African Americans registered their vote. Those that did not disqualified themselves from voting.

The 1957 Civil Rights Bill aimed to ensure that all black Americans could exercise their right to vote. It wanted a new division within the federal Justice Department to monitor civil rights abuses and a joint report to be done by representatives of both major political parties (Democrats and Republicans) on the issue of race relations.

The Civil Rights Bill of 1957 (cont’d)

Eisenhower, perhaps shocked by the news broadcasts of Little Rock, publicly supported the bill (it was, after all, his Attorney-General who had produced the bill). However, the final act became a much watered done affair due to the lack of support among the Democrats. The Senate leader, Lyndon Baines Johnson, was a Democrat, and he realised that the bill and its journey through Congress, could tear apart his party as it had right wing Southern senators in it and liberal west coast ones.

In keeping with Congressional procedure, Johnson sent the bill to a judiciary committee which would examine it for flaws, controversial and unconstitutional points etc. This committee was led by Senator James Eastland - senator for Mississippi. Committee heads have great powers in changing bills and altering them almost beyond recognition. Eastland did just this especially after the very public outburst by Senator Richard Russell from Georgia who claimed that it was an example of the Federal government wanting to impose its laws on states, thus weakening highly protected states rights of self-government as stated in the Constitution. He was most critical of the new division which would be created within the Justice Department.

Johnson had other reasons for taking his stance. No civil rights act had been introduced into America for 82 years. If this one went through successfully and had support from both parties, it would do his position within the Democrats a great deal of good as he had plans in 1957 to be the party’s future presidential candidate. If he

The Civil Rights Bill of 1957 (cont’d)

could get the credit for maintaining party unity and get the support of the South’s Democrats for ‘killing the bill’, then his position would be greatly advanced. If he was seen to be pushing through the first civil rights act in 82 years he hoped to get the support of the more liberal west and east coast Democrat senators. However, he required Eisenhower to remove Section 3 of the bill before passage. Section 3 allowed the Federal Attorney General to bring suit for matters of civil rights violations.

The Civil Rights Act of 1957 maintained the mood of the bill - it aimed to increase the number of registered black voters and stated its support for such a move. However, any person found guilty of obstructing someone’s right to register barely faced the prospect of punishment as a trial by jury in the South meant the accused had to face an all-white jury as only whites could be jury members.

March on Washington 1963

President Kennedy was pushing for a civil rights bill.

To show support, 500,000 black Americans went to Washington D.C.

March on Washington 1963

The event was highlighted by King's "I Have a Dream" speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial. August 28, 1963.

School IntegrationThe attitude of many Northern and Southern

schools after the 1954 Brown decision was like:

FederalismWhen Federal troops are sent

to make states follow federal laws, this struggle for power is called federalism.

The Civil Rights Movement was mostly getting the federal government to make state governments to follow federal law.

Little Rock, Arkansas 1957

States were not following federal law. Feds were sent in.

James Meredith, University of Mississippi, escorted to class by U.S. marshals and troops. 2 Oct 1962.

Ole Miss fought against integration

200 were arrested during riots at Ole Miss

States ignored the ’54 Brown decision, so Feds were sent in.

The Federal Government Acts

The federal government under presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-61) and John F. Kennedy had been reluctant to vigorously enforce the Brown decision when this entailed directly confronting the resistance of Southern whites. In 1961-63, President Kennedy won a following in the black community by encouraging the movement’s leaders, but Kennedy’s administration lacked the political capacity to persuade Congress to pass new legislation guaranteeing integration and equal rights. After President Kennedy’s assassination (Nov 1963), Congress, under the prodding of President Lyndon B. Johnson, in 1964 passed the Civil Rights Act (q.v.). This was the most far-reaching bill in the nation’s history (indeed, in world history), forbidding discrimination in public accommodations and threatening to withhold federal funds from communities that persisted in maintaining segregated schools. It was followed in 1965 by the passage of the Voting Rights Act, the enforcement of which eradicated the tactics previously used in the South to disenfranchise black voters. This act led to drastic increases in the numbers of black registered voters in the South, with a comparable increase in the numbers of blacks holding elective offices there.

Harry Truman ordered the armed forces AND the government to be desegregated.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Sent 101st airborne to Little Rock, Arkansas to maintain order.

John F. Kennedy

Called Coretta Scott King to pledge support while MLK was in jail.

Eventually sent federal protection for freedom riders

Proposed need for civil rights legislation

Federal Government Intervenes Concept Map

Federal Government Intervention

Initial Legislation

Government Officials

Legislative Examples

Federal Government Intervenes Quiz

Thousands marched to the Courthouse in Montgomery to protest rough treatment given voting rights demonstrators. The Alabama Capitol is in the background. 18 Mar 1965

High Schoolers jailed for marching

Oh Wallace,    you never can jail us all,Oh Wallace,    segregation's bound to fall

Bloody SundayIn Selma,

pro-vote marchers face Alabama cops.

Selma to Montgomery, Alabama

Tending the wounded

Marchers cross the bridge

Many were arrested.

Police set up a rope barricade.

Marchers stayed there for days.

We're gonna stand here 'till it falls,‘Till it falls,‘Till it falls,We're gonna stand here 'till it fallsIn Selma, Alabama.

The Supreme Court ruled that protesters had a 1st Amendment right to march.

Crime Scene

This woman was killed by the KKK while on her way to join voter activists in Mississippi

Who was she?

Sacrifice for Suffrage

This is the interior of Viola Liuzzo's car with blood everywhere and her shoes still on the floor of the automobile. She was shot in the head twice by members of the Ku Klux Klan while driving a participant from the Selma to Montgomery freedom march to the Montgomery Airport.

Viola Fauver Gregg Liuzzo (April 11, 1925-March 25, 1965), a Unitarian Universalist committed to work for education and economic justice, gave her life for the cause of civil rights. The 39-year-old mother of five was murdered by white supremacists after her participation in the protest march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

Selma to Montgomery Part 2

Part 2

Freedom RidersNow it is time to test the small-town bus stops and highways!

Freedom RidersCORE volunteers, white

and black, got on buses and sat inter-racially on the bus.

They went into bus station lunch counters

Freedom Riders attacked!

Mobs also attacked them at the bus stations.

Highways

The highways were obviously not safe.

James Meredith, right, pulled himself to cover against a parked car after he was shot by a sniper. Meredith had been leading a march to encourage black Americans to vote. He recovered from the wound, and later completed the march. June 7, 1966

Malcolm X and MLK

There was no love lost between these two

They despised each other’s method to achieve racial equality

Left to right: Hosea Williams, Jesse Jackson, Martin Luther King Jr., Rev. Ralph David Abernathy on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel Memphis hotel, a day before King's assassination.April 3,1968

Aides of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King point out to police the path of the assassin's bullet. Joseph Louw, photographer for the Public Broadcast Laboratory, rushed from his nearby motel room in Memphis to record the scene moments after the shot. Life magazine, which obtained exclusive rights to the photograph, made it public. April 4, 1968.

The Final Push Frayer Model

Viola Liuzzo

Freedom Riders Assassination

Selma to Montgomery Marches

The Close of the Movement

The Final Push Quiz