The Civil Rights Movement
January 8, 2014
The Civil Rights Movement
Standard: SS8H11
The student will evaluate the role of
Georgia in the modern civil rights
movement.
The Beginnings…
• While we think of the modern civil rights
movement as taking place during the
1960s, in reality, it started much earlier
• In Georgia, and other places in the
United States, African-Americans had
been making strides towards equality
since right after World War II
Benjamin Mays
• Dr. Benjamin Mays was born in 1895 to parents who
were former slaves
• He became a teacher, working in South Carolina and
Georgia
– He taught at Morehouse College, becoming president of the
college in 1940
• He served as the Atlanta School Board’s first AfricanAmerican president
• He became an advisor to Martin Luther King, Jr. during
King’s freshman year at Morehouse
• He retired in 1981
• A street and a high school in Atlanta are named after
him
The End of the White Primary
• Primary elections determine who is nominated to be on
the ballot for the general election
• Although the 15th Amendment gave African-American
men the right to vote, legislators in Georgia twisted it to
mean only in the general election
• So, only whites voted in the primaries, guaranteeing
that their candidates would be nominated
• In 1946, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that white
primaries were unconstitutional and from then on,
African-American voters could take part in all elections
1946 Governor’s Race
• Democrats Eugene Talmadge, Eurith Rivers,
and James Carmichael were running
• Talmadge became the party candidate due to
the county unit system
• He ran unopposed, and was elected, but was
in very poor health
• His advisors didn’t think he would live long
enough to finish his term, so they came up with
a plan
• They had a few hundred supporters write in
Talmadge’s son Herman on the ballot as their
second choice
Government in Chaos
• Before being sworn in, Eugene Talmadge died
• The legislature chose Herman Talmadge as
governor based on the number of write-in votes
he had received
• Technically, the lieutenant governor, Melvin
Thompson should have taken Eugene
Talmadge’s place
• However, a group of Talmadge’s supporters
broke in to the governor’s office, changed the
locks, and prepared to run the state
Finally…a governor!
• Ellis Arnall, the outgoing governor, was locked out of
his own office, so he set up a new one and officially
resigned the governorship 3 days later
• Lieutenant Governor Thompson also set up an office
and began proceedings to become governor
• Since no one was officially governor, there was no one
running the state
• Finally in March, the state Supreme Court ruled that
Thompson was the rightful governor until a special
election could be held in 1948
• In that election, Herman Talmadge was legally elected
governor of the state
Herman Talmadge
• Talmadge, who was re-elected in 1950, was a
strict segregationist and refused to integrate
Georgia’s schools
• He tried to bring back the white primary, but
failed
• He did improve education, even while keeping
it segregated
• He expanded schools to include grades 1-12
and lengthened the school year to 9 months
• He raised standards for school buildings,
transportation, and curriculum
Integration of schools…
• In 1950, a black student, Linda Brown tried to
enroll at a white school in Kansas
• She was denied, so her dad sued the school
board
• The case, Brown v. the Board of Education,
reached the U.S. Supreme Court
• In 1954, the court ruled that “separate-butequal” schools were unconstitutional
• It ordered integration of schools
• This ruling overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson
ruling that had allowed “separate-but-equal”
Sibley Commission
• In Georgia, most schools refused to integrate
• In 1955, the Georgia legislature voted to cut off
funding to any system that integrated
• A commission, headed by John Sibley, was
appointed to study the problem
• They found that most Georgians would rather
close the schools than integrate them
• The commission recommended that school
systems be allowed to decide on their own
what they should do
Integration of Colleges
• On January 6, 1961, the University of Georgia,
backed by the Governor Vandiver, allowed its
first two black students, Hamilton Holmes and
Charlayne Hunter, into the school
• Holmes later graduated with honors and went
on to become an orthopedic surgeon
• Hunter would become a nationally known
newspaper and public television reporter
• Governor Vandiver would go on to ask the
legislature to repeal segregation laws in
Georgia, paving the way for smoother
integration than in other states
The 1956 Georgia state flag
• In 1956, the state flag was changed to
incorporate the Confederate battle emblem
• African-Americans were offended as they felt
this referenced slavery in the state’s past
• Georgia lost millions as the reference to “oldfashioned southern” traditions damaged the
tourist industry
• It wasn’t changed until 2001, then again in
2003
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• MLK, Jr. was born in Atlanta in 1929
• He attended Morehouse College and obtained a Ph.D.
• He believed in a 4-pronged approach to gaining civil
rights: direct, nonviolent action; legal remedies; ballots;
economic boycotts
• He helped organize huge protests in Birmingham, AL
that led to the writing of the civil rights laws by
President John F. Kennedy
• He also spoke at the 1963 March on Washington
• He was assassinated in Memphis, TN in 1968
Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee
• Following Dr. King’s lead in non-violence, a new era of
protest was started by black college students with a sitin at a lunch counter in North Carolina in 1960
• A sit-in occurs when people enter a public building and
refuse to leave until they are served or their demands
are met
• Even though they were refused service, the idea
spread around the South
• Later that year, the SNCC (pronounced “snick”) was
created
• Their first president was Georgian John Lewis
• They helped register African-Americans to vote, led
protests, organized sit-ins, and boycotted businesses
that wouldn’t serve African-Americans
Albany Movement
• Following the example of SNCC, a sit-in was organized
in Albany, GA in the “whites-only” waiting room at the
bus station
• The protestors were arrested, which led the AfricanAmerican community to form the Albany Movement
• More protestors arrived, and were arrested, including
high school students
• Dr. King, who had traveled to Albany, was arrested for
protesting
• All of this led to a biracial committee being formed to
study the concerns of African-Americans in Albany
March on Washington - 1963
• President Kennedy sent the strongest civil
rights bill in history to Congress in June 1963
• Congress took their time with it, leading to over
250,000 people representing all races and
nationalities to gather at the Washington
Monument to demonstrate for its passage
• Dr. King gave the most famous speech of his
career, the “I Have a Dream” speech here on
August 28, 1963
The 1964 Civil Rights Act
• The bravery of civil rights demonstrators and the March
on Washington caught the nation by storm
• Even though President Kennedy was assassinated in
Nov. 1963, the new president, Lyndon Johnson,
continued to urge Congress to pass the civil rights laws
• It was eventually passed into law, and became the
most far-reaching civil rights legislation in American
history
– It made segregation of public places illegal
– It prohibited discrimination in businesses
– It withheld funds from public school systems that refused to
integrate
Changes in Georgia’s government
• In the 1960s, two rulings by the federal
court brought dramatic change to the
political structure in Georgia
– The end of the county unit system
– reapportionment
• The 1970s saw the election of AfricanAmericans as Atlanta’s mayor and to the
U.S. House of Representatives
The End of the County Unit System
• This system had been in place since 1917 to
give power to Georgia’s rural areas
• In 1962, the Georgia federal court ruled the
county unit system violated the 14th
Amendment
• This caused a shift in political power to the
urban areas, and gave predominantly black
populations an equal opportunity to elect
representatives
• As a result, Leroy Johnson was elected in 1962
as the first African-American state senator
since Reconstruction
Reapportionment
• When the county unit system decision was appealed to
the U.S. Supreme Court, they handed down the “one
person, one vote” decision
• This is the concept that every citizen’s vote should be
equal to every other citizen’s vote no matter where they
live
• In 1964, the federal court ruled that Georgia violated
the one-person, one-vote concept by distributing one
legislative seat to each county
• The court said that legislative seats should be based
on population rather than county boundary lines
• Georgia had to reapportion (redraw) its voting districts
so they were of equal population size
• This also shifted political power to urban areas
Lester Maddox
• Lester Maddox was elected governor in 1967
• Although Maddox was a famous
segregationist, he surprised Georgians by
appointing more African-Americans to state
boards and commissions
• He integrated the Georgia State Patrol
• He also reformed state prisons and increased
spending on teacher salaries and higher
education
Maynard Jackson
• Jackson became Atlanta’s first AfricanAmerican mayor in 1974
• He helped the city progress by reorganizing the
police and fire departments, as well as city
government
• He led the development of MARTA and
expanded the airport into one of the busiest in
the world
• He helped lead the efforts to bring the 1996
Olympics to Atlanta
• When he died in 2003, the airport was
renamed Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta
International Airport in his honor
Andrew Young
• Young, who is from Thomasville, GA, was a trusted
aide to Dr. King and was in Memphis when he was
assassinated
• He was elected to the U.S House of Representatives in
1972
• He was twice re-elected to the House
• He was appointed as U.S. Ambassador to the United
Nations in 1977
• He returned to Georgia in 1981, where he was elected
mayor of Atlanta twice
• He helped bring the 1996 Olympics to Atlanta and is
currently a professor at Georgia State University
Questions…
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1) How is Benjamin Mays connected to Dr. King?
2) When did the white primary end?
3) Who was elected governor in the 1946 election?
4) Why did the legislature choose Herman Talmadge as governor
after Eugene Talmadge’s death?
5) Who was eventually appointed governor by the Supreme
Court?
6) What did Herman Talmadge refuse to do while Georgia’s
governor?
7) How did Talmadge improve education?
8) What did the Brown v. Board of Education decision say?
9) What ruling did Brown overturn?
10) What did the Sibley Commission recommend?
11) Who were the first African-Americans to integrate UGA?
12) Why did the 1956 state flag offend many African-Americans?
More Questions…
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13) What famous civil rights leader was born in Atlanta in 1929?
14) What was Dr. King’s approach to gaining civil rights?
15) What did the SNCC do?
16) What was the Albany Movement protesting?
17) Why was the March on Washington organized?
18) What famous speech was delivered at the March on Washington in
1963?
19) What did the Civil Rights Act of 1964 do?
20) What amendment did the county unit system violate?
21) How did the end of the county unit system affect elections?
22) What is the “one-person, one-vote” concept?
23) How did Georgia have to reapportion its voting districts?
24) How did Lester Maddox surprise Georgians?
25) What political positions did Andrew Young hold?
26) Who was Atlanta’s first African-American mayor?
27) What were Jackson’s accomplishments as mayor?