Black Civil Rights
Overview
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Early racial relations
Leading up to Civil War
Civil War and Reconstruction
Jim Crow
The Modern Civil Rights Movement
Early Race Relations
• Slavery
– In the Constitution
• Article I, section 9
(importation of slaves
protected until 1808;
tax on importation
capped at $10)
• Article IV, section 2.3
(Fugitive slave law)
• No mention made of
federal power to end
slavery but...
Early Race Relations
Supreme Court rulings
raised concerns among
slave states, in
particular:
McCulloch v. Maryland
(1819)
Gibbons v. Ogden
(1824)
Early Race Relations
• Article IV, section 3.1 provides new
states may be admitted to union
• By ratification of the Constitution, every
state from Delaware south was a slave
state, all north were free*
*New Jersey ended slavery in 1804
Missouri Compromise
• Issue of maintaining rough balance
between free and slave states in
Senate, if not in the House
• Agree to admit Missouri (slave) and
Maine (free), and set aside unorganized
land above the 36o30 as free
Missouri Compromise
Pre-Civil War
• Mexican-American
war (1846-1848) US
acquires vast
amounts of new
territory
• Reintroduces
question of balance
of free/slave states
• How to partition this
new territory?
Compromise of 1850
Worked out by Henry Clay
(Whig-KY)
California comes in as free
state, and in exchange
the land gained in the
Mexican War will allow
slavery as a local
choice.
Also strengthened the
fugitive slave law
Compromise of 1850
Kansas-Nebraska Act
• Unorganized territory of the 1850
Compromise is organized as Kansas
and Nebraska territories
• Act authorized local elections to
determine which, if either, territory
would become free or slave
Kansas-Nebraska Act
Scott vs Sanford
• At issue is fugitive slave
law; that is, are slaves
still slaves after they
reach a free state?
• Dred Scott sues
• Supreme Court rules
against Scott and
invalidates the 1850
Compromise for good
measure
Civil War
Civil War
• Emancipation Proclamation (1863)
– frees slaves in Confederacy and in those
parts of the country in open rebellion
– specifically exempts border states and
areas currently occupied by Union army
• 13th Amendment (1865)
– ends slavery
Civil War
• 1864
Presidential
Election
• Lincoln runs
on “national
unity” ticket
that includes
Andrew
Johnson as
VP
Reconstruction
• 2 Phases of Reconstruction
– Presidential Reconstruction (1865-1866)
• Readmit confederate states
• No Confederate officials eligible to serve in
government
• Confederate states redraw constitutions to take
account of 13th amendment
– Introduction of “Black Codes”
Reconstruction
• Republican Congress passes Civil
Rights Act (1866) over Johnson veto
• House moves to impeach Johnson,
Johnson survives, but is much
weakened as president
• Enter Congressional reconstruction
period (1866-1877)
Reconstruction
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Union army occupies south
14th Amendment (1868)
15th Amendment (1870)
Civil Rights Enforcement Act (1870)
Civil Rights Act (1872)
Civil Rights Act (1875)
Reconstruction
• First black political
leaders elected to
Congress
• Hiram Revels (MS)
first black senator
• 6 blacks elected to
serve in House in
41st and 42nd
Congress
Reconstruction
• 1876 Presidential
Election
• Rutherford B. Hayes
(R)
• Samuel Tilden (D)
1876 Presidential Election
Reconstruction
• In exchange for Hayes
winning electoral
college vote,
Republicans agree to
end occupation of the
South
• 1877 Reconstruction
essentially ends with
end of occupation
• Southern governments
and vigilante groups
move to disenfranchise
black voters
Rise of Segregation
• Voter intimidation (e.g.,
KKK activity)
• Change voting
requirements
– poll tax, literacy test,
“white” primaries,
grandfather clause
• Civil Rights cases
(1883)
– Supreme Court
invalidates the 1875 Civil
Rights Act
• Plessy vs Ferguson
(1896)
Plessy vs Ferguson
Homer Plessy
“The object of the [Fourteenth]
Amendment was undoubtedly to
enforce the absolute equality of
the two races before the law, but
in the nature of things it could
not have been intended to
abolish distinctions based upon
color, or to enforce social, as
distinguished from political,
equality, or a commingling of
the two races upon terms
unsatisfactory to either.” -Justice Henry Billings Brown
Plessy v. Ferguson
"We consider the underlying
fallacy of the plaintiff's argument
to consist in the assumption that
the enforced separation of the two
races stamps the colored race with
a badge of inferiority. If this be so,
it is not by reason of anything
found in the act, but solely
because the colored race chooses
to put that construction upon it.”
Justice Henry Billings Brown
Jim Crow
Jim Crow
Jim Crow statutes by state
Jim Crow
• For black civil rights
leaders, segregation
posed difficult
questions of
strategy and how to
combat legal (de
jure) inequality
Response to Segregation
• Booker T.
Washington and
“Accomodationism”
• Take whatever
opportunities white
America provides
and do best you can
until conditions
change
Response to Segregation
• W.E.B. Dubois and
the founding of the
NAACP
• Legal strategy of
challenging the
“separate but equal”
provision
Separate, but Equal?
Classroom in black
school
Seat Pleasant, Maryland
Separate, but Equal?
Black school,
Camden, MS
Separate, but Equal?
Black school, Louisa County, VA
Response to Segregation
• Key desegregation
cases:
• Missouri ex rel. Gaines v.
Canada (1938)
– mandated creating separate
black law school or
admitting blacks to white
school
• Sweatt v. Painter (1950)
– mandated that separate
black schools be equal to
white law schools
Response to Segregation
• McLaurin v.
Oklahoma State
Regents for Higher
Education (1950)
– integration has to be
equal; cannot
maintain segregation
within a school
Response to Segregation
• 1954 Brown vs.
Board of Education
of Topeka, KN
Response to Segregation
Little Rock, Arkansas
September 1957
Federal troops protected 9 black
students going to Central High
in Little Rock throughout 1957
academic year
Response to Segregation
Little Rock opted to close all 3
public high schools for 1958
academic year rather than
integrate
Modern Civil Rights
• Emergence of Modern Civil Rights
Movement
Modern Civil Rights
• In wake of Brown v.
Board of Education,
combination of
further legal
challenges, political
mobilization, civil
disobedience
(peaceful and other)
Modern Civil Rights
• Key Legislation:
– 1964 Civil Rights Act
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Barred discrimination in public accomodations
Desegregated public school and facilities
Civil Rights Commission expanded
Equal Emploment Opportunity Commission
– No discrimination in workplace based on race, color,
religion, gender, or national origin.
Modern Civil Rights
• Key Legislation
– 1965 Voting Rights Act
• Outlawed discrimination in voter registration
• Authorizes federal government to administer
voter registration in counties or subdivisions
held to discriminate on voter registration efforts
Lingering Segregation
“A Realtor should never be
instrumental in introducing
into a neighborhood a
character of property or
occupancy, members of any
race or nationality, or any
individual whose presence
will clearly be detrimental to
property values in the
neighborhood.”
(Association of Real Estate
Boards, National Realty
Code, Article 34)
official policy through
the 1960s
Fair Housing Act
• 1968 Civil Rights Act
– No discrimination in housing
– No discrimination in mortgage lending
– Penalities imposed on anyone interfering
with individual civil rights workers
Modern Civil Rights
• Remedies to past discrimination
– Busing
– Affirmative Action
– “Urban Renewal” Projects
Race and Urban Populations
Race and Urban Populations
Race and Urban Populations
• Overall data:
– Not just higher percentage of blacks in cities, but
economic situation within those cities
• 1970: 27% of census tracts in urban areas were
“poverty,” and 6% of these were “extreme poverty”
• 1990: 39% of census tracts in urban areas were
“poverty,” and 14% of these were “extreme poverty”
• Improvement in 1990s though
– Poverty rate higher than that of suburbs
• 2000: 16.1% (urban)
• 2005: 13.9% (urban)
7.8% (suburban)
9.6% (suburban)
figures from US Bureau of Census
Race and Urban Populations
• Concentration of blacks in poverty areas
– 1980:
• 2.0% of all U.S. non-Hispanic white poor people,
• 21.1% of all U.S. black poor people
• 15.9% of all U.S. Hispanic poor people lived in ghettos.
Thus, over two-thirds of the ghetto poor are black and
Hispanic.
– 1990: 71% of low-income, black, central-city
residents lived in poverty neighborhoods
• 40% of low-income, white, central city residents
– 2006 Poverty Rates by race/ethnic origin
– 2006 demographics of poorest of poor
Effects
• Most children living in high-poverty
areas attend racially segregated
schools:
– 1996: 8% of nation’s school children
attended schools with 90% black/latino
enrollment
• and over 90% were located in central cities
– Impact on education?
• Recent test score data, graphic data
Effects
• Employment
– Unemployment rates by race
– Inner city unemployment
• 2 to 3 times higher than national average
– Impact of low employment/joblessness
How to remedy?
• What steps can government take to fix
de facto forms of segregation?