Civil Rights Movement
19541965
I. Background
A. 1896 – U. S. Supreme Court
declares racial segregation legal in
Plessy v. Ferguson.
So for the next 60 years blacks were
supposed to get “separate but equal”
schools and all public facilities.
The reality was separate but not
equal.
I. Background
B. 1909 – The National Association for
the Advancement of Colored People or
NAACP was founded.
C. President Harry Truman ended all
segregation in the military in 1948.
Benjamin Oliver
Davis Sr. was the
first AfricanAmerican General.
 He held the rank
of private to
Brigadier General.
General Benjamin
Oliver Davis, Sr.
served in the
military for fifty
years in the
Spanish-American
War, World War I
and World War II.
General Davis’ son,
Benjamin Oliver Davis,
Jr. was the only AfricanAmerican at West Point
when he graduated in
1936.
 He trained with the
Tuskegee Airmen during
World War II.
Benjamin Oliver Davis,
Jr. was the first
African-American Air
Force General, and the
second AfricanAmerican General in
the U.S. Military.
II. Brown vs.
Board of
Education - 1954
Oliver Brown’s 8 year
old daughter, Linda,
had to ride 5 miles and
cross a dangerous
railroad yard to get to
her all-black school.
A white school was
only a few blocks
away.
13 families were involved in the case.
Brown was listed as main plaintiff.
Oliver Brown,
minister, A.M.E.
church, was named
because he was the
only adult male in the
13 families.
II. Brown vs. Board of Education
A. Overturned Plessy v. Ferguson
B. Schools were ordered by the
Supreme Court to desegregate with
all possible haste
No states rushed
out to desegregate.
The states did all
they could to delay
following the Court’s
decision.
III. Death of Emmett Till - 1955
Emmett Till was the only son of a man who died
serving in the U.S. military during World War II and
Mamie Till. He Lived in Chicago.
In the summer of 1955 he visited relatives in
Mississippi.
In the summer of ’55 Emmett was
14 years old, was 5’ 4” tall and
weighed about 160 lbs.
Emmett and several others stopped by Bryant’s
Store.
Emmett may have made some remarks to the young
white woman who worked in the store (on a dare from
his buddies). The story varies.
He did whistle at the woman before they all left the
store.
This is the
store where
Emmett and
the others
stopped.
This is the
woman Emmett
spoke to and
whistled at.
The woman’s husband and brother-in-law, Roy
Bryant and J.W. Milam later went to the home of
Emmett’s great uncle, Moses Wright.
They demanded to see “the boy who did the
talking”.
They forced Emmett to go with them.
Moses Wright later testified
in court that Bryant and
Milam had taken Emmett
from his home. He and his
wife then fled Mississippi in
fear of their own lives.
In a Look magazine article several months after
being acquitted of the murder, both Bryant and Milam
told how they had murdered Emmett and thrown his
body in the Tallahatchie River.
The all-white jury
deliberated only about an
hour before finding Bryant
and Milam not guilty.
III. Murder of Emmett Till
A.14 years old
A.Murdered by two white men
B.Happened in Mississippi
C.Murderers went free
D.Helped spark the movement for equality
The Emmett Till case was a spark for a new generation to commit their
lives to social change, you know. They said, "We're not gonna die like
this. Instead, we're gonna live and transform the South so people won't
have to die like this." And if anything, if any event of the 1950s inspired
young people to be committed to that kind of change, it was the
lynching of Emmett Till. Robin DG Kelley, Civil Rights Historian
IV. The Montgomery Bus Boycott – 1955
A. Rosa Parks arrested
On Thursday, December
1, 1955, Rosa Parks
boarded a city bus and
sat with three other
blacks in the fifth row,
the first row that blacks
could occupy. A few
stops later, the front
four rows were filled
with whites, and one
white man was left
standing.
According to law, blacks and whites could not
occupy the same row, so the bus driver asked
all four of the blacks seated in the fifth row to
move. Three complied, but Parks refused. She
was arrested.
Though she was
working as a
seamstress, Mrs.
Parks had attended
Alabama State.
She was active in
the NAACP
IV. The Montgomery Bus Boycott – 1955
B. Jo Ann Robinson and others organized
a bus boycott
Jo Ann Robinson was
an English teacher at
Alabama State College
in Montgomery.
Ms. Robinson
mimeographed fliers to
hand out to people to
encourage a one-day
bus boycott.
IV. The Montgomery Bus Boycott – 1955
 The Monday, one-day boycott was a
success.
 On that afternoon local ministers and civil
rights leaders met to discuss the possibility of
continuing the boycott.
In 1953 a two week bus
boycott had taken place in
Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
A compromise had been
reached in which blacks were
allowed to sit in other areas of
the bus.
IV. The Montgomery Bus Boycott – 1955
C. The Montgomery Improvement Association
was formed.
1. Martin Luther King Jr., minister of the
Dexter Ave Church, was chosen as the leader
of MIA.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was a
young minister at Dexter Ave,
Church in Montgomery.
2. The MIA adopted a plan of action to begin
on December 5, 1955.
The resolution basically stated three
demands:
a) Blacks would be treated politely by
bus drivers.
 All bus drivers
were white.
 Some drivers
were rude and
unfair to their
black riders.
60% of the riders
were black.
b) End seating segregation- seating would
be first come-first served
c) Hire Black bus drivers.
Mr. King copied the
free-ride network from
the Baton Rouge
Boycott to help
protestors get to their
jobs and other places.
The Montgomery
Bus Boycott lasted
from Dec. 5, 1955
until Dec. 21, 1956.
 Mr. King’s home
was bombed on
Jan. 30th.
 The homes of
other leaders were
bombed as were
four Baptist
churches, and some
local black
businesses.
Mr. King was one
of 89 people
arrested under an
old law against
boycotting.
 He was the first
to go to trial.
He was fined
$1000.
D. Federal Court helped end the Boycott on
Dec. 21, 1956.
E. Importance - the Boycott started the 10
year movement for civil rights.
V. Southern Christian Leadership Conference –
1957
A. Martin Luther King Jr. selected leader
B. SCLC became a major force
C. Based action on nonviolence and civil
disobedience
Martin Luther King, Charles Steele , and Fred Shuttlesworth
established the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, of which
King is made the first president. According to King, it was essential
that the civil rights movement not sink to the level of the racists and
hatemongers who opposed them: "We must forever conduct our
struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline," he urges.
Famous Alabamian - Fred Shuttlesworth
Born in Alabama 1922
Shuttlesworth's civil rights
activities made him a target
of white racists and on the
evening of 25th December,
1956, he survived a bomb
blast that destroyed his
house.
The following year a white
mob beat him with whips
and chains during an
attempt to integrate an allwhite public school.
During this period Martin
Luther King described
Shuttlesworth as "the most
courageous civil rights
fighter in the South".
Shuttlesworth has been pastor of New
Light Baptist church since 1966. He has
also served as director of the
Shuttlesworth Housing Foundation, an
organization which helps low-income
families to buy their own homes, that he
established in 1988.
VI. Desegregation-Little Rock, Arkansas – 1957
 The schools in Little Rock took three years to come
up with a “plan” to desegregate.
 Little Rock Central High was to be desegregated first.
 17 black students were chosen (mostly on good
grades), but by the beginning of school only 9 were
left who were willing to go after all of the threats they
had received from both whites and blacks.
 On Sep. 2nd the governor of Arkansas called out the
National Guard to stop the blacks from entering the
school.
 On Sep. 4th the Nine planned to enter school
together.
Elizabeth Eckford did not get
the message to meet the others
and she tried to enter the school
alone and was threatened by the
crowd.
 She was rescued by two white
people.
 All Nine were denied entrance to the school by the
National Guard under orders from the governor.
 On Sep. 20th a Federal judge told the governor
the students must be allowed to enter school.
On Sep 23rd all of the Little Rock 9 entered school,
they had to be taken out by a rear entrance by
11:30 due to the anger of the mob outside the
school.
 President Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne to
ensure that the Little Rock 9 could attend school.
The 101st patrolled outside the school and
escorted the black students into the school. In
addition, the black students were assigned a
personal guard from the 101st who followed them
around the school. Still, they were subjects of
unspeakable hatred.
Primary Source Reading
Despite the way they were
treated, 8 of the 9 finished
the year at Central High
School.
VI. Desegregation in Little Rock, Arkansas
A. Nine Black Students enrolled at
Central High.
B. The next year the high school was
closed.
VII. Sit-ins
On February 1, 1960, Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, David
Richmond, and Ezell Blair, Jr., walked into an F.W. Woolworth Company
store in Greensboro, North Carolina, purchased some school supplies,
then went to the lunch counter and asked to be served. They knew they
probably would not be.
 The demonstrations in Greensboro, North Carolina,
began on Feb. 1, 1960.
 On Feb. 3, 63 blacks occupy the 65 seats in
Woolworth’s.
 On Feb. 4, three white women from a nearby
women’s college join the demonstration.
 In the next months, hundreds of people, black and
white join the demonstrations at Woolworth’s and S.H.
Kress across the street
February 10, 1960:
Students participate in sit-ins
across the state.
Third week of February,
1960:
Demonstrations move to
other states throughout the
South. Support of picketing
has begun in Northern cities
against Woolworth's and
other chain stores.
July 25, 1960:
The first black ate a meal,
sitting down, at Woolworth's
in Greensboro.
After one week, 300 blacks
have been customers.
Students Matthew
Walker, left, Peggy
Alexander, Diane Nash
and Stanley Hemphill eat
lunch at the previously
segregated counter of the
Post House Restaurant in
the Greyhound bus
terminal. This marked the
first time since the start
of the sit-ins that blacks
have been served at
previously all-white
counters.
Staff photo by Gerald Holly
May 16, 1960
Today there is a statue at North Carolina A&T University to honor
the first four young men to conduct the sit-in at Woolworths.
VIII. Freedom Rides - 1961
On May 4, 1961 the Congress on Racial Equality
organized Freedom Riders left Washington D.C., on a
"Journey of Reconciliation". Their aim was to test the
new federal law against segregation by traveling by
bus to New Orleans. Unfortunately, the journey never
reached it's intended conclusion.
Background - In 1947, the
Congress of Racial Equality
(CORE) planned a "Journey
of Reconciliation," designed
to test the Supreme Court's
1946 decision in the Irene
Morgan case, which
declared segregated seating
of interstate passengers
unconstitutional. An
interracial group of
passengers met with heavy
resistance in the upper
South. Some members of
the group served on a chain
gang for six months after
their arrest in North
Carolina. The Journey of
Reconciliation quickly broke
down.
The strategy in 1961 was the same as 1947: an interracial group would
board buses destined for the South. The whites would sit in the back
and the blacks in the front. At rest stops, the whites would go into
blacks-only areas and vice versa.
Near Anniston, Alabama the Freedom Rider’s Bus was
set afire and the tires slashed.
In Alabama and Mississippi the riders were attacked, beaten,
and arrested. Bt the end of the summer there were over 300
arrests in several southern states. The freedom riders were fined
and imprisoned.
VIII. Freedom Rides – 1961
A.Forced President Kennedy to address
the problem of segregation
B. September 1961 – segregation in interstate
travel was outlawed
Famous Alabamians
Hank Aaron
Born February 5, 1934 in
Mobile, Ala.
Height, 6-0. Weight, 190.
Threw and batted righthanded.
Holds major league record
for most career home runs
(755), home runs with one
club (Braves, 733), RBIs
(2,297), total bases (6,856),
most games played (3,298)
and many others.
Hit 20 or more home runs for 20 consecutive seasons
(1955-1974).
Named to 24 All Star games.
Won three Gold Glove awards, 1958, 1959, 1960.
Named The Sporting News' National League Player of the
Year, 1956, 1963.
Named to Hall of Fame, 1982.
IX. Bombing of the 16th Street Church in
Birmingham, Alabama - 1963
Between 1947 and 1965, over fifty bombings occurred in Birmingham,
resulting in the city becoming known as "Bombingham." Perhaps the most
famous of these blasts was the one that took the lives of four innocent
black youth as they prepared their Sunday School lessons on a Sunday
Morning at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.
Firemen inside the bombed
church - 1963
On a quiet Sunday morning, September 15, 1963, four young black girls
prepared their Sunday School lessons in the basement of the church. In
the same basement sat a bomb placed by segregationists, designed to
kill and maim in protest of the forced integration of Birmingham's public
schools. Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley, and Addie
Mae Collins were killed in the explosion. Angry blacks rioted and the civil
authorities responded with great violence. During the rest of the day,
other black youths were murdered by police and civilians alike,
compounding the desperation.
Addie Mae
Collins was 14
Years old
Carole Robertson
was 14 Years old
Moderate whites condemned the bombing and the FBI took over the
investigation from local authorities that had shown no real concern for
solving the crime, though they held strong evidence pointing to the
bombers. Because of this local interference, the FBI took over the
investigation. With foot dragging of their own, they failed to convict
anyone for the crime by 1968. It was not until 1977 that the state
convicted but one of the bombers.
Denise McNair was
11 Years old.
Cynthia Wesley
was 14 Years
old.
The bombing outraged the
nation and gave four young
faces to the movement. The
blast, combined with other
shameful Alabama events, such
as the dogs and fire hoses of
1963, and the beatings of
demonstrators as they began
the Selma to Montgomery
march in 1964, contributed to
the passage of the Civil Rights
Act of 1964, the Voting Rights
of 1965, and the death of
segregation in the South.
Following the tragic event,
white strangers visited the
grieving families to express
their sorrow. At the funeral for
three of the girls (one family
preferred a separate, private
funeral), Martin Luther King,
Jr., spoke about life being "as
hard as crucible steel." More
than 8,000 mourners,
including 800 clergymen of
both races, attended the
service.
Fourteen years later Robert Chambliss, a KKK
member was convicted of the murder of Denise
McNair. He died in prison in 1985.
Thomas Blanton, Jr. was convicted in 2001.
Bobby Frank Cherry was convicted in 2002, largely
on the testimony of his ex-wife.
Herman Frank Cash died in 1994 – he had never
been charged.
X. March on Washington – 1963
A.The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
took place in Washington, D.C., on August 28,
1963.
No one knew for certain
how many people would
come..word of the
march circulated
through the south by
word of mouth and in
churches.
X. The March on Washington - 1963
B. Attended by some 250,000 people, it was the
largest demonstration ever seen in the
nation's capital.
It is estimated that
60,000 of the
marchers were
white.
X. The March on Washington
C. March was organized by five groups including the
NAACP, the SCLC and others.
Some 40 railroad
trains and 2,500
buses were
chartered to
transport
demonstrators to
and from
Washington.
Special planes
were routed to fly
delegations from
the West Coast
X. The March on Washington
D. It was opposed by the KKK, Malcolm X and the
Nation of Islam.
Malcolm X referred to the
March as the “Farce on
Washington” (A “farce” is
something that is a mockery –
a play that makes fun of
something)
X. The March on Washington
E. Two Purposes of the March (there were others)
1. passage of a Civil Rights Act
2. end of segregation in public schools
Although there were
concerns that violence
might happen, the March
had no problems.
The marchers
congregated at the
Washington
Monument and walked
to the Lincoln
Memorial
The 200,000 to 250,000 people in Washington that
day made their mark on the world.
It was at this March on
Washington that Martin Luther
King, Jr. made his famous “I
Have a Dream” speech.
Famous Alabamians
Coretta Scott King
 Born (1927) and raised
in Marion, Alabama.
 Family were land-owning
farmers.
 Her mother rented a bus
so Coretta and other black
young people could attend
high school.
 Attended college in Ohio, majored in music and
education.
 Married Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1953.
Mrs. King, like her
husband, is a
leader in the Civil
Rights Movement.
Following her husband’s
death in 1968, Mrs. King
continued the fight for racial
equality, both here and in
other countries.
She raised money to establish
the MLK Center for Non-violent
Social Change, in Atlanta,
Georgia.
In 1969 the American Library
Association (ALA) created the annual
Coretta Scott King award to honor
children's book authors and illustrators
of African descent.
XI. The Selma-Montgomery March – 1965
A.Purpose – Demand voting rights
B.First attempt stopped by Alabama troopers and
police
On "Bloody Sunday,"
March 7, 1965, some
600 civil rights
marchers headed east
out of Selma on U.S.
Route 80. They got
only as far as the
Edmund Pettus Bridge
six blocks away, where
state and local lawmen
attacked them with
billy clubs and tear gas
and drove them back
into Selma.
Two days later on March 9, Martin Luther King, Jr., led a "symbolic"
march to the bridge. Then civil rights leaders sought court protection
for a third, full-scale march from Selma to the state capitol in
Montgomery.
C. A Federal judge
declared the march was
legal.
On Sunday, March 21, about
3,200 marchers set out for
Montgomery, walking 12
miles a day and sleeping in
fields.
By the time they reached the capitol of Montgomery on Thursday,
March 25, they were 25,000-strong.
Less than five months
after the last of the
three marches,
President Lyndon
Johnson signed the
Voting Rights Act of
1965--the best possible
redress of grievances.
D. 1965 -Civil
Rights Acts
passed by
Congress and
signed by
President Lyndon
Johnsonl
Famous Alabamians – Willie Mays
Willie Howard Mays Jr. was best known for his high, boyish voice;
his huge wide-palmed hands, branching out at the wrists like mini
baseball gloves; the oversize cap that flew off his head as he
rounded the bases or roamed the outfield; and his trademark
basket catch -- maybe, most of all, The Catch, the one that robbed
the Cleveland Indians' Vic Wertz of extra bases in the first game of
the 1954 World Series.
Willie Mays, Jr. was born in Westfield, Alabama in
1931.
He played for the Black Barons (Negro League) when
he was 16.
Willie’s dad would not let him play when the game
interfered with school.
The day he graduated from high school he was
signed by the New York Giants.
 To a generation of fans, Mays was the greatest
ballplayer they had ever seen. He combined power and
speed in ways unseen on the diamond before his time.
When he retired he ranked third in career home runs
and he was the first man to hit 50 home runs and steal
20 bases in a single season.
Famous Alabamians – Condoleezza Rice
U.S. Secretary of State
Born November 14, 1954 in Birmingham, Alabama, she earned her
bachelor's degree in political science, cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa,
from the University of Denver in 1974; her master's from the University
of Notre Dame in 1975; and her Ph.D. from the Graduate School of
International Studies at the University of Denver in 1981.
Secretary Rice’s father was a school
guidance counselor and her mother a
teacher. She was in Birmingham during the
16th St. bombing.
"I remember being at a church which
was a few blocks away from the 16th St.
Baptist Church, and just being completely
shocked by the sound. It was almost like a
train coming -- I don't remember being
frightened at that moment although it was
a terrifying time. I just felt sad." (2002
interview)
Rice says it didn't take a
movement or the government to
open doors for her. "Black
Americans of my grandparents'
ilk had liberated themselves,"
she told the Post. The family
strategy was to ignore racism,
she said: Racism in Birmingham
was so routine, "you ceased to
notice its existence." She was
conditioned to succeed: "My
family is third-generation
college-educated -- I should've
gotten to where I am."
She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and
has been awarded honorary doctorates from Morehouse College in
1991, the University of Alabama in 1994, the University of Notre Dame
in 1995, the National Defense University in 2002, the Mississippi
College School of Law in 2003, the University of Louisville and Michigan
State University in 2004. She resides in Washington, D.C.
While national
Security Advisor
to President Bush,
Secretary Rice
landed on board
ship along with
President Bush,
though not in the
same jet.
Sources
We Shall Overcome, Historic Places of the Civil Rights Movement
http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/civilrights/mainmap1.htm
The Montgomery Bus Boycott
http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/civilrights-55-65/montbus.html
Sit-Ins http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/civilrights-55-65/sit-ins.html
Freedom Rides http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/civilrights-5565/freeride.html
Birmingham http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/civilrights-5565/birming.html
The Little Rock Nine Enter High School
http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/school-integration/lilrock/9enter.html
Civil Rights Timeline http://www.infoplease.com/spot/civilrightstimeline1.html
Brown vs. Board of Education http://www.gibbsmagazine.com/BrownvsBoard.htm
National Baseball Hall of Fame – Hank Aaron
http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/hofers_and_honorees/hofer_bios/aaron_hank.
htm
The Murder of Emmett Till http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/till/
C
Benjamin Oliver Davis, Sr. http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/topics/afam/davis.htm
African-American Pioneers – Benjamin Oliver Davis, Jr.
http://afgen.com/bendavis_jr.html
Introduction to the Court Opinion on Plessy vs. Ferguson
http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/democrac/33.htm
The Little Rock Nine http://www.centralhigh57.org/The_Little_Rock_Nine.html
http://library.thinkquest.org/J0112391/little_rock_nine.htm
The Montgomery Bus Boycott
http://afroamhistory.about.com/library/weekly/aa082001a.htm
Montgomery Bus Boycott
http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/about_king/encyclopedia/bus_boycott.html
African American Registry – Fred Shuttlesworth
http://www.aaregistry.com/african_american_history/2289/Fred_Shuttlesworth_
minister_and_leader
African American Odyssey – Sit-ins, Freedom Rides and Demonstrations
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aaohtml/exhibit/aopart9b.html
The King Center, Coretta Scott King, Human Rights Activist and Leader,
http://www.thekingcenter.org/csk/bio.html
The Civil Rights Movement, The March on Washington, 1963
http://www.abbeville.com/civilrights/washington.asp
Organizing the March
http://www.angelfire.com/pa/marchonwashington/march.html
The March on Washington
http://www.angelfire.com/pa/marchonwashington/march.html
We Shall Overcome – The Selma to Montgomery March
http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/civilrights/al4.htm
Brilliant Careers – Willie Mays
http://www.salon.com/people/bc/1999/07/13/mays/
Academy of Achievement - Willie Mays
http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/may0bio-1
The White House – Condoleezza Rice
http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/ricebio.html
The Condi Rice Version of History http://www.alternet.org/story/18363