US Civil Rights
Movement
1955-1968
Timeline of Events



1955
1957;

1960;
1961;
1963;

1964;

1966;

1968;

Dec 1st; Montgomery Bus Boycott
Martin Luther King becomes President
of the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference (SCLC).
Sep; Little Rock High School incident.
Feb 1st; Sit-ins begin in Greensboro.
May 4th; Freedom Rides begin.
Birmingham anti-segregation protests
August 28th; March on Washington
Mississippi and Freedom Summer
March 7th; Selma and ‘Bloody Sunday’
Term ‘Black Power’ coined and the
Black Panthers established
April 4th; Martin Luther King
assassinated
Birmingham
Selma
Montgomery
Nashville
Background
 National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People




(NAACP); Lead by intellectuals and professionals; tactics of lobbying
and bringing lawsuits.
Successes;
 Truman desegregated the armed forces.
 1954 Brown vs Board of Education; Supreme Court ruled against
segregated education.
Backlash; engendered ‘massive resistance’ by white southerners.
The strategy of mass action within the court system shifted after Brown
to "direct action“; primarily bus boycotts, sit-ins, freedom rides, and
similar tactics that relied on mass mobilization, nonviolent resistance
and civil disobedience. In part this was the unintended result of the
local authorities' attempt to outlaw and harass the NAACP supporters.
1955 – Mississippi and the Emmett Till Case
Montgomery Bus Boycott 1955

Dec 1st; Catalyst;
arrest of Rosa Parks,
a black seamstress
who refused to give up
her seat to a white
man on the bus.
(Educated NAACP
member).






Key instigators; Rosa Parks, E. D. Nixon (a labour
organiser) and Jo Ann Robinson (teacher at Alabama
State College).
50 African-American leaders gathered and formed the
Montgomery Improvement Association to lead the Bus
Boycott. They waged economic warfare against
segregation on public transport. Buses were a
vulnerable target as they depended on the fares of Blacks.
Organisation; communicated instructions through
churches, ministers boosted morale, raised funds, set up
car pools.
The boycott lasted for 381 days until the local ordinance
segregating African-Americans and whites on public buses
was lifted. Ninety percent of African Americans in
Montgomery took part in the boycotts, which reduced
bus revenue by 80%. (W. Chafe, The Unfinished
Journey, 2nd edition, 1992)
The success in Montgomery triggered other bus boycotts,
such as the highly successful Tallahassee, Florida, boycott
of 1956-1957.
‘It helped to launch a 10-year national struggle for
freedom and justice, the Civil Rights Movement, that
stimulated others to do the same at home and
abroad." (Roberta Wright).
Emergence of Martin Luther King






The Bus Boycott enlisted support of Black
ministers to help rally community.Martin
Luther King (only 26yrs old) inherited a
leading role. Older, more established
ministers shied away from taking charge.
Appeal; good organiser, rousing speaker,
courage to keep going in face of death
threats and bombing.
Handsome, articulate, educated,
Christian; made King ideal to convey
message to a white American audience.
The press focus made King a nationally
known figure.
The leaders of the Montgomery
Improvement Association, Dr. King, and
Rev. John Duffy, joined with other church
leaders to form the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference in 1957. The
SCLC, offered training and other
assistance for local efforts to fight
segregation. It made non-violence both
its central tenet and its primary method of
confronting racism.
In 1957 Martin Luther King became its
President
Appeal of Nonviolence





Gandhi’s campaigns widely reported in press
Held up by black leaders eg. Dubois and Garvey, as a shining example to
African-Americans
Appeal of Gandhi’s Nonviolence;
 Form of direct action; ‘the greatest and activist force in the world’
(Gandhi)
 Comparison to St Paul’s idea of love; Black American’s religious faith
often gave them the strength to endure subordination.
 Practical lessons; ability to produce on mass scale, concept of
nonviolence could be transferred and applied to America’s situation.
CORE established in 1942; consciously and specifically sought to employ
techniques used by Gandhi; conducted sit-ins as early as 1942.
After Gandhi’s assassination 1948; Truman asked for a federal anti-lynching law
This was regarded as meagre political token but still shows reverberation from
his death.
Martin Luther King’s Influences

Henry David Thoreau, ‘On Civil Disobedience’; King’s first intellectual contact with theory
of non-violent resistance. Fascinated by idea of refusing to cooperate with an evil system
and argument that a minority could inspire a moral revolution.

Dr Benjamin E Mays, President at Morehouse introduced King to Gandhi’s philosophies.
He encouraged African Americans to study Gandhi because of the kinship he saw between
the situation for blacks in America and the struggle of the Indian people against the British

Awakened by reading Gandhi, King began ‘an intellectual odyssey to nonviolence’. At
first this was based on practical considerations; the disadvantages of any minority
adopting a policy of violence, rather than on principle. But he later developed his adherence
to nonviolence into a moral philosophy.

King often emphasises the significance of Gandhi as a guiding force in his thinking
‘Prior to coming to Montgomery I had read most of the major works on Gandhi and
Thoreau’s essay on ‘Civil Disobedience’. Both of these strains of thought had a
profound influence on my thinking. I firmly believe that the Gandhian philosophy of
nonviolent resistance is the only logical and moral approach to the solution of the
race problem in the United States’
King in a letter to George Hendrick, 5th Feb 1957

King continued to refine his views in nonviolence and after the Montgomery Bus Boycott
remarked that ‘The choice is no longer between violence and nonviolence. It is either
violence or non-existence.’
King’s Interpretation of Nonviolent
Struggle
Comprised of 5 elements;
1.
‘Non-violent resistance is not a method for cowards…It is the way of the strong…it is not a
method of stagnant passivity’.
2.
It does not seek the humiliation or defeat of the opponent but, rather understanding and
the awakening of a sense of morality’.
3.
Aimed at the evil acts, not the persons involved.
4.
The willingness to suffer any consequences in transformational.
5.
Rejects not just outward but inward violence of hatred, choosing instead to reach for
Love.
Acceptance Speech at Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony — December 10, 1964. At age 35, King
became the youngest man to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
I must ask why this prize is awarded to a movement which is
beleaguered and committed to unrelenting struggle, and to a
movement which has not yet won the very peace and brotherhood
which is the essence of the Nobel Prize. After contemplation, I
conclude that this award, which I receive on behalf of that movement,
is a profound recognition that nonviolence is the answer to the crucial
political and moral questions of our time: the need for man to
overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and
oppression.’
Little Rock High School







1957 - Desegregation at Little Rock:
On the orders of Governor Faubus, when
a group of nine black students arrived
at Central High School on September
3, they were kept from entering by the
National Guardsmen.
On September 20, judge Davies granted
an injunction against Governor Faubus.
The group of nine students returned to
Central High School a mob of 1,000
townspeople prevented them from
remaining at school.
Finally, President Eisenhower ordered
1,000 paratroopers and 10,000
National Guardsmen to Little Rock, and
on September 25, Central High School
was desegregated.
The quickest way for civil rights activists
to make headway in the Deep South was
to nationalise the struggle by igniting
crisis that would draw federal
intervention.
Martin Luther King; ‘The key to
everything is federal commitment’.
Sit-ins

Feb 1st 1960;
After having been
refused service at
the lunch counter
of a Woolworth's
in Greensboro,
four black
students
continued to
return each day.

When an article
in the New York
Times drew
attention to the
students' protest,
more students,
joined them, and
students across
the nation were
inspired to launch
similar protests.
“In a span of
two weeks, there
were sit-ins in
eleven cities”
Nashville Sit-Ins








Instigator; John Lawson; Member of FOR (Fellowship of Reconciliation)
Used position as minister to start workshops, teaching students in the theory and practices
of nonviolence in preparation for the sit-ins.
February 13th; more than 100 students split into groups and waited to be served at the
white lunch counters.
Other sit-ins followed; February 27th; ‘Big Saturday’; Police removed protection. Beatings,
being doused with ammonia, heavy court fines, arrest and imprisonment, Over 300
volunteers materialized for the campaign. Coordination and communication ensured that
new waves of demonstrated could replace those attacked or arrested.
“By late March, the police had orders not to arrest the demonstrators because of the
national publicity the sit-ins were attracting” (Williams 133). Senator John F. Kennedy, “they
have shown that the new way for Americans to stand up for their rights is to sit down”
Succeeded in separating the most ambivalent elements of the old order, who had no deep
interest in preserving segregation, from the most intransigent.
April 19th Following the bombing of Z. Alexander Looby’s home; 4000 marched to the
courthouse; Mayor West confronted by student Diane Nash and forced to recommend that
lunch counters be desegregated. Tennessean newspaper spread message to whole city.
April 1960 The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) is founded at Shaw
University, providing young blacks with a place in the civil rights movement.
Freedom Rides








1961 Organised by CORE (Congress for Racial Equality)
Send an integrated team of activists across the South to test the desegregation of
interstate buses and terminals.
Confronted with violence in South Carolina and a bus was firebombed in Alabama. Riders
beaten and clubbed in Birmingham. Images circulated in press and Kennedy forced to
intervene to fly riders out to safety.
Unfazed 20 more freedom riders took their place travelling from Birmingham with the aid of
a police escort. Local segregation laws were frequently used to arrest and try the freedom
riders. But as one group was arrested, more arrived to take their place. Throughout the
summer, more than 300 Freedom Riders traveled through the deep south in an effort to
integrate the bus terminals.
Faced attacks once again in Montgomery, clubbing of Kennedy’s own deputy; Kennedy
sent in 600 federal marshals to stop violence in a showdown between the state of
Alabama and the federal government.
Media coverage; reaped enormous publicity
Interstate Commerce Commission mandated the desegregation of all interstate bus
terminals
Destabilised balance of interests that kept American system of apartheid in place, by
provoking the national government to act against its own institutions and practices.
Birmingham




1963 – Birmingham: Birmingham, Alabama was one of the
most severely segregated cities in the 1960s. Black men and
women held sit-ins at lunch counters where they were refused
service, and "kneel-ins” on church steps where they were
denied entrance. Hundreds of demonstrators were fined and
imprisoned.
Birmingham: In May 1963, Dr. King, the Reverend Abernathy
and the Reverend Shuttlesworth lead a protest march in
Birmingham. Commissioner of Public Safety Eugene "Bull"
Connor uses fire hoses and police dogs on black
demonstrators. These images of brutality, which are televised
and published widely, are instrumental in gaining sympathy for
the civil rights movement around the world.
The three ministers were arrested and taken to Southside Jail.
Dr. King was held in solitary confinement for three days,
“Letter from Birmingham Jail,” a profoundly moving
justification for the moral necessity of non-violent resistance to
unjust laws.
We know through painful experience that freedom is
never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must
be demanded by the oppressed…"justice too long
delayed is justice denied."

Birmingham: In September 1963, the Ku Klux Klan bombed
the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, killing four little girls. By the
end of the day, riots and fires had broken out throughout
Birmingham. This murderous act shocked the nation and
galvanized the civil rights movement.

Freedom Summer; The Council of
Federated Organizations (COFO), a
network of civil rights groups that
includes CORE and SNCC,
launched a massive effort to register
black voters. It also sends delegates
to the Democratic National
Convention to protest and attempt
to unseat the official all-white
Mississippi contingent.

1964 – July 2nd The Civil Rights
Act of 1964: Johnson signs the
civil rights bill. The heart of the law
ruled that African Americans could
no longer be excluded from
restaurants, hotels and other public
facilities.
March on Washington



1963 – August 28th March on Washington: Historic event that would come to
symbolize the civil rights movement. The march had six official goals:
"meaningful civil rights laws, a massive federal works program, full and fair
employment, decent housing, the right to vote, and adequate integrated
education." Real focus was on passage of the civil rights law that the Kennedy
Administration had proposed after the upheavals in Birmingham.
A reporter from the Times wrote, "no one could ever remember an invading
army quite as gentle as the two hundred thousand civil rights marchers
who occupied Washington."
National media attention also greatly contributed to the march's national
exposure and probable impact. William Thomas notes: "Over five hundred
cameramen, technicians, and correspondents from the major networks
were set to cover the event. More cameras would be set up than had
filmed the last Presidential inauguration.”
Speech

Here, Dr. King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech. In this passage he reiterates
the need for nonviolence;
 ‘In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty
of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom
by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must
forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and
discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate
into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the
majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.’
 Close comparison with Gandhi’s message of Satyaghraha.
Selma and Bloody Sunday




1965 Selma: Outraged over the
killing of a demonstrator by a state
trooper in Marion, Alabama, the
black community decided to hold a
march from Selma to
Montgomery on Sunday March
7th.
When they reached the city line,
they found a state troopers waiting
for them. They immediately attacked
the crowd of people who had bowed
their heads in prayer.
Using tear gas and batons, the
troopers chased the demonstrators
to a black housing project, where
they continued to beat the
demonstrators as well as residents
of the project who had not been at
the march.
Numerous marches were organized
in response. Finally, with President
Johnson's permission, Dr. King led a
successful march from Selma to
Montgomery on March 25

Bloody Sunday received national
attention through the media.
Images of conflict between local
authorities and nonviolent
protestors, transferred legitimacy
and popular sympathy to the
campaign.
Results

The attention altered the political environment in which leaders had to operate;
President Johnson gave a rousing speech to congress concerning civil rights
as a result of Bloody Sunday, and passed the Voting Rights Act within that
same year.

1965 -- Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibits literacy tests and poll taxes
which had been used to prevent blacks from voting.
According to a report of the Bureau of the Census;
 In 1960 there were 22,000 African-Americans registered to vote in
Mississippi, but in 1966 the number had risen to 175,000.
 Alabama went from 66,000 African-American registered voters in 1960 to
250,000 in 1966.
 South Carolina's African-American registered voters went from 58,000 to
191,000 in the same time period.
Influence of the Media

First popular nonviolent movement to be played out before the modern
mass media.

Some of the success of the Movement can be attributed to the invention of the
television. This medium, through news broadcast and documentary film
making, was particularly effective at conveying the news and images of the
campaigns.

Prof. William Thomas argues that even "in the American South, local
television news coverage had immediate and significant effects" on
perceptions of social equality and segregation.’ (In "Television News and the
Civil Rights Struggle“). Martin Luther King used this as a strategy to challenge
the morality of mainstream America.

Since the 1960’s subsequent nonviolent movements have employed the
use of media tactics following in the example of the Civil Rights
movement. The modern global reach of communications has lead activists to
give careful consideration to their media image. It can be potentially damaging if
it fosters false hope of intervention but it has proved important in lifting the moral
of many movements.
‘Black Power’



‘Black Power’; King faced criticism on two key
tenets upon which the movement had been based:
integration and non-violence. Disillusionment
among SNCC and CORE militants provoked by
slow progress of campaign.
Stokely Carmichael, who became the leader of
SNCC in 1966, became the spokesperson for the
"Black Power" movement. He encouraged the
"right to self-defense" in response to attacks from
white authorities.
Goal of black pride and separatism; The slogan
‘Black Power’ offered an aggressively militant
alternative to what was increasingly seen as a
conciliatory and assimilationist attitude towards
Civil Rights; ‘We don’t need white liberals…we
have to make integration irrelevant’
(Carmichael). It implied standing up to oppression
and refusing to accept the social, political and
cultural modes of one’s oppressor or colonizer.
Celebrating ‘blackness’ in dress, demeanour and
values.

Tommie Smith and John Carlos,
while being awarded the medals
at the 1968 Summer Olympics,
each raised a black-gloved Black
Power salute. They were
immediately ejected from the
games but the Black Power
movement had been given a
stage on live, international
television.
Black Panthers



Black Panthers; founded in Oakland,
California, in 1966. This group followed
ideology stated by Malcolm X and the
Nation of Islam using a "by-any-means
necessary" approach to stopping
inequality.
Using the statement "Power to the
people”, their separatist demands
resonated with ghetto youth, who
identified more immediately with the
murdered Malcolm X than with King. As
racial conflict raged, violent disorder
seemed to capture the establishment's
attention more effectively than nonviolence.
Originally espousing violent revolution as
the only means of achieving black
liberation, the Black Panthers called on
African Americans to arm themselves for
the liberation struggle.
King’s Death and Legacy
1968 – April 4 Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis.

‘Martin Luther King dedicated his life to
love and to justice between fellow human
beings. He died in the cause of that
effort…We can make an effort, as Martin
Luther King did, to understand and to
comprehend, and replace that violence, that
stain of bloodshed that has spread across
our land, with an effort to understand,
compassion and love.’ (Robert F Kennedy).

Laid groundwork for South to overcome
pervesity of racial injustice and to transform
itself into a region of dignity and racial amity.
Across the nation, laws, values and attitudes
were altered as a result of the US Civil Rights
Campaign.

On the international scene, King's legacy
included influences on the Black
Consciousness Movement and Civil Rights
Movements in South Africa.

Enduring legacy felt in the ongoing global
struggle for human rights..

The success of the Civil Rights
campaign of nonviolent action
conferred on nonviolent
methods a ‘new aura of
effectiveness’. The mass
media popularized the story
and universalized the
impression that nonviolent
force could be more powerful
Factors for success
Simple logic; mobilized black people behind nonviolent sanctions
that compelled the nation to change.
Strategy; Effectiveness of economic sanctions and Civil
Disobedience
Nationalization of struggle
‘Our most powerful nonviolent weapon is…also our most demanding,
that is organization’ (Martin Luther King)
Grass roots support
Achievable goals
Symbiotic relationship between violence and non-violence
Leadership
Role of Media
Limits of Nonviolence

North South Divide; NATURE OF THE CAMPAIGNS; In the North the campaigns were
aimed at gaining Social and Economic equality rather than Political and Legal equality as in
the South.

NATURE OF THE CAMPAIGNERS: By the mid 1960s many younger campaigners were
becoming impatient. They had grown up with the early successes of the movement and now
wanted more as the movement was becoming less successful.

POLITICAL CLIMATE: the Vietnam War directs funding away from the poorest members of
society (mainly Blacks). King also speaks out against the war and thus starts to lose federal
support and sympathy.
In the late 1950s and the early 1960s, the movement had clear goals - integrate Southern
schools and colleges, removal of local racial bye-laws and restrictions in the Southern
states, increase black voter registrations in the Southern states. The targets were easily
identifiable, and could more easily be supported by white liberals and conservatives in
power in the North and beyond. The creation of a black liberal middle-class supportive of the
state was in their interests.

Aims after 1964; A totally equal society? A true democracy? An end to poverty? The
politics of identity and race taken on by activists. Move away from black nationalism by
Malcolm X, and later by the Black Panthers towards a more socialist train of thought. Martin
Luther King begins the broadening of his thinking and starts to challenge poverty and class
inequality (across races).
Questions for Discussion
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
What was distinctive about Martin Luther King's leadership? How
much was he influenced by Gandhi, and were his methods similar to
those of Gandhi, or were there important differences?
How crucial was the leadership of Martin Luther King to the Civil
Rights movement?
Why was the Nashville lunch-counter protest of early 1960 so
successful? E.g. analyse the conditions for its success.
To what extent did the movement benefit from the counter-violence of
white racists?
What were the conditions that brought success to the movement in
the South, but not in the North?
How justified was the Black Power critique of Martin Luther King and
his nonviolence?
What was the legacy of the Civil Rights movement for the USA?