The Civil Rights Era
CHA3U
Brown v. Board of Education
• Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) est.
legality of “separate but equal
schools”
• NAACP lawyer Thurgood
Marshall began to focus on
desegregating nation’s
schools in 1950s
• Case of Linda Brown in
Topeka, Kansas
• Segregation kept her from
attending a school close to
home forcing her to travel
considerable distance and
cross dangerous railroad
tracks
Brown v. Board of Education
•
Supreme Court combined several
school segregation cases from around
country into single case: Brown v.
Board of Education of Topeka,
Kansas
•
Court understood significance of case
•
Court heard arguments over a twoyear period
•
Considered research about
segregation’s effects on African
American children
•
1954 - Chief Justice Earl Warren
issued decision
•
Decision unanimous - separate
schools for African Americans and
whites violated Constitution’s
guarantee of equal protection of the
law
•
Racial segregation illegal in public
schools
Little Rock
• School desegregation moved
slowly in South
• Some states integrated quickly other states faced opposition
• Virginia passed laws that closed
schools that planned to
integrate
• September, 1957 - Little Rock,
Arkansas
• 9 African-American students
admitted to all-white Central
High School
• Governor Orval Faubus spoke
out against plan
• Ordered the Arkansas National
Guard to surround the school
Little Rock
• Claimed move was to
protect school from
attacks by armed
protesters
• Faubus exaggerated
danger and spread panic
• For three weeks
members of the National
Guard the Little Rock
Nine from entering the
school
Little Rock
• September 23 – white
mob riots when students
attempt to enter school
• President Eisenhower
ordered 1000 federal
troops to Little Rock
• September 25, 1957 under protection of
soldiers w/ fixed
bayonets, Little Rock
Nine entered Central
High
Little Rock Nine
• Endured difficult year
• Minniejean Brown expelled for
responding to a racial slur
• “One Down…Eight to Go.”
• Faubus shutdown school
system in 1958
• Est. private school system for
whites
• Poor whites as well as AfricanAmericans had no school to
attend
• 1959 – school district reopened under court order
• Desegregated
Rosa Parks
• NAACP sought to end
segregation on southern
transportation systems
• System forced blacks to
ride on back of the bus
• Montgomery, Alabama –
December 1, 1955 –
Rosa Parks refused to
give up her seat on bus to
white passenger
• Arrested and convicted of
violating segregation laws
Montgomery Bus Boycott
• In protest, 50 000 AfricanAmericans boycott the
Montgomery bus system
• Hurt bus system and
white businesses
• Baptist minister Martin
Luther King Jr. led protest
• Suffered intimated and
physical violence
• King had studied
Gandhi’s non-violent
tactics and urged blacks
not to respond w/
violence
Montgomery Bus Boycott
• Non-violent protest
worked
• November, 1956
Supreme Court declared
Montgomery and
Alabama segregation
laws on buses
unconstitutional
• Montgomery bus system
desegregated
• Victory a blow to racial
discrimination
• Civil Rights movement
had a new leader – King
Civil Rights Act of 1957
• Ike had tried to keep
federal government out of
controversial laws that
affected state and local
governments
• “I don’t believe you can
change the hearts of men
with laws and decisions.”
• First new civil rights law
since Reconstruction
• Made it a federal crime to
prevent qualified persons
from voting
Strategies of Non-Violence
Sit-in Movement
•
4 college students in Greensboro,
North Carolina, stayed in their
seats at Woolworth’s lunch
counter after being refused
service because of their race
•
Over next few days, protesters
filled 63 of the 66 seats at the
lunch counter
•
Students were dedicated and wellbehaved and ended each sit-in
with a prayer
•
Over time, protesters in about 50
southern cities began to use sit-in
tactic
Strategies of Non-Violence
The Freedom Rides
• 1960 - Supreme Court ordered
that bus station facilities for
interstate travelers must be
open to all passengers
• Ruling was not enforced.
• Group of Freedom Riders on a
bus trip through South to draw
attention to situation
• Mobs angry at Freedom Riders
attempts to use white-only
facilities firebombed a bus in
Alabama and attacked riders
w/ bats and pipes in
Birmingham
Strategies of Non-Violence
• After savage beatings in
Birmingham, Alabama bus
companies refused to sell
Freedom Riders tickets
• Local police unwilling to
protect riders
• AG Robert Kennedy sent
federal marshals to protect
riders.
• Interstate Commerce
Commission finally forced
integration of bus and train
stations
James Meredith
• September 1962 - Mississippi
Governor Ross Barnett refused
to allow James Meredith to
register at University of
Mississippi
• Barnett personally kept
Meredith from registering
• September 30th riot on campus
when word leaks that Meredith
is there
• JFK orders the army to restore
order
• 2 dead, 375 injured
• Meredith registered next day,
attended classes w/ armed
guards
• Graduated in 1963
Birmingham Campaign
• Birmingham, Alabama
• City know for its’ strict
enforcement of
segregation laws
• King raised money to
fight Birmingham’s
segregation laws
• Volunteers began sit-ins
and marches
• Shutdown city
• Arrested
Birmingham Campaign
• King criticized for using
children for protests –
900 children arrested
• Police Chief “Bull”
Connor used police and
fire fighters to break up
group of 2500 student
protesters
• Violence of Connor’s
methods was broadcast
all over television news
• International outcry
Birmingham Campaign
• JFK sends in federal negotiators to
reach settlement
• Jim Crow signs taken down in city –
public places became more open to
blacks
• King’s reputation surged
• Bull Connor fired
• By attracting media attention to
treatment of African-Americans,
campaign brought national attention
to segregation
• Major factor in the national push
towards the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
March on Washington
• August 1963 – 100th
anniversary Emancipation
Proclamation
• Marched on Washington,
D.C. to pressure
Congress to pass JFK’s
Civil Rights Bill
• King delivered
inspiring/famous
speeches
• “I have a dream” speech
– a vision of what
America could and should
be
The Civil Rights Act of 1964
• After JFK’s assassination,
LBJ determined to pass
civil rights bill
• Passed July 2, 1964
• Banned discrimination in
employment on basis of
race, colour, religion,
gender, or national origin
• Outlawed public
segregation
• To allow for equal voting
rights, act removed some
registration restrictions
Voting Rights
• Voting rights for African Americans were achieved at
great human cost
• JFK worried about violent reactions to nonviolent
methods
• AG Robert Kennedy promised federal government would
protect civil rights workers if focused on voter registration
• 24th Amendment (1964) outlawed practice of taxing
citizens to vote – poll tax – applied only to congressional
and presidential elections
• Hundreds of people volunteered to summers registering
African Americans to vote
Freedom Summer
• Hundreds of college
students volunteered to
spend summer
registering African
Americans to vote
• Volunteers were white,
northern, and upper
middle class
• Volunteers registered
voters or taught at
summer schools
Mississippi
• Andrew Goodman, college
student from NY and Freedom
Summer volunteer arrived in
Mississippi on June 20, 1964
• Next day - Goodman, James
Chaney and Michael
Schwerner went missing
• Bodies found six weeks later
• Found underneath earthen
damn
• President Johnson ordered
FBI to investigate
Mississippi
•
Three had been arrested and held
at jail then purposefully released
into a waiting ambush from
Klansmen
•
Beaten, tortured and murdered
•
Murders of white volunteers
shocked Americans in ways that
African-American killings had not
•
Mississippi refused to investigate
or indict anyone for murders
•
FBI arrested 7 men on charges
related to murder – served little or
no jail time
•
In 2005 – 41st anniversary of
killings – Edgar Ray Killen found
guilty
Freedom Summer
• Murders derailed
Freedom Summer
• Volunteers carried on,
but African-Americans
were afraid of
violence
• By the end of
summer, only 1600
African-Americans
had been added to
voting rolls
Selma, Alabama
• 1965 – only 383
registered out of Selma’s
15 000 eligible black
voters
• King organized protest
march from Selma to
Montgomery
• Alabama Governor
George Wallace banned
protest
• March 7 – 600 people
being 54 mile trek
• Attacked by police –
“Bloody Sunday”
Voter Rights Act of 1965
• President Johnson
outraged
• Addressed joint session
of Congress and
demanded passage of
voting rights bill
• Passed five months later
• Entire voter registration
process was under
federal control
• 1968 – Mississippi – 7%
eligible voters to 59%
Death of King
• King became aware that
economic issues must be part
of civil rights movement
• April 1968 – travels to
Memphis, Tennessee to help
striking sanitation workers
• James Earl Ray killed King as
he stood on balcony of his
motel
• Symbol of non-violence meets
violent end
• Within hours, rioting erupted in
more than 120 cities
• 46 people dead, 2600 injured,
and more than 21000 arrested
Legacy of King
• Human rights icon
• Secured progress on
civil rights
• Birthday is a national
holiday
• Civil Rights
movement flounder,
was directionless
without his leadership
King’s Legacy
When asked what he wanted said at his funeral, he
responded,
“I'd like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther
King Jr. tried to give his life serving others. I'd like for
somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King Jr.
tried to love somebody. I want you to say that day that I
tried to be right on the war question. I want you to be
able to say that day that I did try to feed the hungry. I
want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my life
to clothe those who were naked. I want you to say on
that day that I did try in my life to visit those who were in
prison. And I want you to say that I tried to love and
serve humanity”