Dwight D. Eisenhower
Domestic Policy and Civil
Rights of the 1950s
I. Election of 1952 (review)
A. Democratic candidate:
Adlai Stevenson
B. Republican candidate:
Dwight D. Eisenhower
(VP) Richard M. Nixon
C. Major issues: Korea, Communism,
Corruption
I. Ike and Modern Republicanism
a. “Conservative when it comes to money;
liberal when it comes to human beings”
b. Ike cut billions of dollars from the
federal budget by reducing the number
of gov’t jobs and by leasing gov’t land
c. Expanded Social Security and
unemployment benefits; increased
educational spending and minimum
wage.
II. The Affluent Society
a. The 1950’s was a time of prosperity
for many Americans; about 60% were
earning a middle-class income
b. Consumerism was highly promoted –
“keeping up with the Joneses”
c. Family life, accompanying the post-war
“Baby Boom,” was promoted as well
III. Election of 1956 - Candidates
A. Democratic:
Adlai Stevenson
B. Republican:
Dwight D. Eisenhower
(Richard Nixon VP)
C. Ike won just under 60% of
the popular vote; electoral vote
was 457 to 73 in favor of Ike!
D. Ike failed to win either house
of Congress for his party –
country remained heavily
Democratic – but everyone
loved Ike.
Electoral Map of 1956
IV. Major Legislation under Ike
A. Federal Highway Act of 1956
(May) – authorized the construction
of a network of superhighways;
primary purpose was defense
B. Civil Rights Act of 1957:
1. first civil rights bill passed in
U.S. since Reconstruction!!!
2. Organized to investigate the abuses of
“civil rights”: the rights of personal
liberty guaranteed to United States
citizens by the 13th and 14th
amendments to the Constitution and by
acts of Congress
3. Aimed to ensure that all
African Americans could
exercise their right to vote
Beginning of the Civil Rights
Movement (Ike’s 1st & 2nd Terms)
I. Jim Crow in the South
A. 1950: 15 million AfricanAmericans in the U.S. – 2/3
still lived in the South
B. Only about 20% of Southern
blacks were registered to
vote
C. Segregation legally upheld by
1896 Supreme Court Case
Plessy v. Ferguson Remember, this established
“separate but equal”
D. Du jure vs. De facto
segregation: du jure =
segregation enforced by LAW
De facto = segregation that
exists in fact
II. Brown v. Board of Education of
Topeka, Kansas
A. Earl Warren became the Chief
Justice of the Supreme Court in
1953
B. May, 1954 - most important decision
of the Warren Court
C. In a unanimous decision, Brown v.
Board overturned the Plessy v.
Ferguson case by stating that
segregation in public schools was
“inherently unequal.”
Chief Justice Earl Warren
D. Brown decision declared that
desegregation must go ahead with
“all deliberate speed”
E. Eisenhower was not a major force in
desegregation; he said this case had
upset “the customs and convictions
of at least two generations of
Americans.”
III. Death of Emmett Till
A. August 1955: 14-year-old
Chicago boy visited relatives
near Money, MS
B. Supposedly whistled and called the
wife of a local (white) store owner
“Baby.”
C. Till was taken a few nights later by
the store owner and his brother-inlaw.
D. Body of Till was found three days
later in the Tallahatchie River –
corpse unrecognizable
E. Mother of Till insisted on an open
casket funeral – so the entire
world could see what happened
F. Trial failed to convict the men
accused of the crime – even with
eye witnesses
G. Huge impact on ALL AfricanAmericans – North/South
From PBS’s timeline of the murder:
September 21: Moses Wright, Emmett Till's great uncle,
does the unthinkable, accusing 2 white men in open court.
While on the witness stand, he stands up, points his finger
at Milam and Bryant, and accuses them of coming to his
house and kidnapping Emmett.
September 23: Milam and Bryant are acquitted of
murdering Emmett Till after the jury deliberates only 67
minutes. One juror tells a reporter that they wouldn't have
taken so long if they hadn't stopped to drink pop. Roy
Bryant and J. W. Milam stand before photographers, light
up cigars and kiss their wives in celebration of the not
guilty verdict.
Moses Wright and another poor black Mississippian who
testified, Willie Reed, leave Mississippi and are smuggled to
Chicago. Once there, Reed collapses and suffers a nervous
breakdown.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/till/timeline/timeline2.html
1956:
January 24: Look magazine publishes an article
written by Alabama journalist William
Bradford Huie, entitled “The Shocking Story
of Approved Killing in Mississippi.” Huie
offered Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam $4,000
to tell how they killed Emmett Till. Milam
speaks for the record.
Bob Dylan “The Death of
Emmett Till”
IV. Montgomery, AL Bus Boycott
A. Beginning: December 1955
B. Rosa Parks, a college-educated
black seamstress, boarded a bus,
refused to give up her seat on the
bus to a white.
C. She was arrested in violation of
the city’s Jim Crow statues
D. This action sparked a year-long bus
boycott of the city’s buses.
E. Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.
became the noted Civil Rights leader
by organizing the bus boycott.
F. King followed the principles of India’s
Mahatma Gandhi – nonviolent
resistance
G. The boycott ended in Nov of ’56 when
the Supreme Court declared AL’s bus
segregation illegal.
V. Little Rock Crisis
A. South refused to abide by the
Brown Decision
B. Several “private” schools were
created
C. September 1957 –
Orval Faubus,
governor of
Arkansas,
mobilized the
Arkansas National
Guard to prevent
9 black students
from enrolling in
Little Rock’s
Central HS
A. Eisenhower was forced to send troops
to escort the students to class.
E. Little Rock
High School
closed in
1958 to avoid
integration.
VI. Southern Christian
Leadership Conference (SCLC)
A. Organized in 1957 by Martin
Luther King, Jr.
B. Churches were the largest and bestorganized black institutions allowed to
be successful in the segregated
society.
C. This movement thus aimed to
mobilize influential black churches
on behalf of civil rights.
Sit-In Movement
• February 1, 1960: four African-American
college students sat down at the lunch
counter inside the Woolworth's
department store in Greensboro,
NC. The men ordered coffee, but
following store policy, the lunch counter
staff refused to serve them at the
"whites only" counter; the store's
manager asked them to leave.
• The men stayed until closing, and they
came back the next day... with friends
(over 20 people). The continued to
come until they received service.
• The sit-in movement continued
spreading, both at this store and around
the state.
- It took six months to accomplish its
goal; in July of 1960, Woolworth's
desegregated.