CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
Civil Rights Movement
• Taking on segregation in American society
• De facto segregation – by practice or custom
• De jure segregation – by law
• Keys to the accomplishing freedom and equality
• Courts
• Non-violent protests
• Massive
• Youth are involved
• The right language
• The media gets involved
Jim Crow America
School Desegregation
Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
• Addressed segregation in four states – KS, SC, VA, and
DE
• Thurgood Marshall (NAACP lawyer and future Supreme
Court Justice) is the attorney
• Ruling: “Separate educational facilities are inherently
unequal.”
• Impact:
• Southern Manifesto – 90 Southern members of Congress
denounced Brown and called on the states to resist it “by all
lawful means.”
• 10 years later most southern states had not fully integrated
Emmett Till (1955)
Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-56)
• Begins with Rosa Parks
• Lasts over a year
• Importance
• Martin Luther King, Jr. is selected
as the leader
• Economic boycotts work
• Non-violent protests work
Formation of SCLC
Little Rock Nine (1957-58)
• Central High School: Little Rock, Arkansas
• Governor is up for reelection and does not want to
•
•
•
•
•
integrate
Uses the National Guard to deny the students entry
Eisenhower meets with Faubus and convinces him that it
is in his best interest to let the students enroll
He provides a basic police force and it turns into a riot
Eisenhower federalizes the Arkansas National Guard and
sends in the 101st Airborne
The next year Faubus closes the school system in Little
Rock
The Greensboro Four (1960)
Formation of the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee
Sit-in Movement
Freedom Rides (1961)
• The Freedom Rides magnified the
necessity for federal support for
Civil Rights Workers
• This showed the nature of the state
vs. federal authority issue present
during the Civil Rights Movement
Birmingham (1963)
• Known as Bombingham; Project C
(Confrontation)
• Specifically targeted
• “Letter From Birmingham City Jail”
• Directed towards local white clergy
• Tired of hearing the word “wait”
• The white moderate is the key problem
• Children’s March
• 1,000 children jailed
I Have a Dream Speech
• The speech
• Connection to America’s past
• Constant referencing brotherhood of
whites and blacks
• Use of geography makes it a national
issue
• Religion, religion, religion
Selma (1965)
• Selma March
• From Selma to Montgomery, Alabama (along the Jefferson Davis Highway)
• 5 days; 54 miles; from 300 to 25,000 marchers
• Protected by 2,000 soldiers of the U.S. Army, 1,900 members of the Alabama
National Guard under Federal command, and many FBI agents and Federal
Marshals
Black Power Movement
Black Panthers
Malcolm X
• 1968 Olympics
• Tommie Smith,
Peter Norman,
John Carlos
• IOC’s reaction
• U.S.’s reaction
• Australia’s
reaction
San Jose State Memorial
1968 Riots