1
The civil rights movement in the United States has
been a long, primarily nonviolent struggle to bring
full civil rights and equality under the law to all
Americans. The movement has had a lasting impact
on United States society, both in its tactics, the
increased social and legal acceptance of civil rights it
brought about and its exposure of the prevalence and
cost of racism.
The American Civil Rights movement has been made
up of many movements, though it most often refers to
the struggles between 1945 and 1970 to end
discrimination against African-Americans and to end
racial segregation, especially in the U.S. South.
2
After the Civil War, the United
States expanded the legal rights
of African-Americans. The
Congress passed, and the states
ratified, an amendment ending
slavery in 1865.
3
1865
th
13
AMENDMENT
= abolished SLAVERY
& INVOLUNTARY SERVITUDE
throughout U.S.
Note: This amendment only
outlawed slavery; it did not provide
citizenship and equal rights.
4
th
14
1868
AMENDMENT
ALL PERSONS
born or naturalized in U.S.
- including former slaves –
are CITIZENS of the U.S.
& as “CITIZENS” are thus
guaranteed
due process & equal protection
under the law.
=
5
1870
= 15th AMENDMENT
VOTING RIGHTS
for ALL MALE CITIZENS
shall NOT be denied
on account of race, color or
previous condition of servitude.
6
1919 TO 1935, HARLEM NEW YORK CITY
AFTER WWI MANY BLACKS
FLED THE SOUTH FOR
BETTER ECONOMIC
OPPORTUNITIES AND
FREEDOM FROM KKK
VIOLENCE. HARLEM WAS A
POPULAR DESTINATION AND
NEW YORK CITY’S BLACK
POPULATION SWELLED
FROM 30,000 IN 1900 TO
7
OVER 300,000 IN 1930.
BLACK ARTISTS, WRITERS, DANCERS, POETS,
HISTORIANS, AND MANY OTHERS TURNED
HARLEM INTO A CENTER OF CULTURE,
CREATIVITY, AND EXPLORATION OF AFRICAN
AMERICAN ROOTS, KNOWN AS THE HARLEM
RENISSANCE
8
PREPARATION FOR WWII CREATED
MILLIONS OF NEW JOBS, HOWEVER DUE
TO DISCRIMINATION MANY BLACKS WERE
PREVENTED FROM GETTING JOBS
A. PHILIP RANDOLPH
LEADER OF
BROTHERHOOD OF
SLEEPING CAR
PORTERS UNION
RANDOLPH MET WITH FDR
TO INFORM HIM OF A
MASSIVE MARCH ON THE
WHITE HOUSE LAWN IF
SOMETHING WAS NOT
CHANGED
9
•He was called the most dangerous black in
America.
•He led 250,000 people in the historic
1963 March on Washington.
•He spoke for all the dispossessed: Blacks,
poor Whites, Puerto Ricans, Indians and
Mexican Americans.
A. Philip
Randolph
•He won the fight to ban discrimination
in the armed forces & federal civil
service jobs.
•He organized the 1957-prayer pilgrimage
for the civil rights bill.
10
As a man living in the bread-and-butter world, Mr. Randolph
knew that a good weekly paycheck had to be won first. Then, after
the children were fed, a better fight could be waged for dignity &
self-pride.With this in mind, Mr. Randolph traveled throughout
the nation just before World War II, in 1940 and 1941. His
mission: unite Blacks against the discrimination, which shut them
out of well-paying jobs in the factories.
Although many Whites, and even Blacks knocked his efforts in the
beginning, his message caught fire. All over the U. S. committees of
Blacks were forming to "March on Washington" in protest.
Finally, recognizing that Mr. Randolph could not be swayed,
President F D R signed an order, 6 months before Pearl Harbor, in
June 1941, which called for an end to discrimination in defense
plant jobs. Here was the beginning of "fair employment practices "
This, the first "March on Washington," never had to be held. The
most powerful leader in the world, the President of the U. S., had
yielded to the head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.11
AS A
RESULT,
FDR ISSUES
EXECUTIVE
ORDER
8802
JUNE 1941
12
AS A RESULT OF EXECUTIVE ORDER 8802
BLACK WOMEN MADE MANY IMPORTANT
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE WAR EFFORT IN
WORLD WAR II
13
HISTORICALLY
AFRICAN
AMERICANS
SERVED IN
SEGREGATED
UNITS IN
EVERY U.S.
WAR
CIVIL WAR
14
SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR
WORLD WAR ONE
WORLD WAR II ALSO HAD
SEGREGATED TROOPS
15
TRUMAN DESEGREGATES
THE MILITARY WITH
EXECUTIVE ORDER 9981
JULY 26, 1948
16
TIMELINE OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS
MOVEMENT 1948-1960
1948 PRESIDENT TRUMAN ISSUED TWO EXECUTIVE ORDERS. ONE
INSTITUTED FAIR EMPLOYMENT PRACTICES IN THE CIVILIAN AGENCIES
OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT; THE OTHER PROVIDED FOR "EQUALITY
OF TREATMENT AND OPPORTUNITY IN THE ARMED FORCES WITHOUT
REGARD TO RACE, COLOR, RELIGION, OR NATIONAL ORIGIN." THIS WAS
A MAJOR VICTORY FOR CIVIL RIGHTS ADVOCATES IN THE QUEST FOR
FULL CITIZENSHIP.
1954 & 1955 BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF TOPEKA, KANSAS, SUPREME
COURT RULED THAT SCHOOLS MUST BE DESEGREGATED “WITH ALL
DELIBERATE SPEED”
1955 ROSA PARKS REFUSED TO GIVE UP HER BUS SEAT TO A WHITE MAN AND
WAS ARRESTED. THIS LED TO THE MONTGOMERY BUS BOYCOTT LED BY
MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. BUS SEGREGATION WAS RULED
UNCONSTITUTIONAL BY THE SUPREME COURT
1957 STRUGGLE FOR INTEGRATION AT CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL IN LITTLE
ROCK ARKANSAS. PRESIDENT EISENHOWER WAS FORCED TO SEND
FEDERAL TROOPS TO ENSURE INTEGRATION OF THE SCHOOL.
1957 THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1957 MADE IT A FEDERAL CRIME TO INTERFERE
WITH THE VOTING RIGHTS OF U.S. CITIZENS. THE CIVIL RIGHTS
COMMISSION WAS ESTABLISHED TO INVESTIGATE INFRINGEMENTS 17
OF
THIS LAW.
Thurgood Marshall
Marshall received his law degree from Howard in
1933, & set up a private practice in Baltimore. The
following year, he began working with the Baltimore
NAACP. His most famous case as a lawyer was
Brown V. Board Of Education of Topeka in 1954. The
case in which the Supreme Court ruled on May 17,
1954, that “separate but equal" public education was
illegal because it could never be truly equal.
President Johnson appointed him to the Supreme
Court on June 13, 1967. Note: He was the first
American Black to be appointed to the Supreme Court
18
Thurgood
Marshall
19
Brown V.
Board of
Education
The unanimous
ruling which
declared that
segregation in
education was
inherently
unequal
20
The above picture was taken at a school in Fort Myer,
Virginia, shortly after the school was desegregated
under the mandate of Brown v. Board of Education of
Topeka. Many Southern politicians regarded the decision
as a "clear abuse of judicial power" and ten years after
the case only one percent of black students in the South
attended desegregated schools.
21
1954
White Citizens’ Councils – A group comprised of mainly middle
and upper income whites who oppose desegregation form the
white citizens’ council in Indianola, Mississippi. Soon chapters
spring up throughout the south. The councils use economic and
political pressure to achieve their ends.
1954
Hernandez v. Texas:
The first Mexican American civil rights case heard and decided by
the Supreme Court during the post WWII period, the decision also
is the first Supreme Court ruling against discrimination targeting a
group other than American Blacks. In it the Supreme Court strikes
down discrimination based on class and ethnic distinctions
between whites and hispanics.
22
August 1955
Fourteen-year-old Chicagoan Emmett Till is visiting family in
Mississippi when he is kidnapped, brutally beaten, shot, and
dumped in the Tallahatchie River for allegedly whistling at a
white woman. Two white men, J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant,
are arrested for the murder and acquitted by an all-white jury.
They later boast about committing the murder in a Look
magazine interview. The case becomes a catalyst of the civil
rights movement.
23
1955
Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks, a 42 year-old seamstress and NAACP worker
in Alabama, is arrested for refusing to give up her seat to
a white person and move to the back of the bus.
Rosa Parks act of protest against injustice on the buses,
sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
24
Mrs. Parks was arrested as a result of her actions. Subsequently,
she was bailed out of jail by E. D. Nixon, the Montgomery
representative of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and a
local leader of the NAACP. Later that evening Nixon was struck
with the idea of having Montgomery's black citizens boycott the
city's segregated bus system.
Other groups, including an organization of black women known as
the Women's Political Council, also decided a bus boycott was the
best way to respond to the arrest of Rosa Parks. An organizational
meeting was held at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, and
subsequently the minister at that church, the Reverend Martin
Luther King Jr., was elected to lead the bus boycott.
Montgomery's 40,000 blacks stayed off the city buses for more
than a year, vowing not to return until the buses were totally
desegregated. Many of the boycotters walked to their
destinations. Others rode in car pools or received free automobile
rides from volunteer drivers supporting the bus boycott.
25
Boycott
lasted 381
days
In 1956, The
Supreme Court
outlawed bus
segregation
The major accomplishment of the Montgomery bus
boycott was that it turned a nonviolent
demonstration for racial integration into a national
news story.
26
“My
feet are tired, but my soul
is Rested”
27
It was this news attention that made Martin Luther
King Jr., a national symbol of the new black
resistance to segregation & enabled him to present
to the American people his ideas on the Nonviolent
Demonstration as a means of producing political
and social change.
28
1957:
The Little Rock Nine
Although most school districts at least attempted to integrate, some
districts tried to avoid it, particularly those in the South. One of the most
famous cases of integration was the story of the Little Rock Nine, which
took place in Little Rock, Arkansas. Governor Orval Faubus had the
National Guard block nine black students from entering Central High in
Little Rock because he didn’t want to integrate Little Rock’s schools.
President Eisenhower heard of this and sent Federal Troops to protect the
nine black students.
29
Three years after the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of
Education decision, which officially ended public-school
segregation, a federal court ordered Little Rock to comply. On
September 4, 1957, Governor Orval Faubus defied the court,
calling in the Arkansas National Guard to prevent nine African
American students from entering the building. Ten days later in a
meeting with President Eisenhower, Faubus agreed to use the
National Guard to protect the African American teenagers, but on
returning to Little Rock, he dismissed the troops, leaving the
African American students exposed to an angry white mob. Within
hours, the jeering, brick-throwing mob had beaten several
reporters and smashed many of the school's windows and doors.
By noon, local police were forced to evacuate the nine students.
When Faubus did not restore order, President Eisenhower
dispatched 101st Airborne Division paratroopers to Little Rock and
put the Arkansas National Guard under federal command. By 3
a.m., soldiers surrounded the school, bayonets fixed.
30
Little Rock Nine awarded 31
Congressional Gold Medals
32
33
1957
The SCLC is formed:
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
After the boycott ended, the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference was
established with the goal of redeeming "the
soul of America" through nonviolent
resistance. Its main objective was to
coordinate nonviolent protests throughout the
South. Martin Luther King Jr., served as
president of SCLC from its founding in 1957
until his death in 1968.
34
SCLC trained local communities in the philosophy
of Christian nonviolence, opened citizenship
schools, and registered voters. SCLC sought to
put the struggle for civil rights in moral terms.
Through the 1960s, under King's leadership, SCLC
participated in sit-ins, voter registrations, mass
demonstrations, Freedom Rides and antipoverty
programs.
35
1960
Sit-ins:
Black protestors sit down at segregated
lunch counters & refuse to leave until they
are served or arrested.
36
5 black students (members
of Lane's Student
Movement Association) left
campus (North Carolina’s
Agricultural & Technical
College) & entered
Woolworth's about 11 a.m.
They sat down at the
"whites only" lunch
counter. Store employees
immediately closed the "We don't serve y'all," a waitress snapped.
counter.
Manager Fred Cook summoned police,
who arrested the students and charged
them with disorderly conduct and
"threatened breach of peace." Bond was
set at $50 each.
37
“We decided to go back & be arrested
or be served. This time they poured
hot coffee down our backs, put out
cigarettes on our backs. They threw
the boys out one at a time. They took
the two girls and threw them bodily
from one group to the other before
throwing them out. The policemen
were watching and did not act."
38
By the late 60’s students
organized sit-ins in some 48
cities & 11 states. They
endured arrests, beatings,
suspensions from college,
dogs, tear gas & fire hoses.
39
1961
Freedom Rides:
In May of 1961, The Congress of Racial Equality, (CORE) a group
of civil rights activists sought to "test" enforcement of a recent
Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation in bus terminals &
interstate transportation. The group consisted of black & white,
male & female. They boarded 2 busses in D.C. & were bound to
New Orleans where they would celebrate the 7th anniversary of
the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of
Education. Their route would take them through South Carolina,
Georgia, & Alabama. At various bus terminals, the black
"Freedom Riders" would go to the white dining areas and waiting
rooms while the white "Freedom Riders" would go to the area
reserved for blacks. The buses were bombed, shot at and
attacked by Klansmen.
All the protesters were jailed when they reached Alabama. The
violence was seen on television across America & again drew40the
nation's attention to the civil rights movement.
41
1962
James Meredith & the University of Mississippi
In September of 1962, James Meredith sought to enroll as the first
black student in the history of the University of Mississippi (Ole
Miss). His enrollment triggered substantial resistance from the
University, the community of Oxford Mississippi, and the Governor
of the state, Ross Barnett. As a result, President John F. Kennedy
ordered federal marshals to ensure Meredith's right to enroll and
to protect him as he moved to the campus. On the evening of the
Meredith's enrollment, President John F. Kennedy spoke to the
American people in a live television address.
As Kennedy was speaking, violence broke out on the campus and
in Oxford. President Kennedy ultimately ordered federal troops to
Oxford to quell the riots which injured over 300 and killed two.42
43
April- May 1963:
Birmingham, Alabama “Project C”
"Project C" was the name given to the plan devised by Martin Luther King and
the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to challenge the system of
segregation in Birmingham, Alabama. The "C" in the project stood for
confrontation, the strategy of nonviolent direct action designed to confront
segregation through peaceful demonstrations, rallies, boycotts, and appeals to
justice. This strategy actually hinged upon the anticipated reaction of Police
Commissioner Bull Connor. Leaders reasoned that the response of Connor and
the police would be to suppress the demonstrations, quite likely through violent
means. If so, this response to peaceful protest would attract national attention
and create public sympathy for the cause of desegregation.
The leaders reasoned correctly. The response of Bull Connor was as expected.
Police dogs and fire hoses were used to disperse the demonstrators. Martin
Luther King was arrested by Birmingham police on Good Friday, April 12, 1963.
During his stay in jail, the white ministers of Birmingham churches wrote and
urged King to call off the demonstrations and boycotts. The following was
King's response:
44
King wrote his letter on scattered strips of paper that a friend smuggled out of
jail. The typed version was smuggled back to King and re-smuggled out. The
process continued until a 20 page document emerged:
I guess it is easy for those who have never felt the
stinging darts of segregation to say, “Wait.” But
when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers
& fathers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled
policemen curse, kick, brutalize & even kill your black
brothers & sisters…when you see the vast majority of
your 20 million Negro brothers smothering in the airtight cage of poverty;…when you have to concoct an
answer for a 5 year old son asking…”Daddy, why do
white people treat colored people so mean?”… then
you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.
45
46
June 11, 1963
George Wallace Stands in the "School House Door"
Desegregating the University of Alabama
In 1963, the governor of Alabama was George Wallace. He had
run for and won the office on the slogan of "segregation now,
segregation tomorrow, segregation forever." In June of 1963, a
federal court barred any state government interference with the
enrollment of two black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood,
at the University of Alabama. Despite this order, Governor George
Wallace appointed himself the temporary University registrar and
stood in the doorway of the administration building to prevent the
students from registering. In response, President Kennedy
federalized the Alabama National Guard. One hundred
guardsman escorted the students to campus and their
commander, General Henry Graham, ordered George Wallace to
"step aside." Thus were the students registered.
47
48
The events in
Alabama, led John F.
Kennedy to realize
that nothing short of
a new civil rights act
would satisfy the
needs for racial
justice.
49
Kennedy Addresses the Nation 6/11/63
On the same evening, President
Kennedy addressed the public in
a speech broadcast by all
television networks. It was a
clear break with JFK's prior and
lukewarm position on civil rights.
The bill that he submitted to
Congress was ultimately passed
as the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
“Are we to say to the
world - & much more
importantly, to each other
– that this is the land of
the free, except for the
Negro?”
50
June 12, 1963
The Assassination of Medgar Evers
Jackson, Mississippi
One day after Kennedy's landmark speech, violence struck again.
The place was Jackson, Mississippi. The field secretary for the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP), Medgar Evers, was leading a protest against Jackson's
system of segregation. That evening, Evers arrived home,
stepped out of his car, and was shot in the back. He died on his
driveway with his wife and children looking on.
51
Byron De La Beckwith (1963 & 1994)
Bobby DeLaughter
The assassin was white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith, a
member of the Ku Klux Klan and a man with an intimidating and
violent personality. Beckwith was arrested, tried, and acquitted by
an all white jury. Years later, in 1994, Assistant District Attorney,
Bobby DeLaughter, reopened the case. This led to a retrial in
which the jury convicted Beckwith, 31 years after the act, of
assassinating Medgar Evers. The story of Beckwith's second trial
52
is the subject of the 1996 film entitled Ghosts of Mississippi.
August 28, 1963
The March on Washington
To pressure the government and Congress to act more quickly on
the civil rights agenda, a massive march on the nation's capital
was planned, scheduled, and carried out on August 28th,
1963. According to estimates, over 250,000 participated in the
peaceful demonstration which culminated in the speech given by
Reverend Martin Luther King.
53
September 15, 1963
Birmingham Bombing
On Sunday morning, September 15, 1963, a bomb exploded in
the 16th Street Baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama. The
explosion killed four young girls who were in the church for
Sunday school and injured another 20 people.
The FBI sent agents to investigate and four suspects were
identified. The Birmingham office of the FBI recommended that
the four be prosecuted. However, the Director of the FBI, J. Edgar
Hoover, refused and claimed that civil rights activists themselves
bombed the church to gain public sympathy. The FBI initially
closed the case in 1968.
54
55
"Dynamite" Bob
Chambliss
Thomas Blanton
Bobby Frank Cherry
The suspects were four members of the Ku Klux Klan. It took nearly 40 years
for them to be brought to justice. Local prosecutors reopened the case and one
suspect, Robert "Dynamite Bob" Chambliss, was convicted of murder in 1977.
Herman Cash died in 1994 as charges against him were being prepared. On
May 1, 2001, a Birmingham jury convicted Thomas Blanton (62 years old at the
time of the trial) on four counts of murder. Finally, on May 22, 2002, a jury
convicted Bobby Frank Cherry (now 71 years old) of the murders. Both Blanton
56
and Cherry were sentenced to life in prison.
Two months later, on November 22, 1963, an assassin shot &
killed John F. Kennedy. His successor, President Johnson,
pledged to carry on Kennedy’s work by winning passage of the
civil right bill.
“We have talked for 100 years of more,” Johnson said. “It is time
now to write the new chapter and to write it in books of law.”
57
Civil Rights Act of 1964
Signed by President Lyndon B.
Johnson
Prohibited
discrimination because
of race, religion,
national origin &
gender. It gave all
citizens the right to
enter all public
accommodations:
libraries, parks,
washrooms,
restaurants, theaters,
58
etc
Freedom Summer:
Meanwhile, In 1964, Civil Rights groups recruited white
students from colleges across the U.S., trained them in
non-violence resistance techniques to help with getting
Blacks registered to vote in Mississippi. They hoped
their campaign would receive national publicity that
would in turn influence Congress to pass a voting rights
act.
About 1,000 volunteers –
mostly white & 1/3 female
59
Voter project encounters violent opposition:
In June, 1964, 3 civil rights workers
disappear in Mississippi.
Michael Schwerner
James Chaney
Andrew Goodman
60
FBI
Investigators
later learn that
Klansmen Along
with the support
of the
Mississippi
police murdered
& buried them in
an earthen dam.
61
1965
Bloody Sunday
In February of 65, law officers shot and kill a demonstrator named Jimmie Lee
Jackson. Dr. King responds by announcing a 50-mile protest march from
Selma to the state capital, Montgomery. Alabama. On Sunday, March 7, news
bulletins interrupt regular t.v. programs to show what looked like a war. Police
and troopers on horseback begin to club and tear gas the marchers. The day
becomes knows as “Bloody Sunday.
The scene sent shock waves across the country. Demonstrators from all over
the country poured into Selma to join the march Marchers from around the
country join a second march that resumes that Tuesday, but it is aborted. A
week later, the marchers finally reach the state capitol in Montgomery.
President Johnson responds by asking Congress for the passage of a new
voting right act. In his speech, Johnson embraces the saying of the movement
when he states, “Their cause must be our cause, too. It is not just Negroes, but
all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And
we shall overcome.”
62
63
1965
Because of the passage of the act, the
percentage of registered black voters in the
South tripled.
Voting Rights Act of
1965
Ten Weeks after the
Selma –to-Montgomery
march, Congress pased
the Voting Rights Act of
1965. The act
eliminated the literacy
test that had
disqualified so many
voters. The act also
stated that federal
examiners could enroll
voters denied suffrage
by local officials.
64
In 1965, the civil rights movement turns to the North:
Blacks migrate to northern cities after
WWII:
White flight: Whites move to suburbs in
great numbers
By mid 1960’s blacks in northern cities find
themselves in slums
Schools & neighborhoods are deteriorated
Unemployment rate among blacks is twice as
high as whites Over the next several years racial riots
& violence take place in over 100 cities
65
Malcolm X
66
Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little on May
19, 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska.
Considered controversial because of his beliefs:
Did not want to integrate
Urged blacks to defend themselves whenever they are being
unjustly & unlawfully attacked
All white people are devils (later changed his belief about
67
this, due to pilgrimage to Mecca, in Saudi Arabia)
This is the 27th time
I’ve been arrested & I
aint goin to jail no
more!…We been
saying freedom for 6
years and we aint got
nothin’ what were
gonna start saying
now is BLACK
POWER!
Stokely Carmichael
He said that “BLACK POWER” was a call for black
people to begin to define their own goals, lead their
own organizations, stop recruiting whites in the
civil rights movement & focus on developing Black
68
pride
Black Panthers
Founders:
Bobby Seale &
Huey P. Newton
Organized in
Oakland, Ca. in
Oct. 1966 to
fight against
police brutality
& racism
69
The group also ran medical clinics and provided free
food to school children. Within a couple of years the
Black Panthers in Oakland were feeding over 10,000
children every day before they went to school.
The Panthers had chapters in several major cities &
had a membership of over 2,000. Harassed by the
police, members became involved in several shootouts.
The activities of the Panthers came to the attention
of J. Edgar Hoover & the FBI. Hoover described the
Panthers as "the greatest threat to the internal
security of the country" & in Nov. 1968 ordered the
FBI to employ "hard-hitting counter-intelligence
measures to cripple the Black Panthers".
70
Death of Dr.King: April 4th, 1968
71
1968
Dr. King seemed to sense that
death was near. On April 3rd,
1968, he addressed a crowd in
Memphis, Tennessee, where he
had gone to show his support for
the city’s striking garbage
workers.
The next day, King steps out
onto the balcony of his hotel
room. Across the street, James
Earl Ray thrust a high-powered
rifle out of a window and
squeezed the trigger. King
crumpled as a bullet crashed
through his neck. An hour later,
the man who dared to dream of
racial peace lay dead from racial
72
violence.
Rage over King’s death led to
the worst urban riots in U.S.
history. Some 125 cities
exploded in flames
Cities hardest hit:
Baltimore, Chicago, Kansas
City & Washington D.C.
73
74
1968: The American Indian Movement (Aim)
AIM is founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota, around a philosophy of
self determination. It begins to organize communities and create
opportunities for Indian people across America and Canada,
bringing lawsuits against the U.S. government for the protection of
the rights of Native Nations that were previously guaranteed in
treaties and the U.S. Constitution.
Dennis Banks is the co-founder
75
On March 2nd, 1968, the Kerner Commission, which
President Johnson had appointed to study the
causes of urban violence, issued a 200,000 word
report which said that the main cause was white
racism. The report called for the nation to create
new jobs, construct new housing & end de facto
segregation.
De facto segregation – segregation that exists by
practice & custom.
In 1968, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of
1968, which banned discrimination in housing
76