Topic 16 – The Civil Rights Movement
Date_____
Page: 2
Title: Intro to the Civil Rights
Movement
The Emergence of the Civil Rights Movement
Take notes on the following:
•The murder of Emmitt Till and the trial that followed
•Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott
•The emergence of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Date_____
Page: 3
Title: School Desegregation
Warmup: What did each of the
following amendments do?
-13th
-14th
-15th
Mississippi, 1938
Average teacher salary:
$1,374.
Black schools: $144
Average value of district’s
equipment:
$274
Black schools: $11
Brown v. Board of Education of
Topeka
•Father of eight-year-old Linda
Brown charged board of ed. of
Topeka, KS with violating Linda’s
rights by denying her admission
to all-white elementary school 4
blocks from her house
•Nearest all-black elementary
school was 21 blocks away
•Court ruled that the schools
were not equal – Chief Justice
Earl Warren: “In the field of
public education, the doctrine of
separate but equal has no place.”
The Crisis in Little Rock
Take notes on the integration of Central High
School in Little Rock, Arkansas as you watch the
video clip.
(Episode 2, 6:30-21:36)
Ole Miss
•September 1962 –
Air Force vet James
Meredith won a
federal court case that
allowed him to enroll
in all-white Univ. of
Mississippi
•Governor Ross
Barnett refused to let
him register
•(you fill in the rest)
(Episode 2, 47:13-end)
Date_____
Page: 4
Title: Civil Disobedience
Warmup: What is civil disobedience
and where did MLK, Jr. get his ideas
from?
Sit-Ins
March on
Washington
As you watch the video clips, take notes on the following
events:
Freedom Rides
Birmingham
Sit-Ins (Soundtrack for a Revolution: Everybody Says Freedom)
Freedom Rides
(Soundtrack for a
Revolution: Which Side
Are You On)
Birmingham (Soundtrack for a Revolution: Reign Freedom)
We know through painful
experience that freedom is never
voluntarily given by the oppressor;
it must be demanded by the
oppressed. Frankly I have never
yet engaged in a direct action
movement that was "well timed,"
according to the timetable of those
who have not suffered unduly from
the disease of segregation. For
years now I have heard the word
"Wait!" It rings in the ear of every
Negro with a piercing familiarity.
This "wait" has almost always
meant "never." We must come to
see with the distinguished jurist of
yesterday that "justice too long
delayed is justice denied."
March on Washington (Soundtrack for a Revolution: I’m On My Way)
Date_____
Page: 5
Title: Changes in the Civil Rights
Movement
“Freedom
Summer”
(Here’s to the
State of
Mississippi)
Civil Rights Legislation
•July 2, 1964 – Lyndon
Johnson signed the Civil
Rights Act of 1964, which
prohibited discrimination
because of race, religion,
national origin, and gender
•Voting Rights Act of 1965 –
eliminated literacy tests and
stated that federal examiners
could enroll voters who had
been denied suffrage by local
officials
•Civil Rights Act of 1968 –
ended discrimination in
housing
Northern Segregation
•Faced de facto segregation in the north (exists by practice and custom
as opposed to de jure segregation, which is by law)
•African American migration to cities during WWII cause “white flight”
to suburbs; by 1960s, most African Americans lived in decaying slums
•Riots broke out in cities such as Chicago and NYC
•Worst race riot occurred in Watts in 1965 (African American
neighborhood in Los Angeles)
•34 people killed, hundreds of millions of dollars of property destroyed
Malcolm X
•Born Malcolm Little –
went to jail at age 20;
while in prison, studied
teachings of Elijah
Muhammad, head of the
Nation of Islam (Black
Muslims)
•Began preaching
Muhammad’s views that
whites were the cause of
the black condition and
blacks should separate
from white society
•Also advocated armed
self-defense
Black Power
•Stokely Carmichael of SNCC used
“Black Power” as the battle cry of
militant civil rights activists
•MLK urged him to stop using the
phrase because he thought it
would provoke African
Americans to violence and
antagonize whites
Black Panthers
•Oct. 1966 – political party
founded to fight police brutality
in the ghetto
•Advocated self-sufficiency for
African-American communities
“Stayed on
Freedom”
Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
•Went to Memphis, TN to support a sanitation worker’s strike
•April 3, 1968 – gave his final speech (“I have been to the
mountaintop”)
•Shot by James Earl Ray the following day (although the King family
has since concluded that he didn’t have anything to do with the death
and it was actually a government conspiracy)
Women Fight for Equality
•Betty Friedan – The
Feminine Mystique –
addressed the “problem
that has no name”
•Feminism emerged – the
belief that women should
have economic, political,
and social equality with
“The problem lay buried, unspoken…It was a
men
strange stirring, sense of dissatisfaction, a
that women suffered in the middle of the
•National Organization for yearning
twentieth century in the United States. Each
suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she
Women (NOW) created to
made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched
slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches
pursue women’s goals
with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and
Brownies, lay beside her husband at night—she
was afraid to ask even of herself the silent
question— ‘Is this all?’”
Legal and Social Gains
•1972 – Title IX of the Education Amendments passed ban on gender
discrimination in “any education program or activity receiving
federal financial assistance”
•Roe v. Wade asserted women’s right to have an abortion during first
3 months of pregnancy (right to privacy)
•Equal Rights Amendment – guaranteed that both men and women
would enjoy the same rights and protections under the law;
amendment was defeated
Latinos Fight for
Change
•Encountered ethnic
prejudice and discrimination
in jobs and housing
•Unemployment and poverty
rate 50% higher than whites
•Cesar Chavez formed the
United Farm Workers
Organizing Committee
•Used nonviolence – wanted
CA’s large fruit and vegetable
companies to accept their
union as the bargaining
agency for farm workers
•Worked to have Bilingual
Education Act passed and
increased participation in
politics
Native Americans Struggle for
Equality
•Faced high poverty,
unemployment, and alcoholism
rates
•American Indian Movement (AIM)
confronted sough restoration of
110 million acres of land
•Marched to Wounded Knee in
1973
•1972 – Indian Education Act; 1975
– Indian Self-Determination and
Education Assistance Act; gave
tribes greater control over own
affairs and children’s education
JFK’s Domestic Policies
•New Frontier – legislative program
which included proposals to provide
medical care for the elderly, to rebuild
blighted urban areas, to aid education,
to bolster the national defense, to
increase international aid, and to
expand the space program
•Faced a conservative coalition of
Republicans and Southern Democrats;
had trouble pushing measures
through Congress
•Created Peace Corps
“Ask not what your country can do for you
•Alliance for Progress – offered
economic and technical assistance to – ask what you can do for your country.”
Latin American countries
•July 20, 1969 – Neil Armstrong
landed on the moon
LBJ’s Domestic Policies
•Great Society – program to reduce
poverty and racial injustice
•August 1964 – Economic Opportunity Act
created:
•Job Corps
•VISTA (Volunteers in Service to
America)
•Project Head Start
•Community Action Program
(encouraged poor people to
participate in public works programs)
•Elementary and Secondary Education Act
(more than $1 billion for education)
•Established Medicare and Medicaid
•Established the Department of Housing
and Urban Development
•Immigration Act of 1965 – ended quotas
based on nationality
Other Reforms of the
1960s
•Silent Spring by Rachel
Carson exposed the effects of
pesticides on the
environment
•Led to passage of the Water
Quality Act of 1965
•Unsafe at Any Speed by
Ralph Nader criticized the
U.S. auto industry for
ignoring safety concerns
•Helped persuade Congress
to establish safety standards
for autos and tires
Reforms of the Warren Court
•Brown v. Board of Education – separate but equal is
unconstitutional
•Watkins v. United States – rights of a witness in refusing to
answer questions (power of Congress is not unlimited in
conducting investigations)
•Mapp v. Ohio – evidence seized illegally cannot be used in courts
•Baker v. Carr – “one person, one vote”; federal courts had the
right to tell states to reapportion (redivide) their districts for
more equal representation
•Engel v. Vitale – stated that school prayer was unconstitutional
•Gideon v. Wainwright – required criminal courts to provide free
legal counsel to those who could not afford it
•Miranda v. Arizona – all suspects must be read their rights before
questioning (“Miranda Rights”)
•Tinker v. DesMoines – First Amendment rights are protected in
schools