Final Project Essay
(The Things No One Talked About to Keep Slavery Going)
Topics Covered:
1.​ Reconstruction Amendments
-​ 13th Amendment Exceptions Clause: “Neither slavery nor involuntary
servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have
been duly convicted shall exist within the US, or any place subject to their
jurisdiction”
2.​ Jim Crow Laws
-​ The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
(2011): is a book by Michelle Alexander that writes that the many gains of
the civil rights movement have been undermined by the mass incarceration
of black Americans in the war on drugs. Although Jim Crow laws are off
the books millions of blacks were being arrested for minor crimes all
because the criminal justice system has branded them as felons and have
also denied them basic rights and opportunities.
3.​ Court Cases
-​ Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857): The supreme court ruled that Americans of
African descent, whether free or enslaved, were not American citizens and
could not sue in federal court. The court also ruled that Congress lacked
power to ban slavery in the US territories. Finally coming back to declare
that slave owners had rights that were protected by the Fifth Amendment
because slaves were categorized as property.
4.​ MLK
-​ What Martin Luther King, Jr. Knew But Never Said: He suffered from
depression in his adult life due to all of the stress he endured. He received
death threats from the public and even blackmail letters from the FBI. He
kept his depression a secret because he was concerned that if his depression
became public that civil rights opponents, critics, and advisories would use
it to discredit him, the entire movement would have suffered from it.
-​ About MLK: Dr. King founded the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference to mount nonviolent protests against racist Jim Crow laws.
-​ MLK’s Stabbing: On September 20, 1958 MLK was stabbed in NYC. He
was at his first book signing for his book about the Montgomery Bus
Boycott, Stride Toward Freedom when a woman shouted “Is this Martin
Luther King?”, then at 29 King responded saying, “Yes, it is.” Then the
woman Izola Curry (who was later diagnosed with schizophrenia) walked
up to him and stabbed him with a 7-inch knife. Had Patrolman Ai Howard
not stopped that bystander from removing the blade, MLK would have
died. The surgeons operating on him said that “He was just a sneeze away
from death”
5.​ Notable People
-​ Bayard Rustin: A close advisor to MLK and one of the most influential
organizers of the civil rights movement, he was referred to as “Mr.
March-on-Washington” by A. Phillip Randolph. He led multiple protests in
the 40s, 50s, and 60s, including the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs
and Freedom. He was a homosexual and he had a former affiliation with the
Communist Party, which led some to question King’s relationship with him.
-​ A. Phillip Randolph: MLK called him “truly the Dean of Negro leaders.”
He played a big role in gaining recognition of African Americans in labor
organizations. He was a socialist (A person who advocated for an economic
and political system where the means of production are controlled
collectively by the public or state.) and a pacifist (A person who opposes
war, violence, and the killing of human beings, believing that disputes
should be settled through nonviolent means.) He founded the Brotherhood
of Sleeping Car Porters, the first successful black trade union, and the
Negro American Labor Council (NALC).
-​ Septima Poinsette Clark: She was known as the “Mother of the Movement”
and she was also a pioneer in grassroots citizenship education. She studied
under W. E. B. Du Bois at Atlanta University. She also participated in a
class action lawsuit filed by the NAACP that led to pay equality for black
and white teachers in South Carolina. Though then in 1956 South Carolina
passed a statute that prohibited city and state employees from belonging to
Civil Rights organizations (her contract wasn’t renewed even after 40 yrs of
teaching because she refused to resign from the NAACP. She also did
workshops in which Rosa Park went before she launched the Montgomery
Bus Boycott.
-​ Jo Ann Gibson Robinson: She was an instrumental figure in initiating and
sustaining the Montgomery Bus Boycott. In MLK’s memoir Stride Toward
Freedom MLK said that Robinson “Apparently indefatigable, she, perhaps
more than any other person, was active on every level of the protest” (King,
78). She was the President of the Women’s Political Council in 1950. After
Rosa Parks was arrested in Dec 1955, Robinson seized the opportunity to
put the long-considered protest into motion, She, two students, and John
Cannon, mimeographed and distributed approximately 52,500 leaflets to
talk about a boycott of the buses.
-​ Fred Shuttlesworth: He was one of the founding fathers of the Alabama
Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR) and the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). He summoned MLK and the
SCLC to Birmingham for a historic confrontation with the forces of
segregation. In Nov 1956, after The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that bus
segregation in Montgomery was unconstitutional, Shuttlesworth and the
ACMHR made plans to challenge segregation on the buses. A bomb
exploded the night before their campaign was to begin, the house was
destroyed but he escaped unharmed. The following day several hundred
protesters sat in white sections on Birmingham buses and 21 of those
participants were arrested and convicted.