Abby S♥
Pd. 1
10.28.09
Chapter 29
Section One
The Segregation System
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December 1, 1955: police arrested an AfricanAmerican woman for refusing to give up her
seat on the bus (Rosa Parks). Thus, African
Americans were called to boycott Montgomery
buses.
Civil Rights Act of 1875 could have prevented
segregated buses had it remained in force.
1890: Louisiana passed a law requiring railroads Picture above is Rosa Parks being arrested for not giving
up her bus seat to a white.
to provide “equal but separate
accommodations for the white and the colored
races.”
1896: Supreme Court ruled that “separate but equal” law did not violate the Fourteenth
Amendment.
Plessy vs. Ferguson
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“Jim Crow” Laws: Aimed at separating races. There were separate schools, street cars, witness
stands, elevators, public restrooms, and more.
Segregation Continues in the 20th Century
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After civil war many African Americans tried to escape Southern racism by moving North. This
speeded up during WWI (for promise of industrial jobs).
 Housing in all-black neighborhoods
 Whites resented the competition for work.
A Developing Civil Rights Movement
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Events of WWII set the stage for the civil rights movement
 The demand for soldiers in the 1940’s caused a shortage of white male laborers.
 Because so many soldiers were needed racial policies were dropped & nearly one
million African American men served in the armed forces.
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During the war civil rights organizations campaigned and thus, President Roosevelt
issued a presidential directive prohibiting racial discrimination by federal agencies & all
companies involved in war work.
Challenging Segregation in Court
‫ ־‬Desegregation campaign was led mostly
by the NAACP
 NAACP
o fought since 1909
o Charles Hamilton Houston
The NAACP Legal Strategy
‫ ־‬Houston focused on the inequality between separate
schools that many states provided.
Charles Hamilton Houston
 The nation spent 10x more money on a white
child’s education than on an African American child.
‫ ־‬1938: Houston placed a team of his best law students under the direction of
Thurgood Marshall.
 In 23 years Marshall’s team won 29 out of 32 cases argued in front
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of the Supreme Court.
1950: Sweatt vs. Painter, the court ruled that state law schools must
admit black applicants, even if separate black schools exist.
Thurgood Marshall: He
himself was denied
admission to the University
of Maryland because of his
race.
Brown vs. Board of Education
‫ ־‬May 17, 1954
‫ ־‬Father of eight year old Linda Brown charged the school board of education of Topeka,
Kansas with violation of Linda’s rights. They had denied her admission to an all-white
elementary school four blocks from their home. The closest all-black school was 21 blocks away.
‫ ־‬The Supreme Court unanimously struck down segregation in schooling as an
unconstitutional violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
Eight year old
Linda Brown
Reaction to the Brown Decision
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Mixed reactions
Resistance to School Desegregation
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Within a year more than 500 schools desegregated
Ku Klux Klan reappeared
White Citizens Council boycotted businesses that supported desegregation
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1955: Supreme Court made a second ruling, Brown II,
which ordered schools to desegregate “with all
deliberate speed.” At first President Eisenhower
refused to enforce obedience.
Crisis in Little Rock
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1948: Arkansas becomes first state to allow African
Americans into state universities without being
ordered by a court order.
1957: Governor Orval Faubus still supported
segregation. He ordered the National Guard to deny
the “Little Rock Nine”, nine African American students
who had volunteered to integrate Little Rock’s Central The "Little Rock Nine."
High School, access into the school. A federal judge
ordered Faubus to let them into the school.
NAACP called eight of the nine students (could not reach the ninth Elizabeth Eckford because
she did not have a phone) and arranged to drive them to school. 15-year-old Elizabeth Eckford
made her way past an abusive crowd to the bus stop where two friendly whites stayed with her.
This crisis caused President Eisenhower to act.
 Placed the Arkansas National Guard under federal control.
 Ordered a thousand paratroopers into Little Rock. Under their watch the “Little Rock
Nine” attended school (the whole thing was televised to the whole nation). But the
students were still harassed.
At the end the year Governor Faubus was shut down Central High rather than let integration
continue.
September 9, 1959: Congress passes the civil rights act of 1957. It was the first civil rights law
since Reconstruction. The law gave greater power to the
attorney general over school desegregation.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott
Boycotting Segregation
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After the Brown decision in May 1954, Jo Ann Robinson
wrote to the mayor of Montgomery, Alabama asking that
the bus drivers no longer be allowed to force riders into
the “colored” section. The mayor refused.
December 1, 1955: Rosa Parks (seamstress & NAACP
officer) took a seat in the front row of her allotted section.
The bus filled up and the bus driver ordered her and other
African American women to give up their seats to whites. She refused and thus,
was arrested.
Rosa Parks on a bus.
 NAACP officers suggested a bus boycott. Leaders in the African
American community formed the Montgomery Improvement Association to
organize the boycott. They elected 26-year-old minister, Martin Luther King, Jr. to
lead the group.
o “Well, I’m not sure I’m the best person for the position,”
An example of one of the buses that
African Americans boycotted.
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King confided to the NAACP leader, “but if no one
else is going to serve, I’d be glad to try.”
African Americans filed a law suit and for 381 days they refused to
ride the Montgomery buses. To avoid walking they organized
efficient car pool systems. The boycott was nonviolent until
someone threw a bomb at Martin Luther King, Jr.’s house.
1956: Supreme Court outlawed bus segregation.
Martin Luther King and the SCLC
Changing the World with Soul Force
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King called his nonviolent movement “soul force.”
Based his teaching on Jesus, writer Henry David Thoreau, labor
organizer A. Philip Randolph, and Mohandas Gandhi.
1955: Murder of Emmet Till.
Martin Luther King Jr.
From the Grassroots Up
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1957: Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
 Purpose was “to carry on nonviolent crusades against the evils of secondclass citizenship.”
 Ella Baker: First director of SCLC
o Helped students at Shaw University (an African American
university) form a national protest group, Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Ella Baker
Committee (SNCC).
The Movement Spreads
Demonstrating for Freedom
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Chicago 1944: Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) staged the first sit-in,
where African Americans sat down at segregated lunch tables and refused African Americans during a sit-in.
to leave until they were served.
February 1960: African American students from North Carolina’s Agricultural and Technical
College staged a sit-in of their own. It was nonviolent even though they were viciously attacked.
 Sparked other sit-ins across the South and later the North.
 No matter what, they refused to back down.