TAKING ON SEGREGATION
(CHAPTER – 21 / SECTION -1)
The Segregation System
If the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which outlaws
segregation, would have remained in force then many of the issues
of this time would not have been a factor.
The Act decrees “that all persons … shall be entitled to the
full and equal enjoyment of the accommodations … of
inns, public conveyances on land or water, theaters and
other places of public amusement.”
However, in 1883 an all white Supreme Court declared the act
unconstitutional.
Plessy v. Ferguson
In 1896 the Supreme Court upheld Louisiana’s “separate but
equal” law as being constitutional.
The new law would face a number of obstacles in the South. The
law did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment which guarantees
all Americans equal treatment under the law.
Restrictions on facilities and other Jim Crow Laws reminded every
day what African Americans experienced in seeing signs that say,
‘Whites Only’, ‘Colored Drinking Fountain’ and ‘No Blacks
allowed’
Civil Rights Movement Develops
In many ways WWII set the stage for the modern civil rights
movement.
1) WWII opened up job opportunities for African Americans due
to the shortage of white men in the works force
2) African-American soldiers returned home determined to fight
for their own freedom after the first time they were allowed to
help fight in the war. They believed that could turn the fight
against Fascism in Europe and now take on racism at home
3) During the war, organizations had campaigned for civil rights.
Roosevelt laid out a policy that no federal contractors could
discriminate against the hiring of minorities.
Challenging Segregation in the Court
From 1938 and for the next 23 years the NAACP created a team of
lawyers that would challenge the segregation laws in the US.
Over that span of time they were able to win 29 out of the 32 cases
brought before the Supreme Court. Leading the team was
Thurgood Marshall. The following were some of the
significant cases in addressing segregation in the US.
Plessy v. Ferguson
Segregation in public facilities was allowable but they had to be
equal
Morgan v. Virginia
The court declared unconstitutional those state laws mandating
segregated seating on interstate buses.
Sweatt v. Painter
The court ruled that state law schools must admit black applicants
even though black schools already exist.
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka
The court ruled that segregated schooling was an unconstitutional
violation of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
Reaction to the case was mix. Several southern states would be
slow to change and often employed tactics that would slow or
prevent the law from being followed.
Elected political leaders even challenged the law outline by our
government. President Eisenhower was even reluctant from
making changes until an event in Little Rock Arkansas.
Little Rock Nine
The integration crisis was a major event during the American civil
rights movement. Earlier in 1957, the Little Rock school board had
voted to integrate their school system.
The decision used a small group of outstanding African
American students that were to attend Central High School.
The move was not expected to meet much resistance since
Arkansas was considered a fairly progressive southern state.
A crisis erupted, however, when Governor Orval Faubus called up
the Arkansas National Guard to prevent the Little Rock Nine from
attending Central High.
The students tried countless times to attend school without success.
But one day in September, 1957, President Eisenhower deployed
elements of the 101st Airborne to Little Rock to protect the
students.
The students were admitted, but endured a year of physical and
verbal abuse.
The next year, 1958, Little Rock closed its public schools to avoid
integration. Federal judges ordered the schools reopened the
following year.
______________________________________________________
Political Background
Governor Faubus' decision was most likely politically, rather than
racially, motivated. In 1956 Faubus indicated that he would
investigate bringing Arkansas into compliance with the Brown
decision.
However, this idea had significant opposition from the more
conservative wing of the Arkansas Democratic Party, which
controlled politics in that state at the time.
If Faubus showed support for integration he would lose support
from that wing of the party and would likely have been defeated in
the upcoming primary in 1958.
Faubus orders the Arkansas National Guard to block the students
from entering the school. Eisenhower federalized the National
Guard and ordered them to return to their barracks. Eisenhower's
sending in (U.S. Army) troops was considered by many
southerners a second invasion by Federal troops.
Montgomery Improvement Association was a
group formed by African American leaders in Montgomery,
Alabama, in 1955 to organize and sponsor the Montgomery Bus
Boycott.
In 1955, following the arrest of Rosa Parks, for refusing to give up
her bus seat to white man, black leaders in Montgomery formed
the Montgomery Improvement Association to sustain a bus
boycott.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott was organized by the Women's
Political Council as a one-day protest, but its leader Martin Luther
King Jr., a Baptist minister, rallied African American support in
the city to keep the boycott going for almost a year.
The boycott gained national attention for the Civil Rights
Movement and helped create the favorable political climate in
which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against desegregated seating
on public buses in 1956.
The Association went on to become one of the founders of the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).
The group continued its civil rights efforts in Montgomery,
including a voter-registration drive, and a failed attempt to
integrate the city's parks. In 1962, the MIA achieved one of its
early goals when the Montgomery bus company finally hired black
drivers.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott
In most Southern states public facilities were segregated such as
bathrooms, restaurants and public transportation.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a political and
social protest campaign started in 1955 intended to oppose the
city's policy of racial segregation on its public transit system.
The ensuing struggle lasted from Dec. 5, 1955 to Dec. 21, 1956
and led to a U.S. Supreme Court decision that declared the
Alabama and Montgomery laws requiring segregated buses
unconstitutional.
The boycott proved extremely effective, with enough riders lost to
the city transit system to cause serious economic distress.
 Instead of riding buses, boycotters organized a system of
carpools.
 Black taxi drivers charged ten cents per ride, a fare equal to the
cost to ride the bus, in support of the boycott.
 In addition some people used non-motorized means to get
around, such as bicycling, walking, or even riding mules or
driving horse-drawn buggies.
 Across the nation, black churches raised money to support the
boycott and collected new and slightly used shoes to replace the
tattered footwear of Montgomery's black citizens.
Southern Christian Leadership
Conference was headed by Martin Luther King Jr.
The organization focused on non-violent civil disobedience and
believed that it could use that to gain the civil rights that African
Americans lacked at the time.
______________________________________________________
Tactics
The SCLC believed in nonviolence, and used Protests and Marches
to gain support for the Civil Rights Movement.
______________________________________________________
Members
The most popular Member of the SCLC was Martin Luther King,
who led the organization until his assassination on April 4th 1968.
Other prominent members of the organization included Ralph
Abernathy, the Reverend Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and Andrew
Young.
______________________________________________________
The importance of its name
Much thought went into the naming of the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference. They wanted to attract attention from both
African American and White people, without mentioning the name
of any race to distance themselves from other races.
They cleverly decided on the name, Southern
Christian Leadership Conference, which
didn't indicate any particular race, thus ensuring people across
America could relate to it, even the most radical Southern whites.
Southern could be related to by all people in the south of the
USA
Christian could be related to all Christians across the USA,
Leadership could relate to all leaders in the USA and
Conference was wisely used as a conference does not
exclude anyone.
Taking a page out of the college student handbook of protesting;
the African American population made their move to bring about
justice and equality into their lives.
To attain such changes in society they employed specific tactics.
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee (or SNCC, pronounced "snick"), founded by Ella
Baker, was one of the primary institutions of the American Civil
Rights Movement in the 1960’s.
Its purpose then was to make better use of young civil rights
workers and to coordinate the use of nonviolent direct action to
attack segregation and other forms of racism.
SNCC played a leading role in the:
 Freedom Rides,
 the 1963 March on Washington,
 Freedom Summer
 the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
Sit-In
The Civil Rights Movement received an infusion of energy when
students in North Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia, began to "sitin" at lunch counters in a few local stores to protest those
establishments' refusal to desegregate.
Protesters were encouraged to dress up, sit quietly, and occupy
every other stool so potential white sympathizers could join in.
Many of these sit-ins resulted in authority figures physically and
brutally escorting them from the lunch facility.
The technique was not new and had been used it to protest
segregation in the Midwest in the 1940’s, but it brought national
attention to the movement in 1960.
The success of the sit-ins led to a rash of student campaigns
throughout the South.
Demonstrators focused not only on lunch counters but also on
parks, beaches, libraries, theaters, museums, and other public
places.
When they were arrested, student demonstrators made "jail-nobail" pledges to call attention to their cause and to reverse the
cost of protest, putting the financial burden of jail space and
food on the jailers.
THE TRIUMPHS OF A CRUSADE
(CHAPTER – 21 / SECTION -2)
Freedom Rides
Their campaign went from 1960 – 62 conducting freedom rides, in
which activists traveled by bus through the far South to
desegregate these companies' bus terminals, as required by federal
law.
The bus route would take them from Washington D.C. to New
Orleans.
 That proved to be an enormously dangerous mission. In
Alabama, one bus was firebombed, forcing its passengers to flee
for their lives
 In Birmingham, where an FBI informant that the KKK was
going attack the riders and did, severely beating them.
 In eerily quiet Montgomery, a mob charged another bus load of
riders, knocking people unconscious with a crate and smashing
Life photographer in the face with his own camera
 A dozen men surrounded a white student and beat him in the
face with a suitcase, knocking out his teeth.
The freedom riders did not fare much better in jail, where they
were crammed into tiny, filthy cells and sporadically beaten. Some
male prisoners were forced to do hard labor in 100-degree heat.
Others were transferred to Penitentiaries, where their food was
deliberately over salted and their mattresses were removed.
In April King was arrested in a Birmingham jail during one of the
protests. He wrote a famous letter confirming his comment to
nonviolent action.
President Kennedy heard and saw the treatment the riders were
receiving at the hands of the people through the towns them road
through.
To protect the riders Kennedy sent some 400 U.S. marshals to
protect them on the last part of their journey.
Also he Attorney General and the Interstate Commerce
Commission banned segregation in all interstate travel facilities.
James Meredith won a federal court case allowing him to
enroll in the all-white University of Mississippi.
However, as he attempted to enroll as a student Governor Ross
Barnett refused to allow him to enroll.
Kennedy ordered the US Marshalls to escort Meredith to the
registration office. Riots would break out across the campus and
several people would be injured and a few would die.
US soldiers would escort Meredith to class and would also protect
his house from drive by shooters.
Birmingham
A city that was rich in the tradition of segregation it was felt by the
SCLC to test the idea of non-violent tactics. From April 3 to May 3
of 1963 a battle would ensue between African Americans and the
white establishment.
As King and his marchers moved across the city the police and
Commissioner Bull Connor move in to arrest them.
The next day a group of some 1,000 young children marched and
were attacked by fire hoses, dogs and helmeted police. Television
cameras captured the screams and excessive violence that was
inflicted upon the children.
The significance of this was:
 It ended segregation in the most segregated city in the south
 Convinced Kennedy for the need of the Civil Rights Act
 Television created a nation wide growing base of support for the
cause
March on Washington
President Kennedy sent Congress a bill that guaranteed equal
access to all public facilities and gave the U.S. Attorney General
the power to file school desegregation law suits.
To draw attention and to persuade Congress to support this civil
rights bill the SCLC called upon Americans to March on
Washington.
On August 28, 1963 more than 250,000 civil rights supporters,
including 75,000 whites arrived at our nations’ capitol.
Martin Luther King led a short march from the Washington
Monument to the Lincoln Memorial. King was to give one of his
most famous speeches, “I have a dream”
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was landmark
legislation in the U.S. that outlawed discrimination based on race,
color, religion, sex, or national origin.
Originally conceived to protect the rights of black men, the bill
was amended prior to passage to protect the civil rights of
everyone, and explicitly included women for the first time.
President Kennedy had publicly endorsed the Act, yet black
leaders feared that it would get stuck in debate.
Thus they planned a march on Washington D.C. to show
support for Kennedy’s civil rights bill and to end racial
discrimination.
The Act prohibited discrimination in public facilities, in
government, and in employment.
The “Jim Crow” laws in the South were abolished, and it became
illegal to compel segregation of the 'races' in schools, housing, or
hiring.
Enforcement powers were initially weak, but they grew over the
years, programs such as affirmative action were made possible by
the Act.
Despite an 83 day filibuster in the Senate led by conservatives and
segregationists, both parties in Congress voted overwhelmingly in
favor of the Act, and President Johnson signed the bill into law on
July 1964.
Freedom summer
Leading the campaign in the U.S. launched during the summer of
1964 was Robert Moses. The movement attempted to
register as many African American voters as possible in the
southern US who in turn would elect pro-civil rights legislators.
 The program was aimed at Mississippi, where the African
American population exceeded 45%, and only 5% voted.
 It registered 1,600 more blacks from the assistance of some
1,000 college student volunteers and many SNCC staff
members.
 The program also established many summer schools in
Mississippi to try and counteract the state's inequitably-funded
school system.
Violence quickly hindered the campaign, however. In June of
1964, a black Mississippian (Michael Schwerner), and two
northern white volunteers (Andrew Goodman & James Chaney)
were abducted and killed.
Their bodies were found in a dam. Seven men, from the KKK, in
total were convicted for the civil rights deaths.
This reinforced local black fear that they would be victims of
violence if they registered.
In time, however, this proved to be a major turning point in the
American civil rights movement. The effort did not convince
Congress to pass the Act immediately, but within a year the Civil
Rights Act did pass.
New Political Party
To bring about sweeping changes the African Americans believed
they needed a voice, a person that would step up and call for
change.
To attain a seat in the all-white Mississippi Democratic Party the
SNCC organized the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
(MFDP) and Fannie Lou Hamer became that voice.
In her nation wide televised speech she revealed how she was
jailed attempting to register to vote in 1962 and while in jail was
beaten by prisoners who were ordered by the police to attack her.
Public support called for the seating of the MFDP delegates. Yet
Johnson feared that in doing so the southern democrats would
become upset.
A compromise was sought in where the MFDP would get two seats
and a pledge would be placed in the party platform to ban
discrimination in the 1968. This was unacceptable to the MFDP.
Selma
In an attempt to launch a voting register campaign in Selma,
Alabama the SCLC, with the leadership of Martin Luther King set
out on a protest march that was some 50 miles ending in
Montgomery.
 The march was in response to the slaying of Jimmy Jackson
 The SCLC were also marching for voting rights
 To show Johnson the need for laws that allow for voting rights
On Sunday, March 7 (Bloody Sunday) the march began with some
2,000 people. The marchers were quickly and brutally attacked by
whites. Television crews captured the brutality.
As the nation looked on in horror the cause then began to quickly
convince people from across the nation to join as marchers. Their
numbers swelled to some 25,000.
In response Johnson asks Congress for the swift passage of a
voting rights bill.
Voting Rights
The National Voting Rights Act of 1965
outlawed the requirement that would-be voters in the U.S. take
literacy tests or to pay a poll taxes to qualify to register to vote.
It also provided for federal registration of voters, instead of state or
local voter registration which had often been denied to minorities
and poor voters in areas that had less than 50% of eligible minority
voters registered.
The act also provided for Department of Justice to oversee the
registration, and the Department's approval for any change in
voting law in districts whose populations were at least 5% Black.
The Act tripled the number of registered African-American voters
in the South; raised the registration of eligible African-American
voters in the U.S. from 10% in 1964 to 60% in 1968
It was signed into law by President LBJ in August of 1965, and
signed for a 25 year extension by President G.W. Bush in July,
2006.
CHALLENGES & CHANGES
IN THE MOVEMENT
(CHAPTER – 21 / SECTION -3)
In the early 1960’s the growing pride within the African American
communities helped with the commitment to social change and
economic structures that kept people in a life of imprisonment.
In 1965 the leading civil right groups began to drift apart as new
leaders emerged. The attention was now drawn to the North where
African Americans faced segregation and prejudice.
Northern Segregation
In the North African Americans faced De facto
segregation that exists by practice and custom. This type
of segregation is harder to fight than de jure segregation.
The difference with De jure segregation is that it
exists by law.
It is easier to change laws than it is to change the mind set of
Whites in accepting changes or equality in sharing social or
economic power.
De Facto segregation grew after the migration of African
Americans to the North after WWII.
This began the “white flight” from the cities to the suburbs. By the
mid-1960’s most of the African Americans lived in slum housing
and paying high rents to people that did not maintain or enhance
their living conditions.
Schools also felt the neglect and suffered in maintaining facilities
or programs. This situation was also affected by the situation of
high unemployment.
Martin Luther King attempted to end De facto segregation and was
met with violence from citizens and by the police. This type of
response created a deep sense of anger among blacks which
blossomed into city riots in the major cities in the mid 1960’s.
In the mid to late 60’s racial riots began to break out across
America. The first major riot started in the Watts section of LA.
Frustrated over discrimination and economic hardship African
Americans took to the streets, rioting several days and nights.
Some 30,000 people rioted and some 14,000 National Guard
troops were sent in to restore order. Some 20 people were killed.
Whites could not understand the reaction of the African Americans
because of all the changes that had happened in the South.
Some began to realize that all they wanted or needed was
economic equality in job opportunities, housing and in education.
Johnson’s Great Society of changes was diverted from the cities to
the battlefields of Vietnam. The US lost an opportunity to change
the course of struggle for the African Americans.
New Leaders and their Voice of Discontent
In the 1960’s civil rights movement tow contrasting styles
emerged, Malcolm X, leader of the Nation of Islam and Martin
Luther King Jr., leader of the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference.
A new voice and approach to the African American struggle came
from Malcolm X. His stance on how the whites were the
cause of the African Americans plight gained wide spread
acceptance.
SNCC believed in nonviolent civil disobedience and racial
harmony. The Nation of Islam believed that whites were
evil and that blacks should separate from white society.
Early in his crusade controversy followed Malcolm X when he
advocated the use of violence. He believed that Blacks should use
armed self defense when being attacked.
 Supported Black Separatism
 Encouraged the development of all-black communities
 Blacks should work toward social and economic independence
rather than integration
 Blacks had the right to protect themselves from violence
However, later Malcolm X broke from the nation of Islam and
traveled to Mecca. There he began to rethink his stance on antiwhite views.
Malcolm X broke with Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of
Islam which was also known as Black Muslims, in how the change
in US society should be done.
From his pilgrimage he learned that orthodox Islam preached racial
equality.
His stance went from violence to that of Ballots v. Bullets. If the
African Americans do not use the ballot to bring change then the
only alternative will be to use the bullet. Use the ballot.
Later in 1965 he was gunned down by three members of the Nation
of Islam during a speech in Harlem.
With the death of Malcolm X the speed of change was put to the
test by African Americans.
Black Power
In the summer of 1966 a march in Mississippi would create a split
amongst the civil rights groups. On a march King (SNCC),
McKissick (CORE) and Stokley Carmichael (SNCC)
the message of the group went from passive to violent.
King attempted to bring the marchers back into the SNCC goal of
nonviolence by singing “We Shall Overcome”, but many of the
marchers sang “We Shall Overrun”.
Carmichael was arrested and later at a rally, his face swollen from
the police beating, electrifies the crowd with his speech that now
turned the effort toward “Black Power”
King called for the end of the use of the Black Power slogan, but
was rebuked by Carmichael who wanted the end of the recruitment
of whites for their cause and to focus on the development of
African-American pride.
In the fall of 1966 Huey Newton and Bobby Seale started the
Black Panthers. This political group was formed to fight
against police brutality in the cities ghettos.
Carmichael who was an organizer for SNCC later became a Black
Panther. Some of the Black Panther activities included:
 Day care centers
 Free medical clinics
 Assistance to the Homeless
All of these and more helped win wide support for the Black
Panthers within the African American communities.
A major difference in ideas was that the SNCC believed in
nonviolent civil disobedience and racial harmony and the Black
Panthers advocated Black Nationalism, black power, and armed
revolt.
1968 – A Turning Point in Civil Rights
On April 3, 1968, Martin Luther King gave a speech in Memphis,
TN that revealed that he may not see the end to the struggle for
equality.
The next day King is shot and killed by James Earl Ray. Robert
Kennedy made a plea for non-violence at an inner city speech in
Indianapolis. The words failed to stop the burning and fighting in
some 100 US cities.
In March of 1968 the Kerner Commission issued a
report identifying the causes of urban violence. The panel named
one main cause- White Racism.
The report stated that the US was moving toward two societies,
one black and one white, separate and unequal. The report called
for the nation to create new jobs, create new housing and end de
facto segregation.
The Johnson administration ignored many of the recommendations
because of white opposition.
Civil Rights Gains
The Civil Rights movement ended de jure segregation by bringing
about legal protection for the civil rights of all Americans.
Congress passes the Civil Rights Act of 1968 which
ended discrimination in housing.
Other gains made by the Civil Rights and Black Panther
movements were:
 Increased pride and awareness of racial identity among many
African Americans
 New college programs in African-American history and
literature
 Greater visibility of African Americans in movies and on TV
 Ended de jure segregation
 The passage of civil rights laws
 An increased awareness of de facto segregation
 The integration of educational facilities
 Significant increases in the number of African Americans who
finished high school and went to college
 A significant Increase in the number of African-American
voters
 A significant increase in the number of elected AfricanAmerican officials
 The growth of affirmative action programs
Unfinished Work
Affirmative Action is a policy or a program of giving
certain preferences to certain (usually under-represented) groups.
This typically focuses on education, employment, government
contracts, health care, or social welfare.
Affirmative action began as a corrective measure for governmental
and social injustices against demographic groups that have been
subjected to prejudice.
Such groups are characterized most commonly by race, gender, or
ethnicity. Affirmative action seeks to increase the representation of
these demographic groups in fields of study and work in which
they have traditionally been underrepresented.
(When regarding race relationships is the US today better, worse or
the same than what it was in the 1960’s?)