Chapter 29: Civil Rights
1954-1970
Section 1: Taking on Segregation
► The
Segregation System
 Civil Rights Act of 1875: outlawed segregation in public
facilities
► 1883
all white Supreme Court declared the act unconstitutional
 Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 Supreme Court ruled that
“separate but equal” did not violate the 14th Amendment,
which guarantees all Americans equal treatment under the
law
► Southern
states pass Jim Crow laws: laws that separated blacks and
whites in society
► WWII
set the stage for the civil rights movement
 1.Fought overseas and were now willing to fight at home for
rights
 2. Demand for soldiers created opportunities in the work
force
 3. During the war civil rights activists organized campaigns
for voting rights and challenged Jim Crow laws
Challenging Segregation in Court
► NAACP:
National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People
 Charles Hamilton Houston: chief legal counsel for
NAACP from 1934-1938
►Focused
on the inequalities between separate schools
►In 1938 Houston appointed Thurgood Marshall in charge
of a team of law students to continue fighting
segregation
 Over the next 23 years Marshall won 29 of 32 cases
argued before the Supreme Court, each case
chipping away at segregation
►May 17, 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka
 Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren said that
segregation has no place in public education and all public
schools must desegregate
Reaction to the Brown Decision
► Official
reaction was mixed
 Most border states and Northern states
desegregated without many problems…major
resistance from Southern states
►Georgia
Governor “white children in white schools and
colored children in colored schools”
 Because of resistance desegregation was a slow
process
►1955
Supreme Court handed down a second ruling
known as Brown II that ordered school desegregation
implemented “with all deliberate speed”
Reaction to the Brown Decision
► Crisis
in Little Rock
 In 1957 Arkansas Governor supported segregation
► “Little
Rock Nine” nine African American students who had
volunteered to integrate Little Rock’s Central High School
► Governor tries to keep students out by calling in Arkansas National
Guard
► NAACP members get a hold of 8 of the students to arrange to drive
them to school…did not get a hold of Elizabeth Eckford
► Eisenhower is forced to act…Placed the Arkansas National Guard
under federal control and ordered a 1000 paratroopers into Little
Rock
► The nation watched the televised coverage of 9 African American
teenagers attend class under the watch of soldiers
► September
Act of 1957
9, 1957 Congress passed the Civil Rights
 1st Civil Rights Law since Reconstruction
► Gave
the federal government authority over violations of African
American voting rights and greater power over school desegregation
The Montgomery Bus Boycott
► December
1, 1955 Rosa Parks sat in the front row on
a Montgomery public bus…she refused to give up her
seat and was arrested
► NAACP leaders formed the Montgomery Improvement
Association to organize the bus Boycott and put in
charge a 26 year old Baptist pastor named Martin
Luther King Jr.
► For 381 days African Americans refused to take the
bus in Montgomery…car pools, walked long distances
► The boycotters remained nonviolent even after a
bomb ripped apart King’s home
► Finally in 1956 the Supreme Court outlawed bus
segregation
Martin Luther King and the SCLC
►
King called his brand of nonviolent resistance “soul force” which
included acts of civil disobedience, demonstrations, and
adherence to nonviolence
 Civil disobedience: the refusal to obey an unjust law
► Ex.
►
Montgomery bus boycott
In 1957 King joined with ministers and civil rights leaders to
found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
 Its purpose was to carry on nonviolent crusades against the evils of
second-class citizenship
►
►
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) “snick”: an
organization formed in 1960 to coordinate sit-ins and other
protests and to give young blacks a larger role in the civil rights
movement
IN 1942 in Chicago the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
staged the first sit-ins: a form of demonstration used by African
Americans to protest discrimination in which the protesters sit
down in a segregated business and refuse to leave until they
are served
Section 2: The Triumphs of a Crusade
► Freedom
Riders: civil rights activists who rode
buses through the South to challenge
segregation
 They called attention to the South’s refusal to
abandon segregation…pressured the federal
government to enforce the Supreme Court’s
desegregation rulings
► James
Meredith: Air Force veteran who won a
federal court case that allowed him to enroll in
the all-white University of Mississippi
 Governor Barnett refused to let him register
 President Kennedy ordered in federal troops…led to
riot…Meredith went to class with federal officials
Heading Into Birmingham
► Many
events in 1963 led Birmingham officials to
end segregation in one of the most racist cities
in America
 Reverend Shuttlesworth invited King and the SCLC
to help…started with demonstrations
 King in arrested…writes an inspirational letter to
white religious leaders who felt he was pushing too
fast
 More demonstrations met by police violence
watched on national TV
 Economic boycotts throughout the city
Marching to Washington
► August
28, 1963 250,000 people-including 75,000
whites- converged on the nation’s capital assembling
on the grassy lawn of the Washington Monument and
marched to the Lincoln Memorial…hoped to spur
passage of the civil rights bill that President Kennedy
had brought to Congress
 King gave his famous “I have a Dream” speech
►2
months later JFK is assassinated
 LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibited
discrimination because of race, religion, national origin, and
gender
► IT
gave all citizens the right to enter libraries, parks, washrooms,
restaurants, theaters, and other public accommodations
►
Fighting for Voting Rights
Freedom Summer: a 1964 project to register African American
voters in Mississippi
 Hoped to call attention to the lack of voting rights in segregationist
strongholds and to promote passage of a federals voting rights act
►
Fannie Lou Hamer: told her story of how she was jailed and
beaten in jail for registering to vote in 1962
 Her speech was nationally televised in support of the Mississippi
Freedom Democratic Party
►
Selma Campaign
 1965 King announced a 50 mile protest march from Selma to
Montgomery in response to the murder of Jimmy Lee Jackson, a
demonstrator for voting rights
 On March 7, 1965 King and 600 marchers were attacked…the scene was
caught once again on national television…the nation watched as police
swung whips and clubs, and clouds of tear gas swirled around fallen
marchers
 On March 21, 3,000 marchers set out for Montgomery again this time
under federal protection…the number of marchers grew to 25,000
►
Voting Rights Act of 1965: law that made it easier for African
Americans to register to cote by eliminating discriminatory
literacy tests and authorizing federal examiners to enroll voters
denied at the local level
Section 3: Challenges and Changes in
the Movement
► Northern
Segregation: de facto segregation:
segregation that exists by practice and customs
 De jure segregation: segregation by law
 Harder to convince whites to share economic and
social power than to share lunch counters and bus
seats
► Lack
of economic opportunities forced blacks to
turn to violence…”The Great Society has been
shot down on the battlefields of Vietnam.”
New Leaders Voice Discontent
► Malcolm
X
 Born Malcolm Little dropped his last name…slave
name
 Urged his followers to take complete control of their
communities, livelihoods, and culture
 While in prison studied the teachings of Elijah
Muhammad who was the head of the Nation of
Islam (Black Muslims)
►Wanted
blacks to separate from white society
►Did not share King’s views of nonviolence
 On his pilgrimage to Mecca his attitude toward
whites had changed
►Ballots
or Bullets
►In 1965 he was shot and killed
Black Power and Black Panthers
► Stokely
Carmichael started the cry and movement
known as Black Power
 Black Power was a call for black people to begin to define
their own goals
► Black
Panthers
 Group organized to fight police brutality in the ghetto,
advocated self sufficiency for African American communities
 Upset with the number of black youths being drafted to
serve in Vietnam
 Preached the ideas of Mao Zedong…Chinese Communist
 Established daycare centers, free breakfast programs, free
medical clinics, assistance to the homeless, etc…
1968-A Turning Point in Civil Rights
► On
April 4, 1968 James Earl Ray shot and killed
Martin Luther King Jr. as he stood on his hotel
balcony in Memphis, Tennessee
 Riots in over 100 cities followed King’s assassination
► In
June 1968 Robert Kennedy, who was
running for the Democratic presidential
nomination, was shot and killed by a Jordanian
immigrant who was angry over Kennedy’s
support of Israel
Legacy of the Civil Rights Movement
► Kerner
Commission: a group that was appointed by
President Johnson to study the causes of urban
violence and that recommended the elimination of de
facto segregation in American society
► Civil Rights Gains
 Civil Rights Act of 1968: ended discrimination in housing
 Review: End of legalized segregation, constitutional and
legal protection of civil rights and voting rights, increased
pride in racial identity, more African American voters,
elected officials, and high school and college graduates
► Unfinished
Work
 Changing peoples attitudes and behaviors
 Affirmative action: a policy that seeks to correct the effects
of past discrimination by favoring the groups who were
preciously disadvantaged
► Reverse
discrimination