What ARE Civil Rights?

CIVIL RIGHTS = Rights of all persons, regardless of
race, religion or sex to equal treatment under the
law.
 Providing equality to groups that have
historically been subject to discrimination.

The question is NOT whether government can treat, or
classify, people of different races, ethnicities, genders
differently. . . Instead, it is whether such differences in
treatment are REASONABLE.
Generally, classifying people on the basis of race or
ethnicity is deemed unreasonable – a “SUSPECT
CLASSIFICATION”

Civil Rights & the Constitution

Who was included in our early views of equality?

The original Constitution is a plan of government, not
a guarantee of individual rights. It DOES ensure that:
 1) Gov’t does not discriminate against us
 2) Gov’t protects us from interference by private
individuals.

The Framers referred to these rights as “NATURAL
RIGHTS” – the rights of all people to dignity & worth.

Today they are called HUMAN RIGHTS.
So …what exactly is EQUALITY?

Equality OF:
 Freedom “to” exercise individual rights and
Freedom “from” government interference UNLESS
it compromises someone else’s rights

Equality OF opportunity – all can go for it…..this, of
course, also means competition will exist.

Equality OF Outcome - i.e., Affirmative Action - not
just a boost but seen as government having an
obligation to promote minority development….
blacks, Hispanics, females, etc.
Equality ….What is it exactly?
Equal Justice - not equal results or equal rewards. . .
the Constitution does NOT intend to provide equal
condition. . . just equal opportunity
“Equality” is not even mentioned in
the original Constitution. The first
mention is in the 14th Amendment:
All will have “equal protection” under the
law unless there is a “compelling public
interest” to discriminate.
So….. . . to right a past wrong, you
may have to discriminate!
(affirmative action for example)
AFRICAN AMERICAN ISSUES
ERA OF SLAVERY / ERA OF RECONSTRUCTION



13th Amendment–
1865
 prohibits slavery
 overturned Dred
Scott v. Sanford
14th Amendment–
1868
 Equal protection;
citizenship
15th Amendment Right to vote
 for MEN (1870)
FREE
MEN
VOTE!
AFRICAN AMERICAN ISSUES
ERA OF SLAVERY / ERA OF RECONSTRUCTION



BUT, society did not transform as quickly.
Segregation and White Supremacy
prevailed.
 Reconstruction ended in 1877 w/
Whites in control of the “New South,”
and blacks were left to Jim Crow Laws
that preached a separate society.
Ineffective Civil Rights Acts passed ….
And then invalidated in the Civil Rights
Cases of 1883
 14th Amendment corrects actions by
states … NOT actions by private
citizens
“Individual invasion of individual rights is not the subject of the amendment.”
Jim Crow Laws


Right after the Civil War
there were Black Codesrestrictive laws such as
labor contracts and
vagrancy codes to keep
freemen as submissive
laborers
Jim Crow laws- state and
local laws imposing
segregation, late 1800’s1960’s, upheld by
Supreme Court’s
“separate but equal”
Plessy v Ferguson ruling
Plessy v. Ferguson
AFRICAN AMERICAN ISSUES
ERA OF RECONSTRUCTION……

Voting Discrimination

Other forms of
discrimination:
 Housing
discrimination
 Job discrimination
 Discrimination in
accessibility to public
accommodations
NAACP formed in 1910 –
how does it work?


LAWSUITS to achieve civil
rights
Denial of Black
Vote in the PostReconstruction
South:
The Great Migration
• During WWI & WWII eras
- Blacks migrated north to
the cities and their sheer
numbers (6 million)
became a political force
as middle class became
accessible
• During WWII. . . judicial
relief sought
• Truman started
integration of the
military
• Ike integrated Fed
Bureaucracy
AFRICAN AMERICAN ISSUES
ERA OF CIVIL RIGHTS



1950’S - BLACKS SEEK POLITICAL
MUSCLE:
MLK, Jr., using the First Amendment
- freedom of petition
 sought relief via civil disobedience
 white supremacists responded
with fire hoses and police brutality
Congress dragged its feet w/ a
Southern Senatorial block, so
Executive and Judicial branches
responded.
 Brown v. Board of Education
(1954)
 Overrules Plessy v. Ferguson
 Brown II Ruling?
AFRICAN AMERICAN ISSUES

Segregation by law “de jure segregation” was
unconstitutional.

But “de facto segregation”segregation by choice or
reality- still prevailed …
 until Swann v. Charlotte
Mecklenburg Board of
Education 1971

where the SC ruled that
schools will re-district to end
segregation via BUSING, a very
unpopular device to integrate!
OVERVIEW OF
EVENTS/STRATEGIES IN THE CRM




Rosa Parks & Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955)
Little Rock 9 school integration ’57
Lunch counter sit-ins ’60; Freedom Riders ‘61
Birmingham March/riots 1963:



March on Washington 1964
Civil Rights Act of 1964




TRIBUTE to JFK; enacted after death
No discrimination in schools, workplace, public
accommodations
Selma March; Voting Rights Act of 1965
The “New Direction” by the mid-60’s


JFK FINALLY promoted civil rights legislation
SNCC, Black Power, Malcolm X, Black Panthers
Long, Hot Summers of 1965-1967: Watts, Detroit, Harlem
The Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was
landmark legislation in the United
States that outlawed segregation in
U.S. schools and other public places.
First conceived to help African
Americans, the bill was amended prior
to passage to protect women in
courts, and explicitly included white
people for the first time. It also started
the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission. It prohibited
discrimination in public facilities, in
government, and in employment,
eliminating the Jim Crow laws in the
Southern United States.
President Lyndon Johnson
signs the Civil Rights Act of
1964
Early Civil Rights Movement
Goals and Strategies



MLK & SCLC - Southern Christian Leadership
Conference sought integration
Modeled after Ghandi
Preached non-violent protests / civil disobedience to
achieve equal rights.
CRM by the mid to late 60’s
Violence, Militancy & Separatism



SNCC started out as nonviolent (lunch counter sitins) but ….
 Stokely Carmichael takes
over – “go get you some
guns!”
 Black Power!
Malcolm X
 Initially separatism but …
Black Panthers most militant
What caused the change?
Voting Rights Act of 1965





Only 70 blacks held elected office in 1965
Sent federal registrars into South to register blacks
Voting Rights Act outlawed methods used by states to deny
the vote to blacks:
 poll taxes (24th Amendment)
 white primaries
 grandfather clauses
 literacy tests
 gerrymandered districts.
Still not enough minorities getting elected so legislature
encouraged “minority v. majority” districts that promoted
minority electorates . . .
But Shaw v. Reno, Bush v. Vera and other cases have
condemned the design of districts using race as the
predominant factor.
The Passing of the
24th Amendment
January 1964
24th Amendment
Poll taxes had been enacted in eleven
Southern states after Reconstruction as a
measure to prevent poor people from voting.
These taxes stayed in force until an
amendment to the Constitution made them
illegal in 1964. At the time of this
amendment’s passage, only five states still
preserved the poll tax: Virginia, Alabama,
Texas, Arkansas, and Mississippi. However
it wasn’t until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled
6-3 in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections
that all state poll taxes were declared
unconstitutional because they violated the
Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment.