CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
Segregation
a. 14th Amendment granted citizenship to
blacks for the first time and guaranteed
"equal protection" under the law and "due
process" of law
b. 15th Amendment guaranteed blacks the
right to vote, but was circumvented by
Southern states prior to the 1960s (property,
poll taxes, literacy tests)
Segregation
c. many southern communities were concerned that blacks would
gain too much political power by being allowed to vote
d. in the 1890s, states used several tactics to circumvent the 15th
Amendment and deny blacks the right to vote
1. some states required voters to own property and pay a
poll tax (a fee voters were required to pay when they
went to the polls) were used to exclude many blacks from
voting because they could not pay the fee
2. literacy test (a test given to determine if voters could
read the ballot) excluded many blacks who were
unable to read
3. grandfather clauses (exempted from poll tax or literacy
test anyone whose grandfather had been a registered
voter before January 1, 1867) excluded remaining blacks
Segregation
.
e
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
1. Herman Plessy argued his right to equal protection of the laws was
violated by a Louisiana law segregating railroad cars
2. the Court said that the 14th Amendment was “not intended to give
Negroes social equality but only political and civil equality”
3. established the “separate but equal” doctrine
 "separate but equal" means that state and local governments may
legally separate or segregate different races as long as the separate
facilities are equal in quality
f.
Segregation became the norm in the South
1. segregation laws were known as "Jim Crow" laws->term came from a
character in a slavery era blackface minstrel
 Civil Rights Act of 1875->prohibited keeping people out of public
places based on race
 1883- Supreme Court stated that “no state” could deny citizens their
rights->only state actions were subject not private organizations and
businesses
Segregation
2. de jurie segregation - by law, legally mandated
separation of races
3. de facto segregation - by fact or circumstance, occurs
on its own
g. Racial Violence-> only thing worse than Jim Crowe Laws
1. lynchings->executions without proper court
proceedings
 Over 187 a year b/w 1890 and 1899->80% occurred in the South
and 70% of the victims were African Americans
 Ida B. Wells-> young A.A. woman who launched a campaign to
end lynching-> led to decrease in lynchings in the 1900s
African American Response to
Segregation
a. In the early 1900s, Booker T. Washington urged blacks to
temporarily put aside their desire for political equality and focus
instead on economic security
1. Washington outlined his ideas, became known as the Atlanta
Compromise
b. W.E.B. Du Bois rejected Washington's ideas
1. believed blacks must work for social and political equality
2. in 1905, helped organize conference in Niagara Falls, Ontario to
discuss racial progress, began the Niagara Movement - called for:
§
full civil liberties
§
and end to racial discrimination
§
recognition of human brotherhood
3. the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP) originated - by 1914, the NAACP had 50 branches
African American Response to
Segregation
4. NAACP’s early victories->
 Norris v. Alabama (1935)-> ruled that Alabama
couldn’t exclude A.A.’s from juries in court
 Morgan v. Virginia (1946)-> ruled segregation on
interstate buses was unconstitutional
 Sweat v. Painter (1950)-> ruled that state law
schools had to admit qualified A.A.’s
African American Response to
Segregation
c. Ku Klux Klan was reborn in 1915
1. first reorganized by William J. Simmons
2. Ku Klux Klan targeted Catholics, Jews, blacks, and
immigrants
3. Indiana had largest Klan membership
4. by 1927, Klan activity had diminished
d. During the Depression, during World War II, and
immediately after World War II, hundreds of thousands of
blacks left the South and migrated to northern cities->
Great Migration
1. the North had fewer laws enforcing segregation, but
blacks in the North faced discrimination in employment,
education, and housing - many ended up living in->urban
ghettos
African American Response to
Segregation
e. 1942 - Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) was founded in Chicago by
James Farmer - believed in using non-violent techniques to end racism
f. June 1943, race riots in Detroit killed 34 people and did millions of dollars
worth of damage later the same summer, race riots broke out in New York
City
g. In the military white and black troops were segregated
1. The Pittsburgh Courier, a black newspaper, started a Double V
campaign the first "V" was for victory against the Axis powers, the
second was for victory in winning equality at home
h. After World War II blacks began to seek more legal rights, greater equality,
and an end to segregation
1. black soldiers returning from the war saw hypocrisy in fighting
for freedom in Europe when they did not have freedom in the U.S.
2. black soldiers had also experienced European culture which, in most
cases, was not segregated and was more accepting of racial
differences
3. race relations became a national issue and no longer exclusively a
southern issue
African American Response to
Segregation
i. 1947, Jackie Robinson became the first black
player in major league baseball
j. July 26, 1948 President Harry S Truman signed
Executive Order 9981 establishing the
President’s Committee on Equality of Treatment
and Opportunity in the Armed Services and
ordering the desegregation of the military
1. the Secretary of Defense announced on
September 30, 1954 that the last allblack unit had been abolished
2. the president’s directive put the armed forces
at the forefront of the growing civil rights
movement
African American Response to
Segregation
k. Election of 1948 - many southern democrats
withdrew from the Democratic Party in
protest of Truman’s civil rights policies formed The States’ Rights Party or
“Dixiecrats”
1. met in Birmingham, AL and nominated
Gov. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina
for president - received 39 electoral votes
with 1,169,032 popular votes
The Civil Rights Movement Begins
.
a
May 17, 1954 Supreme Court overturned the decision of Plessy v. Ferguson
(1896) in the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, KS (1954)>Brown’s attorney=Thurgood Marshall-> 1st African American Supreme
Court Justice
 Linda Brown was denied admission to her neighborhood school in Topeka,
KS-> because she was black
1. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote the unanimous decision
2. said that separate educational facilities are inherently unequal
3. followed up with a second ruling in 1955 that said that the South
must use “all deliberate speed” to obey the Brown decision
b.
1954, 101 southern congressmen signed the Southern Manifesto
denouncing the court’s “unwarranted decision” in Brown v. Board of
Education (1954) as a “clear abuse of judicial power” that “substituted the
Justices’ personal political and social ideas for the established law of the
land”
1. had no legal standing, encouraged white southerners to defy
Supreme Court
The Civil Rights Movement Begins
c. December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a Montgomery seamstress, was arrested for
refusing her seat to a white man on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama
1. Martin Luther King, Jr. - a 27-year old Montgomery minister - helped
organize the Montgomery Bus Boycott of city buses
a. the city’s bus system was severely affected - 80% of bus riders were black
2. black community leaders help organize alternative transportation - carpools,
walking, black cab drivers charged bus fare to black customers
3. many whites were angered by the boycott - hurt financially
4. the White Citizens Council worked against the boycott
a. members included the mayor, city council members, businessmen
5. January 30, 1956 King’s house was bombed
6. 88 black leaders were arrested
7. November 1956, the Supreme Court ruled that segregation on
Montgomery buses is unconstitutional - the 361 day boycott ended soon
after
8. the boycott marked the beginning of the organized civil rights
movement and the emergence of Martin Luther King, Jr. to national
prominence as a civil-rights leader
d. 1956, Autherine Lucy became first black student admitted to the University
of Alabama - she was expelled three days later "for her own safety"
The Civil Rights Movement Begins
f.
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
1. January 1957, Martin Luther King, Jr. called for a meeting to discuss
nonviolent integration
a. 60 southern ministers met at an Atlanta conference
b. among the attendees were Northern activists Bayard Rustin, Ella Baker,
and Stanley Levison, and Southern civil rights veterans Martin Luther King
Jr., Fred Shuttlesworth, Ralph Abernathy, C. K. Steele, and Joseph
Lowery.
2. the group established a permanent organization, the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference (SCLC)
a. elected King as president
b. the goal was to "to redeem the soul of America" through nonviolent
resistance based on the teachings of Mohandas Gandhi
1. Gandhi was an Indian nationalist and spiritual leader who worked
to gain Indian independence from Great Britain
c. used sit-ins, boycotts, picket lines
d. drew its strength from the black churches of the South, whose
ministers were said to mirror the spirit of the community
The Civil Rights Movement Begins
d. 1956, the national headquarters of the NAACP asked the U.S. district court to
force immediate and complete desegregation in Little Rock, Arkansas
1. September 1957, the Little Rock, Ark. School Board decided to let nine black
students enroll at Central High School
2. Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus refused to let the students in
3. September 3, Arkansas Governor Faubus called out the National Guard to
prevent desegregation of Central High School
4. ordered to remove National Guard, by the Federal Government
5. President Eisenhower met with Faubus
a. Faubus agreed to remove the national guard
b. the students were left to the mercy of the angry mob outside the school
c. police escorted “the Little Rock Nine” out of the school
6. September 24, Eisenhower federalized the National Guard and called in 101st
Airborne - guard remained at the school for the rest of the school year
7. 1958-1959 - Little Rock public schools were closed for the year under
Governor Faubus' orders - reopened integrated in 1959
e. Civil Rights Act of 1957->intended to protect A.A.’s right to vote
1. brought the power of federal gov’t into the Civil Rights Movement->created
civil rights division in the Dept. of Justice-> created the U.S. Commission on Civil
Rights-> investigated allegations of denying voting rights
Origins of the Civil Rights
Movement
1. Explain the significance of the 14th and 15th Amendments.
2. What case, in 1896, established the "separate but equal" doctrine? What
is meant by separate but equal?
3. Why were poll taxes and literacy tests used in southern states prior to
the 1960s?
4. Begun in Niagara Falls, Ontario in 1905, it called for full civil liberties for
blacks and an end to racial discrimination.
5. What organization, formed in 1909, worked to gain legal and civil rights
for black Americans?
6. What event led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott?
7. What is meant by the term civil rights?
8. How did migration patterns during the Depression and World War II
affect the civil rights movement?
9. What was Executive Order 9981? What did it do? When? Why was it
significant?
10. Who was Mohandas Gandhi? What effect did he have on the American
civil rights movement?
The Election of 1960



Democratic Party  John F. Kennedy ---- Republican Party  Richard Nixon->neither
candidate took a strong stance on civil rights at first, wanted to please both sides for
votes
 Kennedy chose Lyndon B. Johnson (a southerner) as the vice-presidential
candidate to appeal to southern voters
 Kennedy decided to make an all-out effort for the northern black vote
October l9, l960 Martin Luther King is arrested at a sit-in at a lunch counter in Atlanta
 police claimed he was violating probation which he was on for driving without a
license a year earlier
 Kennedy called King’s wife to express sympathy
 Robert Kennedy (an attorney) talked to a judge and King was released
 Nixon did nothing Kennedy won a very narrow victory
 won 70% of the black vote
 carried 7 of the 11 deep south states
Kennedy did not fully follow through on his campaign promises to fight segregation
 appointed some blacks to his administration
 did little for voting rights yet only 5% of blacks were registered in the Deep South
 as Attorney General, Robert Kennedy filed 50 voting rights cases
 On civil rights, Kennedy generally acted only after events forced him to
Sit-ins


First sit-ins occurred in the late 1940s, but were largely unsuccessful
the first successful sit-in of the civil rights movement was in Greensboro, NC in 1960
 February 1, 1960, a group of black college students from North Carolina A&T
University were denied service at a Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North
Carolina  they refused to leave
 sparked a wave of other sit-ins in college towns across the South
 the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) [pronounced "snick"],
was created April 1960 to coordinate sit-ins, support their leaders, and publicize their
activities
 practiced civil disobedience - intentionally violating laws they felt were immoral
 slogan was “jail not bail”
 jail got press coverage and inconvenienced the local officials
 Stokely Carmichael was a SNCC leader (later becomes involved in the Black Power
Movement)
 both black and white students were involved in SNCC
 they ordered food or coffee and stayed until they were served, removed or
attacked
 started with a few people but grew to 300 working in shifts
 the idea spread to other places besides drug stores - swim-ins, pray-ins, theaters,
parks - by the end of 1960, 50,000 young people were involved in sit-ins
Freedom Riders
 Supreme Court declared segregation on interstate buses
is unconstitutional
 1. the ruling was largely ignored in the South - segregated buses
and terminals still existed
 Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
1. civil-rights organization founded (1942) in Chicago by
James Farmer
2. decided to test the Supreme Court’s 1946 decision
3. Freedom Riders  a group of black and white CORE
members would ride interstate buses and would
intentionally violate the “for colored” and “for whites” signs
on the buses and in the terminals
4. chose a route form Washington DC to New Orleans
5. met little resistance in the upper South
6. May 14 [Mother's Day], the Freedom Riders split up into
two groups to travel through Alabama
Freedom Riders
a. first group was met by a mob of about 200 angry people in Anniston
the mob stoned the bus and slashed the tires
the bus managed to get away, but when it stopped about six miles out of
town to change the tires, it was firebombed
b. the second bus was attacked in Birmingham by an angry mob
 riders were severely beaten
 after two days of unsuccessful negotiations, the Freedom Riders,
fearing for their safety, flew to New Orleans
c. group of Nashville sit-in students decided to go to Birmingham and continue
the Freedom Ride
 May 17, the Birmingham police arrested the Nashville Freedom Riders
and placed them in protective custody
 in the middle of the night, the police drove the Riders back to Tennessee
and dumped them by the side of the highway at the state line
 the Freedom Riders went right back to Birmingham.
 the Nashville Freedom Riders left Birmingham on Saturday, May 20
 Nashville Freedom Riders were beaten in Montgomery
 Justice Department official John Seigenthaler was beaten unconscious
and left in the street for nearly a half an hour after he stopped to help two
Freedom Riders
Freedom Riders
 Robert Kennedy decided to send federal marshals to the city
 Martin Luther King, Jr., flew to Montgomery and held a mass
meeting, surrounded by federal marshals, in support of the
Freedom Riders
 a mob of several thousand whites surrounded the church
 at 3 AM, King called Robert Kennedy and Kennedy called
Alabama Governor John Patterson - he declared martial law and
sent in state police and the National Guard
 Freedom Riders, however, decided to continue on to Mississippi
 were given good protection as they entered the state, and no
mob greeted them at the Jackson bus terminal
 Robert Kennedy and Mississippi Senator James O. Eastland had
reached a compromise Kennedy promised not to use federal
troops if there was no mob violence
 the Nashville Freedom Riders were arrested by local police May 25, they were tried - as their attorney defended them, the
judge turned his back
 Freedom Riders never made it to New Orleans
Freedom Riders
 Forced the Kennedy administration to take a stand on
civil rights
 September 22, 1961 - the Interstate Commerce
Commission made a ruling against segregated facilities
 After the Freedom Rides, Robert Kennedy focused on black
voter registration
 he hoped it would be less violent
 SNCC workers were trained to help blacks register
 whites respond violently (including the murder of 3
voting rights workers in MS) (Mississippi Burning)
University of Mississippi
1961
a. January 1961, James Meredith applied for admission to the
University of Mississippi
 officials at the school returned his application
b. Meredith took his case to court
 September 10, 1962, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that he
had the right to attend the University of Mississippi
 the Governor of Mississippi, Ross Barnett, personally
blocked Meredith from registering at the University
c. Kennedy sent in Federal Marshals
 September 30, 1962, a Sunday, Meredith was escorted
onto the campus by federal marshals and Civil Rights
Division lawyers
 stationed on or near the campus to protect him were 123
deputy federal marshals, 316 US Border Patrolmen, and 97
federal prison guards
University of Mississippi
1961
d. federal forces were attacked by a mob that
would grow to number 2,000 and who fought
them with guns, bricks, bottles, and Molotov
cocktails
 2 people were dead, 28 marshals had been
shot, and 160 people were injured
e. Kennedy sent 16,000 federal troops to the
campus
f. when it was over, James Meredith became the
first black student to attend the University of
Mississippi
Birmingham 1963
 Birmingham was known nationally for racism and violence
 closed public parks, pools, playgrounds rather than
integrating
 department stores practiced discrimination
 The city government was in a state of turmoil
 The three-man city commission system was voted out by the
voters in the spring of 1963 - to force Bull Connor, commissioner
of public safety and the man largely responsible for the attack on
the Freedom Riders, out of office
 Connor ran for mayor but the voters elected the more moderate
Albert Boutwell The old mayor and commissioners refused to
leave office so two city Governments were operating at the
same time until the courts decided which was the legitimate one.
Birmingham 1963

Martin Luther king decided to stage a march in Birmingham – to take
advantage of the chaos in B’ham.
 King knew the whites would react in Birmingham, King knew the press
would cover it
SCLC launched "Project C" (for Confrontation)
 April 3, 1963, SCLC staged sit-ins and released a "Birmingham
Manifesto"
 April 6, police arrested 45 protesters marching from Sixteenth Street
Baptist Church to City Hall
 April 7, Palm Sunday, more people were arrested - two police dogs
attacked nineteen-year-old protester Leroy Allen as a large crowd
looked on
 Judge W.A. Jenkins, Jr., issued an order preventing 133 of the city's
civil rights leaders, including King, fellow SCLC leader Ralph
Abernathy, and Shuttlesworth from organizing demonstrations
Birmingham 1963
 April 12, 1963,- King was arrested for violating the court's order
 Local white church leaders wrote a letter to the paper saying
King was just stirring up trouble and if he would be patient,
change would come King responded with Letter From A
Birmingham Jail
1. written on scraps of paper
2. said that we can’t wait for change because wait has always
meant never
 King was released on April 20
 SCLC organizers started to plan "D Day"
 All of the D Day demonstrators would be children – a controversial
decision. decided to use children in the march so that adults would not
lose their jobs
 May 2, children, ranging in age from six to eighteen, gathered in
Kelly Ingram Park, across the street from Sixteenth Street Baptist
Church
 Demonstrators left Kelly Ingram Park in waves and were arrested and
placed in police vans
Birmingham 1963
 May 3, over a thousand more children stayed out of
school and went to Kelly Ingram Park
 Bull Connor was determined not to let them get downtown, but




he had no space left in his jails-> ordered the police and firemen
to use attack dogs and fire hoses on the marchers - pictures of
these attacks were shown all over the world
Fearing damage to downtown stores, the Birmingham business
community agreed to integrate lunch counters and hire more
blacks
Bull Connor urged whites to boycott the cooperating stores
Some whites reacted by bombing King’s motel and his
brother’s house
Because it was the site of eighteen unsolved bombings in black
neighborhoods over a six-year span and of the vicious mob attack
on the Freedom Riders on Mother's Day 1961, Birmingham
earned the nickname "Bombingham"
 Riots ensued and JFK sent in the National Guard to make
peace
University of Alabama 1963
 Alabama Governor George Wallace made a campaign promise in
1962 to stand in the schoolhouse door to block integration
 In his inaugural address, Wallace promised, "segregation today,
segregation tomorrow, segregation forever"

June 11, 1963 - Wallace stood at the door of the registration
building at the University of Alabama and gave a speech in
protest of two black students attending the school
 he said that integration is a state’s rights issue, not a federal issue
 the “stand” was symbolic because President Kennedy had federalized
National Guard they were there to make sure the students were allowed
to enter after the speech, Wallace stepped aside and Vivian Malone and
James Hood entered the building - the first sustained enrollment of
black students at UA
 May 30, 1965, Vivian became the first black student to graduate
from the University of Alabama
 James Hood returned to campus in 1995 and received a Ph.D. in
interdisciplinary studies in 1997
“I Have a Dream”
 August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. led a
march of 250,000 in Washington D.C.
 marching to support the passage of the Civil Rights bill
 Martin Luther King gave the “I Have a Dream” speech
 Led to passing of The Civil Rights Act of 1964
gave the federal government broad power to stop racial
discrimination in the segregation in public places, to
bring lawsuits to end school segregation, and to require
employers to end discrimination in the workplace
Created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
(EEOC)
Medgar Evers
 President Kennedy went on TV the night of June 11,
1963
 called segregation a “moral crisis”
 asked Congress to pass the Civil Rights bill
 Medgar Evers was a leader in the Mississippi NAACP





organized economic boycotts, meetings, marches, prayer
vigils, and picket lines
he was shot and killed in his driveway by Byron de la
Beckwith late on the night of June 11 while getting out of
his car
stood trial twice in the 1960s
in both cases the all-white juries could not reach a verdict
in a third trial in 1994 Beckwith was convicted and
sentenced to life in prison
The Struggle for Voting
Rights

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 did little to guarantee the right to vote
 Many African American voters were attacked, beaten, and killed
 Bombs exploded in many African American businesses and churches
 Martin Luther King, Jr., decided it was time for another protest to protect African
American voting rights

The protest was staged for Selma, Alabama, where African Americans
were the majority of the population while only 3 percent were registered
to vote.
 march for freedom began in Selma and headed toward the state capitol in
Montgomery
 Sheriff Jim Clark ordered 200 state troopers and deputized citizens to rush the
peaceful demonstrators
 brutal attack became known as Bloody Sunday, and the nation saw the images on
television

On August 3, 1965, the House of Representatives passed the voting bill,
with the Senate passing the bill the following day
 The Voting Rights Act of 1965 gave the attorney general the right to send federal
examiners to register qualified voters, bypassing the local officials who often
refused to register African Americans
 resulted in 250,000 new African American voters and an increase in African
American elected officials in the South
16th Street Baptist Church
Bombing
 September 15, 1963, the 16th Street Baptist
Church in Birmingham, Alabama was
 bombed killing four young girls and injuring 14
teenagers
 a Klansman was convicted of the bombing in 1976
Problems Facing Urban African
Americans
A. Even after the passage of civil rights laws in the 1950s and 1960s,
racism, or prejudice or discrimination toward someone because
of their race, was common
 The civil rights movement had resulted in many positive gains for African
Americans, but their economic and social problems were much more
difficult to address
Race riots broke out in many American cities between 1965 and
1968
B.


A race riot in Watts, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, lasted six days
The worst of the riots occurred in Detroit when the United States Army
was forced to send in tanks and soldiers with machine guns to gain
control
C. The Kerner Commission was created to make
recommendations that would prevent further urban riots
 It concluded that the problem was white society and white racism
 The commission suggested the creation of two million new jobs in inner
cities and six million new units of public housing
 However, with the massive spending in the Vietnam War, President
Johnson never endorsed the recommendation
The Shift to Economic Rights
A. By the mid-1960s, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was criticized for
his nonviolent strategy because it had failed to improve the
economic condition of African Americans.
 he began focusing on economic issues affecting African Americans
B. The Chicago Movement was an effort to call attention to the
deplorable housing conditions that many African Americans
faced
 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and his wife moved into a slum
apartment in an African American neighborhood in Chicago
C. Dr. King led a march through the white suburb of Marquette
Park to demonstrate the need for open housing
 Mayor Richard Daley had police protect the marchers, and Daley
met with King to propose a new program to clean up slums
Black Power
A. After 1965 many African Americans began to turn away from the
nonviolent teachings of Dr. King
 sought new strategies, which included self-defense and the idea that
African Americans should live free from the presence of whites
B. Young African Americans called for black power, a term that had
many different meanings
 some it meant physical self- defense and violence
 For others, including SNCC leader Stokely Carmichael, it meant they
should control the social, political, and economic direction of their
struggle for equality
C. Black power stressed pride in the African American culture and
opposed cultural assimilation, or the philosophy of incorporating
different racial or cultural groups into the dominant society
 These ideas were popular in poor urban neighborhoods, although Dr.
King and many African American leaders were critical of black power
D. In the early 1960s, Malcolm X had become a symbol of the Black
Power movement
 Malcolm X was a member of the Nation of Islam, known as the Black
Muslims, who believed that African Americans should separate
themselves from whites and form their own self-governing communities
Black Power
E. Malcolm X later broke from the Nation of Islam and
began to believe an integrated society was possible
 In 1965 three members of the Nation of Islam shot and
killed Malcolm X
 would be remembered for his view that although African
Americans had been victims in the past, they did not have
to allow racism to victimize them now
F. The formation of the Black Panthers was the result
of a new generation of militant African American
leaders preaching black power, black nationalism,
and economic self-sufficiency
 believed that a revolution was necessary to gain equal
rights
The Assassination of Martin
Luther King, Jr.
A. By the late 1960s, the civil rights movement had
fragmented into many competing organizations
 resulted in no further legislation to help African Americans
B. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated by a
sniper on April 4, 1968
 creating national mourning as well as riots in more than 100
cities
C. In the aftermath of King’s death, Congress passed
the Civil Rights Act of 1968
 contained a fair housing provision outlawing discrimination
in housing sales and rentals
 Gave Justice Dept. authority to bring suits against such
discrimination