THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
1863-1965
Chapter 21
p. 700-723
Segregation and Separation
• 1863--14th Amendment
– granted full citizenship to the former slaves
– called for “due process” and “equal protection
under the law”
• 1875 Civil Rights Act
– “all persons shall be entitled to the full and equal
enjoyment of the accommodations…”
– Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional
Segregation and Separation
• 1890--Louisiana law and trains
– “equal but separate accommodations…”
• Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
– ruled that “separate but equal” did not violate the
14th Amendment.
• “Jim Crow” laws
• racial prejudice and segregation in the North
as well.
Challenging segregation
• World War II labor
• Minorities in the military
– Truman integrated the military in 1948
• formation of organizations to campaign for
voting and challenge Jim Crow
– NAACP
– Charles Hamilton Houston
– Thurgood Marshall
Challenging segregation
• Morgan v. Virginia (1946)
• Sweatt v. Painter (1950)
• Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka,
Kansas (1954)
Reaction to Brown
• initial reaction was mixed
– Kansas and Oklahoma
– Mississippi and Georgia
– Baltimore and Washington, D.C.
• the KKK and White Citizen’s Councils
• Little Rock, Arkansas, 1957
– Central High School
Little Rock
• “The Little Rock Nine”
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Governor Orville Faubus
hand chosen by NAACP
1st day of school
Elizabeth Eckford, Ernest Green, Melba Patillo
plan fails
2nd attempt nine days later
• Eisenhower and Arkansas National Guard
– 1957 Civil Rights Act
– Warriors Don’t Cry
Arkansas Governor Orville Faubus
Central High School
Little Rock, Arkansas
The “Little Rock Nine”
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front: Gloria Ray, Elizabeth Eckford, Carlotta Watts, Minnijean Brown.
back: Jefferson Thomas, Daisy Bates, Thelma Mothershed, Terrance Roberts, Melba
Patillo, Ernest Green
Elizabeth Eckford
Montgomery, Alabama, 1955
• May, 1954
– Jo Ann Robinson
• December 1, 1955
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Rosa Parks
E.D. Nixon
bus boycott
Montgomery Improvement Association
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Rosa Parks prior to arrest
A young Martin Luther King, Jr.
The Bus Boycott
• organized quickly
– filed a lawsuit
– carpools or walked
• support
• MLK’s home bombed
• lasted 381 days
• 1956--Supreme Court ruling
King in front of fire-bombed home
The Movement Begins
• Boycott and King showed:
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power of organization and unity
“nonviolent resistance”
“civil disobedience”
quote, p. 705
The Movement Begins
• Emmett Till murder
• SCLC
• SNCC
– used students as protesters
– sit-ins
– February, 1960
• Woolworth’s in Greensboro, North Carolina
• tv
Emmett Till
Sit-in at Woolworth’s
Greensboro, North Carolina
The Movement continues
• 1961--The Freedom Riders
– organization
– Bus One and Bus Two
• Alabama state line attack
• Birmingham, Alabama
• Bus Two and Anniston, Alabama
– violence in Birmingham and Montgomery
Freedom Riders map, 1961
Bus Two outside Anniston, Alabama
The Movement continues
• Integration of public schools
– K-12 schools
• closed
• remained segregated
• private and parochial schools
– colleges and universities
• Auburn
– Harold Franklin
• Ole Miss
– James Meredith
• Alabama
– Autherine Lucy
Harold Franklin, James Meredith,
Autherine Lucy
The Movement comes to Alabama and
Mississippi
• April, 1963
– April 3--MLK is arrested
• “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”
– May 3--protesters are hosed by sheriff Eugene
“Bull” Connor
– June 11, 1963--murder of Medgar Evers in
Mississippi
– September, 1963--16th Street Baptist Church
bombed
The Movement draws worldwide
attention
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August, 1963
March on Washington, D.C.
MKL’s “I Have a Dream Speech”
Civil Rights Act of 1964
– prohibited discrimination based on race, gender,
religion, national origin.
– ended segregation in all public facilities
The fight to vote
• Freedom Summer
– college students
• Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, James Chaney
– Neshoba County, Mississippi, June 21, 1964
• New political parties
– Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
– Fannie Lou Hammer
Neshoba County
The fight to vote
• Selma, Alabama
– March 7, 1965
– “Bloody Sunday”
– March 21, 1965
• Voting Rights Act of 1965
The Movement expands
• Voting and an end to segregation got people
thinking—what else can be changed?????
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end to poverty
change social structure
new focus on the North/urban violence
new leadership
The Movement expands
• Northern segregation
– de facto segregation
– de jure segregation
– Chicago riots and protests
• Urban violence
– New York
– Watts in Los Angeles, California
New Leadership, New Ideas
• Malcolm X (1964)
• Stokely Carmichael (1966)
– “Black Power”
• Black Panthers (1966)
1968--a violent year
• April 4, 1968
– Memphis, Tennessee
– The Lorraine Motel
– James Earl Ray
• June, 1968
– Robert Kennedy
– Sirhan Sirhan
• Civil Rights Act of 1968
Civil Rights since 1968
• Fight for equality has continued:
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Women’s rights
Hispanics and bi-lingual ballots
Equal pay for equal work
“Victim’s Rights” laws
• “Are we changing attitudes or just changing
platitudes?”