Civil Rights, American Law
and Equality in America
 RESOLVED:
Social justice and equal rights
are achieved by passing laws that forbid
discrimination and guarantee equal
opportunity.
 AFFIRMATIVES:
Argue that the statement
above is true and back up your argument
with evidence and examples.
 NEGATIVES:
Argue that the statement above
is not true, and back up your argument with
evidence and examples.
 First,
prepare a one-minute speech
defending your position. What evidence and
examples can you give, as the affirmative
side, to show that laws help to end
discrimination and preserve equal rights?
 The
negative team will offer its own oneminute speech next, providing as much
contrary evidence and as many examples of
the failure of laws to end discrimination and
preserve equal rights as possible…
 After
the negative side has made their
speech, the affirmative side – speaking in
favor of the resolution – will be allowed to
respond in thirty seconds.
 Finally,
the negative side will have thirty
seconds to respond to any arguments brought
forth in the affirmative rebuttal.
 This
will conclude the first round of our
debates.
As the listener, part of your job is to ENCOURAGE the speaker:
To convey interest in what the speaker is discussing –
To keep the person talking
Nod, smile, and use other facial expressions
You do not have to –
Don’t agree or disagree
Therefore,
Use noncommittal words with positive tone of voice
“I see…”
“OK…”
“Uh-huh…”
“Keep going…”
Part of your job is to RESTATE OR CLARIFY what the speaker is
saying:
To show that you are listening and understand
To check your perception of the speaker’s message
So you should attempt to restate the basic ideas, emphasizing the
facts which the person is sharing with you. Your task is to –
Clarify points
Don’t “fake listen”
You might try saying:
“If I understand correctly, your idea is…”
“I see what you mean.”
“In other words, this is…”
“What did you mean when you said…?”
After listening to the speaker, you should REFLECT UPON OR
PARAPHRASE what they have shared with you:
To show the speaker that what he or she is saying is being heard
To show you understand the speaker’s feelings
The way you do this is to:
Restate the other’s basic feelings.
Respond to the other’s main ideas.
You may use some of the expressions below to help you:
“So you feel that…”
“You must feel angry that…”
“I think you’re very happy that…”
In order to show that you have listened, you must be able to
SUMMARIZE :
To pull important ideas, facts, and so on together
To establish a basis for further discussion
To review progress
The way to summarize is to:
Restate, reflect, and summarize major ideas and
feelings
You may find the expressions below helpful:
“So would you say the key ideas are…”
“If I understand you, you’re saying that…”
“Based on your presentation, would it be accurate to say
that…”
Source: Frey, N., Fisher, D., & Everlove, S. Productive Group Work.
ASCD: Alexandria, VA. 2009.
 Now
that we have finished our debates, it’s
time to write out a more formal dialogue. In
partners, you will need to compose a ten
(10) line formal dialogue in which you
exchange opposing viewpoints regarding our
resolution:
 RESOLVED: Social justice and equal rights
are achieved by passing laws that forbid
discrimination and guarantee equal
opportunity.
 In
groups of 4 to 6 students, you will share
your dialogues and accept constructive
criticism from your peers. How could you
strengthen your arguments? What evidence
can you bring forth to make a more
convincing case?
 As a class, we will record the most
convincing arguments from both sides, and
brainstorm regarding the most effective
methods to promote social justice, and equal
rights for all.
The Skeleton Timeline of the Expansion
of Civil Rights for African-Americans
from the Revolution through 1965.
The Declaration of Independence is perhaps our nations most important
creed – or statement of values and beliefs.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the
pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are
instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent
of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government
becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to
alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its
foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such
form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and
Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long
established should not be changed for light and transient causes;
and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more
disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right
themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably
the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute
Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such
Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
-
Thomas Jefferson, 1776
The Founding Fathers had a certain meaning in mind when they chose the words, “We the
People” – one which did not include all of the people. The Constitution never used the
word “slave”, but several provisions which extended slavery were in the document.
Abraham Lincoln issued this executive order after the Battle of Antietam
Creek in 1862. The Emancipation Proclamation went into effect in
January of 1863.
“All persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a
State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the
United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and
the Executive Government of the United States, including the
military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain
the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress
such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their
actual freedom.”
"That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by
proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in
which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion
against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the
people thereof, shall on that day be, in good faith, represented in
the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at
elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State
shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong
countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such
State, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the
United States."
“Now, therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by
virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief, of the Army and
Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the
authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary
war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January,
in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in
accordance with my purpose so to do publicly proclaimed for the full period
of one hundred days, from the day first above mentioned, order and
designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof
respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States, the
following, to wit: Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, (except the Parishes of St.
Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James Ascension,
Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans,
including the City of New Orleans) Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia,
South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, - except the forty-eight
counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley,
Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk,
including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth – and which excepted parts,
are for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.”
The Radical Republicans passed the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments during
the Reconstruction in order to end slavery, provide citizenship and equal
protection under the law, and grant suffrage to African-American men.
 The
Thirteenth Amendment forbid slavery
in the United States of America.
 The
Fourteenth Amendment granted
citizenship rights to all individuals born in
the United States (except Native Americans)
and guaranteed equal protection under the
law.
 The
Fifteenth Amendment forbid
discrimination in voting rights based on race,
skin color, or previous condition of servitude.
“Jim Crow” Laws
Plessy V. Ferguson
So called “black codes” –
laws that applied only to
African-Americans and
placed severe restrictions on
the liberty of the formerly
enslaved peoples movements
and opportunities were
institutionalized into Jim
Crow laws in the 1870s. The
Supreme Court eventually
ruled that these laws were
constitutional in the case of
Plessy V. Ferguson in 1896.
This case would remain the
law of the land until the
1954 Supreme Court decision
in Brown V. Board of
Education, Topeka, KS.
In order to prevent African-American men from voting during this period, several methods were
used by Southern whites: the poll tax, the literacy test, and violent intimidation. Many whites
were exempted from the poll tax and literacy test by grandfather clauses.
“We know through painful experience that
freedom is never voluntarily given by the
oppressor; it must be demanded by the
oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a
direct action campaign that was "well timed" in
the view of those who have not suffered
unduly from the disease of segregation. For
years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It
rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing
familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always
meant "Never." We must come to see, with one
of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too
long delayed is justice denied."
We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional
and God given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving
with jet-like speed toward gaining political independence, but
we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward gaining a cup of
coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have
never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, "Wait." But
when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers
at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you
have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your
black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of
your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight
cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you
suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering
as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she
can't go to the public amusement park that has just been
advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes
when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and
see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little
mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by
developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people”
“When you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son
who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored
people so mean? When you take a cross county drive and find it
necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable
corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you;
when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs
reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes
"nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are)
and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother
are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried
by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro,
living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to
expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer
resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating
sense of "nobodiness"--then you will understand why we find it
difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of
endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be
plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can
understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.”
“You express a great deal of anxiety over our
willingness to break laws. This is certainly a
legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge
people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of
1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools,
at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for
us consciously to break laws. One may well ask:
"How can you advocate breaking some laws and
obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that
there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I
would be the first to advocate obeying just laws.
One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility
to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree
with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at
all."
The famous “I Have A Dream” speech was delivered by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at
the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. It was three weeks prior to the bombing
of the 16th St. Baptist Church in Birmingham – and just after he was released from jail.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of
great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh
from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas
where your quest -- quest for freedom left you battered by
the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of
police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative
suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned
suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to
Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go
back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our
northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and
will be changed.
Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today,
my friends.
And so even though we face the difficulties of today and
tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in
the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the
true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of
former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit
down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state
sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of
oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and
justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a
nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but
by the content of their character.
I have a dream today!
The twenty-fourth
amendment to the
Constitution ended
a practice known
as the poll tax.
States once
charged a fee in
order to cast your
ballot, thereby
denying the poor
their suffrage
rights. Often,
African-Americans
were discouraged
from voting.
TITLE II--INJUNCTIVE RELIEF AGAINST DISCRIMINATION IN PLACES OF
PUBLIC ACCOMMODATION
SEC. 201. (a) All persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of
the goods, services, facilities, and privileges, advantages, and
accommodations of any place of public accommodation, as defined in this
section, without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race, color,
religion, or national origin.
(b) Each of the following establishments which serves the public is a place
of public accommodation within the meaning of this title if its operations
affect commerce, or if discrimination or segregation by it is supported by
State action:
(1) any inn, hotel, motel, or other establishment which provides lodging to
transient guests, other than an establishment located within a building
which contains not more than five rooms for rent or hire and which is
actually occupied by the proprietor of such establishment as his residence;
(2) any restaurant, cafeteria, lunchroom, lunch counter, soda fountain, or
other facility principally engaged in selling food for consumption on the
premises, including, but not limited to, any such facility located on the
premises of any retail establishment; or any gasoline station;
(3) any motion picture house, theater, concert hall, sports arena, stadium or
other place of exhibition or entertainment
During an incident known during the Civil Rights
Movement as “Bloody Sunday” a group of
protesters seeking voting rights planned a march
from Selma, Alabama to the state capital:
Montgomery, AL. As the marchers went across the
Edmund Pettus Bridge, they were attacked by
Alabama State troopers on horseback, tear gas was
fired into the crowd, and men and women in the
non-violent group were brutally beaten. John
Lewis, from the previous frame, was beaten
unconscious and had his skull fractured. When
Americans saw the footage of this incident Sunday
evening, they were horrified at the similarities
between the American South and pogroms which
had taken place in Nazi Germany during the 1930s.
SEC. 2. No voting qualification or prerequisite
to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure
shall be imposed or applied by any State or
political subdivision to deny or abridge the
right of any citizen of the United States to vote
on account of race or color.
RESOLVED: Social justice and
equal rights are achieved by
passing laws that forbid
discrimination and guarantee
equal opportunity.