THE STRUGGLE INTENSIFIES
“There comes a time my friends when people get
tired of being plunged across the abyss of
humiliation…We had no alternative but to protest.
For many years, we have shown amazing patience.
We have sometimes given our white brothers the
feeling that we liked the way we were being
treated. But we come here tonight to be saved from
that patience that makes us patient with anything
less than freedom and justice.”
• Bus boycott continues for over a year
• 1956 Supreme Court ruling:
– Bus segregation unconstitutional
Sit-Ins
• Perfected by CORE
• Sit in a public place and wait to be served
– Forced business owners to decide between
disruption or potential loss of business
– By 1960 70,000 people had participated and 3,600
had served jail time
Freedom Rides
• CORE and SNCC test whether businesses were
upholding Boynton v. the State of Virginia
– Interstate buses and all according services
desegregate
Violence Against Freedom Riders
• First left D.C. on May 4, 1961
• Minor problems until Anniston, AL:
– Mob surrounded one bus
– Slashed the bus tires
– Held the door shut
• Threw a firebomb into the bus
• All escaped
– Brutally beaten
• Public horrified by photographs
– Attorney General Robert Kennedy pledged federal
support to the protestors
Integration of the University of
Mississippi “Ole Miss”
• 1961 James Meredith applied to transfer from
a state college to Ole Miss and was denied
• NAACP helped him file lawsuit Ole Miss
• Grounds: denied admission based on his race
• The Supreme Court upheld his position
• Mississippi Gov. Ross Barnett refused to
comply with the Supreme Court’s decision
• President JFK sent Federal Marshalls
– Two student deaths
• JFK ordered soldiers in to restore order
• Meredith ultimately admitted to Ole Miss
– Required assistance of Federal Marshalls to ensure
his safety
Protests in Birmingham, Alabama
• Birmingham 40% African
American
• MLK: Most segregated city in
America
• Spring of 1963 he planned a
series of nonviolent protests in
the city
• Birmingham’s police
commissioner “Bull” Connor
determined that the city
remain segregated
• Protest marches and sit-ins began
• City officials obtained court injunction
– Protestors cease actions b/c parading without a
permit
• King risked civil disobedience by continuing the
protests
– MLK arrested
• Criticized by fellow white clergymen for actions
– King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”
• King disputed claims that his actions were ill
timed claiming that African Americans had
been told for too long to wait for justice and
equality
• 1963 youths joined protest marches in
Birmingham
• Bull Connor directed the arrest of more than
900 youths using:
– High pressure hoses
– Attack dogs
– Police beatings
• Public shocked by images from the march
• Eventually an interracial committee was
established to help desegregate the city