America’s Civil Rights Movement
“We shall Overcome”
Segregated Billingsville School,
Charlotte, NC, 1951
American Society
• 1950 – 15 million black citizens in USA.
– 2/3 live in the South under segregationist laws.
• Blacks in the South:
– Attended separate schools.
– Ate in segregated restaurants.
– Public places: theatres, bus stations, drinking fountains were all
segregated.
– Trains and buses had whites only sections.
• 20% of eligible southern blacks were registered to vote and in the
Deep South (AL/MS) only 5%!
• Where the law failed, lynch mobs enforced justice in the South.
– 1946 – 6 black war veterans were lynched for demanding rights they
felt entitled to in the South.
– 1955 – Emmit Till (14) murdered by two white men in MS for speaking
to a white woman!
American Reaction
• 1946 – Truman commissioned Federal investigation of Civil
Rights violations.
• 1948 – Truman ended segregation in Federal jobs.
• 1954 – Brown vs. Bd. Of Ed. Overturns Plessy vs. Ferguson.
(Separate but Equal)
• 1955 – Supreme Court orders desegregation to occur with all
deliberate speed.
• 1956 – “Declaration of Constitutional Principles” becomes the
basis for massive resistance in the south.
• 1957 – Civil Rights Commission established by Congress.
• 1964 -2% of eligible blacks in the South were attending
integrated classrooms!
The “Southern Manifesto”
• US Congressmen
• 1956 – Said that Brown v Bd of Ed was a clear abuse of
judicial power!
• US Senator Harry F. Byrd, Jr. (VA)
• February 25, 1956, he called for what became known as
Massive Resistance.
• This was a group of laws, passed in 1958, intended to prevent
integration of the schools.
• Pupil Placement Boards were created with the power to assign
specific students to particular schools.
• Tuition grants were to be provided to students who opposed
integrated schools.
• The linchpin of Massive Resistance was a law that cut off state
funds and closed any public school that agreed to integrate.
Civil Rights Movement
• Consisted of many different groups, each with slightly
different goals and beliefs.
• Martin Luther King, JR and the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference preached non violent protest.
• Student Groups like SNCC focused their attention on
College Campuses and public protests.
• Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam focused on
separating themselves from white America.
• The Black Panthers focused on uniting all African
Americans with a sense of Unity.
Brown vs Board of Education 1954
Chief Justice: Earl Warren
(Fred Vinson died during the arguments phase)
Supreme Court Case that ended forced segregation
for African American Students.
Supreme Court overturned 1896 Plessy vs Ferguson
decision.
Ordered integration of all public schools with “All
deliberate speed.”
First challenge to authority of Supreme Court
decision came in 1957 at Central High School in
Little Rock, Arkansas.
Belt of Massive
Resistance
Virginia – Massive Resistance
Little Rock 1957
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2.
3.
The NAACP took court action
when Negro students were
denied entrance to white
schools.
Arkansas was ordered to allow
9 Negro students to attend
Central High School of Little
Rock Arkansas.
Governor Orval Faubus called
out the state National Guard to
block the students from entry.
When the students tried to enter they were attacked
by a mob of white students.
President Eisenhower sent in Federal Troops
to ensure their safe entry.
U.S. Supreme Court, 1954
NAACP - The legal challenges
Montgomery Bus Boycotts
Bus company refused to
change!
Supreme Court eventually
ruled that bus segregation
was unconstitutional just like
school segregation.
Martin Luther King becomes
leader of the movement!
Church leaders organized a
bus boycott of all city buses.
For one year, 50,000 AfricanAmericans walked, rode bikes
or car pooled so as to avoid
the bus.
• December 1955
• Rosa Parks, a seamstress
refused to give up her seat on
a municipal bus to a white
woman.
• She was arrested and jailed.
• It had been an organized and
planned attack on the laws of
segregation that existed in the
South.
• Parks got arrested on purpose,
she had worked as a volunteer
in the local NAACP office.
• She became a symbol of the
Civil Rights movement.
NAACP –founded in 1909
• They chose to focus on the legal
aspects of the movement.
• Thurgood Marshall had successfully
argued the Brown case and was
retained as legal counsel.
• It was an interracial group made up of
whites and blacks.
• They focused attention on the crime
of lynching and tried to get the
Government to end it.
• The NAACP is today a leader in the
civil rights movement for all
Americans.
CORE
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Founded in 1942 to bring about change
through peaceful confrontations.
Director was James Farmer.
Gained national recognition by sponsoring
(1961) the Freedom Rides, a series of
confrontational bus rides throughout the
South.
Interracial groups of CORE members and
supporters that ultimately succeeded in
ending segregation on interstate bus
routes.
After 1966, when Farmer resigned, the
organization concentrated more on black
voter registration in the South and on
community problems.
(Congress of Racial
Equality)
SCLC
(Southern Christian
Leadership Conference)
• Founded in 1957 by Martin Luther
King, Jr.
• Urged African Americans to assert
their dignity and to refuse further
cooperation with evil.
• King had a background as a
preacher and used that to push
forward with his plans to turn
Montgomery into a national
movement.
• He preached a strategy that
involved non violent confrontation
based on ideas of Mahatma
Gandhi.
SNCC
• Organized in 1960 by Ella
Baker.
• She wanted to provide
younger generations of
African Americans a means to
participate in the movement.
• Eventually formed their own
group because they wanted to
concentrate on keeping the
movement alive.
• Robert Moses becomes the
voice of the SNCC.
(Student nonviolent
Coordinating Committee)
The sit ins
• First used by CORE in 1943.
• Idea was to target racially
segregated businesses and go
in and attempt to be served with
other white customers.
• Many of them endured hateful
remarks, abuse and even
physical violence without
retaliating.
• First one in Greensboro, NC in
1960 at a Woolworth’s.
• Eventually spread across the
country.
• 1,000’s of people became
involved!
Freedom Rides
• Spring of 1961 - Supreme
Court ruled that segregation
was prohibited on buses that
crossed state lines.
• CORE and SNCC placed
riders on buses to test the
validity of the law.
• When they arrived in the
south, they were met by
mobs.
• Anniston, AL - mob
overturned and set on fire a
Greyhound bus.
• People across the country
were horrified.
• Robert Kennedy eventually
assigned FEDERAL
MARSHALLS to protect
them
Freedom Rider bus,
burned in Anniston, AL, May 1961
The Albany Movement
• African Americans in Albany, GA had begun a
year long campaign of protest marches.
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Demanded desegregation of all bus terminals.
Talks opened with White community leaders.
Martin Luther King came to Albany to help.
Many leaders in Albany resented King’s presence.
• King tried to promoted anti - violent protest.
– Government leaders in Albany would not arrest them
though and when they did, they released them.
– Albany movement fizzled and was not successful.
Ole Miss Integration
• September of 1962 - James Meredith wanted to
transfer to all white Ole Miss but because he was
black, he was denied.
– He carried his quest all the way to the Supreme Court.
– Governor declared that Meredith would not be admitted
no matter what the Court said.
– He declared that Supreme Court did not apply in Miss.
– A Riot took place and the campus was destroyed.
– Two people died and Kennedy was forced to send in
the Army to restore order.
– Meredith entered the University and stayed until he
graduated in 1963.
Birmingham
• Birmingham was rigidly
segregated.
• Martin Luther King invited to lead
a non violent demonstration.
• A plan was orchestrated to use
high school children to initiate
the march.
• The plan was to use 13 to 18 year
old kids to fill up the city's
prisons.
• With the media there, this would
surely embarrass city officials.
• Bull Connor was the chief of
police.
• May 2nd - the protest began and
the Police were waiting.
Birmingham - the violence
• As soon as they turned the corner, he ordered the arrest of
all of the students.
• Over nine hundred children were jailed ranging from the
age of 6 to 18.
• Connor was furious and many of his officers were
embarrassed.
• The following day, Connor called out the water cannons
and the dogs.
• As marchers came parading down the streets, the police
attacked.
• First came the water cannons, then the billy clubs, and
lastly the dogs.
Police Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor in
Kelly Ingram Park, Birmingham, AL, 1963
Birmingham,
Alabama,
1963
Martin Luther King arrested
• When asked how long he
would stay, King replied until
“Pharaoh lets his people go.”
• Connor responded that he had
plenty of room in the jail.
• King was arrested for parading
without a permit.
• Writes “Letter from a
Birmingham Jail”
• King stayed in jail for more
than a week to protest what
was happening in Birmingham.
Impact of Birmingham
• The non violent protests were captured on TV.
• Images of Police Dogs, Water cannons and riot police
attacking peaceful demonstrators were etched into
people’s brains.
• The Protesters won. The Assistant Attorney General
negotiated a desegregation of facilities, both public
and private, and effectively ended the Birmingham
standoff.
• The non violent technique did not always work, but it
did in Birmingham.
March on Washington
• August of 1963 - 200,000
people came from all over
the US to protest the slow
pace that the White House
was taking with the
movement.
• Celebrities participated and
the event was televised
nationally.
• At this event is when King
gave his most famous
speech
Civil Rights Act of 1964
• Banned discrimination in all public accommodations.
• Gave the Justice Department authority to act more
vigorously in school segregation and voting rights cases.
• Included an Equal opportunity clause that prohibited
discriminatory hiring on the basis of race, sex, religion or
national origin in companies with more than 25
employees.
• President Johnson had told Congress that he would
accept no compromise on the Civil Rights Act.
• The Civil Rights Act would lead to violence against black
civil rights workers in the South and elsewhere.
• Johnson felt that the Civil Rights Act needed more muscle.
Voting Rights Act of 1965
• Authorized the Attorney General to appoint federal
examiners to register voters where local officials had
prohibited African Americans from exercising their
constitutional rights.
• The Act specifically targeted Southern States.
• It called for them to have a minimum of 50% of the
voting age population registered in 1964.
• By 1968, one million people were registered to vote.
• The two acts together were landmark pieces of
legislation for African Americans.
• Many people were impatient with the pace of change
and they turned to violence.
March from
Selma to
Montgomery,
March 1965
Alabama police attack Selma-toMontgomery marchers, March 1965
Malcolm X
(1925-1965)
• Born Malcolm Little in 1925.
• His father had been part of
the “Back to Africa” message
spread by Marcus Garvey.
• At age of 20, he was put in
jail for a 7 year sentence for
burglary.
• While in prison, he became
interested in the Nation of
Islam.
• The Nation of Islam was
founded in 1933 and would
attempt to bring about a
“Black Nation”.
Malcolm X
Principle beliefs of Malcolm X
• He disagreed with the tactics and pace of the Civil Rights
movement.
• Malcolm X preached that the black people of America
should rise up and fight back against their oppressors.
• He said that integration would not work and that blacks
needed to take their destiny into their own hands.
• Malcolm and the leader of the nation of Islam differed in
their beliefs on the direction that the movement should
take.
• He split with the Nation of Islam and made a pilgrimage to
Mecca. When he returned he said he had been wrong to
preach violence against Whites.
• In 1965, he was assassinated by three members of the
nation of Islam.
Stokely Carmichael
• Had been leader of
SNCC.
• He got tired of beatings
he took in non violent
protest.
• He advocated carrying
guns for SNCC members.
• He called upon African
Americans to take an
active role in their
destiny.
• He promoted what he
called “Black Power”
which would “Unite,
recognize their heritage,
to build a sense of
community…”
The Black Panthers
• Fall of 1966 - a new political
party was formed.
• Founded by Huey Newton.
• “Power flows from the barrel
of a gun.”
• They developed day care
centers, health care facilities
and free breakfast programs
in black communities.
• The Black Power movement
gave rise to the “Black is
Beautfiul” slogan.
Riots spread across the country
• Segregation still existed in America even though there
were no more “Whites only” signs.
• Rochester, NY: New York, NY: Watts in LA and many
places in New Jersey.
• August 11, 1965 - Police pulled over a 21 year old African
American for driving drunk.
– A crowd of people had gathered to watch the arrest.
– The suspect resisted arrest and one police officer
panicked and began swinging his baton.
– The crowd became outraged and it touched off six days
of rioting in Los Angeles.
– 1,000’s of people burned cars, torched buildings and
stole merchandise.
– “Get Whitey” and “Burn baby Burn” engulfed American
cities in 1966 and 1967.
N.O.W. organizing conference,
October 30, 1966
Watts riots,
Los Angeles,
August 1965
Troops patrolling Los Angeles, 1965
Life cover,
Aug. 27, 1965
Impact of Civil Rights Movement
• Voter Registration Increased – politicians now actively
court the black vote.
– Traditionally, black voters support the Democratic Party, but not
always.
• Integration of Public Schools – Even though southern
schools were slower to respond, public schools were
integrated by 1972.
– Prince Edward County, VA actually closed public schools in 1959
• Assassinations – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and
Robert Kennedy were both assassinated in 1968.
– Country was sent into chaotic state of confusion!
• Forced Integration Occurred
– Swann v Charlotte-Mecklenburg Bd of Ed (1971)
• Supreme Court upholds forced busing to comply with Brown Decision.
• New Legislation
– Civil Rights Restoration Act (1988)
• Expands the reach of non-discrimination laws within private
institutions receiving federal funds.
– Civil Rights Act (1991)
• Strengthened existing civil rights laws and provided for damages in
cases of intentional employment discrimination.
– Supreme Court Case affirmation of Bakke decision (2003)
• Supreme Court rules that race can be used to determine entrance
for colleges.
• Upholds a 1978 decision, Regents of the University of California
v. Bakke
• Problems persist:
– 1991 – LA Riots
• Racially charged riots fueled by a not guilty verdict in the beating of
a black man (Rodney King)
– 1998 – Texas
• A black man named James Byrd, Jr. was dragged to death behind a
truck by 3 white men.
• All three were sentenced to Death!