Civil Rights
Movement
Does the election
of President
Obama mark the
end of the Civil
Rights Movement
of the 1960s, or
simply serve at it's
greatest victory?
Plessy v.
Ferguson
and Jim
Crow
Plessy v. Ferguson
• 1896 – Homer Plessy was arrested for
riding on a white railroad car
• Court rules that Louisiana’s “separate but
equal” laws are constitutional and did not
violate the 14th amendment
Jim Crow Laws
• Laws aimed at separating the races
• Some examples:
– Forbade marriage between blacks and whites
– Restrictions on social contacts in public
places
– Separate schools, waiting rooms, railroad
coaches, and drinking fountains
• Facilities for blacks were usually inferior
Jim Crow Laws
Jim Crow Laws
Jim Crow Laws
Lynchings
Unequal schools
CAN YOU TELL WHICH ONE IS FOR BLACKS AND WHICH IS FOR WHITES?
Unequal schools
CAN YOU TELL WHICH ONE IS FOR BLACKS AND WHICH IS FOR WHITES?
NAACP
oSince 1909 fought for desegregation
oThurgood Marshall
o Brown v Board of Education (1954)
o 2nd Brown ruling: “with all deliberate speed”
o Southern Manifesto – 90 Southern members
resist rulings by “all lawful means”
Brown v. Board of Education
“Separate Education Facilities are
inherently unequal”
Problems
Desegregating Society
•Little Rock, Arkansas
•Montgomery Bus Boycott
•Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Little Rock Nine
Sit-ins
• Challenge right to sit at lunch counter
• Civil Disobedience
• SNCC
Freedom Riders
• Montgomery Bus
boycott = right to
ride bus/sit
• Freedom Riders
challenge the right
to ride on
interstate buses
• JFK’s response to
the buses being
attacked?
March on Washington
• “I have a dream”
speech
• Goal: Pass Civil
rights legislation
Obama’s Inauguration vs. March on Washington
Freedom Summer
• Robert Moses: leads
voting registrations in
South
• Mississippi called “Closed Society”
b/c can’t vote
• Violent Opposition (Mississippi
Burning)
– By the end of the summer 4 had died,
4 critically wounded and 80 beaten
Selma Campaign
•Selma Sheriff brutally
attacked demonstrators
•Jimmie Lee Jackson was shot
and killed
–MLKJ responded w/ a 50 mile
march from Selma to
Montgomery
Voting Rights Act of 1965
• Eliminated the
literacy test
• Federal
examiners
could enroll
voters denied
suffrage by
local officials
Let’s see if you could have
voted in Alabama:
• http://kpearson.project.tcnj.edu/interactive/
imm_files/test.html
Northern Segregation
• De facto segregation: exists by
practice
–Rid racist attitudes
–Increased after “white flight”
• De Jure segregation: segregation
by law
Urban Violence
• NYC July ’64
– White police v black teenagers, ended in
death of 15 yr old, sparked race riot in Harlem
• Watts Riot – August 11, 1965
– Riot after police was arresting a man for
drunk driving, lasted 6 days, 34 dead, $30
million in damage
• 1967 most violent year: violence in +100
cities
• But didn’t LBJ announce his War on
Poverty?
Malcolm X
“If you think we are
here to tell you to love
the white man, you
have come to the
wrong place.”
Malcolm X stated at the end of his
autobiography- I know that societies often
have killed the people who have helped to
change those societies... if I can die having
brought any light, having exposed any
meaningful truth that will help to destroy the
racist cancer that is malignant in the body of
America... then all of the credit is due to
Allah. Only the mistakes have been mine.
How do you interpret these words?
•
•
•
•
Nation of Islam
Released from prison in ’52
Elijah Muhammad
Believed blacks should be armed for selfdefense
• Ballots or Bullets?
– If we can’t use the ballot, we turn to bullets so let
them vote
• Why he left the Nation of Islam:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNIqAzQDvs0
&feature=related
Stokely Carmichael: "Black Power"
• "Racism must die.
The economic
exploitation by
this country of
non-white people
around the world
must also die."
• delivered October
1966, Berkeley, CA
“I knew that I could vote and that that wasn’t a
privilege; it was my right. Every time I tried I
was shot, killed or jailed, beaten or
economically deprived. So somebody had to
write a bill for white people to tell them,
"When a black man comes to vote, don’t
bother him." That bill, again, was for white
people, not for black people; so that when
you talk about open occupancy, I know I can
live anyplace I want to live. It is white people
across this country who are incapable of
allowing me to live where I want to live. You
need a civil rights bill, not me. I know I can
live where I want to live.”
Black Panthers
• Goal: fight police brutality in the ghetto
• Offers “a program for the people” – help
communities/provide support
• Angry at the large #s of blacks drafted to
fight in Vietnam
• Mao Zedong “power flows out of the barrel
of the gun”
• FBI investigates – usually illegal searches
Poverty Status: African American
1959
Families in Poverty
Families not in
Poverty
Slice 3
Slice 4
2004
Dr. King (1929-1968)
• spread ideas of non-violence to
Northern cities: planning “Poor
Peoples March” to D.C.
• April 4, 1968 – King on balcony of
hotel room in Memphis, Tenn.
• James Earl Ray shot a bullet into
King’s neck, King died an hour later
Reaction to his death
• Bobby Kennedy (campaigning for
Democratic nomination) urged people to
keep King’s ideas of nonviolence alive
• His death led to worst urban riots in US
history
• June 1968 Bobby Kennedy
assassinated by Jordanian immigrant
who was angry w/ RFK’s support of
Israel
Kerner Commission
• LBJ; to study the causes of urban
violence
• Conclusion: 1 main cause: white
racism; moving towards 2 separate
societies – 1 white, 1 black
• LBJ Admin chose to ignore many of
the recommendations b/c of strong
white opposition
Civil Rights Act of 1968
• Banned Discrimination in housing
Impacts of the Movement
• Huge increase in the #s of African-Americans
graduating high school and college
• Increase in African pride/identity:
– Afro
– Dashiki
– New Black Studies programs in schools
– More appearances on TV
• Political Gains: Jesse Jackson ran for Pres.
1988; 2/3 eligible voters were registered;
today - OBAMA
Unfinished Work
• Much of school
desegregation reversed
by 1990s: 50-75% of
African Americans attend
almost completely black
schools
• Poverty rate = 3x’s whites
• Affirmative Action –
began 1960s
– 1970s criticized as
“reverse discrimination”
http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/raceneutral2/image014.gif
Latinos
• 1960s – jobless rate
nearly 50% higher than
whites as well as % of
families in poverty
• Farm Worker Movement
– Cesar Chavez
• 1968 Bilingual
Euducation Act
• La Raza Unida – political
movement to get Latinos
in public office
Native Americans
• Have been the poorest of Americans and
have the highest unemployment rate
• 1950s (Ike) Termination policy to get them
off reservations into mainstream Amer. –
big failure
• American Indian Movement – often
militant
• Indian Education Act
• Gained rights to land through court action
Gay rights
• By 1986 – 26 states had reduced
criminal penalties for sexual
relationships between consenting adults
• Bush – increased funding for AIDS and
called for a study on hate crimes to include
homosexuals
• By 1993 – 7 states and 110 communities
outlawed discrimination against
homosexuals
same-sex marriage
Feminism
• Betty Friedan – The
Feminine Mystique
• NOW
• ERA (opponent – Phyllis
Schlafly)
• Geraldine Ferraro
• “feminization” of poverty
– how much do women
earn compared to men?
• Pay equity
• Title IX (1972)
Roe v Wade
• NOW and other
feminist groups
supported the
women’s right to
have an abortion
• 1973 Supreme Ct.
ruled women have
the right to choose
an abortion during
1st 3 months of
pregnancy
•
Norma McCorvey, "Jane Roe" in Roe
vs. Wade