From Slavery to Freedom
th
9 ed.
Chapter 20
We Shall Overcome
Woman carried to police patrol wagon during
demonstration in Brooklyn, New York, 1963
2
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We Shall Overcome
 We Shall Overcome
 Civil rights movement protracted struggle with
four identifiable, overlapping segments
 Labor activism
 Legal activism
 Nonviolent mass direct action
 Assertions of black self-determination
3
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Introducing
Nonviolent Direct Action
 CORE Activism
 Core activists influenced by A. J. Muste, who
championed Gandhi’s civil disobedience model
 Organized an integrated group on a “journey of
reconciliation”
 Protesting southern bus companies’ refusal to allow
integrated seating required by the Supreme Court’s
Morgan decision
 Goal to educate black communities along route about
decision
4
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Introducing
Nonviolent Direct Action
 The Journey of Reconciliation
 Eight black men and eight white men
volunteered for trip; practiced nonviolence
 Black volunteers instructed to take front seats;
white volunteers back
 12 arrested
 Demonstrated lack of knowledge of Supreme
Court decision
 Covered extensively by black papers and hardly at all
by white papers
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Anatomy of the
Montgomery Movement
 The Role of the Boycott
 Montgomery boycott first successful example of
mass nonviolent resistance
 Indigenous movement of black people of all
classes and ages led by Martin Luther King, Jr.
 King emphasized nonviolence as guiding credo
of moral courage and as a strategy for winning
nation’s sympathy
 Formation of new civil rights organization that
relied on religious faith and institutions for
backing
6
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Rosa Parks being fingerprinted after her arrest for refusing
to give up her seat on a segregated bus, December 1955
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Anatomy of the
Montgomery Movement
 The Arrest of Rosa Parks
 Arrested on December 1, 1955 for refusing to
give up her seat to a white man
 In months before arrest, four other black women had
been arrested for similar offenses on city’s bus system
 Parks had two decades of civil rights credentials;
her arrest united Montgomery’s black community
 Idea of boycott quickly translated into action
 30,000 leaflets printed announcing rally and boycott
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Anatomy of the
Montgomery Movement
 The Leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr.
 King selected to lead the boycott efforts
coordinated by the Montgomery Improvement
Association (MIA)
 MIA adopted tactic of nonviolent resistance
 Rustin became King advisor
 Made three conservative demands that were
rejected by the city
 Boycott continued; highly planned and strategized
 Eventually drew national and international attention
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Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., speaks at the Holt Street
Baptist Church during the Montgomery bus boycott
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Anatomy of the
Montgomery Movement
 Victory
 Four others who had defied segregated seating
brought class-action lawsuit challenging
constitutionality of city and state segregation
ordinances
 Federal court declared such laws unconstitutional;
Supreme Court upheld the judgment
 Supreme Court ruling ended 381-day boycott by
requiring immediate end to city’s segregated bus
system
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Movement Milestones
 New Leaders: James M. Lawson
 Montgomery bus boycott inspired new civil
rights activism
 James Lawson settled in Nashville, TN, and
began teaching philosophy of nonviolence
 With help of Nashville Christian Leadership
Conference, Lawson taught nonviolent direct
action protest strategies
 Would practice how to deal with arrest; violence
 Made plans for a lunch counter sit-in
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Sit-in participants endure harassment
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Movement Milestones
 The Lunch Counter Sit-In
 February 1, 1960, “Greensboro Four” staged first
successful sit-in at “white only” lunch counter
 Sparked similar protests by blacks throughout South
 Two weeks later, Lawson’s Nashville students
staged rotating sit-in
 Protesters usually arrested for trespassing,
disorderly conduct, and disobeying police
 Fervor of sit-ins captured by press and popular
culture
 Max Roach album cover
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Movement Milestones
 March 1960 protest movement of students from
five historically black colleges
 Julian Bond
 “Appeal for Human Rights”
 Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
(SNCC) – new national, student-led civil rights
group
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Album cover from Max Roach’s
Freedom Now Suite
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Movement Milestones
 The Albany Movement
 Protests by black community of Albany, Georgia,
under leadership of SNCC, SNLC, and NAACP
 First use of freedom songs; community singing
 Albany movement failed
 Police chief determined to undermine movement;
learned from protests in other cities, King’s book
 James A. Gray, segregationist, chairman of Georgia
Democratic Party and friend of President Kennedy
 Fracture among civil rights groups
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Movement Milestones
 Lessons from Albany
 Importance of “freedom songs”
 Campaign on all fronts not as effective as targeting
specific discriminatory practices one at a time
 Confirmation of the influential role of the press
 Birmingham, 1963
 Meticulously planned nonviolent assault on
Birmingham’s white economic power structure
 Rev. Fred L Shuttleworth and the ACHR with help of
SCLC, MLK
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Movement Milestones
 Boycott and mass demonstration began April 3,
1963 during busy Easter season
 Segregationist police chief Eugene “Bull”
Connor, taking cue from Albany, urged police
restraint
 Lost patience; on April 7 protesters attacked with
clubs and police dogs
 On April 10, Birmingham got injunction to end
all activities until the “right to demonstrate” was
argued in court
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Movement Milestones
 Two days later, blacks disobeyed court order
 Letter from Birmingham Jail
 MLK’s defense of his involvement in the
movement; response to open letter of white
clergymen
 Asked white clergy to take a moral stand
 Children took active role in Birmingham
campaign
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Movement Milestones
 Victory
 Frustrated, Bull Connor unleashed full force on
demonstrators
 Press coverage garnered national sympathy
 Monetary donations poured in
 May 10, 1963 formal agreement between city
businesses and SCLC
 Agreement did little to change violent opposition
 Kennedy administration forced to act; sent
federal troops to positions near Birmingham
21
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Movement Milestones
 Freedom Summer 1964
 Bring northern white students into South in
campaign to register Mississippi’s black voters
 Bob Moses
 More than 700 white volunteers
 Hoped to attract national media attention;
promote grassroots movement of blacks
 Blacks fearful of backlash from interracial
fraternization; murder of civil rights workers
 Registered more than 80,000 by summer’s end
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Movement Milestones
 Ultimately failed to unseat racist state party; but
Freedom Summer still a success
 Cultivation of civil rights leaders
 Freedom schools
 Brought out-of-state groups of doctors and lawyers to
Mississippi
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Movement Milestones
 Tragedy and Triumph
 “Bloody Sunday” – Selma to Montgomery march
to protest death of SNCC worker Jimmie Lee
Jackson
 Protesters violently attacked by police; “possemen”
 Press coverage shocked the world
 On March 21, demonstrators finally successful
 President Johnson called Alabama National Guard into
federal service
 50,000 demonstrators on final day
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The Selma March
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Movement Milestones
 The Importance of Press Coverage
 Press coverage key factor in gaining support and
sympathy
 Images of violence against peaceful protesters
 Made it painful to accept lives cut short: Emmet Till;
Medgar Evers; Mississippi civil rights workers; four
little girls in Birmingham; MLK; numerous others
 The “race beat” provided measure of protection
for civil rights protestors
 Officials didn’t want cities to look bad
26
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Movement Women
 Movement Women
 Women civil rights activists came from varying
backgrounds, vast age ranges
 Daisy Bates
 Many women student contributors to SNCC
 School desegregation and Constance Baker
Motley
 Girls initiators of many school desegregation
cases: Arthurine Lucy; Charlayne Hunter
 Motley won 9 of 10 cases she brought before
Supreme Court
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Movement Women
 Voting Rights Campaigns
 Mississippi voting rights campaign and its
advocacy of grassroots participation encouraged
local women
 Ella Baker and Fannie Lou Hamer
 Ella Baker
 Favored democratic exchange, loosely structured
leadership, commitment to grassroots movement
 Fannie Lou Hamer
 Mobilized registration drives despite violence; never
lost local focus
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Movement Women
 Septima Clark
 Questioned disparities between black and white
schools; black and white teacher salaries
 Developed citizenship schools in the South
 Strength through Religious Faith
 Many women derived strength from religious
faith
 “Bridge leaders” – link between local community
and external organizations
 Fostered relationships in churches and daily
community service
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The Northern Side
of the Movement
 Electoral Power
 Northern black voters’ growing political efficacy
 Often held balance of power in tight elections
 Influenced fair employment laws in many states
 Black congressional members; state and local
leadership posts
 Battling Discrimination
 Northern blacks faced lack of job opportunity
and de facto segregation in school and elsewhere
 School demonstrations in Chicago and Boston
 “Walk to Freedom” in Detroit
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The Northern Side
of the Movement
 The Problem of Housing
 Housing discrimination both private practice and
public policy
 Federal Housing Administration racially discriminatory
policies
 Levittown; Stuyvesant Town; Trumball Park
 Housing for blacks not on their own terms; racial
bias persisted
 Restrictive covenants; violence
 Harvey Clark
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The Northern Side
of the Movement
 In Cities: Substandard Housing and Poor
Education
 Blacks exploited by landlords; paid high rent for
substandard housing
 Cities refused to enforce antibias housing codes
 Blacks also received inferior education; few job
opportunities; and inequality in public services
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The Landmarks and Limitations
of Government
 The Landmarks and Limitations of
Government
 “Rights revolution” required action by all three
branches of government: presidential orders;
congressional legislation; judicial decisions
 Civil Rights in the 1950s
 Anticommunism changed ability of civil rights
groups to collaborate
 Adopted Cold War rhetoric of freedom and
democracy
 Truman
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The Landmarks and Limitations
of Government
 Court Victories
 Legal victories under leadership of Houston and
Marshall
 Warren Court played critical role in upholding
constitutionality of civil rights laws
 Brown; Brown II
 The Executive Branch
 Truman executive order integrating armed forces
 Eisenhower Civil Rights Act of 1957
 Desegregation of Central High School
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Protesters
after the
Brown
decision
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The Landmarks and Limitations
of Government
 Congress Drags Its Feet
 Congress most resistant branch of government
 “Southern Manifesto” signed by more than 90
southern members of Congress protested Brown’s
usurpation of state power
 Civil Rights Act of 1957 passed
 Primarily safeguarded black voting rights; created
United States Commission on Civil Rights
 Inadequate enforcement
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The Landmarks and Limitations
of Government
 The Role of Civil Rights Advocates
 Interaction between government and civil rights
advocates brought change to nation’s legal
system
 Civil rights strategies created climate that made
passage of civil rights legislation possible
 Smith v. Allwright; Brown
 Voter registration drives
 Citizenship schools
 Protest demonstrations
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The Landmarks and Limitations
of Government
 The Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960
 International pressure on federal government;
Ghana joined United Nations
 Work of NAACP lobbyist Clarence Mitchell, Jr.
 1957 Act limited and modest
 Department of Justice forced to institute suits on
case-by-case basis
 Civil Rights Act of 1960 passed to strengthen
1957 Act
 Not adequately enforced; but signaled greater federal
involvement in civil rights
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The Landmarks and Limitations
of Government
 The Kennedy Administration
 Emergence of nonviolent protests and rising
number of black voters made civil rights burning
political issue
 Racial equality part of both political platforms in 1960
 Kennedy slow to tackle issues; had to deal with
southern Democratic congressional chairmen
 Did immediately appoint blacks to high-profile federal
positions
 Became increasingly influenced by civil rights
agenda; submitted civil rights legislation
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The Landmarks and Limitations
of Government
 The Freedom Rides, May 1961
 Set out to challenge segregation laws and
practices in bus terminals
 Met violence; intervention of Justice Department
 Interstate Commerce Commission ruling
 Non-segregated seating and terminals
 Freedom to the Free, 1963
 1963 centennial of Emancipation Proclamation
 U.S. Commission on Civil Rights report finding
gap between aspirations and actual practices
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The Landmarks and Limitations
of Government
 The Civil Rights Act of 1964
 Comprehensive civil rights bill submitted by
Kennedy to Congress
 Legislation stalled during summer of 1963
 “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom” –
250,000 marchers gathered at Lincoln Memorial
 Bright spot – ratification of Twenty-fourth Amendment
outlawing poll tax in federal elections
41
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“I have a dream.”
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The Landmarks and Limitations
of Government
 Civil Rights Act of 1964 finally passed
 Gave attorney general power to protect against
discrimination
 Required elimination of discrimination in federally
assisted programs
 Created EEOC; Community Relations Service;
extended life of the Commission on Civil Rights
 Required DOE to assist in school desegregation
 Strong resistance to enforcement
 Supreme Court upheld constitutionality
 Heart of Atlanta Hotel v. U.S.; Katzenbach v. McClung
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The Landmarks and Limitations
of Government
 The Voting Rights Act of 1965
 Johnson recognized weakness in new Act’s
voting provision; sent proposal to Congress
 Congress swiftly passed Voting Rights Act
 Authorized federal examiners to register black voters
 Suspended all literacy tests and other devices
 Political Revolution in the South
 Southern blacks became political contenders and
officeholders
44
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The Landmarks and Limitations
of Government
 Public schools slowly began to desegregate
 U.S. v. Jefferson County – “the only school
desegregation plan that meets constitutional standards
is one that works”
 The Second Reconstruction
 Riots of 1964–1967 demonstrated that legislation
failed to solve deeper, structural problems of
racial inequality
45
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