Chapter 29: Civil Rights
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954-1955)
 9 year old Linda Brown sued for the right to go to
an all white school (4 blocks from her house) instead
of the all black school that she went to that was 21
blocks away.
 Warren Supreme Court Decision
 Segregation
caused feelings of inferiority in blacks.
 Segregation had no place in public education.
 Integration “with all deliberate speed”
Emmett Till 1955
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Chicago native visiting relatives in Mississippi
Flirted with a white woman (Carolyn Bryant)
Killed by Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam
South pushed for justice until Emmett’s mom left the
casket open at the funeral
Moses Wright (Emmett’s Uncle)testifies against
Bryant & Milam
Found not guilty (all white jury) & afterwards
confessed to the murder to Look magazine
Confessions of a Killer
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Look Magazine
December 1, 1955: Montgomery,
Alabama
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Rosa Parks arrested for not giving up her seat on a city
bus (seated in black section)
Montgomery Improvement Association
381 day boycott of city buses
 Led by Martin Luther King Jr.
 Non-violent resistance
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Supreme Court outlawed bus segregation in late 1956
September 1957: Little Rock, Arkansas
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Integration of Central High School
9 black students (Little Rock Nine) enrolled at the all white school of
around 2,000 students. Ernest Green is the only senior in the group.
Governor Orval Faubus orders the National Guard to prevent
integration. Federal court orders out the National Guard.
Angry white mob prevents students from integrating the school.
President Eisenhower sends in the 101st Airborne. Each student gets
a personal bodyguard.
Faubus agrees to integrate the school and the troops are removed.
Only 1 of the 9 drops out/Ernest Green graduates.
Faubus closes the school the next year to stop integration.
February 1960: Greensboro, North
Carolina
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4 college students start a sit-in to protest
segregated lunch counters at the local Woolworths.
Sit-in movement spreads throughout the South over
the next year and is very successful in achieving
integration as a non-violent protest.
The Civil Rights Movement
Eisenhower/Kennedy Administrations
 Slow to react/only get involved when they are forced
into it.
LBJ Administration
 Racial justice/equality are part of his “Great Society”
 All major civil rights legislation passed by LBJ
Civil Rights Act (1964): banned segregation &
discrimination based on race, color, or religion
 24th Amendment (1964): outlawed the poll tax
 Voting Rights Act (1965): outlawed the Literacy Test
 Civil Rights Act (1968): banned discrimination in public
housing
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Role of Television
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Major part of the success of the movement
Images of violence by police and racists against
peacefully protesting blacks, brings out white
support across the country
Split in the Civil Rights Movement
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Dr. King, SCLC, CORE and the NAACP use non-violent
resistance and accept white participation and help in
achieving their goals. This is sometimes a patient and slow
process.
SNCC, Nation of Islam, Black Panthers, and Stokely
Carmichael are calling for black power, being more militant
and accepting no white help.
Reasons for the split:
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Progress was slow.
Easy victories had been achieved (integration & voting rights)
Economic equality, jobs, and housing were going to be much more
difficult to achieve.
Malcolm X & Elijah Muhammad
Freedom Summer (1964): Mississippi
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Register blacks to vote
Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, James
Chaney killed by Klan and local police
Major federal involvement in the case because two
of them were white (Schwerner & Goodman)
Only conviction was for violating civil rights (7-10
years in prison)
Mississippi refused to press murder charges
Sid Kelly nails up "closed" sign at Robert
E. Lee Hotel, in response to passage of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964, Jackson,
Mississippi.
A volunteer encourages a black mother to
vote, Mississippi, 1964.
On June 29, 1964, the FBI began
distributing these pictures of, from left,
Michael Schwerner, 24,, James Chaney,
21, and Andrew Goodman, 20, three civil
rights workers slain during "Freedom
Summer."
Charred remains of the station wagon
driven by missing civil rights workers.
April 4, 1968: Memphis, Tennessee
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Dr. King trying to end the city’s garbage strike
Assassinated by James Earl Ray
Ray was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
He died in prison in 1998.
Caused riots in over 125 cities
Impact of the Civil Rights Movement
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End of Jim Crow
Gained voting rights
More opportunities for blacks
Economic equality not achieved
Still have discrimination and racism
Affirmative Action debate
Reparations debate