Chapter Introduction
This chapter will identify the causes, main events, and
effects of the civil rights movement. It examines the
movement after World War II and the events that
energized civil rights activists in the 1950s and 1960s.
• Section 1: Early Demands for Equality
• Section 2: The Movement Gains Ground
• Section 3: New Successes and Challenges
Objectives
• Describe efforts to end segregation in the
1940s and 1950s.
• Explain the importance of Brown v. Board of
Education.
• Describe the controversy over school
desegregation in Little Rock, Arkansas.
• Discuss the Montgomery bus boycott and its
impact.
How did African Americans challenge
segregation after World War II?
African Americans were still treated as secondclass citizens after World War II.
Their heroic effort to attain racial equality is
known as the civil rights movement. They took
their battle to the street, in the form of peaceful
protests, held boycotts, and turned to the courts
for a legal guarantee of basic rights.
DID YOU KNOW?
 Long
before being arrested for refusing to give
up her seat on a bus to a white man, Rosa
Parks had protested segregation through her
daily activities. She refused to drink out of the
drinking fountains labeled "Colored Only."
When possible, she refused to ride in
segregated elevators and walked up the stairs
instead.
 In
1896 the Supreme Court had declared
segregation legal in Plessy v. Ferguson. This
ruling had established a separate-but-equal
doctrine, making laws segregating African
Americans legal as long as equal facilities were
provided.
 "Jim
Crow" laws segregating African Americans
and whites were common in the South after
the Plessy v. Ferguson decision.


The National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People (NAACP) had supported court
cases trying to overturn segregation since 1909. It
provided financial support and lawyers to African
Americans.
African Americans gained political power as they
migrated to Northern cities where they could vote.
African Americans voted for politicians who
listened to their concerns on civil rights issues,
resulting in a strong Democratic Party.
Despite their service in World War II,
segregation at home was still the rule
for African Americans.
de jure segregation
• in the South
• separate but equal
• segregation in schools,
hospitals, transportation,
restaurants, cemeteries,
and beaches
de facto segregation
•
•
•
•
in the North
discrimination in housing
discrimination in
employment
only low-paying jobs
were available
• Discrimination in the
defense industries
was banned in 1941.
World War II set
the stage for the
rise of the modern
civil rights
movement.
• Truman desegregated
the military in 1948.
• Jackie Robinson
became the first
African American to
play major league
baseball.
• CORE was created to
end racial injustice.
African American veterans were unwilling
to accept discrimination at home after
risking their lives overseas.
In 1954, many of the nation’s school systems
were segregated.
The NAACP decided
to challenge school
segregation in the
federal courts.
African American
attorney Thurgood
Marshall led the
NAACP legal team in
Brown v. Board of
Education.

African American attorney and chief counsel for the
NAACP Thurgood Marshall worked to end segregation in
public schools. In 1954 several Supreme Court cases
regarding segregation—including the case of Linda
Brown—were combined in one ruling. The girl had been
denied admission to her neighborhood school in
Topeka, Kansas, because she was African American. In
the Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education of
Topeka, Kansas, the Court ruled that segregation in
public schools was unconstitutional and violated the
equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Written by Chief Justice Earl Warren,
the Brown v. Board of Education decision said:
• Segregated public
education violated the
Fourteenth Amendment.
• “Separate but equal” had
no place in public
education.
The Brown v. Board of Education ruling was significant
and controversial.
In a second
decision, Brown II,
the courts urged
implementation of
the decision “with
all deliberate
speed” across the
nation.
About 100 white
Southern members of
Congress opposed
the decision; in 1956
they endorsed “The
Southern Manifesto”
to lawfully oppose
Brown.
IN
LITTLE
ROCK,
The
Brown
decision also met resistance on the
ARKANSAS,
WHENlevel.
NINE
local and state
AFRICAN AMERICAN
STUDENTS TRIED TO
ENTER CENTRAL HIGH,
THE GOVERNOR HAD THE
NATIONAL GUARD STOP
THEM.
PRESIDENT EISENHOWER
HAD TO SEND IN TROOPS
TO ENFORCE THE BROWN
DECISION.
Elizabeth Eckford tries
to enter Central High.
 Brown
v. Board of Education convinced
African Americans to challenge all forms of
segregation, but it also angered many white
Southerners who supported segregation.


How did the NAACP and CORE challenge the Supreme
Court's decision in Plessy v. Ferguson?
(The NAACP supported court cases intended to
overturn segregation. It provided lawyers to African
Americans and helped cover the costs of their cases.
CORE used sit-ins as a form of protest against
segregation and discrimination. In 1943 CORE used sit-ins
to protest segregation in restaurants. These sit-ins resulted
in the integration of many restaurants, theaters, and
other public facilities in Chicago, Detroit, Denver, and
Syracuse.)
 When
African Americans returned from World
War II, they had hoped for equality. When this
did not occur, the civil rights movement began
as African Americans planned protests and
marches to end prejudice.
Some civil rights activists took direct action.
In Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks was arrested for
refusing to give up her bus seat to a white person.
This sparked a boycott to integrate public transportation.
The black community walked or carpooled to work rather
than take public transportation.
The Montgomery bus boycott launched the
modern civil rights movement.
•
Martin Luther King, Jr.’s
inspiring speech at a boycott
meeting propelled him into the
leadership of the nonviolent civil
rights movement.
•
The black community continued its
bus boycott for more than a year
despite threats and violence.
In 1956, the Supreme Court ruled that
segregated busing was unconstitutional and
the boycott ended.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
SECTION 2
Objectives
•
Describe the sit-ins, freedom rides, and the
actions of James Meredith in the early 1960s.
•
Explain how the protests at Birmingham and
the March on Washington were linked to the
Civil Rights Act of 1964.
•
Summarize the provisions of the Civil Rights
Act of 1964.
 Did
You Know? In 1964 Martin Luther King, Jr., at
the age of 35, was the youngest person ever to
receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his work
toward civil rights.
How did the civil rights movement
gain ground in the 1960s?
Through victories in the courts and the success
of sit-ins and other nonviolent protests, African
Americans slowly began to win their battle for
civil rights.
But it was the landmark Civil Rights Act of
1964 that signaled a dramatic change in race
relations by outlawing discrimination based on
race, religion, or national origin.
 In
1960 four African Americans staged a sit-in
at a Woolworth's whites-only lunch counter. This
led to a mass movement for civil rights. Soon
sit-ins were occurring across the nation.
 Students like Jesse Jackson from North
Carolina Agricultural and Technical College
felt that sit-ins gave them the power to change
things.


As sit-ins became more popular, it was necessary to
choose a leader to coordinate the effort. Ella
Baker, executive director of the SCLC, urged
students to create their own organization. The
students formed the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Early leaders
were Marion Barry and John Lewis.
Robert Moses, an SNCC volunteer from New York,
pointed out that most of the civil rights movement
was focused on urban areas, and rural African
Americans needed help as well.
Student activists engaged in
nonviolent civil disobedience
to create change.
• Students staged sit-ins.
• Students formed their
own organization, the
Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee
(SNCC), to continue to
work for equal rights.
 Why
did the sit-in movement gain attention of
Americans across the nation?
 (Even after the demonstrators of the sit-ins
were verbally and physically abused, they
remained peaceful.)
Students also organized freedom rides to protest
segregation on the interstate transportation system.
The Supreme
Court had already
ruled that
segregation on
interstate buses
and waiting
rooms was illegal.
•
Freedom riders tested the
federal government’s willingness
to enforce the law.
•
Some of the buses and riders
were attacked by angry
prosegregationsists.
•
President Kennedy intervened,
ordering police and state
troopers to protect the riders and
mandating the desegregation
of the interstate system.
IN SEPTEMBER 1962, AIR FORCE
VETERAN
JAMES MEREDITH TRIED TO ENROLL
AT THE
ALL-WHITE UNIVERSITY OF
MISSISSIPPI.
•
The federal courts ordered the school to
desegregate in 1962.
•
Mississippi’s governor resisted, creating a
stand-off between the federal government
and the state government.
•
When Meredith arrived on campus, a riot ensued;
two men were killed in the fighting.

Meredith was met with the governor blocking his
path. President Kennedy ordered 500 federal
marshals to escort Meredith to the campus. A fullscale riot broke out with 160 marshals being
wounded. The army sent in thousands of troops. For
the remainder of the year, Meredith attended
classes under federal guard until he graduated the
following August.
•
Meredith graduated from the University of Mississippi
in 1963. He later obtained a law degree from
Columbia University.
•
Tragically, civil rights activist Medgar Evers, who was
instrumental in helping Meredith gain admittance to
“Ole Miss,” was murdered in June 1963.
 President
Kennedy had his brother, Robert F.
Kennedy of the Justice Department, actively
support the civil rights movement. Robert
Kennedy helped African Americans register to
vote by having lawsuits filed throughout the
South.
In the spring of 1963, civil rights leaders focused
their efforts on the South’s most segregated city—
Birmingham, Alabama.
• Initially, the protests were
nonviolent, but they were
still prohibited by the city.
• City officials used
police dogs and fire hoses
against the protestors.
• Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
himself was arrested for
violating the prohibition.
 When
violence broke out in Montgomery
Alabama, the Kennedy brothers urged the
Freedom Riders to stop for a "cooling off "
period. A deal was struck between Kennedy
and Senator James Eastland of Mississippi. The
senator stopped the violence, and Kennedy
agreed not to object if the Mississippi police
arrested the Freedom Riders.

Martin Luther King, Jr., was frustrated with the civil
rights movement. As the Cuban missile crisis
escalated, foreign policy became the main priority
at the White House. King agreed to hold
demonstrations in Alabama, knowing they might
end in violence but feeling that they were the only
way to get the president's attention. King was
jailed, and after his release the protests began
again. The televised events were seen by the
nation. Kennedy ordered his aides to prepare a
civil rights bill.
 Why
did President Kennedy not take
immediate action when violence erupted
against the Freedom Riders?
 (Kennedy was meeting with Soviet leader
Nikita Khrushchev, and he did not want
the violence in the South to make the
United States seem weak and divided.)
Reaction to the Birmingham protests was overwhelming.
Shocked
Americans
demanded
that President
Kennedy take
action to end
the violence.
Calling it a
“moral issue,”
Kennedy
proposed
sweeping civil
rights
legislation.
Civil rights
leaders held a
March on
Washington
to pressure the
government to
pass the
President’s bill.


After Alabama Governor George Wallace blocked
the way for two African Americans to register for
college, President Kennedy appeared on national
television to announce his civil rights bill.
Martin Luther King, Jr., wanted to pressure Congress
to get Kennedy's civil rights bill through. On August
28, 1963, he led 200,000 demonstrators of all races
to the nation's capital and staged a peaceful rally.
On August 28, 1963, hundreds of thousands of
people from all around the country gathered in
Washington, D.C., to demonstrate.
As millions more
watched on television,
Rev. Martin Luther
King, Jr., stood before
the Lincoln Memorial
and delivered his
unforgettable
“I Have a Dream”
speech.

Opponents of the civil rights bill did whatever they could
to slow the procedure to pass it. The bill could easily pass
in the House of Representatives, but it faced difficulty in
the Senate. Senators could speak for as long as they
wanted while debating a bill. A filibuster occurs when a
small group of senators take turns speaking and refuse to
stop the debate to allow the bill to be voted on.

Today a filibuster can be stopped if at least three-fifths of
the Senate (60 senators) vote for cloture, a motion which
cuts off debate and forces a vote. In 1960 a cloture had to
be two-thirds, or 67 senators. The minority of senators
opposed to the bill could easily prevent it from passing into
law.
In September 1963, less than three weeks after
the march, a bomb exploded in the church that
headquartered the SCLC in Birmingham.
Four young African American girls were killed.
On November 22, 1963, President Kennedy
was assassinated.
Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson assumed the
presidency.
Johnson continued to
work for passage of
Kennedy’s civil rights
legislation.
The legislation passed in the House of Representatives,
but faced even more opposition in the Senate.
A group of
Southern Senators
blocked it for 80
days using a
filibuster.
Supporters put
together enough
votes to end the
filibuster.
The measure finally passed in the Senate.
In July, the Civil Rights Act of 1964
was signed into law.
• Banned segregation in public
accommodations.
• Gave government the power to
desegregate schools.
• Outlawed discrimination in
employment.
• Established the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission.
SECTION 3
Objectives
•
Explain the significance of Freedom Summer,
the march on Selma, and why violence
erupted in some American cities in the
1960s.
•
Compare the goals and methods of African
American leaders.
•
Describe the social and economic situation of
African Americans by 1975.
What successes and challenges faced
the civil rights movement after 1964?
Even after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed,
conditions did not improve drastically for most
African Americans.
Impatience with the slow pace of change led to
radical behavior. Riots occurred in many cities.
After Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination,
more civil rights legislation was passed, but
new challenges also arose.
 The
Civil Rights Act of 1964 did little to
guarantee the right to vote. Many African
American voters were attacked, beaten,
and killed. Bombs exploded in many
African American businesses and
churches. Martin Luther King, Jr., decided
it was time for another protest to protect
African American voting rights.
In 1964, many African Americans
were still denied the right to vote.
Southern states used
literacy tests, poll taxes,
and intimidation to prevent
African Americans from
voting.
The major civil rights groups decided to end
this injustice.
In the summer of
1964, the SNCC
enlisted 1,000
volunteers to help
African Americans
in the South
register to vote.
•
Three campaign volunteers
were murdered, but other
volunteers were not deterred.
•
From this effort, the Mississippi
Freedom Democratic party
(MFDC) was formed as an
alternative to the all-white
state Democratic party.
The campaign was known as
Freedom Summer.
A MFDP delegation traveled to the Democratic
Convention in 1964 hoping to be recognized as
Mississippi’s only Democratic party.
MFDP member Fannie Lou
Hamer testified on how she
lost her home for daring to
register to vote.
Party officials refused to seat
the MFDP, but offered a
compromise: two MFDP
members could be at-large
delegates.
Neither the MFDP
nor Mississippi’s
regular Democratic
delegation would
accept the
compromise.
In March 1965, Rev. King organized a march on Selma,
Alabama, to pressure Congress to pass voting rights laws.
Once again, the nonviolent marchers were met with
a violent response.
And once again, Americans were outraged by what
they saw on national television.
President Johnson himself went on television and
called for a strong voting rights law.

Sheriff Jim Clark ordered 200 state troopers and
deputized citizens to rush the peaceful
demonstrators. The brutal attack became known
as Bloody Sunday, and the nation saw the images
on television.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed.
•
Banned literacy tests
•
Empowered the federal
government to oversee voter
registration and elections in
states that discriminated
against minorities
•
Extended to include Hispanic voters in 1975

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 gave the attorney
general the right to send federal examiners to
register qualified voters, bypassing the local officials
who often refused to register African Americans.
This resulted in 250,000 new African American voters
and an increase in African American elected
officials in the South.
 How
did the passage of the Voting Rights
Act of 1965 mark a turning point in the
civil rights movement?
 Two goals were now achieved: to outlaw
segregation and to pass federal laws to
stop discrimination and protect voting
rights.
President Johnson also called for a federal voting rights
law. The Twenty-fourth Amendment to the
Constitution, which banned the poll tax, was ratified.
At the same time,
Supreme Court
decisions were handed
down that limited
racial gerrymandering
and established the
legal principle of
“one man, one vote.”
The Voting Rights Act stirred growing African
American participation in politics. Yet life for
African Americans remained difficult.
• Discrimination and poverty continued to
plague Northern urban centers.
• Simmering anger exploded into violence in the
summer of 1967.
• Watts in Los Angeles; Newark, New Jersey;
and Detroit, Michigan, were the scene of
violent riots.
 The
race riot in Watts, a neighborhood in Los
Angeles, lasted six days. The worst of the riots
occurred in Detroit when the United States
Army was forced to send in tanks and soldiers
with machine guns to gain control.
Johnson appointed the Kerner Commission
to determine the cause of the riots.
The Commission found that long-term racial
discrimination was the single most important cause of
violence.
The commission’s findings were controversial. Because
of American involvement in the Vietnam War, there
was little money to spend on the commission’s
proposed programs.


What was the difference between African
American workers and white workers by 1965?
(African American workers found themselves
in low-paying jobs with little chance of
advancement. Some African Americans were
able to get work in blue-collar factory jobs,
but few advanced this far compared to
whites. In 1965 only 15 percent of African
Americans held professional, managerial, or
clerical jobs, compared to 44 percent for
whites.)
 By
the mid-1960s, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was
criticized for his nonviolent strategy because it
had failed to improve the economic condition
of African Americans. As a result, he began
focusing on economic issues affecting African
Americans.
 The
Chicago Movement was an effort to
call attention to the deplorable housing
conditions that many African Americans
faced. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and his
wife moved into a slum apartment in an
African American neighborhood in
Chicago.
 Dr.
King led a march through the white
suburb of Marquette Park to demonstrate
the need for open housing. Mayor
Richard Daley had police protect the
marchers, and Daley met with King to
propose a new program to clean up
slums.
 What
was the result of the meeting
between Mayor Richard Daley and Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr.?
 (Daley proposed a plan to clean up the
slums. Associations of realtors and bankers
agreed to promote open housing. The
plan was not effective.)
 After
1965 many African Americans
began to turn away from the nonviolent
teachings of Dr. King. They sought new
strategies, which included self-defense
and the idea that African Americans
should live free from the presence of
whites.
 Young
African Americans called for black
power, a term that had many different
meanings. To some it meant physical selfdefense and violence. For others,
including SNCC leader Stokely
Carmichael, it meant they should control
the social, political, and economic
direction of their struggle for equality.
 Black
power stressed pride in the African
American culture and opposed cultural
assimilation, or the philosophy of
incorporating different racial or cultural
groups into the dominant society. These
ideas were popular in poor urban
neighborhoods, although Dr. King and
many African American leaders were
critical of black power.
In the mid-1960s, new African Americans leaders
emerged who were less interested in
nonviolent protests.
One was Malcolm X, a
minister in the Nation of
Islam, which called for
African Americans to break
away from white society.
 Malcolm
X later broke from the Nation of Islam
and began to believe an integrated society
was possible. In 1965 three members of the
Nation of Islam shot and killed Malcolm X.
 He would be remembered for his view that
although African Americans had been victims
in the past, they did not have to allow racism
to victimize them now.
The Black Panthers was a militant group organized
to protect blacks from police abuse.
The Black Panthers—
• became the symbol of young
militant African Americans.
• created antipoverty programs.
• protested attempts to restrict
their right to bear arms.
Several SNCC leaders urged African Americans to use
their black power to gain equality.
 The
formation of the Black Panthers was the
result of a new generation of militant African
American leaders preaching black power,
black nationalism, and economic selfsufficiency. The group believed that a
revolution was necessary to gain equal rights.


Why did the black power movement replace the
nonviolent civil rights movement led by Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr.?
(Dr. King's nonviolent civil rights movement failed to
change the poor economic conditions that many
African Americans faced in the 1960s. Some African
American leaders called for more aggressive forms of
protest. They placed less emphasis on interracial
cooperation with sympathetic whites. Many young
African Americans called for black power-controlling
the social, political, and economic direction of their
struggle for equality. It stressed pride in the African
American cultural group. It emphasized racial
distinctiveness.)
Although he understood their anger,
King continued to advocate nonviolence.
• He created a “Poor Peoples’
Campaign” to persuade the nation
to do more to help the poor.
• He traveled to Memphis,
Tennessee, in 1968 to promote his
cause and to lend support to
striking sanitation workers.
Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated on
April 3, 1968, in Memphis.
 Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated by
a sniper on April 4, 1968, creating national
mourning as well as riots in more than 100 cities.
By the late 1960s, the civil rights movement
had made many gains.
increased economic opportunities for African
Americans
an African American man was appointed to
the Supreme Court
integrated many schools and colleges
eliminated legal segregation
knocked down voting and political barriers
banned housing discrimination
The work continued into later
decades.
 In
the aftermath of King's death, Congress
passed the Civil Rights Act of 1968, which
contained a fair housing provision.
 By
the late 1960s, the civil rights movement had
fragmented into many competing
organizations. The result was no further
legislation to help African Americans.
 What
happened to the civil rights movement
after Dr. King's assassination?
 (Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1968,
which contained a fair housing provision,
outlawed discrimination in the sale and rental
of housing, and gave the Justice Department
authority to bring suits against discrimination.
The civil rights movement, however, lacked the
unity of purpose and vision that Dr. King had
given it.)