The Civil Rights Movement
SS8H11 The student will evaluate the role of
Georgia in the modern civil rights movement.
• a. Describe major developments in civil rights and Georgia’s role
during the 1940s and 1950s; include the roles of Herman
Talmadge, Benjamin Mays, the 1946 governor’s race and the end
of the white primary, Brown v. Board of Education, Martin
Luther King, Jr., and the 1956 state flag.
• b. Analyze the role Georgia and prominent Georgians played in
the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and 1970s; include such
events as the founding of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating
Committee (SNCC), Sibley Commission, admission of Hamilton
Holmes and Charlayne Hunter to the University of Georgia,
Albany Movement, March on Washington, Civil Rights Act, the
election of Maynard Jackson as mayor of Atlanta, and the role
of Lester Maddox.
• c. Discuss the impact of Andrew Young on Georgia.
Civil Rights Leaders before the
Civil Rights Movement
• Booker T. Washington
• W.E.B. Dubois
• John & Lugenia Burns Hope
• Alonzo Herndon
• What did each of these people do?
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Civil Rights of the
1940 - 1950
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Eugene Talmadge
• The crazy one remember?
• He represented the political corruption
that plagued Georgia for many years.
• He did not support the New Deal, FDR
or going to war.
• He also caused Georgia’s colleges to lose
accreditation in the Cocking Affair
• Finally, Georgians said “Enough!” and
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voted Ellis Arnall into office.
Ellis Arnall
Governor from 1943-1947
• A very young Governor – made a very
impressive amount of reforms that helped the
state.
• His downfall? The Federal Court system said
that the southern states could NOT use
White Primaries any more.
• Unlike other southern state Governors, Ellis
upheld the courts decision and ended White
Primaries in Georgia.
• Eugene Talmadge started going around saying
that Ellis was a “traitor to the White race!!!”
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End of White Primaries
• The Federal government made White
Primaries illegal
• Several southern states decided to
continue the White Primaries regardless
• Ellis Arnall respected the decision and
forced Georgia to abide by the Federal
ruling
• He ended his political career by doing
this.
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“Traitor to the White race!”
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Eugene Talmadge
Governor for 1 month 1947
• Runs against Ellis Arnall – saying he’s a
“liberal” and “anti-white” – and wins
because racism is thick.
• One month passes and he dies….
• Then the Three Governor Episode of
1946 takes place…
• Herman Talmadge ends up in office –
Eugene's son….
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• Watch Herman Talmadge talk about it….
Herman Talmadge
Governor 1948 - 1954
• He refused to support any meaningful civil
rights reforms.
• He followed in his father's footsteps as a
defender of the "southern way of life”
• However, he proved to be an able
administrator, promoting economic
development, increasing the state revenues,
building infrastructure, and establishing a
statewide public school system.
• His staunch defense of segregation did
nothing to support racial equality.
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Some steps towards equality…
• The end of White
Primaries (only
because the Feds told
them too though)
• Benjamin Mays
• Brown vs. Board of
Education
• Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Benjamin Mays
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to_vz
ugUQbQ
• Born in Ninety-Six, South
Carolina to tenant farmers
and former slaves.
• He overcame overwhelming
odds to become educated,
earning a B.A. from Bates
College in Maine, and an M.A.
and PhD at the University of
Chicago. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5Yq
• In 1940 hectgW520
became the
President of Morehouse
College.
• There he enjoyed his
greatest influence on events
in the history of the United
States, rising to national
prominence. His most famous http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=student at Morehouse was
T8RQ4Jp-mc
Martin Luther King Jr.
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Brown vs. Board of Education
• In the early 1950's, racial segregation in public schools was the
norm across America. Although all the schools in a given district
were supposed to be equal, most black schools were far inferior
to their white counterparts.
• In Topeka, Kansas, a black third-grader named Linda Brown had
to walk one mile through a railroad switchyard to get to her
black elementary school, even though a white elementary school
was only seven blocks away. Linda's father, Oliver Brown, tried
to enroll her in the white elementary school, but the principal of
the school refused.
• The NAACP was eager to assist the Browns, as it had long
wanted to challenge segregation in public schools.
• The Supreme Court struck down the "separate but equal"
doctrine of Plessy for public education, ruled in favor of the
plaintiffs, and required the desegregation of schools across
America.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTGH
Ldr-iak
What was Georgia’s Reaction?
• The confederate flag had come to
represent the “Dixiecrats” who
protested against desegregation.
• Georgia’s General Assembly decided to
adopt a flag containing a confederate
emblem in 1956 as a form of protest
against desegregation of schools.
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Steps against equality…
• Changing the Georgia Flag in 1956
http://www.todayingeorgiahistory.org/c
ontent/georgia-flag-change
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The 1956 Legislative Session:
Preserving Segregation
•
There will be no mixing of the races in the public schools and college
classrooms of Georgia anywhere or at any time as long as I am
governor....All attempts to mix the races, whether they be in the
classrooms, on the playgrounds, in public conveyances or in any other
area of close personal contact on terms of equity, peril the mores of
the South....the tragic decision of the United States Supreme Court on
May 17, 1954, poses a threat to the unparalleled harmony and growth
that we have attained here in the South for both races under the
framework of established customs. Day by day, Georgia moves nearer a
showdown with this Federal Supreme Court – a tyrannical court
ruthlessly seeking to usurp control of state-created, state-developed,
and state-financed schools and colleges....The next portent looming on
the horizon is a further declaration that a State’s power to prohibit
mixed marriages is unconstitutional.
• Governor Marvin S. Griffin
• State of the State Address
Watch today in Georgia History
• January 10, 1956
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Civil Rights in the
1960’s & 1970’s
• http://www.cnn.com/EVENTS/1997/mlk
/links.html
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Benjamin Mays & The Civil
Rights Movement
• During King's years as an
undergraduate at Morehouse in the
mid-1940s, the two developed a
close relationship that continued
until King's death in 1968.
• http://mlkkpp01.stanford.edu/kingweb/about
_king/encyclopedia/mays_benjamin
.htm
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Martin Luther King, Jr.
• He is most known for being an iconic figure in
the Civil Rights Movement using non-violent
methods following the teachings of Mahatma
Gandhi.
• He was a Baptist minister.
• He led the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott.
• He helped found the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference – and served as the
first President.
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ank52Zi_
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S0
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• In 1963 – He delivered the “I have a Dream”
speech during the March on Washington –
leading to the passing of the Civil Rights Act
of 1964.
• In 1964, he became the youngest person (35)
to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his work
to end racial segregation and racial
discrimination.
• He was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn. in
1968.
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmOBbxgx
Kvo
Southern Christian Leadership
Conference - SCLC
• Following the successful non-violent
Montgomery Bus Boycott – Dr. King invited 60
ministers to Ebenezer Church in Atlanta – to
form an organization to coordinate and
supporting non-violent direct action as a
method of desegregating bus systems
throughout the entire NATION!! (mostly the
south).
• They coordinated the Albany Movement, the
Birmingham Campaign, and the March on
Washington.
Student Non-Violent Coordinating
Committee (SNCC)
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•
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On February 1, 1960, a group of black college
students from North Carolina A&T University
refused to leave a Woolworth's lunch counter
in Greensboro, N.C. where they had been
denied service. This sparked a wave of other
sit-ins in college towns across the South.
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee, or SNCC (pronounced "snick"), was
created on the campus of Shaw University in
Raleigh two months later to coordinate these
sit-ins, support their leaders, and publicize
their activities.
SNCC sought to coordinate youth-led
nonviolent, direct-action campaigns against
segregation and other forms of racism. SNCC
members played an integral role in sit-ins,
Freedom Rides, the 1963 March on
Washington, and such voter education
projects as the Mississippi Freedom Summer.
Georgia’s SNCC Chapter focused its energy on
Albany and Atlanta.
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http://www.accd.edu/pac/faculty/rhines/Colorline.htm
Sibley Commission
• In 1960, Georgia’s General Assembly created the General
Assembly Committee on Schools. They elected John Sibley to
be the Commissioner of the Committee therefore it was
commonly called the Sibley Commission.
• The purpose of the Sibley Commission was to gather state
residence's opinions about desegregation.
• John Sibley was a staunch segregationist but felt that total
resistance to integration would not work. He wanted local
schools to decide for themselves. After polling the public the
committee found that 60% of Georgians did not want to
integrate schools.
• However, before the General Assembly could make a decision, a
Federal Judge ordered UGA to admit two black students:
Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter. Georgia decided to back
down from total resistance and repealed the law that cut funds
to schools and colleges if they integrated.
SS8H11
• Instead the Sibley
Commission gave local school
systems the choice to
desegregate and the tools to
keep segregation intact if
they wanted to.
• This slowed down
desegregation but allowed a
period of transition into
integration.
• The report issued by the
Sibley Commission laid the
foundation for the end of
massive resistance to
desegregation in the state
and helped avoid a showdown
between Vandiver and the
federal government.
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Hamilton Holmes &
Charlayne Hunter
• Watch Today in Georgia History:
Desegregation of UGA
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Albany Movement
• Three members of the SNCC went to
Albany to increase voter registration
as to get rid of lingering Jim Crow
laws.
• After a number of Blacks had been
arrested for sitting in “White Only”
seats on buses Black citizens
organized a non-violent protest.
• But…The Police Chief Pritchett saw
how bad it looked for police to beat
non-violent protestors and he did not
want the media giving people any more
reasons to encourage these protests –
so he told his cops they could not be
violent in any way.
• This was not what King had hoped
for….
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Albany Movement
Pritchett began filing up jails with the protestors – but not just his
jails. He sent over 1000 to jails all over the local area. This meant that
the media didn’t get a shot at a “full jail” – which King was hoping for.
When the media moment finally came, it was not the one King had hoped
for. By July 24, 1962, many of Albany’s African Americans had grown
frustrated at the lack of progress. That evening, a crowd of 2,000
blacks armed with bricks, bottles, and rocks attacked a group of Albany
policemen and Georgia highway patrolmen. One trooper lost two teeth.
But Laurie Pritchett’s well-schooled officers did not retaliate, and the
chief was quick to seize the initiative: “Did you see them nonviolent
rocks?” he asked.
King moved swiftly to limit the damage. He cancelled a planned mass
demonstration and declared a day of penance. But a federal injunction
against further demonstrations in Albany added to the difficulties: Up
till then, the civil rights cause had had the law on its side. Further
action in Albany would allow segregationists to portray King and his
followers as lawbreakers.
Watch Today in Georgia
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March on Washington
• At eight o'clock on the morning of August 28, with only fifty
people on the monument grounds, it appeared that the event
would be smaller than anticipated. However, by ten o'clock there
was a huge crowd of people. By the end of the day, 250,000
people had gathered. Participants included blacks, whites,
actors, and about three hundred Congressional representatives.
CBS provided continuous televised coverage of the march. When
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. began his "I Have a Dream" speech,
NBC and ABC interrupted their programming to bring it live to
viewers. King had originally planned to deliver a different
speech, but in the middle of his planned address, he departed
from his text. Although it was a speech he had given on many
other occasions, to those who listened it was a powerful
indictment of the injustices perpetuated against African
Americans.
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Martin Luther King, Jr.
• “I have a dream,” proclaimed King, “that one day, even
the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the
heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of
oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of
freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four
little children will one day live in a nation where they
will not be judged by the color of their skin but by
the content of their character.” Ultimately,
proclaimed King at the end of his speech, he believed
that one day blacks and whites would come together
and sing the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last, free at
last, thank God Almighty, we are free at last.”
SS8H11
•
Civil Rights Act of
1964
In the 1960 presidential election campaign John F. Kennedy argued for
a new Civil Rights Act. After the election it was discovered that over
70 per cent of the African American vote went to Kennedy. However,
during the first two years of his presidency, Kennedy failed to put
forward his promised legislation.
The Civil Rights bill was brought before Congress in 1963 and in a
speech on television on 11th June, Kennedy pointed out that: "The
Negro baby born in America today, regardless of the section of the
nation in which he is born, has about one-half as much chance of
completing high school as a white baby born in the same place on the
same day; one third as much chance of completing college; one third as
much chance of becoming a professional man; twice as much chance of
becoming unemployed; about one-seventh as much chance of earning
$10,000 a year; a life expectancy which is seven years shorter; and the
prospects of earning only half as much."
SS8H11
• The 1964 Civil Rights Act made racial discrimination in public
places, such as theaters, restaurants and hotels, illegal. It also
required employers to provide equal employment opportunities.
Projects involving federal funds could now be cut off if there
was evidence of discriminated based on color, race or national
origin.
The Civil Rights Act also attempted to deal with the problem of
African Americans being denied the vote in the Deep South. The
legislation stated that uniform standards must prevail for
establishing the right to vote. Schooling to sixth grade
constituted legal proof of literacy and the attorney general was
given power to initiate legal action in any area where he found a
pattern of resistance to the law.
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Maynard Jackson
• Elected mayor of Atlanta in 1973,
Maynard Jackson was the first African
American to serve as mayor of a major
southern city. Jackson served eight
years and then returned for a third
term following the mayorship of Andrew
Young. As a result of affirmative action
programs instituted by Jackson in his
first two terms, the portion of city
business going to minority firms rose
dramatically. A lawyer in the securities
field, Jackson remained a highly
influential force in city politics after
leaving elected office. Before and during
his third term, he worked closely with
Young, Atlanta Olympics organizing
committee chair Billy Payne, and others
to bring the 1996 Olympic Games to
Atlanta.
• Today in Georgia History - Maynard
Jackson
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Lester Maddox
• Lester Maddox was raised poor
and dropped out of high school.
• He later opened a restaurant
called Pickrick, where after
segregation was made illegal – he
refused to allow Black folks into
his restaurant. After a picture
appeared in a newspaper of
Maddox and several others
chasing Black activists out of
the restaurant, many people all
over the nation believed him to
be a violent racist.
• Georgian’s, however, elected him
to be the Governor in 1966.
• Today in Georgia history:
Lester Maddox
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Lester Maddox
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Strangely enough… Maddox turned out to
be very progressive.
He backed prison reforms.
Appointed more African Americans to
government positions than all previous
Georgia governors, including the 1st Black
State Patrol officer and the first black
official to the board of corrections.
He became especially popular for Black
voters.
When he could no longer be governor, he
ran for Lt. Gov. but couldn’t get along with
Jimmy Carter – who was the Governor. He
then ran for President but did not win.
Towards the end of his life he said that he
had no regrets about his segregationist
beliefs or any other political stance he
took.
He died in 1993 after a long struggle with
cancer.
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Andrew Young
• Andrew Young was born to a wealthy
family in New Orleans during the
height of the Jim Crow laws.
• After attending college he became a
Pastor of Bethany Congregational
Church in Thomasville, Georgia, in
1955.
• Young left the church for a position
with the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference (SCLC), the
church-centered, Atlanta-based civil
rights organization led by Martin
Luther King Jr.
• Young taught workshops on
nonviolence and identified young
potential leaders to work with.
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• Young became a trusted aide to Martin Luther King Jr.,
eventually rising to the executive directorship of the SCLC. He
was instrumental in organizing voter registration and
desegregation campaigns in Albany; Birmingham and Selma,
Alabama; and Washington, D.C., among other places. He was
with King when the civil rights leader was assassinated in
Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968.
• He won Georgia's Fifth District seat in the U.S. House of
Representatives in 1972 and became the first African
American since Reconstruction to be elected to Congress from
Georgia. Young's election was momentous: he and Barbara
Jordan, a Democrat who was also elected to the House (from
Texas) in 1972, became two of the first black southerners in
Congress in the twentieth century. The voter registration
campaigns Young had helped organize throughout the South in
the 1950s and 1960s bore fruit and would eventually result in
the election of thousands of African American candidates to
higher office in the coming decades.
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•
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While in Congress, Young fought for the
poor and working-class. He supported
Jimmy Carter during his presidential
campaign and named Young ambassador
to the United Nations.
Young helped Carter transform the
basis of American foreign policy, making
human rights a central focus and arguing
that economic development in the Third
World, particularly in Africa, was in the
best interest of the United States.
Young was among the first to call for an
end to apartheid in South Africa, and he
fought for U.S. recognition of
Communist Vietnam. He was forced to
resign the position in 1979 for having
met with a representative of the
Palestinian Liberation Organization
(PLO). At that time the PLO was
considered a terrorist organization, and
U.S. officials were officially forbidden
to meet with its members.
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Young returned to Atlanta and in 1981 was elected the city's mayor. His
election signaled the institutionalization of the revolution in black
political power he had helped to create in Georgia. For the first time an
African American mayor (Maynard Jackson) handed over the keys of a
major city to another African American. Young won reelection in 1985.
Atlanta’s Center for International Studies is named after him.
Young is currently a professor at Georgia State University's Andrew
Young School of Policy Studies. He has remained active in Georgia's
civic affairs. He served as co-chair of the Atlanta Committee for the
1996 Olympic Games and has been vocal on such issues as economic
development and the state flag. He has continued to foster economic
development in the developing world as a business consultant and as
chairman of the Southern Africa Enterprise Development Fund.
Young had four children with his first wife, Jean Childs, who died of
cancer in 1994. He married his second wife, Carolyn, in 1996. Young has
published two books, A Way Out of No Way (1994) and An Easy Burden:
The Civil Rights Movement and the Transformation of America (1996).
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Andrew Young
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Pastor
Executive Director of SCLC
Voter Registration
1st Black southerner to serve in Congress as a
House of Representative
Ambassador under Jimmy Carter
Mayor of Atlanta
Helped get the Olympic Games to Georgia
Professor
Today in Georgia History – Andrew Young