Transcript AMH Chapter 18 Section 1

Chapter 18
Section 1
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
• The Supreme Court's
decision in the case of
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
had declared segregation
to be constitutional with
a separate but equal
policy.
• Laws that segregated
African Americans were
allowed as long as African
Americans had equal
places.
De Facto Segregation
• Areas without laws that
required segregation
often had de facto
segregation, which was
based on custom and
tradition.
Benefits of the New Deal
• African Americans who
benefited from FDR's
New Deal programs
gave the Democratic
Party new strength in
the North.
CORE
• In the 1940s, members of
the Congress of Racial
Equality (CORE) began
using sit-ins, a form of
protest.
• Sit-ins staged by members
of CORE successfully
integrated many
restaurants, theaters, and
other public facilities in
Chicago, Detroit, Denver,
and Syracuse.
Thurgood Marshall
• From 1939 to 1961, the
NAACP's chief counsel
and director of its Legal
Defense and Education
Fund was the brilliant
African American
attorney Thurgood
Marshall.
Video Summary of Brown v. BOE
Linda Brown
• Linda Brown, an African
American student from
Topeka, Kansas wanted to
attend a white school very
near her house.
• However, Linda’s parents were
told that their daughter had to
attend a black school about 45
minutes from her house.
• Marshall and the NAACP
represented the Brown family
against the Board of Education
of Topeka, Kansas.
Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
• In Brown v. Board of Education (May 1954), the Supreme
Court ruled that segregation in public schools was
unconstitutional and violated the equal protection clause of
the Fourteenth Amendment.
• The ruling signaled to African Americans that it was time to
challenge other forms of segregation.
Attitude of the White Southern
• The Brown decision also upset many white
Southerners.
• Many ignored the Supreme Court’s ruling and
kept schools segregated for years.
• Many states adopted pupil assignment laws
that created an elaborate set of requirements
other than race to prevent African Americans
from attending white schools.
Southern Manifesto
• In 1956, a group of 101
Southern members of
Congress signed the
Southern Manifesto,
which denounced the
Supreme Court's ruling
as “a clear abuse of
judicial power”.
Rosa Parks
• On December 1, 1955, Rosa
Parks, a seamstress, was
arrested for refusing to give
up her seat on a bus to a
white man in Montgomery,
Alabama.
• She challenged bus
segregation in court. African
Americans in Montgomery
quickly started a boycott of
the bus system.
• In the next few years,
boycotts and protests
spread across the nation.
Montgomery Bus Boycott
• The Montgomery bus
boycott marked the
beginning of the civil rights
movement among African
Americans.
• The boycott was a success.
• Some African American
leaders formed the
Montgomery Improvement
Association, which worked
with city leaders to end
segregation.
MLK
• The MIA chose the
young (26 year old)
minister, Martin Luther
King, Jr., to lead the
group.
Nonviolent Approach
• The leader of the
Montgomery bus boycott,
Martin Luther King, Jr.,
believed that the only moral
way to end segregation and
racism was through
nonviolent passive
resistance.
• This approach was based on
the ideas of Mohandas
Gandhi.
• A powerful speaker, King
encouraged his listeners to
disobey unjust laws.
U.S. Supreme Court
• The Supreme Court
decided Rosa Parks’
case in 1956.
• It said that Alabama’s
bus segregation laws
were unconstitutional.
Churches
• The Montgomery bus
boycott could not have
succeeded without the
support and
encouragement of the
African American
churches in the city.
• People met at churches
to plan and organize
protest meetings.
SCLC
• The Southern Christian
Leadership Conference
(SCLC) was an
organization formed in
1957 to eliminate
segregation from
American society.
MLK & SCLC
• King was the SCLC’s first
president.
• The SCLC set out to end
segregation in America.
• It also pushed African
Americans to register to
vote.
• The group challenged
segregation of public
transportation and other
public places.
President Eisenhower
• President Eisenhower
personally opposed
segregation.
• But he disagreed with those
who wanted to end it
through protests and court
rulings.
• President Eisenhower
believed that segregation
and racism would end when
people's values changed.
• He believed that
segregation should end
gradually.
Ike’s Thoughts
• Eisenhower thought that the Supreme Court’s
decision in Brown v. Board of Education was
wrong.
• However, he also thought that the federal
government had the duty to uphold the
decision.
Little Rock 1957
• In September 1957 the
Little Rock, Arkansas,
school board won a court
order to admit nine
African American
students to Central High
School.
• The governor of Arkansas
ordered troops from the
Arkansas National Guard
to prevent the nine
students from entering
the school.
Sending in the Army
• President Eisenhower
sent 1,000 soldiers to
Little Rock, Arkansas to
end mob violence
protesting school
desegregation.
• Eisenhower ordered
U.S. Army troops to
Little Rock to protect
the students and to
uphold the law.
Civil Rights Act of 1957
• In the same year that the Little
Rock crisis took place,
Congress passed the Civil
Rights Act of 1957.
• The Civil Rights Act of 1957
protected the rights of African
Americans to vote.
• The law created a civil rights
division within the
Department of Justice.
• It also created the United
States Commission on Civil
Rights to investigate instances
in which the right to vote was
denied.