Transcript The Civil Rights Movement - Appleton Area School District

The Civil Rights
Movement
“Eyes on the Prize”
Conditions in the 1950’s
 This type of humiliation
sponsored early events
in Civil Rights such as
the Greensboro 4.
Civil Rights Expands:
 Brown v. Board of
Education
 “To separate Negro
children…solely
because of their race
generates a feeling of
inferiority as to their
status in the community
that affects their hearts
and minds in a way
unlikely to ever be
undone…
Brown v. Board of Education
 “We conclude that in
the field of public
education the doctrine
of “separate but equal”
has no place. Separate
educational facilities are
inherently unequal.”
Brown v. Board II
 “Integration should proceed with all
deliberate speed”.
 Southern response to Brown cases?
 Manifesto signed by 101 members of
CONGRESS calling it an abuse of jucial
power.
 South resorted to old tactics of violence and
intimidation.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott
 Rosa Parks refuses to
give up her seat,
arrested and charged
with a violation of a
local segregation
ordinance.
Montgomery Bus Boycott: 1955
 Spurred by Parks
action, the local
community turned to a
charismatic young
reverend Dr. Martin
Luther King for
leadership.
 King embraced the
teachings of “ahimsa”
or non-violent
resistance, as once
employed by Mahandas
Gandhi.
Success?
 Incredible will of the
community.
 Sheer numbers who
utilized the bus service.
 Leadership of King and
Abernathy.
Emmett Till’s Murder
 The shocking murder of
the nine year old Till
sponsored a surge in
civil rights activity.
School Integration
 Little Rock Nine-first to
press the issue in
Arkansas.
 Their integration
proceedings had to be
monitored by the
National Guard.
Little Rock 1957
How bad did it get?
 In Virginia, the governor chooses to close
schools rather than integrate. In New Orleans
in 1960, white residents riot over four black
girls entering a desegregated first-grade
classroom.
James Meredith
 And in Mississippi, in 1963, James
Meredith is barred from registering at
the University of Mississippi by
Governor Ross Barnett. As
segregationists gather on campus,
armed with guns and homemade
explosives, the governor and
President John Kennedy engage in
fruitless negotiations. Kennedy has to
decide whether he will take the
political risk to actively support civil
rights, even as tensions mount. When
he sends Federal marshals to the
campus, the mob erupts in violence,
killing two people and wounding
many others before the president
sends in the U.S. Army to restore
order. Meredith will enroll and
ultimately graduate from the
university.
Greensboro Four: Then and Now
Freedom Riders
 May 1961, the Congress of Racial Equality
sends mixed-race groups of non-violent
volunteers, known as Freedom Riders, on bus
trips into Dixie. They meet minor resistance
in the upper South, but when they get to
Alabama trouble erupts. Segregationists
firebomb a bus in Anniston, Alabama, and
Klan members attack the passengers as they
disembark in Birmingham.
Risk Factors
 The Riders are
assaulted and bloodied
when they arrive in
Martin Luther King's
home town. As the
violence rages,
Kennedy calls in U.S.
marshals, and
ultimately Gov.
Patterson is forced to
dispatch the Alabama
National Guard as well.
Non-Violence
Bull Connor and Birmingham
 Bull Connor is the “greatest friend to Civil
Rights” JFK.
Birmingham: Spring 1963
Medgar Evers
 After Kennedy went on TV
to denounce the violence in
Birmingham and criticize
Connor and his brutes.
Medger Evers a father of
three and the leader of the
Mississippi chapter of the
NAACP was shot in the back
on his front porch in front of
his family.
 His death inspired further
protest and action.
The March on Washington
 In the wake of violence in Birmingham and
against the wishes of the Kennedy’s A. Phillip
Randolph organizes a peace march on
Washington.
Goals
250,000 strong
High point of civil rights
movement
The most famous speech in US
History?
I have a dream…
A cultural issue?
Legitimacy of the event
Unfortunate results
 Though the March on
Washington is a triumph, it
comes with a tragic coda. Less
than three weeks later, in
Birmingham, the Ku Klux Klan
bombs the 16th Street Baptist
Church on a Sunday morning.
Fifteen people are injured and
four young girls are killed, filling
many in the movement with
rage. It will be 14 years before
the first of three men, Robert
Chambliss, is brought to justice
in 1977; his companions Thomas
Blanton, Jr. and Bobby Lee
Cherry will not be convicted
until 2001 and 2002, respectively
Freedom Summer: 1964
 “People were
threatened, folks was
put in jail just because
we wanted people to try
to register to vote."
 The Civil Rights Act of
1964 had brought about
widespread reform and
eliminated significant
obstacles to African
American suffrage.
 The event drew
thousands from across
the country. The
workers established
freedom schools, voter
registration drives, and
organized the Freedom
Democratic Party.
 15 volunteers were
murdered
 1200 new voters…
Freedom March
 On March 7,
demonstrators start a
54-mile march in
response to an activist's
murder. They are
protesting his death and
the unfair state laws
and local violence that
keep African Americans
from voting.
 3000 marchers turned into
25,000 representing how the
movement was growing in
strength.


Selma
March 7, 1965
525 marchers are attacked
on "Bloody Sunday"
Edmund Pettus Bridge
Montgomery
March 21, 1965
25,000 protesters complete
the march
Alabama State Capitol
The movement radicalizes
 "If you live in a society...
and it doesn't enforce
its own law because of
the color of a man's
skin... then... people are
justified to resort to any
means necessary to
bring about justice..."
 In 1963, Malcolm X becomes the group's
national spokesman. His message of black
pride, self-sufficiency, and self-defense stands
in stark contrast to the Civil Rights
Movement's non-violence. It also threatens
whites. As Malcolm X becomes nationally
known, his words inspire many blacks, but as
he gains power, his relationship with the
Nation of Islam deteriorates. In February
1965, members of the Nation of Islam
assassinate him in Harlem.
Civil Rights Legislation
Voting Rights Act-1965
 8/6/1965
 Outlawed the literacy test and other measures
used to limit voting opportunities for
southern blacks.
 Enabled millions to vote, when combined
with the 24th amendment from 1964.
 1960 only 20 percent of blacks were registered
to vote—by 1964 it was 39% by 1971 it was
63%!
Types of segregation:
 De jure: segregation by law, the easier type to
fight.
 De facto: segregation that exists by custom
and practice, far more difficult to fight.
Chicago: 1966
 The violence in Watts
during the “long hot
summer of 1965”
signaled that much was
to be done in the area of
civil rights outside the
South.
 Activists went to
Chicago with an eye on
improving conditions in
the North.
Success?
 After six months of little
progress, activists take their
protest out of the slums and
into the white areas that
exclude blacks. They protest
the real estate interests that
keep the city segregated;
King proves that realtors
systematically deny blacks
access to housing in white
neighborhoods. Soon, angry
white mobs attack the
protesters.
 When 250 marchers go to
Cicero, they find 3000 law
enforcement officers, and a
large mob of angry whites,
who yell slurs and throw
bricks. Unconstrained by Dr.
King and the SCLC, the
group responds with
violence. Soon King will
depart Chicago, having
resolved little.
Progress proceeding too
slowly?
 Moving away from
King’s vision of nonviolence, angry mobs
begin to take root in
major cities in 1967, as
seen here in Detroit.
Black Power Movements
 Malcom X’s movement
and campaign calling
for “Ballots or Bullets”
began to inspire more
to aggressive action.
 Stokely Carmichael:
began working for the
Student Nonviolent
Coordinating
Committee and
gradually began a
platform of Black
Power.
The Black Panthers
 Founded in Oakland, Ca. by Bobby Q. Seale
and Huey Newton.
 Designed to protest police brutality in the
ghettos of America. Called for full
employment and decent housing. Called for
military exemptions and release of blacks in
prison.
Fred Hampton
1968: A turbulent year
 Operation breadbasket
 "the riot is the language of the unheard...
America has failed to hear... that the promises
of freedom and justice have not been met."
King’s assassination
 In Memphis supporting
a sanitation workers
strike.
 Assassinated by James
Earl Ray.
A Nation Mourns
Violence emerges
 rage over King's death led to the worst urban
rioting in United States history. Over 100
cities exploded in flames. The hardest-hit
cities included Baltimore, Chicago, Kansas
City, and Washington, D.C
 In 1968, the Kerner commission of LBJ
concluded that urban violence, a problem of
the 60’s could be traced to one main reason—
white racisim.
 “our nation is moving towards two societies,
one white and one black, separate and
unequal.”
Civil Rights Act of 1968
 Ended discrimination in housing.
 Set the stage for future political gains.
Another ally lost…
 Robert F. Kennedy is
assassinated on the
campaign trail after
winning the California
primary. America’s
primary civil rights
fighter (after LBJ) has
been killed. The
movement of the 60’s
suffers a tremendous
loss.
Unfinished work
 Despite the massive effort of the 50’s and
60’s in civil rights, the movement remains.
Housing and job discrimination will continue
in “de facto” fashion. Affirmative action and
other programs attempt to remedy the
inequalities in jobs, salaries, and higher
education.
 Quotas become very unpopular in American
life during the late 70’s.
Bakke v. California
 In 1978, the Supreme
Court hears a case filed
by Allan Bakke, a man
who has twice been
denied admission to the
University of California
at Davis for medical
school. He claims that
affirmative action
policies have kept him
out, violating his rights.
The case commands
the nation's attention.
 The court's decision is not
clear-cut. It rules that Bakke
should be admitted to Davis,
and it states that affirmative
action is permissible but not
mandatory. For some
Americans, the case is proof
that the cost of remedying
years of discrimination and
inequities through affirmative
action is too high.