Transcript A Hunger to Learn” - Oakland Unified School District

Preparing for the OUSD 11th Grade Spring
Writing Assessment
Assessment Question:
Agree or Disagree: The Civil Rights Movement
of the 1950s and 1960s successfully met the
political, economic, and social goals of African
Americans that not been achieved during the
Era of Reconstruction.
Oakland Unified School District,
Spring Semester, 2010
1
Part I – A Review of the Era of Reconstruction
(1865-1876)
What were the freedmen and
freedwomen’s social, political, and
economic aspirations in the years
after Emancipation?
What happened?
2
“Emancipation”
Thomas Nast's depiction of emancipation (1865) at the
end of the Civil War envisions the future of free blacks in
the U.S.
Thomas Nast. Emancipation. Philadelphia: S. Bott, 1865. Wood
engraving.Reproduction Number: LC-USZ62-2573 (5-9)
3
Amendments to the United States
Constitution Following the Civil War
Thirteenth Amendment (1865) Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude,
except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted,
shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Fourteenth Amendment (1868)
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the
jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they
reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or
immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its
jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Fifteenth Amendment (1870)
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the
United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of
servitude.
4
Freedman’s Schools
One of the many Freedmen’s
schools set up by the
Freedmen’s Bureau in the
postwar South. These schools
drew African Americans of all
ages, who eagerly sought the
advantages offered by
education. (Library of Congress)
5
www.latinamericanstudies.org/slavery/freedmen..
Religion
As slaves many blacks attended white churches and listened to white
ministers. After the Civil War and the end of slavery, African Americans
joined or founded black churches, such as the Sixth Mount Zion Baptist
Church of Richmond, Virginia.
From – Virginia Commenwealth University Library,
http://www.library.vcu.edu/jbc/speccoll/vbha/6th10.html
6
“The First Vote”
"The First Vote"
From - Alfred R. Waud. Harper's Weekly, November 16, 1867.
7
“Radical Members of the First Legislature after the
War, South Carolina”
Because blacks in South
Carolina vastly outnumbered
whites, the newly-enfranchised
voters were able to send so
many African American
representatives to the state
assembly that they outnumbered
the whites.
They worked to rewrite the state
constitution and pass laws
ensuring aid to public education,
universal male franchise, and
civil rights for all.
"Sea-island School, No. 1,--St. Helena Island. Established in
April 1862."
Education among the Freedmen, ca. 1866-70. Broadside.
8
“Forty Acres and a Mule”:
A Focus on Economic Rights
Abandoned plantations and
the promise of freedom drew
former slaves to plant crops
and create their own
communities.
Freed slaves on a Hilton Head Island plantation, two
wearing U.S. Army uniforms, cultivate sweet potatoes.
Emancipation was finally real -until white planters returned
to claim their lands and federal
government refused to
redistribute the land to former
slaves.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reco
nstruction/40acres/index.html
9
The Sharecropping System Emerges
During Reconstruction, cotton
remained the South's most important
crop with the tools and methods of
production essentially the same as
before the war.
Family Picking Cotton in the fields near Savannah, Georgia,
stereograph, c. 1867.
(Negative #50482, Collection of the New-York Historical Society)
Most former slaves now worked as
sharecroppers, who kept one-third to
one-half of the crop for themselves
with the remainder going to the
landowner. Although the system
afforded workers some degree of
autonomy, it kept most in a state of
poverty.
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/reconstruction/section3/section
3_01.html
10
“Separate but Equal”
Becomes The Law of the Land (1896)
In the pivotal case of Plessy v.
Ferguson in 1896, the U.S.
Supreme Court ruled that
racially separate facilities, if
equal, did not violate the
Constitution.
Segregation, the Court said,
was not discrimination.
from http://americanhistory.si.edu/brown/history/1
-segregated/separate-but-equal.html
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_events_pl
essy.html
http://www.landmarkcases.org/plessy/background3.html
11
Reconstruction’s Legacy:
The Unfinished Revolution
In the generation after the end of Reconstruction, the
Southern states deprived blacks of their right to vote, and
ordered that public and private facilities of all kinds be
segregated by race. Until job opportunities opened in the
North in the twentieth century, spurring a mass migration
out of the South, most blacks remained locked in a system
of political powerlessness and economic inequality…
Not until the mid-twentieth century would the nation again
attempt to come to terms with the political and social
agenda of Reconstruction. The civil rights movement of the
1950s and 1960s is often called the Second Reconstruction.
- historian, Eric Foner
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/reconstruction/epilogue.html
12
Part II – The Civil Rights Movement of the
1950s and 1960s
Responding to Reconstruction’s Legacy:
The Civil Right Movement focuses on
social, political, and economic rights
and freedoms.
13
Significant Civil Rights Era Court Rulings on:
Building Upon the 14th Amendment
1954 – Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education I
decision finds that “seperate but equal” education is
unconstitutional, prohibiting racial segregation in public
schools.
“We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine
of ‘separate but equal’ has no place.”
—Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren
1955 – The Supreme Court, Brown II, calls for school
districts to desegregate immediately, or with “all
deliberate speed.”
Lawyers for Brown, George Hayes, Thurgood
Marshall, and James Nabrit, celebrate the
Supreme Court’s ruling.
1971 - In Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of
Education, the Court ruled that busing students was an
appropriate legal tool for addressing illegal segregation
of the schools.
http://public.findlaw.com/civil-rights/civil-rights-basics/key-civil-rights-cases.html
http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/afam/afam-brownphotos.html
14
The Montgomery (Alabama) Bus Boycott
December, 1955
Be it Resolved as Follows:
1. That the citizens of Montgomery are requesting that every citizen in
Montgomery, regardless of race, color, or creed, to refrain from riding buses
owned and operated in the city of Montgomery by the Montgomery City Lines,
Incorporated until some arrangement had been worked out between said citizens
and the Montogmery City Lines, Incorporated.
-from Resolution of the Citizens Mass Meeting, December 5, 1955
15
School Integration
Little Rock, Arkansas - 1957
I wanted to go to Central High
School because they had more
privileges. They had more
equipment, they had five floors of
opportunities. I understood
education before I understood
anything else. From the time I
was two, my mother said, “you
will go to college. Education is
your key to survival.”
-Melba Patillo Beals, one of the
“Little Rock Nine”
- From African-American Odyssey,
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/odyssey/ar
chive/09/0918002r.jpg
16
The Sit-In Movement - 1960
Greensboro, North Carolina
- From African-American Odyssey,
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/odyssey/archive/09/0918002r.jpg
We went into the five and tens Woollworth, Kresge’s, McClellan’s because these stores were known across
the country. We took our
seats in a very orderly, peaceful fashion.
The students dressed like
they were going to church or going to a big
affair. They had their books,
and we stayed there at the lunch counter,
studying and preparing our
homework, because we were denied
service. The managers ordered the
lunch counter be closed, that the
restaurants be closed, and we’d sit there,
all day long.
- John Lewis,
President of the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
17
The Freedom Rides, 1961
- From Veterans of the Civil
Rights Movement,
http://www.crmvet.org/images/i
mgcoll.htm
Federal law said that there should be no segregation in interstate travel.
The Supreme Court had decided that. But still laws in the southern
states and local ordinances ordered segregation of the races on those
buses? Why didn’t the federal government enforce its laws?
- James Farmer, President of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
18
March on Washington, 1963
- From Life Magazine, 9/6/63 http://www.life.com/image/52259555/in-gallery/23101
It wasn’t the Harry Belafontes and the greats of Hollywood that made the
march. What made the march was that black people voted that day with
their feet. They came from every state, they came in jalopies, on trains,
buses, anything they could get - some walked.
- Bayard Rustin
19
Freedom Summer - Mississippi, 1964
Two freedom Riders came to
Sunday school that morning
and they were pointing the
finger at me, saying, “Just like
that lady talking back there in
the Sunday school class says
that God help those that help
themselves, you can help
yourself by trying to register
to vote.” That’s the first time
in my life that I ever come in
contact with anybody that
tells me that I had the right to
register to vote.
-Unita Blackwell
Voter registration worker George Ball explains how
to vote to a mother of three in the family’s living
room.
From, Charles Moore, Powerful Days in Black and White,
http://www.kodak.com/US/en/corp/features/moore/voteFrame.shtml
20
Voting Rights
The March from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, 1965
We had witnessed at
the March on
Washington the
Student Nonviolent
Coordinating
Committee (SNCC) call
for one man, one vote.
We went to Selma to
test that idea.
-John Lewis
- From Spider Martin Civil Rights Collection ,
http://www.spidermartin.com/gallery25.html
21
Malcolm X in Selma, 1965
"I want Dr. King to know that I
didn't come to Selma to make his
job difficult. I really did come
thinking I could make it easier. If
the white people realize what the
alternative is, perhaps they will be
more willing to hear Dr. King."
-- in a conversation with Mrs.
Coretta Scott King.
- From Malcolm X Official Website http://www.malcolmx.com/index.html
22
“From Protest to Politics”
…What began as a protest movement is being challenged to translate itself
into a political movement…It is now concerned with not merely removing the
barriers to full opportunity but with achieving the fact of equality.
… the Negro today finds himself stymied by obstacles of far greater
magnitude than the legal barriers he was attacking before: automation [loss
of jobs], urban decay [poor housing and government services], de facto
school segregation.
These are problems which, well conditioned by Jim Crow, do not vanish upon
its demise. They are more deeply rooted in our socioeconomic order; they
are the result of the total society’s failure to meet not only the Negro’s needs,
but human needs in general.
- Bayard Rustin, excerpt from “From Protest to Politics: The Future of the Civil
Rights Movement,” February, 1965.
23
The Call for “Black Power”
Black Power was the guiding philosophy of SNCC in its later
years. It began to develop and take hold sometime after 1964,
and came to prominence in 1966 when Stokely Charmicael
became head of the organization. The goal of Black Power was
to empower and create a strong racial identity for AfricanAmericans.
Black Power also encouraged a separation from white society,
saying black people should write their own histories and form
their own institutions, like credit unions and political parties.
This empowered African-Americans by promoting feelings of
beauty and self-worth and showing that they were strong
enough to thrive without the support of white institutions.
Stokely Charmicael
(Kwame Ture)
- From SNCC 1960 – 1966, Six Years of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee http://www.ibiblio.org/sncc/black_power.html
24
The Movement Moves North
Chicago is a city of more than million Negroes. It has been the Promised Land for
thousands who sought to escape the cruelties of Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee…
Educational opportunities in Chicago, while an improvement over Mississippi,
were hardly adequate to prepare Negroes for metropolitan life. A labor force of some
300,000 have found little beyond low paying service occupations open to them, and
those who possessed skills and crafts found their ranks rapidly being depleted by
automation and few opportunities for advancement and promotion.
Those few Negroes who were fortunate enough to achieve professional and
managerial status found themselves victimized in their search for adequate housing.
Chicago is not alone in this plight, but it is clearly the prototype of the northern
race problem.
- from “A Proposal by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference for the Development of
Nonviolent Action Movement for the Greater Chicago Area,” 1966.
25
From the Black Panther Party Platform
and 10 Point Program – October, 1966
What We Want.
1.
We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our Black Community.
2.
We want full employment for our people.
4.
We want decent housing, fit for shelter of human beings.
5.
We want education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society. We want
education that teaches us our true history and our role in the present-day society..
7.
We want an immediate end to police brutality and murder of black people.
9.
We want all black people when brought to trial to be tried in court by a jury of their peer group or people
from their black communities, as defined by the Constitution of the United States.
10.
We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace. And as our major political objective, a
United Nations-supervised plebiscite to be held throughout the black colony in which only black colonial
subjects will be allowed to participate for the purpose of determining the will of black people as to their
national destiny.
Source: "Black Panther Party Ten Point Program." The Sixties Project.
http://lists.village.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Primary/
Manifestos/Panther_platform.html.
26
A Failure to Attack Poverty – MLK Makes a
Connection to the War in Vietnam
... I knew America could never invest the necessary funds
or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as
adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills
and money like some demonical destructive suction tube.
So I am increasingly compelled to see the war as an
enemy of the poor and attack it as such…
- from Dr. Martin Luther King, Riverside Church, New York,
April 4, 1967
27
“The Civil Rights Movement:
What Good was it?” – Alice Walker
If the Civil Rights Movement is “dead” and if it gave us nothing
else, it gave us each other forever, it gave some of us bread, some of
us shelter, some of us knowledge and pride, all of us comfort. It gave
us our children, our husbands, our brothers, our fathers, as men
reborn and with a purpose for living. It broke the pattern of black
servitude in this country. It shattered the phone “promise” of white
soap opera that sucked away so many pitiful lives. It gave us history
and men far greater than Presidents. It gave us heroes, selfless men
of courage and strength, for our little boys and girls to follow. It gave
us hope for tomorrow. It called us to life.
Because we live, it can never die.
-Alice Walker “The Civil Rights Movement:
What Good was it?” 1966
28
Newark, New Jersey and Detroit, Michigan Summer of 1967
The summer of 1967 marked by 'urban
unrest' that began during the mid-1960s in
Harlem and Watts and tapered off by the
early 1970s.
During the summer of 1967 one hundred
and sixty four "civil disorders" were reported
in one hundred and twenty eight American
cities. Of these "disturbances" that took
place in the summer of '67, Newark and
Detroit were arguably the most severe.
…the underlying causes were quite complex,
including police brutality, persistent poverty,
and a lack of political representation for
African American residents, as well as local
opposition to the Vietnam War.
from
http://www.67riots.rutgers.edu/introduction.html
29
Memphis, Tennessee - 1968
“Fine, now we have the right to
vote. Fine. We can now go to
any restaurant , any hotel,
anyplace we want to in America,
but we don’t have the means. So
what good does it do for people to
go to any restaurant in the world if
you don’t have the money to pay
for a meal?”
Memphis sanitation workers on strike in 1968
- Dr. King , paraphrased by
William Rutherford
- From The Walter P. Reuther Library,
http://www.reuther.wayne.edu/node/3631
30
A Focus on Poverty – 1968
Washington, D.C.: The mule train that was a symbol of the Poor
People's Campaign heads toward the Capitol after finally crossing
the river into Washington June 25th. June 27, 1968.
-From “Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Movement, “
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eyesontheprize/story/15_poor.html#gallery
31
Significant Civil Rights Era Court Rulings (cont.):
Building Upon the 14th Amendment
1956
The Supreme Court, without comment, affirmed a lower court ruling declaring segregation of
the Montgomery bus system illegal, giving a major victory to Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr.,
and the thousands of anonymous African Americans who had sustained the bus boycott in the
face of violence and intimidation.
1962
Bailey v. Patterson
The Court in this case prohibited racial segregation of interstate and intrastate transportation
facilities.
1967
Loving v. Virginia
This decision holds that state laws prohibiting inter-racial marriage are unconstitutional.
1968
Jones v. Mayer Co.
The Court held in this case that federal law bars all racial discrimination (private or public), in
sale or rental of property.
1971
In Griggs v. Duke Power Co., the Supreme Court ruled that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act
prohibits not only intentional job discrimination, but also employer practices that have a
discriminatory effect on minorities and women.
The Leadership Conference http://www.civilrights.org/judiciary/supremecourt/key-cases.html
32
Civil Rights Legislation –
The Civil Rights Act of 1964
Support for a federal Civil Rights Act was one of the goals of the 1963 March on
Washington. President John F. Kennedy had introduced the bill before his assassination.
His successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, signed it into law on July 2, 1964.
It achieved many of the aims of a Reconstruction-era law, the Civil Rights Act of 1875,
which was passed but soon overturned by the Supreme Court.
The 1964 Act barred discrimination based on race, color, religion, or national origin in
public facilities -- such as restaurants, theaters, or hotels.
Discrimination in hiring practices was also outlawed, and the act established the Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission to help enforce the law.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eyesontheprize/milestones/m06_
act.html
33
Civil Rights Legislation
Voting Rights Act of 1965
An act to enforce the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution
of the United States and for other purposes, August 6, 1965
The legislation outlawed literacy tests and provided for the
appointment of Federal examiners, with the power to register
qualified citizens to vote, in those states where past
discrimination had existed. (The use of poll taxes in national
elections had been abolished in 1964 by the 24th amendment
to the Constitution.)
Section 2, which closely followed the language of the 15th
amendment, applied a nationwide prohibition on the denial or
abridgment of the right to vote on account of race or color.
"Signing the Voting Rights Act,"
August 6, 1965.
U.S. News and World Report,
August 16, 1965.
34
The Civil Rights Act of 1968 –
A Focus on Fair Housing
The Fair Housing Act of 1968 is also known as Title VIII of the
Civil Rights act of 1968.
Congress passed the act in an effort to stop unlawful
discrimination in housing based on race, color, sex, national
origin, or religion.
The Fair Housing Act has become a central feature of
modern Civil Rights enforcement, allowing people who
suffered previous discrimination persons the right to rent or
own residential property in areas that were previously
segregated.
The department of housing and urban development (HUD) is
charged with enforcement of the act. It issues regulations
and institutes investigations into discriminatory housing
practices.
Warren K. Leffler.
Signing of the Civil Rights Act, April 11,
1968.
Copyprint.
U.S. News and World Report
Photograph Collection,
Reproduction Number: LC-USZ6295480 (9-12)
35
Education: College Entrance Rate
College Entrance Rate (number of high school graduates who
enrolled in college) by Race 1960 and 2002
70.0%
66.7%
65.0%
58.7%
60.0%
55.0%
50.0%
45.8%
45.0%
40.0%
36.0%
35.0%
30.0%
25.0%
20.0%
1960
2002
White
Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race &
Ethnicity
The Ohio State University, April 2004
African American
36
Personal Median Income 1954 to 2001
$35,000
$30,240
$30,000
$25,000
$21,466
$18,771
$20,000
$16,652
$15,000
$16,282
$9,341
$10,000
$7,193
$5,000
$3,900
$0
1954
White Male
African American Male
2001
White Female
African American Female
Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race &
Ethnicity
The Ohio State University, April 2004
37
38