Civil Rights Movement

A. Gains During Truman’s Administration

Morgan v. Virginia (1946)

• Supreme Court decision • Made state laws requiring segregation on busses illegal for interstate travel

CORE (Congress of Racial Equality)

• Founded in 1942 • Sponsored “Freedom Rides” on busses through the South in 1947 • Testing the enforcement of Morgan • Realized courts willing to help, but there is no enforcement

Desegregating the Armed Forces

• Executive Order 9981 signed July 1948

The Dixiecrats

• States’ Right Democratic Party – Formed in 1948 as an offshoot of the Democratic Party • Opposed to Truman’s Civil Rights policies • Wanted to uphold segregation and Jim Crow • Started split of the South from the Democratic Party

B. Brown v. Board of Education

The Case

• 1951, NAACP lawyer Thurgood Marshall begins to fight segregation in schools • Linda Brown wanted to attend an all white school • Marshall argued that their 14 th amendment rights were violated • “Equal protection” = equal educational opportunities

The Decision (1954)

• Unanimous decision led by Earl Warren • Overturns Plessy v. Ferguson • "Separate educational facilities are

inherently unequal. It has no place in public

education.” • Brown II (1955) – schools must be integrated “with all deliberate speed”

The Response

• 80% of Southerners were against Brown decision • Southern Manifesto – 101 Congressmen signed that the decision was a contradiction to the Constitution

Crisis in Little Rock, AK

• 9 African-American student enroll at Central High in 1957 • Gov. Faubus orders the National Guard to keep them out

Elizabeth Eckford tries to integrate Central High

• Finally Eisenhower sends 1,000 troops to Little Rock to protect the students and integrate Central High • The next year all Little Rock schools closed

C. The Emergence of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-56)

• Dec. 1, 1955 Rosa Parks is arrested for refusing to give up her seat

• 80% of Montgomery’s bus riders were African-American • Called for an immediate boycott of the bus system

• Martin Luther King, Jr. emerged as the leader of the movement •

Outlined a Civil Disobedience campaign

• Boycott lasted 381

days

• It took a Supreme

Court decision to integrate the busses of Montgomery

Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)

• Founded in 1957 by MLK • Civil Rights organization led by ministers • Proposed a non-violent campaign to fight for Civil Rights • Realized that government was not going to help

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

• Offshoot of SCLC that led civil disobedience campaigns for students • Founded in 1960

Sit-Ins

• Effective new strategy for integration • SNCC targeted lunch counters across the South

• Feb. 1, 1960 1 st sit-in began in Greensboro, NC at Woolworth’s • Led to 70,000 students for 18 months participating in sit-ins and boycotts

D. Kennedy and Civil Rights

Freedom Rides

• May 1961 CORE retests bus interstate travel • Goal was to be arrested to make federal government enforce the law

• Met with severe resistance once they entered Alabama • Many were beaten while the police watched • Then they were arrested

• Kennedy forced to act • Sends federal marshals to protect the riders, but does not stop them from being arrested or force integration • Trying not to anger the Southern Democrats • Robert Kennedy (the AG) petitions the ICC to issue an order for integration in November 1961

Showdown in Birmingham, AL (1963)

• Most racially divided city in the South • 1963 Birmingham closed parks, playgrounds, pools, and golf courses to avoid desegregation • MLK decided to begin a campaign there to bring segregation to the national attention

• April 1963, MLK & SCLC begin to march, sit-ins, and boycott stores in the city • 50 were arrested on Good Friday • MLK wrote his famous

Letter from Birmingham Jail "We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct-action campaign that was ‘well-timed’ in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that justice too long

delayed is justice denied." -- Martin Luther King, Letter from a Birmingham Jail

• SCLC began using children in a “Children’s Crusade” • Public Safety Commissioner Bull Connor attacked the children

• Images shown on national television • Public is outraged • Non-violence ends – riots begin in Birmingham • Justice Dept intervenes and negotiations begin

• Several bombings • 3,000 federal troops sent to end violence • Two sides agree to end campaign and begin integration of business/stores

JFK Announces a Civil Rights Bill

• June 11 – JFK announces that he will send a Civil Rights Bill to Congress

March on Washington (1963)

• August 28 – 250,000 protestors • Meet to show support for JFK’s Civil Rights bill • MLK gives his “I Have a Dream” speech

E. Triumphs for Civil Rights

24

th

Amendment

• Ratified Jan 1964 • Abolished poll tax in national elections

Civil Rights Act of 1964

• Provisions: – Forbid segregation in any public facilities, government, education, and invalidated Jim Crow laws – Created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to enforce the law – Government could deny money to states who were not following the law • Result: Most businesses desegregated

Mississippi: Freedom Summer Project

• June of 1964, SNCC wants to register black voters • Less than 5% of the African-American community was registered • Over 900 volunteers (mainly white college students) went to the South to try to register voters

• Violence – 6 brutally murdered – 80 beatings – 35 shootings – 30 bombings – Over 1,000 arrests • Registered over 60,000 African Americans

March from Selma to Montgomery

• Poor black voter turnout in 1964 election • SCLC tried to register voters

• March 7, 1965: protest march from Selma to Montgomery • Were violently attacked by the police

• March 9, 1965 – 2 nd march attempted led by MLK • Ordered by the courts to not march

• LBJ announces a plan to pass legislation protecting African-American voters • March 21 – 3 rd march will make it to Montgomery

Voting Rights Act of 1965

• Authorized federal supervision of voter registration • Outlawed all literacy & other discriminatory tests for voter registration

Affirmative Action (1965)

• Executive Order 11375 • Policies that take race, ethnicity, or gender into consideration in an attempt to promote equal opportunity or increase ethnic diversity • Results: more minorities enroll in college

End of Affirmative Action

• Began a “reverse discrimination” • Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978) – Ruled against affirmative action programs that set a rigid quota for minority admissions • California Prop 209 (1996) ended affirmative action in CA

Thurgood Marshall

• June 1967 – LBJ appoints Marshall to the Supreme Court

F. Rise of Black Power

Nation of Islam

• Religious organization that was in favor of black separatism • Malcolm X became a leader in the early 1960’s

• Encouraged armed resistance “by any means necessary” to break white domination

"The white people should thank Dr. King for holding black people in check."

Stokely Carmichael

• Was the leader of SNCC in the late 1960’s • Became disillusioned with the slow progress being made • Believed in “Black Power” – Self-reliance – Self-sufficiency • Transformed SNCC into an all black organization

Black Panthers (1966)

• Black Panther Party for Self-Defense • Huey Newton & Bobby Seale • Believed in armed defense against police and white brutality

• Became a paramilitary group • Monitored the local police to protect from brutality • Continuously raided by police & FBI • Jail time was their downfall

Assassination of MLK

• April 4, 1968 MLK is shot and killed by James Earl Ray

The Long Hot Summers

• Summers 1964-68, Racial riots in many major cities • Watts Riot (L.A.) August 1965 – 6 days

End of the Movement

• Vietnam and increasing turmoil at home in 1968 brought about an end to the momentum