Transcript Taking on Segregation

Taking on Segregation
Chapter 21, Section 1 Notes
Objectives
• Explain how legalized segregation
deprived African Americans of their
rights as citizens
• Summarize civil rights legal activity
and the response to the Plessy and
Brown cases
• Trace MLK, Jr’s civil rights activities,
beginning with the Montgomery Bus
Boycott
• Describe the expansion of the civil
rights movement
Main Idea and Terms/Names
•Activism and a
series of Supreme
Court decisions
advanced equal
rights for African
Americans in the
1950s and 1960s
•Thurgood Marshall
•Brown v. Board of
Education of Topeka
•Rosa Parks
•Martin Luther King, Jr.
•Southern Christian
Leadership Conference
(SCLC)
•Student Nonviolent
Coordinating
Committee (SNCC)
•Sit-in
The Segregation System
• Civil Rights Act of 1875
– Outlawed segregation
– Supreme Court overturned it in 1883
• Plessy v. Ferguson
– “separate but equal” did not violate the
14th amendment (equal treatment)
– Allowed Southern states to pass Jim
Crow laws (separating the races)
– Allowed restrictions on inter-race
contact
Civil Rights Movement
• WW2 set the stage for the civil rights
movement
– Opened new job opportunities
– One million African Americans served
• Came home and fought to end
discrimination
– During the war, civil rights organizations
fought for voting rights and challenged
Jim Crow laws
Challenging Segregation in Court
• Campaign led by the NAACP
– Focused on inequality between separate
schools that states provided
• Thurgood Marshall argued many of
these cases
• Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka
– Marshall’s most stunning victory
– Supreme Court struck down segregation in
public schools as a violation of 14th
amendment
– To be implemented “with all deliberate
speed”
Reaction to Brown
• Official reaction was mixed
• Within a year, 500 school districts
had desegregated
• Some areas resisted
– Reappearance of KKK
– Governor of Georgia – “Georgia will
not comply”!
Crisis in Little Rock
• State had been planning for desegregation
• Governor Faubus ordered the National
Guard to turn away the “Little Rock Nine”
– the 9 African American students who would
integrate Little Rock Central High
• A Federal judge ordered Faubus to let the
students attend the school
• Eisenhower placed the National Guard under
federal control to watch the 9 attend school
• A year later, Faubus shut down the high
school
Montgomery Bus Boycott
• African Americans were impatient with
the slow speed of change
– Took direct action
• 1955 – Rosa Parks refused to
give up her seat and was arrested
• JoAnn Robinson suggested a boycott
of the buses
• Leaders of the African American
community formed the Montgomery
Improvement Association (MIA)
– Elected 26 yr old Martin Luther King to
lead
Montgomery Bus Boycott
• Dr. King made a passionate speech
and filled the audience with a sense
of mission
• African Americans boycotted the
buses for 381 days and filed a lawsuit
– Organized car pools
– Walked long distances
• 1956 – Supreme Court outlawed
bus segregation
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• MLK called his nonviolent resistance
“soul force”
• Influences
– Jesus – love one’s enemies
– Henry David Thoreau – concept of civil
disobedience (refusal to obey an
unjust law)
– A. Philip Randolph – massive
demonstrations
– Gandhi – non violent resistance
Southern Christian Leadership
Conference (SCLC)
• SCLC founded in 1957 by MLK and
other civil rights leaders
• Purpose – carry on nonviolent
crusades against discrimination
• Used protests and demonstrations
• Helped organize a student protest
group (SNCC) – Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee
– Challenge the system!
Movement Spreads
• Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
staged the first sit-in in 1942
– African Americans would sit at
segregated lunch counters and refuse to
leave until they were served
• 1960 – students in North Carolina
staged a sit-in at a lunch counter
– Television crews covered the protest
– African Americans were non-violent, but
white resistance was not
• Movement spread across nation (sitins in 48 cities)
21.2 Objectives
• Identify the goal of the freedom riders
• Explain how civil rights activism forced
President Kennedy to act against
segregation
• State the motives of the 1963 March on
Washington
• Describe the tactics tried by civil rights
organizations to secure the passage of
the Voting Rights Act
Main Idea and Terms/Names
• Civil Rights
activists broke
through racial
barriers. Their
activism prompted
landmark
legislation.
• Freedom riders
• James Meredith
• Civil Rights Act of
1964
• Freedom Summer
• Fannie Lou Hamer
• Voting Rights Act
of 1965
Freedom Riders
• Civil Rights activists would ride
busses to test the Supreme Court
decision that banned segregation on
buses and in bus terminals
• Provoking a violent reaction to force
the JFK administration to enforce the
law
• Riders were tormented and beaten
Freedom Riders
• Newspaper coverage and the
violence provoked JFK to send
federal marshals to protect the
riders
• Segregation in all interstate travel
facilities was banned
Integrating Ole Miss
• Air Force Veteran James Meredith
won a federal court case that allowed
him to enroll in the all-white University
of Mississippi (Ole Miss)
• Governor Ross Barnett refused to let
him register
• Kennedy ordered federal marshals to
escort Meredith
• Riots broke out and resulted in 2 deaths
• Federal officials accompanied Meredith
to class to protect him
Birmingham
• Strictly enforced its segregation
• Reputation for racial violence
• Reverend Shuttlesworth, MLK, and the
SCLC tested their non-violence
• MLK and others were arrested during a
nonviolent demonstration
– MLK wrote Letters from a Birmingham Jail
Birmingham
• With MLK out of jail, the SCLC planned a
children’s march in Birmingham
– Police Commissioner “Bull” Connor arrested
them
– Later, the police met the marchers with high
pressure fire hoses and attack dogs
– TV cameras captured the scene
• Birmingham officials finally ended
segregation
• Convinced JFK to write a civil rights act
Kennedy Takes a Stand
• June 11, 1963 – JFK sends troops to
force Gov. Wallace to desegregate the
U of Alabama
• He demanded that Congress pass a
civil rights bill
• Hours later Medgar Evers, an NAACP
secretary was murdered
• A new militancy developed – “Freedom
Now!”
March on Washington
• To show support for
JFK’s civil rights bill, a
march on Washington
was formed
• Aug. 28, 1963, 250,000
people assembled in
Washington
• MLK gave his “I have a
Dream” speech
– Appeals for peace and
harmony
Violence Persists
• Two weeks after the I have a Dream
speech, four girls were killed in a
Birmingham church
• Two months later, JFK is assassinated
• LBJ pledges to carry out JFK’s work
– Passes Civil Rights Act of 1964
– Prohibited discrimination
– Gave equal access to public
accommodations
Fighting for Voting Rights
• CORE and SNCC worked to register as
many African-American voters as
possible
– Project is known as Freedom Summer
– Attempt to influence Congress to pass
as voting rights bill
• College Students were trained to help
the project
• Met with resistance and violence
A New Political Party
• African Americans needed a political
voice
• SNCC organized the Mississippi
Freedom Democratic Party
• Fannie Lou Hamer spoke at the
Democratic National Convention in 1964
– Support poured in for the MFDP
– Civil Rights leaders compromised with
the Democratic Party (MFDP got two
seats in Congress)
Selma Campaign
• SNCC led a voting rights campaign in
Selma, Alabama
• After a demonstrator was shot, MLK
organized a 50 mile march to
Montgomery
• Mayhem broke out and TV crews caught
police beating and gassing marchers
• Johnson presented a voting rights act
and gave marchers federal protection
Voting Rights Act of 1965
• Eliminated literacy tests
• Local officials could not deny
suffrage
• The percentage of African American
voters tripled in the south
21.3 Overview
 Disagreements among civil rights groups and the rise of black
nationalism created a violent period in the fight for civil rights.
 New Leaders Voice Discontent:
 Malcolm X
 Stokely Carmichael
 Black Panthers
Tragedies:
Malcolm X assassinated February 1965 in Harlem
MLK assassinated April 1968 in Memphis
About Malcolm X
"…I always had a deep affection for Malcolm and felt that he
had a great ability to put his finger on the existence and the
root of the problem. He was an eloquent spokesman for his
point of view and no one can honestly doubt that Malcolm had
a great concern for the problems we face as a race."
-- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in a telegram to Betty Shabazz
after the murder of Malcolm X.
Malcolm X
• Malcolm X (1925-1965)- controversial leader of the
Nation of Islam.
• Malcolm’s childhood was horrific. Father Earl
murdered by White supremacists, mother Louise
suffered mental breakdown; Malcolm left on his
own.
• Malcolm was a bright student, wanted to be lawyer.
• Dropped out, led to period of crime.
• "My High school was a black ghetto in Roxbury, right here in Boston.
I've got my College education on the streets of Harlem in New York
City and I took my Masters Degree in prison." -Malcolm X
• While in prison, Malcolm joins Nation of Islam, preached Blacks
should separate from Whites.
• Follower of Elijah Muhammad (Leader of Nation of Islam).
• Malcolm’s views frighten Whites and moderate Blacks because
he called for armed self-defense.
• Eventually split with Muhammad.
• Pilgrimage to Mecca changes Malcolm’s views.
– No longer a racial separatist.
– Favored ballots over bullets.
MLK
Malcolm X
Conclusions
• Both wanted a better life for African Americans.
• King preached racial equality and nonviolence.
• Initially, Malcolm X preached black separatism
and armed self-defense.
• MLK was understood, Malcolm X was
misunderstood.
• Both promoted pride in African American culture
and education.