The Civil Rights Movement

1. The Civil Rights Movement 18.1: The Movement Begins

2. Today’s Agenda • Presentations (Day 34) • Begin 18.1 • Homework • Read 18.1 • Notebook check tomorrow • All remaining Civil Rights presentations must go by Thurs!!!!

3. Let’s Review • What was the Compromise of 1877? • What were Jim Crow Laws? • What is the significance of the Plessy v. Ferguson case? • What is lynching? • Strange Fruit • Why did we fight Nazi Germany during WWII?

4. Some returning WWII said that they felt hypocritical after they returned home to America. Why?

5. What made the African American “invisible” in 1950s society according to did novelist Ralph Ellison? • Segregation (in the South) • Separation of blacks and whites through state and local laws • Public schools, buses, waiting rooms, restaurants • Affirmed by Plessy v Ferguson (1896) • “separate but equal” constitutional • De Facto Segregation (in the North) • Separation (in fact but not by law) • Levittown, neighborhoods, school districts

7. Emmitt Till Presentation

8. Describe the NAACPs strategy for ending segregation. • National Association for the Advancement of Colored People • Had planned on challenging “separate but equal” on graduate schools • Would cost too much to make them “equal” • Force states to integrate • Instead decided to directly challenge the whole concept of segregation • Thurgood Marshall (leader of NAACP) • Picked Kansas school district to challenge segregation • Hoped to lose there Why?

9. Describe the case of Brown v the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954). • Black schools in Topeka were good • “Equal” facilities • Linda Brown • Age 7 • Walked over RR switching yard to catch a bus to school (miles away) • All white school just blocks from her house • Supreme Court Decision (Warren Court) • Said that segregation is harmful to children even if the facilities are equal • “may affect their hearts and minds …” • Inherently unconstitutional • Said integration should take place “at the earliest possible date.” Click for Clip

10. How did the South react to the decision? "This unwarranted exercise of power by the Court, contrary to the Constitution, is creating chaos and confusion in the States principally affected. It is destroying the amicable relations between the white and Negro races that have been created through 90 years of patient effort by the good people of both races. It has planted hatred and suspicion where there has been heretofore friendship and understanding." • Strong resistance • Passed over 450 laws to prevent integration • Virginia cut off state $ to integrated schools • George Wallace, governor of Alabama (1963) • “I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” • Blocked door of University of Alabama to prevent integration • Southern Manifesto • Statement which praised states who resisted integration • Signed by 100 southern congressmen • Lyndon B. Johnson (Texas) was one of only Senators who refused to sign

11. Little Rock Nine Presentation

12. Who were the Little Rock Nine? • 1st African American students to attend all white southern school • Little Rock Central H.S. (1957) • Superintendent planned to integrate 9 African Americans • Gov. Faubus resisted: • Ordered National Guard to prevent integration • Allowed mob intimidation to drive them away • Eisenhower sent 101st Airborne to protect schools • School district closed following year • Finally reopened 1959 and obeyed Brown decision

13. The Little Rock Nine