African American Civil Rights Movement

1. African American Civil RightsMovement Events and reform movements aimed at abolishing private and public acts of racial discrimination

2. Study Guide Identifications • Litigation and Lobbying efforts • Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka, KS • Jim Crow and Jane Crow • Civil Disobedience and Direct Action • Emmet Till • Montgomery Bus Boycott, Greensboro Sit in, Children’s Crusade • Black Panthers, Malcolm X

3. Study Guide Questions • What were two phases of the African American Civil Rights Movement? • What strategies were used in the struggle for civil rights? • What were examples of Civil Rights Legislation and tactics used to ensure new laws were enforced? • Why is the Civil Rights Movement referred to by some historians as the Second Reconstruction?

4. Prior to 1955 • The Civil Rights Movement prior to 1955 confronted discrimination against African Americans with a variety of strategies. • These included litigation and lobbying efforts by traditional organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). • The crowning achievement of these efforts was the legal victory in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), • made segregation legally impermissible, but provided few practical remedies.

5. Jim Crow • Required or permitted acts of discrimination against African Americans fell mainly into four categories: • (1) racial segregation – upheld by the United States Supreme Court decision in Plessey v. Ferguson in 1896 - which was legally mandated by southern states and by many local governments outside the south • (2) voter suppression or disfranchisement in the southern states; • (3) denial of economic opportunity or resources nationwide • (4) private acts of violence and mass racial violence aimed at African Americans, which were often encouraged and seldom hindered by government authorities. • The combination in the southern states of overtly racial laws, public and private acts of discrimination, marginal economic opportunity, and racial violence became known as "Jim Crow".

6. Post Civil War • White perpetrated riots ultimately terrorized and killed 1,000’s of African Americans • Shady Grove, Louisiana: 200 blacks dead • Cross Plains Alabama: White teacher & 6 black students lynched • Texas: 1865 – 1868 2,225 offenses and 500 murders against blacks • 1882 – 1937 3,700 blacks lynched in America • Memphis Riots May 1 – 3, 1866 • 46 blacks killed, 70 wounded • 5 women raped • 4 churches, 12 schools, 91 homes destroyed in black community

7. 1900’s Violence continued • Riots continued 1917-1921 • Vicksburg, MS February 13, 1904 • Guilty for being Luther Hubert’s wife (He was accused of killing a white man) • She was tied to a tree, chopped her fingers off, poked out an eyeball with a stick, inserted a large corkscrew into their bodies and “tore out big pieces of raw, quivering flesh” • St. Louis IL, 1917 • 2 days left 150 blacks dead • Georgia 1918 unknown black man killed a white farmer • 11 blacks murdered • Woman who protested the innocence of her husband was tied to a tree from her ankles, poured petrol on her clothing, burned her to death. In the process her 8 mo. Old baby was born and kicked to and fro by the mob.

8. Rationalization of terror • Southern whites claimed that the reason for all the carnage was simple: • black men were animals whose sexual drive has been unleashed by emancipation and the false idea of racial equality. • White women therefore needed to be protected by the noble sons of the confederacy from the insatiable lust of freedmen. • One defender of lynching proclaimed in 1918, “As the world is to be made safe for democracy, so ought the south to be made free for white women.”

9. Violence through WWII • 1921, Tulsa, Ok. After 3 days of rioting, 200 blacks dead • Riots continued while white authorities disarmed African Americans and black neighborhoods • Allowed armed whites to continue terrorizing

10. Phases of Civil Rights2nd Reconstruction • 1954 and 1968: • Litigation & lobbying efforts • Crowning achievement Brown Vs. the Board of Education, Topeka, Kansas (1954) overturned Plessey Vs. Ferguson (1896) • 1966 to 1975, Black Power Movement • enlarged and gradually eclipsed the aims of the Civil Rights Movement to include racial dignity, economic and political self-sufficiency, and freedom from white authority.

11. Civil Riots Pre-1955 • Strategies to fight discrimination • Litigation & lobbying efforts • Brown Vs. Board of Education of Topeka, 1954 • Overturned separate but equal established by Plessey Vs. Ferguson • Failure of Change through legal means • Direct Action + Non-violent Resistance = Civil Disobedience • Created crisis situation of which the government had to respond • Boycotts, sit-ins, Marches, Freedom Rides

12. 1954-1968 Civil Rights • Civil Disobedience • Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-1956) in Alabama • Greensboro sit-in (1960) in North Carolina; • Selma to Montgomery marches (1965) in Alabama. • Notable achievements: • Civil Rights Act of 1957 • Civil Rights Act of 1964 • banned discrimination in employment practices and public accommodations • Voting Rights Act of 1965 • restored voting rights • Immigration and Nationality Services Act of 1965 • dramatically changed U.S. immigration policy • Civil Rights Act of 1968 • banned discrimination in the sale or rental of housing.

13. Domestic Terrorism • Murders of African Americans common & no legal protection or recourse • Emmett Till, 1955 • Beaten & murdered “for whistling at a white woman” • Open casket, 50,000 viewed • Murderer’s acquitted by an all white male jury, later confessed & remained free • Galvanized opinion in the north

14. Montgomery Bus Boycott1955-56 • Rosa Parks December 1, 1955 led the boycott • Refused to give up her seat • Arrested, tried, convicted for disorderly conduct & violating a local ordinance • 50 civil rights leaders organized boycott • 382 days • Local ordinance establishing segregation lifted • Martin Luther King Jr. rose to national attention

16. Desegregating Little Rock, 1957 • Supreme Court, Brown Vs. Board of Education • 9 students sued to attend an integrated school • Governor of Arkansas Orval Faubus called out National Guard to prevent the students from attending • President Eisenhower federalized the National Guard and deployed 101st Airborne division to protect the students • Due to continuing harassment only Ernest Greet graduated, the school shut down rather than integrate further

17. Greensboro Sit In • Greensboro, North Carolina; Nashville, Tennessee; Atlanta Georgia • Sit Ins at lunch counters to protest those establishments refusal to desegregate • Technique used in the mid-west in the 1940s by the Congress of Racial Equality • Success led to student campaigns throughout the south in every public place • When Arrested made a “Jail no Bail” Pledge to call attention to their cause and to put financial burden of jail space and food on jailers

18. 1957

19. Mississippi, 1962 • Robert Moses organized The Council of Federated Organizations (SNCC, NAACP, Committee On Racial Equality) • to address the most dangerous of all southern states • Medgar Evers • Door-to-Door voter education projects in rural Mississippi & to recruit students • murdered in drive way later that year

20. Freedom Riders • Anniston, Alabama • bus was firebombed, forcing its passengers to flee for their lives. • Birmingham, Al. • FBI informant reported that Public Safety Commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor had encouraged the Ku Klux Klan to attack an incoming group of freedom riders "until it looked like a bulldog had got a hold of them," the riders were severely beaten. • Montgomery, AL. • a mob charged another bus load of riders, knocking John Lewis unconscious with a crate • smashed Life photographer Don Urbrock in the face with his own camera. • A dozen men surrounded Jim Zwerg, a white student from Fisk University, and beat him in the face with a suitcase, knocking out his teeth.

21. Desegregating Univ. of Miss. • Clyde Kennard, 1960 • Univ. of Southern Mississippi • Racial agitator • Convicted of crime he didn’t commit – 7 yr sentence, 3 yrs served • James Meredith, 1962 • Won lawsuit • Governor Ross Barnett barred from entering • "no school will be integrated in Mississippi while I am your Governor". • U.S. Marshall’s escorted Meredith on Campus • Whites rioted: 2 killed, 28 Marshals shot, 160 others injured • Kennedy sent in army to quell uprising • Meredith began classes next day

22. Children’s Crusade • 1963, SCLC, create Crisis to agitate for desegregation • “Letter from Birmingham” • “Children’s Crusade” • High School students joined demonstrations • 2nd day Bull Connor: Police dogs, fired hoses (separate mortar from bricks) televised • Kennedy forced to intervene between white business community and SCLC • May 10, agreement to desegregate public places

23. March for Jobs & Freedom • August 28, 1963 • 2nd March Led by Randolph and Bayard Rustin civil rights, labor and liberal organizations joined • Goals • Meaningful civil rights laws (Civil Rights Bill) • Massive Federal Works Programs • Full and Fair employment • Decent housing • The vote • Adequate integrated education • King with an audience of 200,000 “I have A Dream”

24. John Lewis • We march today for jobs and freedom, but we have nothing to be proud of, for hundreds and thousands of our brothers are not here—for they have no money for their transportation, for they are receiving starvation wages…or no wages at all. In good conscience, we cannot support the administration's civil rights bill. • This bill will not protect young children and old women from police dogs and fire hoses when engaging in peaceful demonstrations. This bill will not protect the citizens of Danville, Virginia, who must live in constant fear in a police state. This bill will not protect the hundreds of people who have been arrested on trumped-up charges like those in Americus, Georgia, where four young men are in jail, facing a death penalty, for engaging in peaceful protest. • I want to know, which side is the federal government on? The revolution is a serious one. Mr. Kennedy is trying to take the revolution out of the streets and put it in the courts. Listen Mr. Kennedy, the black masses are on the march for jobs and for freedom, and we must say to the politicians that there won't be a 'cooling-off period'.

25. Backlash • Church Bombing, Birmingham, Alabama • 4 girls killed • Response to success of march on Washington • Young people changed the city, retaliated against

26. Mississippi Freedom Summer 1964 • COFO brought more than a hundred college students, many from outside the state, • Register voters, • Teach in "Freedom Schools" • Organize the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party . • Civil rights workers murdered by members of the Klan • James Chaney, • two white volunteers, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, • They & many other bodies of missing African Americans found in an earthen dam outside Philadelphia, Mississippi. • Shot &savagely beaten

27. Backlash against King • Edgar J. Hoover, director of FBI • Racist • Surveillance of King, political attack • Nobel Peace Prize • Civil rights message for the world • Pushing boundaries of original movement

28. Selma & Voting Rights Act 1965 • Voter Registration in Selma, Alabama • February King arrested with 250 others • Violent resistance from police, Jimmie Lee Jackson killed • March Hosea Williams of the SCLC and John Lewis of SNCC led a march of 600 people who intended to walk the 54 miles from Selma to the state capital in Montgomery. • six blocks into the march • state troopers and local law enforcement, • attacked the peaceful demonstrators with billy clubs, tear gas, rubber tubes wrapped in barbed wire and bull whips

29. Voting Rights Act 1965 • National broadcast of police brutality and continual murders of activists provoked response • Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act 1965 • suspended poll taxes, literacy tests and other voter tests • authorized federal supervision of voter registration in states and individual voting districts where such tests were being used. • authorized the Attorney General of the United States to send federal examiners to replace local registrars.

30. Voter Turnout • ¼ million new black voters registered • First 4 yrs • Voter registration doubled • 74-92% turnout in the south • Changed political landscape of south • Number of elective offices held in U.S. by African Americans increased from 100 to 12,000 by 1989.

31. King’s Evolution • Attempt to Broaden Civil Rights Movement • 1965 called for peace negotiations and halt to bombing of Vietnam • Began moving towards socialism • Need for economic justice in America • Efforts to take movement North to Chicago to address employment and Housing discrimination unsuccessful in 1966

32. Cold War Context • King • Malcolm X • Appeal to Third World • Hypocrisy of United States as “Leader of a Free World” • Factor in pushing government towards civil rights legislation

33. Malcolm X • Denounced Civil Rights Movement • King’s gradualist & non-violent approach was irrelevant to social & economic problems • Endorsed self-defense & rights “By any means necessary” • Renewal of pride in African American cultural practices • Economic Reconstruction • Murdered in 1965

34. Police • Police relations brutal and corrupt • Ignored due process • Used excessive force • Disrespectful and abusive language • Viewed as Brutal occupying army • 1965 – Frye Brothers prompted Watts Riots

35. Watts Riots 1965 • 10,000 people rebellion • Looted, burned white owned businesses • 40 million dollars in damage

36. Watts Riots 1965 • National Guard restored order leaving • 31 black dead, 3 non-black dead, 100’s injured, 4,000 arrested • Produced little change to address real issues • Marked transition from non-violent to violent civil rights action

37. Race Riots • Due to conditions riots broke out across America: 1966-1967 • Atlanta, San Francisco, Oakland, Baltimore, Seattle, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus, Newark, Chicago, New York City (specifically in Brooklyn, Harlem and the Bronx) Detroit • 1964 Kennedy Assassinated • 1968 Martin Luther King Jr. Assassinated • Wave of new rioting, • Johnson ordered major reforms in employments and public assistance

38. Impact of Riots • President Johnson had created the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders in 1967. • The commission's final report called for major reforms in employment and public assistance sent to black communities everywhere • Affirmative Action helped in the hiring process of more black police officers in every major city

39. Black Power Movement • Conservatives such as Reagan • subversive agitators were provoking violence • only firm commitment to law would ease racial tensions • Social activists replied • Racism • Lack of educational & employment opportunities • Inadequate government remedies produced despair and outbursts of racial violence

40. Black Power & KKK • In 1966 SNCC leader Stokely Carmichael also took Black Power to another level. • He urged African American communities to confront the white supremacist group known as the Ku Klux Klan armed and ready for battle because he felt it was the only way to ever rid the communities of the terror caused by the Klan. • Listening to this, several Blacks confronted the Ku Klux Klan armed and as a result the Klan stopped terrorizing their communities.

41. Black Power Movement • 1968, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, while being awarded the gold and bronze medals Summer Olympics • human rights badges and each raised a black-gloved Black Power salute during their podium ceremony. • Smith and Carlos were immediately ejected from the games • a permanent lifetime ban • the Black Power movement had now been given a stage on live, international television.

42. Black Power • Growing radical movements • Cultural pride • Community self-defense and determination • Solidarity and 3rd world peoples • Socialist critiques of Capitalism • Stokely Carmichael – “Black Power”

43. Black Panthers • Merrit College Students: Newton and Seale • Founded political party in Oakland California – Black Panthers • Demands: • Full employment • Decent housing • End to police brutality • Power to determine own destiny of community • Education – true history • Release blacks from prison – no fair or impartial trial • Refusal to fight against other people of color in the world who are also being victimized by American white racist government

44. Social Progress • Asserted 2nd amendment right to bear arms in defense of community from racist police oppression and brutality – called militant • Overshadowed: • After school free breakfast programs • Community clinics • Voter registration drives • Concerns for education • Prison reform

45. Murder of Panthers • Response to activism • Police intensified repression, began arresting and harassing party members • Minister of Defense, Newton (1967) • Minister of Education, Eldridge Cleaver (1968) • FBI and Police joined forces, murdered 28 members leading to party’s decline

46. Legacy • Empowered community • Ignited Student Movement for black and ethnic studies program • Began to reclaim and celebrate history and culture • Registered 30,000 voters • Elected black city officials • John George – Alameda’s 1st black superintendent (1966) • Lionel Wilson – Oakland's 1st black mayor (1977)

47. “Red Power” • Response to Termination Program of the 1950s, relocation, poverty and broken treaties • Advocated: • Cultural pride • Intertribal unity • Mutual aid • Foundation of movement 1950-60s • Intertribal Friendship House (Oakland) • San Francisco Indian Center • Bay area Council of American Indians

48. Militancy • 1969 Alcatraz Island “Taking the Rock” • Led by Richard Oaks and included Edward Castillo (Cahuilla-Luiseno) presently a full professor at UC (Northern California)

49. Legacy • Re-established identity at Indian people with a culture and as a political entity • President Nixon • Ended termination • Restored millions of acres of land to several tribes • Increased federal spending on housing, health, legal and economic development

50. Asian Movement • Declaration of Asian American Political Alliance Viewed society • Historically racist • Systematically employs social and economic imperialism • Domestically and internationally exploits all non-whites to benefit a wealthy minority • Repealed Alien Land Law Act 1956 • Walter McCarren Act • Dismantled anti-Asian policies • called for detention and deportation of citizens suspected of Acts of Espionage or sabotage • Imposed tougher restrictions on illegal immigrations