Voting Rights and the Great Society

1. Voting Rights and the Great Society Objective: Explain Johnson’s role in the civil rights movement; explain division within the movement

2. Explain the purpose of Freedom Summer • Literacy tests, poll taxes, and violence were used in the south to keep African-Americans from voting. • Civil Rights Act of 1964 banned different voting standards for blacks and whites. • 24th Amendment outlawed poll taxes

3. Despite the laws, African-Americans still faced difficulty voting in the south • 1964, SNCC organized a voter-registration drive in the south called Freedom Summer • SNCC brought college students from the north to help register African-American voters in Mississippi

4. Volunteers endured bombings, beatings, arrests, and murder • 1965 – MLK and SCLC organize voter registration drive and protest march in Alabama • March 7 – protestors are attacked crossing a bridge in Selma • Violence was broadcast on national tv

5. President Johnson warned he would tolerate no more violence and sent troops to protect the march • August 6, 1965- President Johnson signed into law the Voting Rights Act • Law banned literacy tests and other laws that kept blacks from registering to vote

6. Law also sent federal officials to register voters • African-Americans voter registrations rose from 10% to 60% in Selma within weeks

7. Explain Johnson’s Great Society program • Great Society – provided a series of programs to help those deprived of the rights of citizenship – especially the right to vote, the poor, the elderly, and women. • Included legislation to promote education, end discrimination, and protect the environment

8. 1965 – Medical Care Act established Medicare and Medicaid programs to assist the aged and the poor with medical care • 1965 – Elementary and Secondary School Act – provided federal aid to education

9. Divisions in the Movement • Objective: Explain divisions in the civil rights movement

10. Describe the disagreement between civil rights leaders • SCLC and other organizations want to expand the nonviolent struggle • Others want the movement to become more aggressive • Protests were held in Chicago where there were no laws that denied African-Americans civil rights but where whites discriminated against them

11. Despite protests, few changes were made • African-Americans are frustrated by their lack of political power • Frustration leads to a series of riots in the late 1960s.

12. Explain how the civil rights movement changed after King’s assassination • April 4, 1968 – King is assassinated • African-American neighborhoods explode in anger, riots kill over 45 people • Some African-Americans begin to reject nonviolence and cooperation with whites

13. SNCC forces white members out of the organization • SNCC’s new leader calls for “black power” and wants blacks to create organizations under their own control to fight white racism

14. Describe the goals of the Nation of Islam • Nation of Islam urged African Americans to separate from whites • Groups most popular member was Malcolm X • Mid-1960’s Malcolm X rejected the separatist ideas and left the group

15. Malcolm X began to envision a world where all races could live together in peace • 1965 – Malcolm X is gunned down by members of the Nation of Islam