The Civil Rights Movement

1. The Civil Rights Movement Know? Want to Know? Learned?

2. The CRM

3. The CRM Voices from the past: “We shall overcome, we shall overcome, We shall overcome someday. Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe, We shall overcome someday.” • From a song important during the CRM.

4. The CRM • Objectives for today: • To understand the scope of the Civil Rights Movement through the figures who played a vital part in it: • Linda Brown • Rosa Parks • Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. • John F. Kennedy • Lyndon B. Johnson • Malcolm X • Stokely Carmichael • Text: Chapter 32 • Quiz: Friday, April 11

5. The CRM • Review • The Civil Rights Movement should be seen as concurrent, and not subsequent, to the Cold War. • It refers to a period of civil unrest seeking equal treatment under the law. • In America, it began in the 1950s, and some would argue that it has not ended.

6. The CRM • Outline • Linda Brown • Rosa Parks • Martin Luther King Jr. • Tactics • Repercussions

7. Linda Brown • Third-grader Linda Brown is not allowed to attend Sumner Elementary, which was four blocks from her home in Kansas. • Instead, she must ride the bus five miles to a segregated school. • Her father sues the school board of Topeka for not allowing Linda to attend the all-white school near their home.

8. Linda Brown

9. Linda Brown • In 1954, the Supreme Court makes a landmark ruling that overturns a previous case. • Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) stated “separate but equal.” • Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas rules that separate does not mean equal, and that it was unconstitutional to separate schoolchildren by race.

10. Linda Brown • Ramifications • Prior to the ruling, everything from swimming pools and water fountains to prisons and morgues were segregated. • White schools were well-maintained and staffed, while black schools were usually single-room shacks with no toilet, a single teacher, and a broken chalkboard. • America, and especially the South, would not obey this ruling without a fierce fight.

11. Linda Brown • Chief Justice Earl Warren: • “Does segregation of children in public schools…deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does…in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” • The ruling was unanimous.

12. Rosa Parks • December 1955 • Parks, a seamstress from Montgomery, Alabama boards a segregated bus. • All the seats for blacks are occupied, so she takes a seat up front, which are reserved for white riders. • For refusing to give it up, she is arrested.

13. Rosa Parks

14. Rosa Parks

15. Rosa Parks • Significance of the event: • The CRM was gaining momentum, but needed a spark. • Rosa Parks was that spark. • She attended a church called Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, whose pastor was 27 year old Martin Luther King Jr. • He was asked to lead the bus boycott in Montgomery that followed Parks’ arrest.

16. MLK Jr. • In the 1950s and 60s, Dr. King was at once one of the most admired and despised men in America. • King shaped the civil rights movement using the moral teachings of his Christian faith – love, forgiveness, humility, faith, hope, and community – as its cornerstones. • He also borrowed two ideas: • Nonviolence – Mahatma Gandhi • Civil disobedience – Henry David Thoreau

19. “I Have a Dream”

20. Tactics • Sit-Ins (1959-60) • African-Americans throughout the South sat at segregated lunch counters. • They refused to leave until they were served.

23. Tactics • The Freedom Riders (1961) • Civil rights activists, black and white, rode buses into segregated terminals throughout the South. • In cities including Anniston and Birmingham (AL), they were attacked by racist mobs, clubbed, and firebombed. • By 1964, registered black voters in the South had risen from 25% to 40%. • This result is largely credited to the work of the Freedom Riders.

26. Tactics • March on Washington (August 1963) • On the 100th anniversary of the E.P. • 200,000 demonstrators converge on the capital, to urge President Kennedy to pass a civil rights bill. • Site of the famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

27. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal’…And when this happens, and when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all God’s children…[will] join hands and sing in the words of the old…spiritual: ‘Free at last, Free at last, Thank God Almighty, we’re free at last.’

28. Tactics • Black Muslims (Nation of Islam) • Led by Elijah Muhammad. • Malcolm X • Black Nationalism: • The idea that blacks should completely separate from white society and form their own self-governing communities. • Their methods were often at odds with King’s nonviolent integration philosophy.

30. Tactics • Black Power • Stokely Carmichael • Taking social, political and economic control – by violent means if necessary. • Rejected assimilation, and promoted black racial pride and leadership. • The Black Panthers were a militant arm of the Black Power movement.

34. Tactics • Urban Riots • In major metropolitan areas such as Harlem, Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, Watts and San Francisco. • Disturbed whites because blacks in the North were thought to enjoy greater freedom than their counterparts in the South. • Discontent over a lack of better jobs, low pay and poor living conditions. • 1968: Dr. King is assassinated, touching off weeks of rioting across the country.

38. Repercussions • The Women’s Rights Movement • The fight for economic and political status. • Shirley Chisholm – first African-American to serve in the House felt that discrimination she faced for being a woman was greater than that for being black. • NOW (National Organization for Women) – 1966 • ERA (Equal Rights Amendment) – 1972

40. Repercussions • Latin-American Activism • 1943 – Sylvia Mendez (8) is turned away from Westminster Elementary because she is Mexican. • Her father files a lawsuit against the school district and wins the case in 1946. • This decision lays the groundwork for the more famous Brown v. Board ruling in 1954. • 1965 – Cesar Chavez successfully boycotts California grape growers, who sign a contract with his union, the United Farm Workers. • 1970s – Second largest minority in America.

45. Repercussions • The Native-American Effort • A movement to preserve cultural identity. • The U.S. attempted to force Native Americans to assimilate into white society.