THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

1. THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT “KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE PRIZE!”

2. CIVIL WAR AMENDMENTS • 13TH ENDS SLAVERY • 14TH GRANTS CITIZENSHIP AND THE EQUAL PROTECTION OF THE LAW. • 15TH GRANTS BLACK MEN THE RIGHT TO VOTE.

3. THE RETURN OF WHITE SUPREMACY • RECONSTRUCTION ENDS IN 1877 • FEDERAL PROTECTION IS REMOVED. • JIM CROW (SEGREGATION) LAWS ARE PASSED. • LITERACY TESTS, POLL TAXES, AND INTIMIDATION TAKES AWAY VOTING RIGHTS.

4. THE SUPREME COURT RATIFIES SEGREGATION • PLESSY V FERGUSON 1896: ESTABLISHES THE “SEPARATE BUT EQUAL RULE.”

5. Eisenhower did not intend to be a "civil rights" president. -- Yet he was president during some of the most significant civil rights gains in U.S. history. • 1940s -- NAACP began to attack "separate but equal" by suing segregated colleges and universities; African Americans gained entrance into Southern universities. -- Elementary and secondary schools remained segregated. • Earl Warren appointed by Eisenhower as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in1953 -- Although viewed as a conservative, Warren would become the most significant Chief Justice of the 20th century and lead most liberal court of the 20th century.

6. BLACK LEADERSHIP IS DIVIDED • BOOKER T. WASHINGTON ARGUES FOR ACCOMMODATION • W.E.B. DuBOIS: ARGUES FOR CONFRONTATION AND LEGAL ACTION. • FORMS THE NIAGARA MOVEMENT AND THE NAACP.

7. MARCUS GARVEY • ARGUES FOR SEGREGATION • SELF HELP • RACIAL PRIDE • AND A RETURN TO AFRICA

8. THE CIVIL RIGHTS CHALLENGE • DE JURI SEGREGATION FOUND IN THE SOUTH. LAWS IMPOSE SEGREGATION. • DE FACTO SEGREGATION: SEGREGATION BY CUSTOM AND HOUSING PATTERNS. NOT ENFORCED BY LAW. FOUND IN THE NORTH AND THE WEST.

9. TRUMAN AND CIVIL RIGHTS • SUPPORTS NEW CIVIL RIGHTS LAW 1946 • CREATES THE CIVIL RIGHTS COMMISSION. • BANS DISCRIMINATION IN DEFENSE PLANTS. • DE SEGREGATES THE MILITARY IN 1948 BY EXECUTIVE ORDER.

10. Chief Justice Earl Warren persuaded fellow justices to overturn Plessy v. Ferguson. • "Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. It has no place in public education. • One year later, Court ordered school integration "with all deliberate speed."

11. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 1954 • NAACP filed suit on behalf of Linda Brown, a black elementary school student. • Topeka school board had denied Brown admission to an all-white school. • Case reached Supreme Court in 1954 • Thurgood Marshall represented Linda Brown • Charged that public school segregation violated the "equal protection" clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. • Segregation deprived blacks an equal educational opportunity. • Separate could not be equal because segregation in itself lowered the morale and motivation of black students.

12. Response to Brown v. Board of Education • Southern officials considered ruling a threat to state and local authority. • Eisenhower felt gov’t should not try to force segregation. -- Called appointment of Warren "my biggest mistake." • 80% of southern whites opposed Brown decision. • Some white students, encouraged by parents, refused to attend integrated schools. • KKK reemerged in a much more violent incarnation than in 1920s. • Southern state legislatures passed more than 450 laws and resolutions aimed at preventing enforcement of Brown decision. • "Massive Resistance" -- 1956, Virginia state legislature passed a massive resistance measure cutting off state aid to desegregated schools. • By 1962, only one-half of one percent of non-white school children in the South were in integrated schools.

13. Student movement • Nonviolence of students provoked increasingly hostile actions from those who opposed them. -- Some blacks were beaten, and harassed by white teen-agers. • Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee created by SCLC to better organize the movement. (SNCC pronounced "snick") • "Jail not Bail" became the popular slogan. • Students adopted civil disobedience when confronted with jail. • End of "Massive Resistance" -- 1959, federal and state courts nullified Virginia laws which prevented state funds from going to integrated schools.

14. GEORGE WALLACE • GOVERNOR OF ALABAMA: “SEGREGATION NOW AND SEGREGATION FOREVER.”

15. THE MOVEMENT BEGINS • DEC. 1955 ROSA PARKS REFUSES TO GIVE UP HER SEAT ON A BUS. • THE MONTGOMERY BUS BOYCOTT BEGINS ORGANIZED BY MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. “SOUTHERN CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE.” • LAST 381 DAYS • SUPREME COURT ORDER DESEGREGATION OF THE BUSES.

16. Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-56) • December 11, 1955, Rosa Parks arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, after refusing to give her bus seat to a white man; she was ordered to sit at the back of the bus. -- Found guilty and fined $14; over 150 others arrested and charged as well for boycotting buses during the following months. • Immediate calls for boycott ensued; nearly 80% of bus users were African Americans. • Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., leader of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, became a leader of the boycott; emerged as leader of civil rightsmovement. • Montgomery bus boycott lasted nearly 400 days. • King’s house was bombed. • 88 other African American leaders were arrested and fined for conspiring to boycott. • Supreme Court ruled that segregation on Montgomery buses was unconstitutional. -- On December 20, 1956, segregationists gave up.

17. Response to Brown v. Board of Education • Crisis in Little Rock, Arkansas, 1957 • Gov. Orval Faubus ordered National Guard to surround Central High School to prevent nine black students ("Little Rock Nine") from entering the school. • Federal court ordered removal of National Guard and allowed students to enter. -- Riots erupted and forced Eisenhower to act. • Eisenhower reluctantly ordered 1000 federal troops into Little Rock andnationalized the Arkansas National Guard, this time protecting students. -- First time since Reconstruction a president had sent federal troops into South to enforce the Constitution. • Next year, Little Rock public schools closed entirely. • White attended private schools or outside city schools. • Most blacks had no school to attend. • August 1959, Little Rock school board gave in to integration after another Supreme Court ruling.

18. CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE • KING ADOPTS CIVIL NON-VIOLENT DISOBEDIENCE AS A METHOD OF PROTEST. • “LETTERS FROM THE BIRMINGHAM JAIL” BY MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. • JUST LAWS AND UNJUST LAWS

19. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) • Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) -- King President in Jan. 1957 • Nonviolent resistance • King urged followers not to fight with authorities even if provoked. • King’s nonviolent tactics similar to Mohandas Gandhi (both were inspired by Henry David Thoreau’s On Civil Disobedience) • Use of moral arguments to changed minds of oppressors. • King linked nonviolence to Christianity: "Love one’s enemy." • Sit-ins became effective new strategy of nonviolence. • Students in universities and colleges all over U.S. vowed to integrate lunch counters, hotels, and entertainment facilities. • Greensboro sit-in (Feb. 1960): First sit-in by 4 North Carolina college freshmen at a Woolworth lunch counter for student being refused service. -- After thousands participated in the sit-in merchants in Greensboro gave in 6 months later • A wave of sit-ins occurred throughout the country. -- Targets were southern stores of national chains. • Variations of sit-ins emerged: "kneel-ins" for churches; "read-ins" in libraries; "wade-ins" at beaches; "sleep-ins" in motel lobbies.

20. SIT-IN DEMONSTRATIONS • ORGANIZED BY STUDENT NON-VIOLENT COORDINATING COMMITTEE • GREENSBORO, N.C. 1960 • SIT-INS CALL ATTENTION TO UNJUST SEGREGATION LAWS

21. THE FREEDOM RIDERS • COLLEGE STUDENT (BLACK AND WHITE) RIDE BUSES SOUTH TO DE-SEGREGATE BUS WAITING ROOMS. • BUSES ARE BOMBED • FREEDOM RIDERS BEATEN.

22. Freedom Rides • CORE: test Supreme Court decision to ban segregated seating on interstate bus routes • Wanted a violent reaction • White racist got on bus one: • Used chains, brass knuckles, and pistols • Beat Freedom Riders. • Bus Two was also attacked, and threw fire bombs into the bus • SNCC met them to continue the ride • Bus drivers feared their life, and did not want to continue…they were forced to do so. • White racists attacked the bus in Montgomery…got the reaction they needed and Kennedy gave them the support they needed with 400 US Marshalls.

25. THE MARCH ON WASHINGTON • 1963 HUNDREDS OF THOUSAND FILL THE MALL TO HEARD KING’S “I HAVE A DREAM SPEECH.” • THE SPEECH CAPTURES THE IMAGINATION THE THE PEOPLE.

26. THE MARCH ON MONTGOMERY • 1965- BLACK AND WHITES MARCH FROM SELMA TO MONTGOMERY TO PROTEST SEGREGATION IN ALABAMA. • THERE IS VIOLENCE ON THE BRIDGE ENTERING MONTGOMERY. • PRESIDENT JOHNSON SEND FEDERAL MARSHALS TO PROTECT THE MARCHERS.

27. JOHNSON & CIVIL RIGHT ACTS • JOHNSON CALLS FOR PASSAGE OF THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT IN A SPEECH. • HE ENDS THE SPEECH WITH THE PHRASE: “WE SHALL OVERCOME.” • CONGRESS PASSES THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT.

28. DR. KING MOVES NORTH • CALL FOR AN END TO DE FACTO SEGREGATION.

29. MORE MILITANT VOICES • THE BLACK MUSLIMS AND ELIJAH MUHAMMAD • MALCOLM X • MURDERED IN 1965 • STOCKLEY CARMICHAEL: “BLACK POWER.”

30. THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY • LEADER: HEWY NEWTON • FORMS THEIR OWN MILITIA • SEVERAL VIOLENT ENCOUNTERS WITH THE POLICE.

31. MARTIN LUTHER KING IS MURDERED. • APRIL 1968 • CONGRESS PASSES THE CIVIL RIGHT ACT OF 1968 • OUTLAWS DISCRIMINATION IN PUBLIC ACCOMMODATIONS