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America’s Second Reconstruction

America’s Second Reconstruction. The Civil Rights Movement, 1954 - 1968. The Unfinished Business of Reconstruction. In what ways had African Americans experienced success during the Reconstruction era? In what ways had Reconstruction failed African Americans?

hunter-emerson
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America’s Second Reconstruction

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  1. America’s Second Reconstruction The Civil Rights Movement, 1954 - 1968

  2. The Unfinished Business of Reconstruction • In what ways had African Americans experienced success during the Reconstruction era? • In what ways had Reconstruction failed African Americans? • Where did African Americans stand in American society by 1950?

  3. The Need for a Civil Rights Movement • Key Events in African American History, 1857 - 1900 • Dred Scott Decision (1857) • Civil War Amendments (1865 – 1869) • Vigilante “justice”, the KKK, and lynchings (1870s-1960s) • Plessy vs. Ferguson Court Case (1896) • Jim Crow Laws

  4. The Need for a Civil Rights Movement • Key Events in African American History, 1900 – 1950 • Creation of NAACP (1910) • Great Migration (1916 – 1920) • Harlem Renaissance (1920s) • WWII and the “Double V” Campaign (1941 – 1945) • Truman’s desegregation of the military (1947)

  5. School Desegregation Brown Family, Topeka, KS Thurgood Marshall and NAACP lawyers following the Brown decision

  6. School Desegregation: Southern Opposition Protesting Desegregation in Alabama Protesting Desegregation in Arkansas

  7. School Desegregation: State vs. Federal Authority

  8. Roots of the Movement (1954 – 1957) • Brown vs. Bd of Ed • Legal justification for desegregation based on 14th Amendment • Separate can never be equal • Emmett Till Murder • Generated anger  change • Montgomery Bus Boycott • Proved the power of non-violent direct action • Leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

  9. High Tide of the Movement (1957 – 1965) • Creation of Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957 • Built on energy of Montgomery Bus Boycott • Organization of ministers and community leaders; led by King • Message • 20th Century Social Gospel • Christians have a responsibility to make society better and more just • Nonviolent Resistance (Ghandi) • Highly confrontational, but not violent • Civil Disobedience (Thoreau) • Peacefully disobey unjust laws • Love, not hate (Jesus Christ)

  10. High Tide of the Movement(1957 – 1965) • Student Involvement and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) – 1960 • Biracial and “grassroots organizing” • Worked with SCLC, but more radical and impatient for change • Sit-In Movement • Attempt to desegregate lunch counters using nonviolent, direct action and civil disobedience • Greensboro, NC and Nashville, TN • Boycotts of national chains in support of movement

  11. Sit-In Movement Greensboro, NC 1960 Northern support for sit-ins Being jailed was a “badge of honor” to many SNCC members

  12. Sit-In Movement Jackson, Mississippi 1963 @ Woolworth’s

  13. High Tide of the Movement(1957 – 1965) • Election of 1960

  14. High Tide of the Movement(1957 – 1965) • Freedom Riders (May 1961) • CORE and SNCC participation • Testing federal interstate bus desegregation mandates • Create a crisis situation that forces the federal government to intervene • Trouble in the Deep South • Anniston, AL • Birmingham and Montgomery, AL • Robert Kennedy and federal intervention • Jackson, MS – riders arrested and sentenced to 60 days in prison

  15. Freedom Riders Rider Jim Zwerg – Montgomery, AL riots Bus Burnings – Anniston, AL

  16. High Tide of the Movement(1957 – 1965) • 1963: “the year of the Negro Revolution” – Dr. King • Birmingham, AL (April 1963) • Most racially segregated and explosive city in the South • End segregation here  symbolically end it everywhere • King, Shuttlesworth, SCLC organize to desegregate the city • Boycotted stores • Public demonstrations and protests • King arrested “Letter from Birmingham Jail” – a defense of civil disobedience • Children’s Crusade – May 2 • Why kids? • 900+kids arrested  “Fill up the jails” • Reactions of Bull Connor  dogs, fire hoses, tear gas • Americans and the world shocked, horrified

  17. High Tide of the Movement(1957 – 1965) • Birmingham Campaign and March on Washington (1963)  Civil Rights Act of 1964 • Outlawed discrimination in all public accommodations; equal employment opportunities • Voting Rights • 24th Amendment (1964) – no poll taxes • Freedom Summer (Mississippi 1964) – Bob Moses and SNCC • Selma – Montgomery March (March 1965) • Jimmie Lee Jackson’s murder  people need to constructively grieve • Violence at Edmond Pettus Bridge – “Bloody Sunday” (March 7) • Use of media  national condemnation; issue of human rights • SNCC vs. SCLC • SCLC  build support for new voting rights legislation • SNCC  impatient for change; work locally • Lowndes County Freedom Organization  Black Panther Party • March resumed on March 21 under protection of federalized AL National Guard (LBJ); 25,000 marchers • Voting Rights Act – August 1965 • Banned literacy tests • Federal authority to register voters • Tripled African American voting #’s in 1 year • 5 days later  Watts riots in LA

  18. Challenges and Dissent in the Movement: 1965 - 1968 • De jure segregation vs. de facto segregation • Mid 1960s  70% of Af. Am. live in cities • Do African Americans work as insiders to integrate peacefully into the established system? • Do African Americans work as outsiders who demand an equal, if not separate, position in American society taken by force if necessary? • Do “civil rights” include a guarantee to earn a decent living and enjoy a respectable standard of living?

  19. Challenges and Dissent in the Movement: 1965 - 1968 March 26, 1964

  20. Challenges and Dissent in the Movement: 1965 - 1968 • Urban Race Riots (northern cities 1965 – 1968)  a reflection of growing frustrations over economic and social inequalities • “White flight”  black ghettos • Police brutality • Kerner Commission (1968) • White racist attitudes to blame • Separate, but unequal society developing • Kerner Commission’s solution • Federal involvement to equalize employment, educational, and housing opportunities (context: Great Society) • Black Panther Party Solution (1966) • Take control of own communities  establish social services • Meet violence with violence; armed self-defense

  21. Challenges and Dissent in the Movement: 1965 - 1968 Current race relations http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrp-v2tHaDo – Obama’s “More Perfect Union Speech – March 2008 Your assessment of current relations? Some current statistics: 57% of African American and Hispanic students graduate from high school (78% of whites) 27% of African Americans live in poverty; 26% of Hispanics live in poverty (15% for total population) 25-30% of Af. Am. and Hispanic students attend schools that are non-integrated

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