African American Struggle Event Slides

1. African American StruggleEvent Slides African American Unit Ethnic Studies Risha Krishna

2. President Quotes • “The two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government” Thomas Jefferson • There is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the declaration of independence, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” Abe Lincoln

3. Some Major Events • 1951 Barbara Johns (15 year old school girl who phones the principal on important school business, delivers notes to all teachers, calls an emergency meeting in the auditorium. She begins “her soliloquy”. She explains the school facilities are tarpaper shacks. In essence, saying separate is not equal, while other schools have bathrooms, locker rooms, cafeterias and a gym, Moton High School lacked all these. The Strike continued for days, NAACP included Johns strike as part of the next “Big Case”. • 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education • 1955 Emmett Till 14 year boy is slain while his 2 killers are set free • 1955 Claudette Colvin 16 year old school girl refuses to give up her seat on the bus, because she claims, “I paid, its my constitutional right” She attends a youth school led by Rosa Parks, who teaches them to stand up against injustice. • 1955 Rosa Parks who is inspired by Septima Clark in activism also knows Claudette Colvin. Frustrated to know, she is arrested and pregnant. Parks is arrested that afternoon. News comes out as a “tired seamstress” instead off an activist… NAACP takes this opportunity to seize the moment. This was Parks’s second refusal to give up her seat, she was no more tired that day than any other.

4. Montgomery Bus Boycott • “Why do you all push us around” Rosa Parks asked the policeman who arrested her for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man. • What seat do you think she was sitting in? 1-7, 8-13, 14-19, 19-22? • This wasn’t her first refusal to give up her seat, she had done this before and the bus driver threw her off the bus. • After Park’s arrest, Joann Robinson obtained Park’s approval and organized a one-day protest of the city’s buses. • 50,000 flyers were prepared. • Black ministers mentioned the boycott during their Sunday services. • Following the initial success of the campaign, Black residents continued the boycott through out 1956.

6. Bus Boycott Continued • A new organization was formed and a new young minister with exemplary oration skills was asked to be the President. • He was the minister of Dexter Baptist Church on Dexter street. His name MLK. • He made his first speech on the first night of the boycott. “If we are wrong, the Constitution of the United States is wrong..” • Extensive taxi service was set up. Taxi drivers charged the Black people the same low fare of 10 cents as a bus fare. Local white citizens who carpooled were fined for driving slow if caught with black people on board. • King was arrested and charged $1,000. King responded “freedom does not come on a silver platter.” • The city negotiated with King to end the boycott, in return for segregated buses to end.

8. Sit - Ins • On Feb. 1, 1960, four black college students refused to move out of the lunch counter reserved for whites only. They explained to the waitress since they had purchased lunch they should be allowed to sit and eat it. Without any confrontation, they returned the next day but with 2 dozen students, than on the 3rd day with more students. • This caught the attention of the media, “well dressed college students who ended their sit-ins with a prayer” • Students formed their own agencies. • 5 months later local authorities agreed to change store policies of segregated lunch counter. • The students had training for sit-ins. Smoke blown in your face. • Workshops on Gandhian nonviolence were taught. • Young leaders who later became major leaders in the civil rights movement were Diane Nash, and John Lewis.

10. Freedom Rides • On May 4th a group of 1 Freedom Riders, 7 black and 6 white boarded a Greyhound Bus in Washington, D.C. headed toward New Orleans, they hoped to arrive in safely on the 7th anniversary of Brown vs. Board of Education. • The riders made it safely until John Lewis and another rider tried to enter a whites only rest area at the bus station where they were brutally beaten. • Later the bus was ambushed by 200 whites. • Diane Nash organized another 10 riders with their wills in hand to for another ride. • Once the Kennedy group realized the student riders were going to continue the rides they asked the state authorities for bus protection. The state refused and eventually the Federal government was sent in for protection. • Under pressure Kennedy Administration issued regulations prohibiting segregation in bus and train terminals.

12. Birmingham(aka bombingham) • Most segregated city in the South • A hill known as dynamite hill for the most houses bombed. • Fred Shuttlesworth a local minister who wanted integration so his house was bombed. • King and Shuttlesworth organized a march through the city for they were later barred to do. • King marches again, and is arrested. From jail, written on scrapes of paper and finished on toilet paper he writes his famous letter from Birmingham Jail addressing the philosophy and tactics of the African American Non-violent movement. • Clarence Jones bails MLK out, today he’s writing his autobiography at Stanford MLK center. Infact, I met him while drafting this PP. • Height of the Cold War, Soviet Union uses this negative images and calls U.S disgraceful who does not stand up for democracy. S. Union also invites all A. Americans to take up residence in their country free of discrimination. • The Federal Government puts pressure on the local Birmingham authorties on end the segregation policies and negotiate with King and Shuttlesworth. The Fed. Gov’t is embarrassed by the news. Shuttlesworth negotiates a very key component, “blacks need to be hired in local jobs”

14. March on Washington • Bayard Rustin the chief organizer. Possessed by powerful intellect, he was responsible for much of the thinking behind the civil rights movement and was one of the major architects of its nonviolent protest tactics. • Influenced by Gandhi, King goes to visit Nehru in India. Gandhian Nonviolent school opened up all over the South. • Later he was seen as a communist and was on the Fed. List so MLK was forced to distance himself. • MLK delivered the “I Have a Dream” speech • The March on Washington was a demand for decent jobs and decent housing. • It was the largest civil rights demonstration ever held. A crowd of more than 200,000 in front of Lincoln Memorial. • The program of the day featured singers such as Bob Dylan and former Freedom Rider John Lewis. • “I have a dream that some day my 4 children will not be judged by the color of their skin” When King finished the huge crowd was utterly silent, but so overcome by King’s words wept opennly

15. John Lewis • King described him as “the boy from troy” because he grew up on a small farm. • Involved in sit ins and prayer ins • Started the SNCC (Student nonviolent coordinating committee) • He was also a key note speaker, but his speech considered too brash so was cleaned up.

17. Freedom Summer • 1 summer in Mississippi where 1,000 volunteers come to help register black voters. • So far, the state of Mississippi had used horrible tactics to repress blacks from voting. For example, literacy tests, poll taxes, intimidation, etc. • 4 little girls who are killed in a church where a bomb is placed intentionally outraged the black community and the community asks to have a vote in their selection of a police commissioner and local chiefs. This causes the program Freedom Summer.

19. Vietnam War • Against his advisor’s advice King spoke out against the Vietnam War. • He looks at it as a moral issue. Resources taken to Vietnam will hinder the war on poverty at home and take funds away from school. • “This is not a just war” • Dr. Spock (expert baby doctor) marches with him. They march to the United Nations building.

21. Sanitation Workers Strike • Dr. King even though stricken with a cold, decides to go and support the strikers. The workers were demanding a fair pay. • “I am a man” Give me dignity, respect. • He makes an eerie speech, his last speech. Mountaintop • He is shot on the balcony of his hotel by a single bullet by James E. Ray who pleads guilty and confesses to have done it for someone else. It is known the FBI knew about this attempt, but chose not to provide King protection.

23. Does the leader make the movement or the movement make the leader? Was the movement the work of one man?

24. And one of the prayers that I pray to God everyday is: "O God, help me to see myself in my true perspective. Help me, O God, to see that I'm just a symbol of a movement. Help me to see that I'm the victim of what the Germans call a Zeitgeist and that something was getting ready to happen in history; history was ready for it. And that a boycott would have taken place in Montgomery, Alabama if I had never come to Alabama. Help me to realize that I'm where I am because of the forces of history and because of the fifty thousand Negroes of Alabama who will never get their names in the papers and in the headline.