Black Civil Rights

1. Black Civil Rights

2. Overview • Early racial relations • Civil War and Reconstruction • Jim Crow • The Modern Civil Rights Movement

3. Early Race Relations • Slavery • In the Constitution • Article I, section 9 (importation of slaves protected until 1808; tax on importation capped at $10) • Article IV, section 2.3 (Fugitive slave law) • No mention made of federal power to end slavery but...

4. Early Race Relations Supreme Court rulings raised concerns among slave states, in particular: McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) Gibbons v. Ogden (1824)

5. Early Race Relations • Article IV, section 3.1 provides new states may be admitted to union • By ratification of the Constitution, every state from Delaware south was a slave state, all north were free* • *except for New Jersey, which ended slavery in 1804

6. Civil War • Increasing criticism, primarily in North, of practice of slavery • As US expanded westward and new states admitted to the union, slave/free issue continually bubbles below surface of national politics • Election of Abraham Lincoln (Republican) in 1860 election leads to secession of Southern states from Union • Lincoln order Union troops to secure the South

7. Civil War • Emancipation Proclamation (1863) • frees slaves in Confederacy and in those parts of the country in open rebellion • specifically exempts border states and areas currently occupied by Union army • 13th Amendment (1865) • offically ends slavery in US

8. Civil War • 1864 Presidential Election • Lincoln runs on “national unity” ticket that includes Andrew Johnson as VP

9. Civil War • 9 April 1865 Lee surrenders to Grant • 14 April 1865 Lincoln is assassinated • Johnson becomes new President • The last Confederate armies surrender in June 1865 • Question becomes how to rebuild the Union coming out of the bloodiest war in US history (over 600,000 deaths)

10. Reconstruction • 2 Phases of Reconstruction • Presidential Reconstruction (1865-1866) • Readmit confederate states • No Confederate officials eligible to serve in government • Confederate states redraw constitutions to take account of 13th amendment • Introduction of “Black Codes”

11. Reconstruction • Republican Congress passes Civil Rights Act (1866) over Johnson veto • House moves to impeach Johnson, Johnson survives, but is much weakened as president • Enter Congressional reconstruction period (1866-1877)

12. Reconstruction • Union army occupies south • 13th Amendment (1865) • 14th Amendment (1868) • 15th Amendment (1870) • Civil Rights Enforcement Act (1870) • Civil Rights Act (1872) [anti KKK act] • Civil Rights Act (1875) [private discrimination outlawed]

13. Reconstruction • First black political leaders elected to Congress • Hiram Revels (MS) first black senator • 6 blacks elected to serve in House in 41st and 42nd Congress

14. Reconstruction • 1876 Presidential Election • Rutherford B. Hayes (R) • Samuel Tilden (D)

15. 1876 Presidential Election

16. Reconstruction • In exchange for Hayes winning electoral college vote, Republicans agree to end occupation of the South • 1877 Reconstruction essentially ends with end of occupation • Southern governments and vigilante groups move to disenfranchise black voters

17. Rise of Segregation • Voter intimidation (e.g., KKK activity) • Change voting requirements • poll tax, literacy test, “white” primaries, grandfather clause • Civil Rights cases (1883) • Supreme Court invalidates the 1875 Civil Rights Act • Plessy vs Ferguson (1896)

18. Plessy vs Ferguson “The object of the [Fourteenth] Amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law, but in the nature of things it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political, equality, or a commingling of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to either.” -- Justice Henry Billings Brown Homer Plessy

19. Plessy v. Ferguson "We consider the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff's argument to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it.” Justice Henry Billings Brown

20. Jim Crow

21. Jim Crow Jim Crow statutes by state

22. Jim Crow • For black civil rights leaders, segregation posed difficult questions of strategy and how to combat legal (de jure) inequality

23. Response to Segregation • Booker T. Washington and “Accomodationism” • Take whatever opportunities white America provides and do best you can until conditions change

24. Response to Segregation • W.E.B. Dubois and the founding of the NAACP • Legal strategy of challenging the “separate but equal” provision

25. Separate, but Equal? Classroom in black school Seat Pleasant, Maryland

26. Separate, but Equal? Black school, Camden, MS

27. Separate, but Equal? Black school, Louisa County, VA

28. Response to Segregation • Key desegregation cases: • Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada (1938) • mandated creating separate black law school or admitting blacks to white school • Sweatt v. Painter (1950) • mandated that separate black schools be equal to white law schools

29. Response to Segregation • McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education (1950) • integration has to be equal; cannot maintain segregation within a school

30. Response to Segregation • 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, KN • Supreme Court rules that “separate but equal” violates the 14th Amendment as it denies some citizens equal protection of the laws

31. Response to Segregation Little Rock, Arkansas September 1957 Federal troops protected 9 blackstudents going to Central Highin Little Rock throughout 1957academic year

32. Response to Segregation Little Rock opted to close all 3 public high schools for 1958 academic year rather than integrate

33. Modern Civil Rights • Emergence of Modern Civil Rights Movement

34. Modern Civil Rights • In wake of Brown v. Board of Education, combination of further legal challenges, political mobilization, civil disobedience (peaceful and other)

35. Modern Civil Rights • Key Legislation: • 1964 Civil Rights Act • Barred discrimination in public accomodations • Desegregated public school and facilities • Civil Rights Commission expanded • Equal Emploment Opportunity Commission • No discrimination in workplace based on race, color, religion, gender, or national origin.

36. Modern Civil Rights • Key Legislation • 1965 Voting Rights Act • Outlawed discrimination in voter registration • Authorizes federal government to administer voter registration in counties or subdivisions held to discriminate on voter registration efforts

37. Lingering Segregation “A Realtor should never be instrumental in introducing into a neighborhood a character of property or occupancy, members of any race or nationality, or any individual whose presence will clearly be detrimental to property values in the neighborhood.” (Association of Real Estate Boards, National Realty Code, Article 34) official policy throughthe 1960s

38. Fair Housing Act • 1968 Civil Rights Act • No discrimination in housing • No discrimination in mortgage lending • Penalities imposed on anyone interfering with individual civil rights workers

39. Race and Urban Populations

40. Race and Urban Populations

41. Race and Urban Populations • Overall data: • Not just higher percentage of blacks in cities, but economic situation within those cities • 1970: 27% of census tracts in urban areas were “poverty,” and 6% of these were “extreme poverty” • 1990: 39% of census tracts in urban areas were “poverty,” and 14% of these were “extreme poverty” • Improvement in 1990s though • Poverty rate higher than that of suburbs • 2000: 16.1% (urban) 7.8% (suburban) • 2005: 13.9% (urban) 9.6% (suburban) figures from US Bureau of Census Geographic Distribution of Urban Populations by Race

42. Race and Urban Populations • Concentration of blacks in poverty areas • 1980: • 2.0% of all U.S. non-Hispanic white poor people, • 21.1% of all U.S. black poor people • 15.9% of all U.S. Hispanic poor people lived in ghettos. Thus, over two-thirds of the ghetto poor are black and Hispanic. • 1990: 71% of low-income, black, central-city residents lived in poverty neighborhoods • 40% of low-income, white, central city residents • 2007 Poverty Rates by race/ethnic origin

43. Effects • Most children living in high-poverty areas attend racially segregated schools Impact on education? • Recent test score data, graphic data

44. Effects • Employment • Unemployment rates by race • Inner city unemployment • 2 to 3 times higher than national average • Impact of low employment/joblessness? • Incarceration Rates (map) • Incarceration Rates (table) • Life Expectancy • Infant Mortality

45. Prospects?