Chapter Twenty-Eight

1. Chapter Twenty-Eight The Civil Rights Movement, 1945–1966

2. Section 1 The Montgomery Bus Boycott: An African-American Community Challenges Segregation

3. Montgomery, Alabama • In 1955, Montgomery’s black community mobilized when Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat and comply with segregation laws • Led by Martin Luther King, Jr., a Baptist minister, a boycott of buses was launched

4. A network of local activists organized carpools using private cars to get people to and from work • Leaders endured violence and legal harassment, but won a court ruling that the segregation ordinance was unconstitutional • The Montgomery Bus Boycott promoted non-violence

6. E.D. Nixon, the president of the Alabama NAACP and also head of the local Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters who used Rosa Parks’ 1955 arrest as an incident on which blacks would take a stand on segregation • MIA- The Montgomery Improvement Association was an organization of Montgomery’s black ministers formed to coordinate a black boycott system

7. Robert Graetz, Glenn Smiley and Clifford Durr worked to make the black boycott of Montgomery’s busses a success

8. Section 2 Origins of the Movement

9. Civil Rights After World War II • The WWII experiences of African Americans laid the foundations for the subsequent struggle of Civil Rights • A mass migration to the North brought political power to African Americans working through the Democratic Party • Blacks migrated north in the 1940s for economic opportunity and political freedom

10. President Truman called for a President’s Committee on Civil Rights • The Report To Secure These Rights (1947), called for • Legal attack on segregated housing • Protection of voting rights • Permanent civil rights division in the Justice Department

11. In the 1948 election the State’ Rights Party nominated Strom Thurmond • They did not like that Truman was taking a stance on Civil Rights • Truman won re-election

12. The NAACP grew in numbers and its Legal Defense Fund initiated a series of lawsuits to win key rights • Key ways the African Americans were breaking color barriers included: • Jackie Robinson’s entrance into major league baseball • Ralph Bunche’s winning a Nobel Peace prize • United Nations diplomat won for arranging the Arab-Israeli Truce of 1948 • A new generation of jazz musicians created be-bop • It was a more complex rhythm and extended improvisation than previous jazz styles

13. The Segregated South • In the South, segregation and unequal rights were still the law of the land • Law and custom kept blacks as second-class citizens with no effective political rights. African Americans had learned to survive and not challenge the situation

14. African American poet Paul L. Dunbar wrote “We Wear the Mask” We wear the mask that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks and shades or eyes, This debt we pay to human guile; With torn and bleeding hearts we smile, And mouth with myriad subtleties. Why should the world be over-wise, In counting all our tears and sighs? Nay let them only see us, while We wear the mask.

15. Brown v. Board of Education • The NAACP initiated a series of court cases challenging the constitutionality of segregation • In Brown v. Board of Education, newly appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren led the court to declare that separate educational facilities are inherently unequal • This overturned the separate but equal doctrine of Plessy V. Ferguson • This was a unanimous decision

16. The court postponed ordering a clear timetable to implement the decision • Southern whites declared their intention to nullify the decision. Brown Decision

17. Missouri v. ex.rel. Gaines • Stated that the University of Missouri law school had to either admit African Americans or build and equal school for them • McLaurin V. Oklahoma State Regents (1950) • Court stated that the regulations forcing segregation of blacks inevitably created a “badge of inferiority”

18. Crisis in Little Rock • In Little Rock, Arkansas, a judge ordered integration • The governor Orval Faubus ordered the National Guard to keep African-American children out of Central High • When the troops were withdrawn, a riot erupted, forcing President Eisenhower to send in more troops to integrate the school.

20. During the Civil Rights Movement, the state where the most incidents in the movement occurred in Alabama

21. Section 3 No Easy Road to Freedom, 1957–62

22. Martin Luther King and the SCLC • Martin Luther King, Jr. emerged from the bus boycott as a prominent national figure. A well-educated son of a Baptist minister, King taught his followers nonviolent resistance, modeled after the tactics of Mohandas Gandhi

23. The civil rights movement was deeply rooted in the traditions of the African-American church • King founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to promote nonviolent direct action to challenge segregation. • King was greatly influenced by Mohandas Gandhi

24. Sit-Ins • African-American college students, first in Greensboro, North Carolina, began sitting in at segregated lunch counters • Nonviolent sit-ins were: • widely supported by the African-American community • accompanied by community-wide boycotts of businesses that would not integrate.

26. On February 1, 1960, four black students from the North Carolina Agricultural & Technological College entered a Woolworth’s store and ordered coffee and doughnuts from the lunch counter, thereby beginning the Greensboro sit-in • This sit-in ended in July of 1960 because an economic boycott of the stores targeted by the sit-in severely reduced profits

27. The second day of the sit-in at the Greensboro, North Carolina, Woolworth lunch counter, February 2, 1960. From left: Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, Billy Smith, and Clarence Henderson. The Greensboro protest sparked a wave of sit-ins across the South, mostly by college students, demanding an end to segregation in restaurants and other public places. 

28. The Nashville sit-in was organized by a black minister James Lawson • He hoped to organize a community based on Christian idealism and Gandhian principles • The leader of the Atlanta sit-ins were • Martin Luther King • Lonnie King • Julian Bond • Two Morehouse undergraduates

29. SNCC and the “Beloved Community” • A new spirit of militancy was evident among young people • 120 African American activists created the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to promote nonviolent direct challenges to segregation. • Consisted of young people under that age of 22 • The young activists were found at the forefront of nearly every major civil rights battle.

30. The Election of 1960 and Civil Rights • The race issue had moved to center-stage by 1960 • As vice president, Nixon had strongly supported civil rights. • He minimized his own connection to the Civil Rights movement because he wanted to attract southern white voters • But Kennedy pressured a judge to release Martin Luther King, Jr. from jail • African-American voters provided Kennedy’s margin of victory, though an unfriendly Congress ensured that little legislation would come out • Attorney General Robert Kennedy used the Justice Department to force compliance with desegregation orders.

31. Freedom Rides • The National Director of CORE, James Farmer announced in 1961 that an interracial group would conduct a Freedom Ride into the South to test Southern compliance with court orders banning segregation in interstate travel • The FBI and Justice Department knew of the plans but were absent when mobs firebombed a bus and severely beat the Freedom Riders.

32. Freedom Ride of 1961 • Unsuccessful • Disbanded May 17, 1961 • Organized buy CORE • They goal was to test compliance with court orders banning segregation in interstate travel • Designed to provoke the SOuth

33. There was violence and no police protection at other stops • The Kennedy administration was forced to mediate a safe conduct for the riders, though 300 people were arrested • A Justice Department petition led to new rules that effectively ended segregated interstate buses

34. Freedom Rides

35. The Albany Movement: The Limits of Protest • Where the federal government was not present, segregationists could triumph • In Albany, Georgia, local authorities kept white mobs from running wild and kept police brutality down to a minimum • Martin Luther King, Jr. was twice arrested, but Albany remained segregated • When the federal government intervened, as it did in the University of Mississippi, integration could take place • U.S. air force veteran James Meredith became the first blacks student to attend “Ole Miss”

36. Section 4 The Movement at High Tide

37. Birmingham • In conjunction with the SCLC, local activists in Birmingham, Alabama, planned a large desegregation campaign • Demonstrators, including Martin Luther King, Jr., filled the city’s jails • King drafted his Letter From a Birmingham Jail • Replied to the claim that the campaign was illegal and reinforce that freedom was never given voluntarily by the oppressor • Respond to the clergy who had deplored the Birmingham protests • Set out the moral issues at stake in Birmingham • Defend the need for immediate action against the charger that the Birmingham campaign was ill timed

38. The Public Safety Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor of Birmingham who advocated the use of Billy clubs, water cannons and police dogs • A TV audience saw water cannons and snarling dogs break up a children’s march.

39. After the violence erupted, the Justice Department arranged a truce that called • For an immediate end to the civil rights protests there • The creation of biracial city committee to oversee desegregation of public facilities • The hiring of African Americans by city business • George Wallace the Governor of Alabama denounced the Justice Department truce in Birmingham and threatened to personally block the admission of black students to the University of Alabama

42. JFK and the March on Washington • The shifting public consensus led President Kennedy to appeal for civil rights legislation • A. Philip Randolph’s old idea of a March on Washington was revived • The march presented a unified call for change and held up the dream of universal freedom and brotherhood • Walter Reuther, A. Phillip Randolph and Joan Boez played a role in the March

43. JFK 1963 legislation • End segregation In public facilitates • Bolster federal authority for funding • Ensure that blacks had the right to vote • Deny funds for discriminatory programs • March on Washington • Walter Reuther • Joan Boez • John Lewis • A. Phillip Randolph • All played a roled

44. LBJ and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 • The assassination of John Kennedy threw a cloud over the movement as the new president, Lyndon Baines Johnson, had never been a good friend to civil rights • LBJ used his skills as a political insider to push through the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that put a virtual end to Jim Crow • Authorized the Justice Department to institute suites to desegregate public schools • Equal Employment Opportunity Commission • Offered Federal aid to communities desegregating their schools • Outlawed discrimination in employment

45. Mississippi Freedom Summer • In 1964, civil rights activists targeted Mississippi for a “freedom summer” that saw 900 volunteers come to open up this closed society • The leader of the Mississippi NAACP , Medgar Evers was murdered outside his home in 1963

47. Tensions developed between white volunteers and black movement veterans • The project riveted national attention on Mississippi • With an overwhelming Democratic victory in the 1964 elections, movement leaders pushed for federal legislation to protect the right to vote.

48. Malcolm X and Black Consciousness • Many younger civil rights activists were drawn to the vision of Malcolm X, who: • ridiculed integrationist goals • urged black audiences to take pride in their African heritage • break free from white domination • The leading spokesman for the Nation of Islam in the 1950s and early 1960s was Malcolm X

49. He broke with the Nation of Islam, made a pilgrimage to Mecca, and returned to America with changed views • He sought common ground with the civil rights movement, but was murdered in 1965. • Even in death, he continued to point to a new black consciousness.