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Taking on Segregation. Chapter 21, Section 1 Notes. Objectives. Explain how legalized segregation deprived African Americans of their rights as citizens Summarize civil rights legal activity and the response to the Plessy and Brown cases
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Taking on Segregation Chapter 21, Section 1 Notes
Objectives • Explain how legalized segregation deprived African Americans of their rights as citizens • Summarize civil rights legal activity and the response to the Plessy and Brown cases • Trace MLK, Jr’s civil rights activities, beginning with the Montgomery Bus Boycott • Describe the expansion of the civil rights movement
Activism and a series of Supreme Court decisions advanced equal rights for African Americans in the 1950s and 1960s Thurgood Marshall Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Rosa Parks Martin Luther King, Jr. Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) Sit-in Main Idea and Terms/Names
The Segregation System • Civil Rights Act of 1875 • Outlawed segregation • Supreme Court overturned it in 1883 • Plessy v. Ferguson • “separate but equal” did not violate the 14th amendment (equal treatment) • Allowed Southern states to pass Jim Crow laws (separating the races) • Allowed restrictions on inter-race contact
Civil Rights Movement • WW2 set the stage for the civil rights movement • Opened new job opportunities • One million African Americans served • Came home and fought to end discrimination • During the war, civil rights organizations fought for voting rights and challenged Jim Crow laws
Challenging Segregation in Court • Campaign led by the NAACP • Focused on inequality between separate schools that states provided • Thurgood Marshall argued many of these cases • Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka • Marshall’s most stunning victory • Supreme Court struck down segregation in public schools as a violation of 14th amendment • To be implemented “with all deliberate speed”
Beginning in 1938, a team of lawyers led by Thurgood Marshall began arguing several cases before the Supreme Court. Their biggest victory came in the ’54 case of Brown v. Board ofEducation of Topeka, Kansas.
Reaction to Brown • Official reaction was mixed • Within a year, 500 school districts had desegregated • Some areas resisted • Reappearance of KKK • Governor of Georgia – “Georgia will not comply”!
Crisis in Little Rock • State had been planning for desegregation • Governor Faubus ordered the National Guard to turn away the “Little Rock Nine” • the 9 African American students who would integrate Little Rock Central High • A Federal judge ordered Faubus to let the students attend the school • Eisenhower placed the National Guard under federal control to watch the 9 attend school • A year later, Faubus shut down the high school
The school desegregation issue reached a crisis in 1957 in Little Rock, Arkansas. The state’s governor, Orval Faubus, refused to let 9 black students attend Little Rock’s Central High School.
President Eisenhower sent in federal troops to allow the students to enter the school. U.S. Army troops from the 101st Airborne Division disperse a crowd in front of Little Rock's Central High School
Montgomery Bus Boycott • African Americans were impatient with the slow speed of change • Took direct action • 1955 – Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat and was arrested • JoAnn Robinson suggested a boycott of the buses • Leaders of the African American community formed the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) • Elected 26 yr old Martin Luther King to lead
In December 1955, Montgomery resident Rosa Parks refused to give her seat to a white man. She was arrested.
Montgomery Bus Boycott • Dr. King made a passionate speech and filled the audience with a sense of mission • African Americans boycotted the buses for 381 days and filed a lawsuit • Organized car pools • Walked long distances • 1956 – Supreme Court outlawed bus segregation
Martin Luther King, Jr. • MLK called his nonviolent resistance “soul force” • Influences • Jesus – love one’s enemies • Henry David Thoreau – concept of civil disobedience (refusal to obey an unjust law) • A. Philip Randolph – massive demonstrations • Gandhi – non violent resistance
Martin Luther King Jr., after his arrest in February of 1956, at the age of 27. He had been arrested during the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The mug shot was found in July, 2004, during the cleaning out of a storage room at the Montgomery County Sheriff's Department. Someone had written "DEAD" twice on the picture, as well as 4-4-68, the date King was killed, though it is not known who wrote it.
Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) • SCLC founded in 1957 by MLK and other civil rights leaders • Purpose – carry on nonviolent crusades against discrimination • Used protests and demonstrations • Helped organize a student protest group (SNCC) – Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee • Challenge the system!
Movement Spreads • Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) staged the first sit-in in 1942 • African Americans would sit at segregated lunch counters and refuse to leave until they were served • 1960 – students in North Carolina staged a sit-in at a lunch counter • Television crews covered the protest • African Americans were non-violent, but white resistance was not • Movement spread across nation (sit-ins in 48 cities)
One protest strategy that SNCC (“snick”) used was the sit-in. During a sit-in, blacks sat at whites-only lunch counters. They refused to leave until they were serve.
In February 1960, African-American students staged a sit-in at a lunch counter at a Woolworth’s store in Greensboro, N.C. The students sat there as whites hit them & poured food over their heads.
