SOL 13: Civil Rights

1. SOL 13: Civil Rights • Reconstruction had ended in 1877. After that time, Southern states passed laws that legalized segregation. These laws became known as Jim Crow Laws and Southern society became known as Jim Crow society.

2. SOL 13: Civil Rights • In 1896 a man from Louisiana called Homer Plessy challenged this society. He was part black, but he had pale skin. He tried to ride on a whites-only train carriage. He was arrested for breaking a Louisiana state law, and his case went all the way to the Supreme Court. • In 1896, the Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v Ferguson that segregation was legal as long as segregated facilities were equal. This was known as the “separate but equal doctrine”.

3. SOL 13: Separate But Equal? • Jim Crow laws and society were definitely separate, but NOT equal.

4. SOL 13: Civil Rights • Jim Crow society lasted until after World War II. African-Americans fought in segregated military units in WWI and WWII. • Prior to the mid 1950s, African-Americans could point to few successes in their struggle for equality. • Jackie Robinson had shocked the sports world by becoming the first black Major League baseball player, but his dramatic story of opportunity could not change normal citizens’ mistreatment

5. SOL 13: Rosa Parks • On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks left her job as a seamstress in Montgomery, AL, and she boarded a bus to go home. When Parks refused to get up for a white man, the bus driver called the police and Parks was arrested.

6. SOL 13: Rosa Parks • A former leader of the NAACP heard of Parks’ arrest and contacted her, believing they could bring down segregation on busses. • African-Americans quickly organized a boycott of Montgomery's bus system • A year later, Alabama’s state Supreme Court ruled segregation on busses illegal

7. SOL 13: Court Challenges Begin • The Civil Rights movement had been building for a long time. • The NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) had been founded in 1909. It had supported court cases that had won some victories against Jim Crow society • 1935 Norris v Alabama – ruled that all white juries were illegal • 1950 Sweat v Painter – state law schools had to admit qualified black applicants, even if parallel black schools existed

8. SOL 13: New Political Power • In addition to a string of court victories, African-Americans enjoyed increased political power • Before WWI, most African-Americans lived in the South where they were excluded from voting. During the Great Migration many moved to Northern cities where they could vote. Increasingly, Northern politicians sought their votes and listened to their concerns. • Also, during the 1930s, many African-Americans benefited from FDR’s New Deal programs and began supporting the Democratic Party. This gave the Democratic Party new strength in the North, a strength that enabled the Northern wing to counter the Southern Democrats, who usually supported segregation

9. SOL 13: World War II • World War II was also important as African- American leaders began to use their political power to demand more rights • Their efforts helped end discrimination in wartime factories and increased opportunities for African-Americans in the military • CORE (the Congress for Racial Equality) was founded in the 1940s. It used sit ins to desegregate restaurants and theaters in the North

10. SOL 13: Southern Resistance • Remember…just because the Supreme Court rules on something, it doesn’t mean it happens. Laws have to be enforced. Brown v Board of Education ordered schools to be desegregated. • The Brown decision marked a dramatic reversal of the precedent established in Plessy v Ferguson. Although the case applied only to schools, it threatened the whole Jim Crow system. • Although some school districts in border states integrated their schools, anger and opposition were more common reactions. Virginia Senator Harry F. Byrd called on Southerners to adopt “Massive Resistance”. • The Supreme Court made things worse when it ordered all school districts to integrate with “all deliberate speed” • Not until 1969 did the Supreme Court order schools to integrate “at once”

11. SOL 13: Rosa Parks • It was during the outrage over Brown v Board of Education that Rosa Parks made her stand • The Montgomery Bus boycott was led by a young pastor called Martin Luther King, Jr. • King had received a Ph. D. from Boston University where he had gained inspiration from studying Henry Thoreau and Ghandi

12. SOL 13: Churches • King was not the only important religious leader. African-American churches played a crucial role in the year-long bus boycott • The boycott’s success showed the success of non-violent protest. In 1957, African-American ministers led by MLK formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. • The SCLC set out to eliminate segregation from American society and to encourage African-Americans to register to vote

13. SOL 13: Eisenhower • Eisenhower disagreed with segregation, but he refused to publicly endorse the Brown decision. • Eisenhower believed that segregation would end gradually, and he disagreed with protests (even non-violent ones) • But Eisenhower was forced to act when events in Little Rock, Arkansas threatened to get out of control.

14. SOL 13: The Little Rock 9 • In September 1957, the school board in Little Rock, Arkansas, won a court order requiring that nine African-American students be admitted to Central High, a school with 2,000 white students • The Governor Faubus was known as a moderate on racial issues, but he was up for reelection and began to campaign as a defender of white supremacy • He ordered troops from the Arkansas National Guard to prevent nine students from entering the school. The next day, as the National Guard troops surrounded the school, an angry white mob joined the troops to protest and intimidate the students trying to register

16. SOL 13: The Little Rock 9 • Faubus had used the armed forces of a state to oppose the federal government – the first such challenge to the constitution since the Civil War • Eisenhower knew that he could not allow Faubus to defy the national government. Faubus refused to protect the students, so Eisenhower ordered the army to go to Little Rock • Officials in Little Rock continued to resist segregation until 1959

17. SOL 13: Civil Rights • In the early 1960s the struggle for civil rights intensified. African-American citizens and white supporters created organizations that directed protests, targeted specific inequalities and attracted the attention of the mass media and the government

18. Civil Rights: The Sit-in Movement • In February 1960, four black students enrolled at the NC Agricultural and Technical College entered a Woolworths, bought school supplies and then sat down at the “whites-only” lunch counter. The students were refused service, and sat there until the store closed. • They announced that they would return every day until they received the same service as white customers

19. Civil Rights: The Sit-in Movement • News of the sit in spread, and within a couple of months the movement had spread to 54 cities in nine states • Sit-ins were staged at segregated stores, restaurants, hotels and movie theaters. By 1961, sit-ins had been held in more than 100 cities • Students had become increasingly frustrated with the slow pace of desegregation. At first the leaders of the NAACP and SCLC were nervous about the sit-ins because they doubted that the students could remain non-violent, but – despite much provocation – most students remained non-violent

21. Civil Rights: The Sit-in Movement • With the sit-ins, college students for the first time stepped onto the stage of American history as a leading force for social change. In April 1960, students formed the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) dedicated to replacing the culture of segregation with a community dedicated to racial justice

22. Civil Rights: The Freedom Riders • Main Idea: Teams of African-American whites rode buses into the South to protests the continued illegal segregation on interstate bus lines • Despite court rulings outlawing segregation on interstate bus services, bus travel remained segregated in much of the South. In 1961, CORE leader James Farmer asked teams of African-American and white volunteers, many of whom were college students, to travel into the South draw attention to its refusal to integrate bus terminals • The team became known as the Freedom Riders

23. Civil Rights: The Freedom Riders • Thefirst Freedom Riders boarded several buses in May 1961. • When the buses arrived in Anniston, Birmingham and Montgomery, Alabama, angry white mobs attacked them. The mobs slit the bus tires and threw rocks at the windows. In Anniston, someone threw a firebomb into one bus, but the riders escaped. • In Birmingham the riders emerged from a bus to face a gang of young men armed with baseball bats, chains and lead pipes. The gang beat the riders viciously. One witness later reported that you “couldn’t see their faces through the blood”. The local police commissioner had not assigned any police to be there

24. Picture of freedom riders

25. Civil Rights: The Freedom Riders • The violence shocked many Americans • JFK had just become president, and he had pledged to support the Civil Rights movement

26. Civil Rights: Kennedy & Civil Rights • While campaigning for the presidency in 1960, JFK had promised to actively support the Civil Rights movement. As a result, most African-Americans supported him and helped him win a close election in 1960

27. Civil Rights: Kennedy and Civil Rights • Once in office, however, Kennedy at first seemed as cautious as Eisenhower on civil rights, which disappointed many African-Americans • Kennedy had other priorities. He had a domestic program of reforms that he called the New Frontier. JFK needed Southern senators’ support to pass those programs, so he didn’t push forward with Civil Rights • JFK did, however, appoint 40 African-Americans to high level government positions, and he appointed Thurgood Marshall to a federal judgeship one step below the Supreme Court

28. Civil Rights: James Meredith • As the Freedom Riders were trying to desegregate interstate bus lines, efforts continued to integrate Southern schools. On the day of JFK’s inauguration, James Meredith – a African-American Air Force veteran – applied for a transfer to the University of Mississippi • In September 1962, Meredith tried to register at the university’s admissions office, only to find Ross Barnett – the governor of Mississippi – blocking his path. Meredith had a court order directing the university to admit him, but the governor stated that he and the South “would never surrender to the…forces of tyranny”. • A frustrated JFK dispatched 500 federal marshalls. Shortly after the marshalls and Meredith arrived, a riot broke out. JFK had to send several thousand troops in.

29. Civil Rights: Birmingham, 1963 • The violence in Mississippi, and the lack reform frustrated civil rights leaders. Reflecting on the problem, Martin Luther King realized that the federal government tended to act only when there was a crisis, so he organized protests in Birmingham, Alabama, one of America’s most segregated and violent cities.

31. The Stormy Sixties: The March on Washington • The violence in Birmingham forced JFK to act. Determined to introduce a civil rights bill, JFK now waited for a dramatic moment to address the nation on the issue. Alabama’s governor George Wallace gave him that chance • At his inauguration as governor, Wallace had stated “I draw a line in the dust…and I say segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!” On June 11, Wallace stood in front of the University of Alabama’s admissions office to block two African-Americans from enrolling • The next day a white segregationist murdered Medgar Evers, a black civil rights worker in Mississippi. JFK went on TV and announced his intention to pass a civil rights bill.

32. The Stormy Sixties: The March on Washington • Martin Luther King realized that JFK would have a hard time pushing the bill through Congress. He decided to organize a march on Washington

33. The Stormy Sixties: JFK • Events in Birmingham forced JFK to act, and he pledged his administration to sign a Civil Rights bill, but JFK never lived to see the bill pass because he was assassinated in November, 1963 while visiting Dallas, Texas.

34. The Stormy Sixties: JFK • The violence that haunted 1960s America took center stage with the assassination of JFK on Nov 22, 1963. Vice President Johnson was promptly sworn in as president

35. The Stormy Sixties: The LJB Presidency • LBJ from West Texas. He’d gone to Washington as a 29 year old Congressmen. He supported FDR’s New Deal. He lost a senate race in 1941, learning the “sobering lesson that liberal political beliefs did not necessarily win elections in Texas” • He moved politically to the right and won a close senate race in 1948. • LBJ became a master wheeler-dealer in the Senate. He became the Democratic majority leader in 1954, wielding power

37. The Stormy Sixties: The LBJ Presidency • If he wanted something done, LBJ used what came to be known as the “Johnson Treatment” • As president Johnson quickly shed the conservative hue of his senate years to reveal the liberal underneath • After a lengthy conservative filibuster, Congress passed the 1964 Civil Rights Act • This act banned racial discrimination in most private facilities open to the public, including theaters, hospitals and restaurants • It strengthened the federal government’s power to end segregation in schools and other public places • It created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to eliminate discrimination in hiring

38. The Stormy Sixties: The LBJ Presidency • Johnson got JFK’s tax bill through Congress and added proposals of his own for a billion dollar “War on Poverty” – he especially wanted to focus on Appalachia, which was hurting because of a declining coal industry • Johnson dubbed his program the “Great Society” • Public support for these programs was aroused by Michael Harrington’s The Other America (1962), which revealed that in affluent America 20% of the population (40% of blacks) lived in poverty

39. Some Great Society Programs • Medicare (healthcare for poor people) • Medicaid (healthcare for older people) • AFDC (welfare)

40. The Stormy Sixties: The Great Society Congress • Beginning in 1964, opening up polling booths in the South became the chief goal of the Civil Rights movement • 24th amendment, Jan 1964…abolished poll taxes. Blacks joined hands with whites in a massive voter registration drive in Mississippi during the Freedom Summer of 1964 • In late June three civil rights workers (1 black & 2 white) disappeared. Early in 1965, MLK organized a voter registration in Selma, AL, which was met with violence. LBJ responded by pushing the Voting Rights Act through Congress

41. The Stormy Sixties: The Great Society Congress • The Voting Rights Act changed things. It gave blacks power…now Southern politicians needed to take black votes into consideration • Black Power • As if to symbolize the change in era, five days after LBJ signed the VRA, the Watts Riots erupted in LA • Shift in focus to N & W cities…more militant leaders…Malcolm X versus MLK…Nation of Islam

43. MLK and Malcolm X • Please read the handouts on Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. • Fill in the Venn Diagram. • It’s worth ten points. You need at least three points in each part of the Venn diagram and then one more point in any other section. You can get extra credit IF you get more than 10 valid points comparing and contrasting the two civil rights leaders.