Chapter 47

1. Chapter 47 Race and Rights: The African American Struggle for Civil Equality 1953-1968

2. Being Black in America • Blacks in 1953 • Black leaders, NACCP see little progress • Armed forces, professional schools integrate • Jim Crow still dominant in most of South but also in North existed • 1896, Plessy v. Ferguson upheld: “separate but equal” • Winds of change • Lynching mostly gone • 20% of Blacks who were eligible had registered to vote • Jackie Robinson broke barriers in baseball in 1947

3. Battle in the Courts • Separate but unequal • NAACP had targeted education to desegregate first • McLaurin and Sweatt cases • Forced integration of law and graduate school on grounds separate was not equal • Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka • Court rules segregated schools intrinsically unequal • New Chief Justice Earl Warren obtained unanimous decision • Overturned Plessy v. Ferguson • Central High, Little Rock, Arkansas • Black students meet violence at Central High School, Little Rock • Governor uses troops to block integration • Eisenhower sends troops to protect black students

4. Direct Action and Politics • Other leaders seek direct action • Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. elected to Congress from Harlem • Congress on Racial Equality (1942) non violent disobedience of unjust laws • Rosa Parks; Montgomery Bus Boycott • Boycott brings Martin Luther King, Jr. to leadership • King advocates nonviolent civil disobedience • Southern Christian Leadership Conference leads protests • Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee desegregates lunch counters • Eisenhower’s life in military had been strictly segregated • JFK slow to support civil rights • Wanted Southern votes • Black leaders push ahead, meet violent opposition • Rioting erupts over integrating University of Mississippi • Kennedy sends troops to Oxford, Mississippi • Alabama 1963 Governor Wallace blocks admittance of black students to university symbolically but backs down in face of guardsmen

5. Direct Action and Politics (cont.’d) • March on Washington • King leads March on Washington, 1963 • King makes “I have a dream” speech • March pushes for support for civil rights law • JFK supports civil rights legislation

6. Civil Rights Revolution • Sociologists claimed South would adjust more easily to ending of segregation than the north • Cities of the north created segregated communities • Lyndon Johnson a southerner will end Jim Crow • Never a favored Jim Crow • Realized used to help poor whites feel better • LBJ signs Civil Rights Act of 1964 • Civil Rights Act ends segregation • Fair Employment Practices Commission • Civil Rights Act improves race relations in South • Realized changed the Democratic Party • White college students attempt voter registration drives but blacks too fearful

7. Civil Rights Revolution (cont.’d) Voting Rights Act of 1965 • Federal Government protects black voting rights • Southern blacks rush to register • Former racists court black votes • Blacks elected office in south • Fair Housing Act of 1968 • LBJ losing popularity with war in Vietnam and alienation of working class northern whites

8. Black Separatism • Black Muslims • 1930 Nation of Islam by Wallace D. Fard • Created story of races in which blacks were victimized • Died mysteriously • Elijah Muhammad • Selective Islamic teachings • Claimed Islam only for blacks • Small but growing in northeastern cities • Malcolm X • Member of Nation of Islam • Believes in black separation • Calls for self defense • Breaks with Black Muslims, assassinated

9. End of an Era • Black Power • Challenge to King • Carmichael and Brown were “powerrites” and new generation of leaders • Black Panther party for self defense in Oakland • Police saw as threatening • Some dressed in native African clothing • Others tried separation of races • Riots • Mainly in summer in cities • 1965 Watts riots very destructive • Really not race riots • Spontaneous outbursts of rage often occurring in black neighborhoods • Usually directed at stores • Kerner Commission • Stated mainly caused by chronic poverty in black neighborhoods, poor housing, lack of male heads of households, and white racists police

10. End of an Era • 1968 in Memphis • Dr. King goes to help with sanitation workers strike • Assassinated April 4 • Riots across country • James Earl Ray arrested but doubts that lone gunman

11. Discussion Questions • On what did the NAACP choose to focus in the beginnings of the movement? Why? • What was the impact of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka? • Compare the policies/attitudes of Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson towards civil rights. • Explain the political movement of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Was it successful? • How did the civil rights movement change in the 1960s? What role did Malcolm X, H. Rap Brown, and Stokley Carmichael play in these changes?