The Politics of Protest

1. The Politics of Protest New Approaches to Civil Rights

2. Fighting for Greater Opportunity Affirmative Action • Affirmative action called for companies and institutions doing business with the federal government to actively recruit African American employees. • Maynard Jackson became Atlanta’s first African American mayor in 1973, through his efforts, small companies and minority firms, earning them some $125 million in contacts.

3. Fighting for Greater Opportunity Challenges to Affirmative action • “reverse discrimination.” • Qualified white workers were kept from jobs, promotions, and a place in schools because a certain number of such positions had been set aside for minorities or women. • In 1978, in University of California Regents v. Bakke, the supreme Court, declared that the University had indeed violate Bakke's rights. • Ruled that schools could use racial criteria as part of their admissions process so long as they did not use “fixed quotations” http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/supreme-court-reverses-decision-that-tossed-out-michigans-ban-on-racial-preferences/2014/04/22/44177ad6-9d8f-11e3-9ba6-800d1192d08b_story.html

4. Fighting for Greater Opportunity Equal Access To Education • By the early 1970’s, Civil Rights leaders began to push harder for adequate education and gaining good jobs. • Busing, transporting children to schools outside their neighborhoods to achieve greater racial balance. • The supreme court upheld the constitutionality of busing in the early 1971 case, Swann v. Charlotte Mecklengburg Board of Education.

5. Fighting for Greater Opportunity New Political Leaders • Jesse Jackson. In 1971 Jackson founded People United to Save Humanity or PUSH. • African Americans became more influential to congress.

6. Hispanic Americans Organize Cesar Chavez and the UFW • Dolores Huerta organized groups that fought for farmworkers. • Cesar Chavez, enlisted college students, churches, and civil rights groups to organize a national boycott of grapes. • Together, Huerta and Chavez formed the United Farm Workers to fight for the rights of farm workers.

7. Hispanic Americans Organize Growing Political Activism • A new political Mexican-American party in Texas called La RazaUnida was started by Jose Angel Gutierrez. • During this period, a growing number of Hispanic youths actively promoted their culture. • One issue both Hispanic students and political leaders promoted was bilingualism. • Some educators argue that total immersion in English is the soundest road to educational success.

8. Native Americans Raise Their Voices A Protest Movement Emerges • Native Americans discussed ways to address numerous problems. • Indian Civil Rights Act, recognized the legitimacy of local reservation law and guaranteed reservation residents the protection of the Bill of Rights. • In 1969 AIM made a symbolic protest by occupying the abandoned federal prison on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay for 19 months claiming ownership “by right of discovery.” • AIM members seized and occupied the town of Wounded Knee for 70 days.

9. Native Americans Raise Their Voices Native Americans Make Notable Gains • The native American movement fell short of achieving all its goals, but did win some of its goals. • Native Americans won a number of the land and water rights they sought. • Native Americans have tried to regain control of their economic future, just as other American minorities did in the 1960’s and 1970’s.