A Brief History of Civil Rights in America

1. A Brief History ofCivil Rights in America

2. Segregation in America

3. Plessy v. Ferguson Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), was a landmark United States Supreme Court decision in the, upholding the constitutionality of racial segregation, even in public places, under the doctrine of “separate but equal” The decision was handed down by a vote of 7 to 1 “Separate but equal” remained standard doctrine in U.S. law until its final repudiation in the later Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

4. “Jim Crow” Laws Jim Crow Laws (named after “Jump Jim Crow,” a song-and-dance caricature of African Americans) were state and local laws enacted in the Southern and border states of the United States and enforced between 1876 and 1965 They mandated “separate but equal” status for black Americans In reality, this led to treatment and accommodations that were almost always inferior to those provided for white Americans The most important laws required that public schools, public places and public transportation have separate buildings, toilets, and restaurants for whites and blacks

5. “Jim Crow” Laws Examples of Jim Crow Laws: Alabama: All passenger stations in this state operated by any motor transportation company shall have separate waiting rooms or space and separate ticket windows for the white and colored races Arizona: The marriage of a person of Caucasian blood with a Negro, Mongolian, Malay, or Hindu shall be null and void Georgia: It shall be unlawful for any amateur white baseball team to play baseball on any vacant lot or baseball diamond within two blocks of a playground devoted to the Negro race, and it shall be unlawful for any amateur colored baseball team to play baseball in any vacant lot or baseball diamond within two blocks of any playground devoted to the white race

6. “Jim Crow” Laws North Carolina: The state librarian is directed to fit up and maintain a separate place for the use of the colored people who may come to the library for the purpose of reading books or periodicals Oklahoma: The [Conservation] Commission shall have the right to make segregation of the white and colored races as to the exercise of rights of fishing, boating and bathing South Carolina: No persons, firms, or corporations, who or which furnish meals to passengers at station restaurants or station eating houses, in times limited by common carriers of said passengers, shall furnish said meals to white and colored passengers in the same room, or at the same table, or at the same counter It shall be unlawful for any parent, relative, or other white person in this State, having the control or custody of any white child, by right of guardianship, natural or acquired, or otherwise, to dispose of, give or surrender such white child permanently into the custody, control, maintenance, or support, of a Negro

7. Post-WWII Attempts at Desegregation

8. Jackie Robinson Born: January 31, 1919 Died: October 24, 1972 Position: Second Baseman Jack Roosevelt “Jackie” Robinson became the first African-American major league baseball player of the modern era in 1947 While not the first African American professional baseball player in United States history, his Major League debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers ended approximately eighty years of baseball segregation, also known as the “Baseball Color Line,” or “Color Barrier” In the United States at this time, many white people believed that blacks and whites should be segregated or kept apart in many phases of life, including sports and daily life The Baseball Hall of Fame inducted Robinson in 1962 and he was a member of six World Series teams He earned six consecutive All-Star Game nominations and won several awards during his career In 1947, Robinson won The Sporting News Rookie of the Year Award and the first Rookie of the Year Award Two years later, he was awarded the National League MVP Award In addition to his accomplishments on the field, Jackie Robinson was also a forerunner of the Civil Rights Movement He also was an outspoken supporter of both Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X

9. Desegregation ofthe Armed Forces One of the greatest advances for racial integration was Executive Order 9981 by President Harry S. Truman to racially integrate the armed forces shortly after World War II He had the authority to do under Executive Order without the need for any enabling legislation to be passed by Congress, where it likely would have met with strident opposition, particularly from representatives of many of the Southern states Richard B. Russell, Democratic Senator from Georgia had in May 1948 attached an amendment to the Selective Services bill then being debated in Congress The Russell Amendment would have granted draftees and new inductees in the military an opportunity to choose whether or not they wanted to serve in segregated units His amendment was defeated in committee Executive Order 9981 was signed on July 26, 1948 In June 1950 when the Selective Services Law came up for renewal, Russell tried again to attach his segregation amendment, and again it was defeated At the end of the month, the Korean War broke out and the U.S. Army, which had done very little desegregating since Truman had issued his order, sent the desegregated Eighth Army to defend South Korea Most African American soldiers served in support units in the rear, and the rest served in desegregated combat units, most notably the 24th Infantry Regiment

10. Adam Clayton Powell Born: November 29, 1908 Died: April 4, 1972 Political Party: Democratic In 1944 Powell was elected as a Democrat to the House of Representatives, representing the 22nd Congressional District, which included Harlem He was the first black Congressman from New York, and the first from any Northern state other than Illinois As one of only two black Congressmen, Powell challenged the informal ban on black representatives using Capitol facilities reserved for members only He took black constituents to dine with him in the “Whites Only” House restaurant He clashed with the many segregationists in his own party

11. Brown v. Board of Education Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court It overturned earlier rulings going back to Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, by declaring that state laws that established separate public schools for black and white students denied black children equal educational opportunities Handed down on May 17, 1954, the Court’s unanimous (9-0) decision stated that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal” As a result, de jure racial segregation was ruled a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution This victory paved the way for integration and the civil rights movement

12. Justice Thurgood Marshall Born: July 2, 1908 Died: January 24, 1993 Thurgood Marshall was an American jurist and the first African American to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States Prior to becoming a judge, he was a lawyer who was best remembered for his high success rate in arguing before the Supreme Court and for the victory in Brown v. Board of Education

13. Justice Thurgood Marshall On June 13, 1967, President Johnson appointed Marshall to the Supreme Court following the retirement of Justice Tom C. Clark, saying that this: Was the right thing to do, the right time to do it, the right man and the right place Marshall was the 96th person to hold the position, and the first African-American Marshall served on the Court for the next twenty-four years, compiling a liberal record that included strong support for Constitutional protection of individual rights, especially the rights of criminal suspects against the government

14. Southern “Massive Resistance”

15. “Massive Resistance” Massive Resistance was a policy declared by U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd, Sr. on February 24, 1956, to unite other white politicians and leaders in a campaign of new state laws and policies to prevent public school desegregation after the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision in 1954 Most of the laws created to implement Massive Resistance were negated by state and federal courts by January 1960

16. Little Rock Crisis The U.S. Supreme Court issued its historic Brown v. Board of Education on May 17, 1954 The decision declared all laws establishing segregated schools to be unconstitutional, and it called for the desegregation of all schools throughout the nation After the decision the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) attempted to register black students in previously all-white schools in cities throughout the South In Little Rock, the capital city of Arkansas, the Little Rock School Board agreed to comply with the high court’s ruling Virgil Blossom, the Superintendent of Schools, submitted a plan of gradual integration to the school board on May 24, 1955, which the board unanimously approved The plan would be implemented during the 1958 school year, which would begin in September 1957 By 1957, the NAACP had registered nine black students to attend the previously all-white Little Rock Central High, selected on the criteria of excellent grades and attendance

17. Little Rock Crisis Several segregationist “citizens’ councils” threatened to hold protests at Central High and physically block the black students from entering the school Governor Orval Faubus deployed the Arkansas National Guard to support the segregationists on September 4, 1957 The sight of a line of soldiers blocking nine black students from attending high school made national headlines and polarized the city On September 9. 1957, “The Council of Church Women” issued a statement condemning the governor’s deployment of soldiers to the high school and called for a citywide prayer service on September 12, 1957 Even President Dwight D. Eisenhower attempted to de-escalate the situation and summoned Governor Faubus to meet him The President warned the governor not to interfere with the Supreme Court’s ruling

18. Little Rock Crisis Attorneys from the U.S. Justice Department requested an injunction against the governor’s deployment of the National Guard from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas in Little Rock Judge Ronald Davies granted the injunction and ordered the Governor to withdraw the National Guard on September 20, 1957 The governor backed down and withdrew the National Guard, and the Little Rock Police Department took their place Hundreds of protesters, mostly parents of the white students attending Central High, remained entrenched in front of the school On Monday, September 23, 1957, the police quietly slipped the nine students into the school When the protesters learned that the nine black students were inside, they began confronting the outnumbered line of policemen When white residents began to riot, the nine students were escorted out of the school

19. Little Rock Crisis The next day, Woodrow Mann, the Mayor of Little Rock, asked President Eisenhower to send federal troops to enforce integration and protect the nine students On September 24, 1957, the President ordered the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army to Little Rock and federalized the entire 10,000 member Arkansas National Guard, taking it out of the hands of Governor Faubus The 101st took positions immediately, and the nine students successfully entered the school on the next day, Wednesday, September 25, 1957

20. Little Rock Crisis By the end of September 1957, the nine were admitted to Little Rock Central High under the protection of the U.S. Army (and later the Arkansas National Guard), but they were still subjected to a year of physical and verbal abuse (spitting on them, calling them names) by many of the white students Melba Pattillo had acid thrown into her eyes Another one of the students, Minnijean Brown, was verbally confronted by a group of white, male students in December 1957 in the school cafeteria during lunch She dumped her lunch, a bowl of chili, on the students, and was suspended as a result She later transferred to New Lincoln High School in New York City

21. Little Rock Crisis The Citizens’ Council continued to protest and pressured the Little Rock School Board into reversing its decision to desegregate the public schools In August 1958, with support from Governor Faubus and the Arkansas State Legislature, the school board canceled the entire 1958-59 school year for its three high schools rather than integrate them Thousands of high school students left the city to attend high schools in other school districts, or enrolled in all-white private schools One year later, additional federal court rulings and the Little Rock Chamber of Commerce pressured the school board into reopening the school system By the Fall of 1959, Little Rock public schools had reopened as an integrated school system

22. The Little Rock Nine 1. Ernest Green 2. Elizabeth Eckford 3. Jefferson Thomas 4. Terrence Roberts 5. Carlotta Walls LaNier 6. Minnijean Brown 7. Gloria Ray Karlmark 8. Thelma Mothershed 9. Melba Patillo

23. “We Shall Overcome”

24. Rosa Parks Born: February 4, 1913 Died: October 24, 2005 Rosa Parks was an African American civil rights activist whom the U.S. Congress later called “Mother of the Modern-Day Civil Rights Movement” On December 1, 1955, Parks became famous for refusing to obey a bus driver’s order that she give up her seat to make room for a white passenger This action of civil disobedience started the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which is one of the largest movements against racial segregation In addition, this launched Martin Luther King, Jr., who was involved with the boycott, to prominence in the civil rights movement

25. Montgomery Bus Boycott The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a political and social protest campaign started in 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, intended to oppose the city’s policy of racial segregation on its public transit system The ensuing struggle lasted from December 1, 1955, to December 20, 1956, and led to a United States Supreme Court decision that declared the Alabama and Montgomery laws requiring segregated buses unconstitutional

26. Montgomery Bus Boycott On the night of Rosa Parks’ arrest, Jo Ann Robinson, head of the Women’s Political Council printed and circulated a flyer throughout Montgomery’s black community which read as follows:

27. Montgomery Bus Boycott Another woman has been arrested and thrown in jail because she refused to get up out of her seat on the bus for a white person to sit down. It is the second time since the Claudette Colvin case that a Negro woman has been arrested for the same thing. This has to be stopped. Negroes have rights too, for if Negroes did not ride the buses, they could not operate. Three-fourths of the riders are Negro, yet we are arrested, or have to stand over empty seats. If we do not do something to stop these arrests, they will continue. The next time it may be you, or your daughter, or mother. This woman’s case will come up on Monday. We are, therefore, asking every Negro to stay off the buses Monday in protest of the arrest and trial. Don’t ride the buses to work, to town, to school, or anywhere on Monday. You can afford to stay out of school for one day if you have no other way to go except by bus. You can also afford to stay out of town for one day. If you work, take a cab, or walk. But please, children and grown-ups, don’t ride the bus at all on Monday. Please stay off all buses Monday.

28. Greensboro Sit-Ins The Greensboro sit-ins were an instrumental action in the African-American Civil Rights Movement, leading to increased national sentiment at a crucial period in American history On February 1, 1960, four African American students – Ezell A. Blair Jr., David Richmond, Joseph McNeil, and Franklin McCain – from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, a historical black institution, sat at a segregated lunch counter in the Greensboro, North Carolina Woolworth’s store This lunch counter only had chairs/stools for whites, while blacks had to stand and eat Although they were refused service, they were allowed to stay at the counter The next day there was a total of 27 students at the Woolworth lunch counter for the sit in On the third day, there were 300 activists, and on the fourth day, around 1000 This protest sparked sit-ins and economic boycotts that became a hallmark of the American civil rights movement

29. Greensboro Sit-Ins According to McCain: Some way through, an old white lady, who must have been 75 or 85, came over and put her hands on my shoulders and said, “Boys I am so proud of you. You should have done this 10 years ago” In just two months the sit-in movement spread to 15 cities in 9 states By July, the original four protesters were served lunch at the same Woolworth’s lunch counter, now open to all after losing hundreds of thousands of dollars due to widespread publicity Other stores, such as the one in Atlanta, moved to desegregate The media picked up this issue and spread it nationwide The Greensboro sit-ins inspired civil rights groups to take up this tactic and use it to publicize segregation – beginning with lunch counters and spreading to other forms of public accommodation, including transport facilities, art galleries, beaches, parks, swimming pools, libraries, and even museums around the South In 1993, a portion of the lunch counter was donated to the Smithsonian Institution The Greensboro Historical Museum contains four chairs from the Woolworth counter along with photos of the original four protestors, a timeline of the events, and headlines from the media

30. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Born: January 15, 1929 Died: April 4, 1968 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was one of the pivotal leaders of the American civil rights movement King was a Baptist minister, one of the few leadership roles available to black men at the time He became a civil rights activist early in his career He led the Montgomery Bus Boycott and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, serving as its first president His efforts led to the 1963 March on Washington, where King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech Here he raised public consciousness of the civil rights movement and established himself as one of the greatest orators in U.S. history In 1964, King became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end segregation and racial discrimination through civil disobedience and other non-violent means He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Jimmy Carter in 1977 Martin Luther King Day was established as a national holiday in the United States in 1986 In 2004, King was posthumously awarded a Congressional Gold Medal

31. March on Washington The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was a large political rally that took place in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 1963 Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his historic “I Have a Dream” speech advocating racial harmony at the Lincoln Memorial during the march Approximately 250,000 people took part in the march It is estimated that 200,000 were African American and 50,000 were white The march was organized by a group of civil rights, labor, and religious organizations

32. March on Washington On August 28, 1963, more than 2,000 buses, 21 special trains, 10 chartered airliners, and uncounted cars converged on Washington The regularly scheduled planes, trains, and buses were also filled to capacity To the surprise of the march’s leaders, who were meeting with members of Congress, the assembled group began to march from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial without them when the march failed to start on time The march is widely credited as a major factor leading to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the National Voting Rights Act of 1965

33. Letter from Birmingham Jail The Letter from Birmingham Jail or Letter from Birmingham City Jail, was an open letter written on April 16, 1963 by Martin Luther King, Jr. King wrote the letter from the city jail in Birmingham, Alabama, where he was arrested after a non-violent protest against segregation The letter is a response to a statement made by eight white Alabama clergymen on April 12, 1963 titled “A Call For Unity” They agreed that social injustices existed but expressed the belief that the battle against racial segregation should be fought solely in the courts and not taken to the streets. King responded that, without forceful, direct actions such as his, true civil rights could never be achieved

34. Selma to Montgomery March The Selma to Montgomery marches, which included “Bloody Sunday,” were three marches that marked the political and emotional peak of the American Civil Rights Movement They were the culmination of the voting rights movement in Selma, Alabama, launched by Amelia Boynton Robinson and her husband Robinson brought many prominent leaders of the American Civil Rights Movement to Selma, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Jim Bevel and Hosea Williams “Bloody Sunday” occurred on March 7, 1965, when 600 civil rights marchers were attacked by state and local police with billy clubs and tear gas Only the third, and last, march successfully made it into Montgomery, Alabama The route is memorialized as the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail Within five months of the third march, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965

35. President Johnson andthe Civil Rights Movement

36. Civil Rights Act of 1964 The Civil Rights Act of 1964, July 2, 1964, was a landmark legislation in the United States that outlawed segregation in the U.S. schools and public places First conceived to help African Americans, the bill was amended prior to passage to protect women in courts, and explicitly included white people for the first time It also started the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission In order to circumvent limitations on the federal use of the Equal Protection Clause handed down by the Civil Rights Cases, the law was passed under the Commerce Clause Once it was implemented, its effects were far reaching and had tremendous long-term impacts on the whole country It prohibited discrimination in public facilities, in government, and in employment, invalidating the Jim Crow laws in the Southern U.S. It became illegal to compel segregation of the races in schools, housing, or hiring Powers given to enforce the bill were initially weak, but were supplemented during later years

37. Civil Rights Act of 1964

38. Voting Rights Act of 1965 The National Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed the requirement that would-be voters in the United States take literacy tests to qualify to register to vote It provided for federal registration of voters in areas that had less than 50% of eligible minority voters registered The Act also provided for Department of Justice oversight to registration, and the Department’s approval for any change in voting law in districts that had used a “device” to limit voting and in which less than 50% of the population was registered to vote in 1964 The Act was sent to Congress by President Lyndon Johnson on March 17, 1965 The Senate passed the bill on May 11, 1965 The House passed it on July 10, 1965 President Johnson signed the Act on August 6, 1965 A 25-year extension was signed by President George W. Bush on July 27, 2006

39. African American Militancy

40. Malcolm X Born: May 19, 1925 Died: February 21, 1965 Malcolm X, born Malcolm Little, was an American Black Muslim minister and a spokesman for the Nation of Islam He also founded the Muslim Mosque, Inc. and the Organization of Afro-American Unity Less than a year later, he was assassinated in Washington Heights on the first day of National Brotherhood Week

41. Malcolm X After Malcolm’s death, Martin Luther King, Jr., sent a telegram to Betty Shabazz, expressing his sadness over “the shocking and tragic assassination of your husband” While we did not always see eye to eye on methods to solve the race problem, I always had a deep affection for Malcolm and felt that he had a great ability to put his finger on the existence and the root of the problem. He was an eloquent spokesman for his point of view and no one can honestly doubt that Malcolm had a great concern for the problems we face as a race

42. Malcolm X Historian Robin D.G. Kelley wrote: Malcolm X has been called many things: Pan-Africanist, father of Black Power, religious fanatic, closet conservative, incipient socialist, and a menace to society. The meaning of his public life – his politics and ideology – is contested in part because his entire body of work consists of a few dozen speeches and a collaborative autobiography whose veracity is challenged. Malcolm has become a sort of tabula rasa, or blank slate, on which people of different positions can write their own interpretations of his politics and legacy

43. Black Power Black Power is a movement among Black people throughout the world, especially those in the United States Most prominent in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the movement emphasized racial pride and the creation of black political and cultural institutions to nurture and promote black collective interests, advance black values, and secure black autonomy The earliest known usage of the term “Black Power” came from a 1954 book by Richard Wright titled Black Power The first use of the term in a political sense may have been by Robert F. Williams, an NAACP chapter president, writer, and publisher of the 1950s and 1960s New York politician Adam Clayton Powell used the term on May 29, 1966 during a baccalaureate address at the Howard University: To demand these God-given rights is to seek Black Power

44. Black Power The first official use of the term “Black Power” as social and political slogan was by Kwame Ture and Mukasa Dada, both organizers and spokespersons for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) On June 16, 1966, after the shooting of James Meredith during the March Against Fear, Ture said: This is the twenty-seventh time I have been arrested and I ain’t going to jail no more! The only way we gonna stop them white men from whuppin’ us is to take over. What we gonna start sayin’ now is Black Power!

45. Black Power 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City: Tommie Smith won gold in the 200m, John Carlos, took bronze; while “The Star-Spangled Banner” played during the medal ceremony, Smith raised his right, black-gloved fist to represent Black Power, while Carlos’s raised left fist represented black unity

46. Black Panthers The Black Panther Party (originally called the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense) was an African-American organization established to promote civil rights and self-defense It was active in the United States from the mid-1960s into the 1970s

47. Black Panthers Founded in Oakland, California, by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale in October 1966, the organization initially espoused a doctrine calling for the protection of the African American neighborhoods from Police brutality, in the interest of African-American justice Over time, its objectives and philosophy changed radically during the party’s existence While the organization’s leaders passionately espoused socialist doctrine, the party’s black nationalist reputation attracted an ideologically diverse membership Ideological consensus within the party was difficult to achieve Some members openly disagreed with the views of the leaders

48. Black Panthers In 1967 the organization marched on the California State Capitol in Sacramento in protest of a ban on weapons By 1968, the party had expanded into many cities throughout the United States, including: Chicago, Illinois, Los Angeles, California, San Diego, California, Denver, Colorado, Newark, New Jersey New York City, and Baltimore, Maryland That same year, membership in the Black Panther Party reached 5,000

49. Assassinations

50. The Assassination of Malcolm X On February 21, 1965 in Manhattan’s Audubon Ballroom, Malcolm X had just begun delivering a speech when a disturbance broke out in the crowd of 400 A man yelled Get your hand outta my pocket! Don’t be messin’ with my pockets! As Malcolm and his bodyguards moved to quiet the disturbance, a man rushed forward and shot Malcolm in the chest with a sawed-off shotgun Two other men charged the stage and fired handguns at Malcolm, who was shot 16 times Angry onlookers in the crowd caught and beat the assassins as they attempted to flee the ballroom Malcolm was pronounced dead on arrival at New York’s Columbia Presbyterian Hospital Two suspects were named by witnesses: Norman 3X Butler and Thomas 15X Johnson Both were members of the Nation of Islam