Chapter 21: Civil Rights Section 1: Taking on Segregation

1. Chapter 21:Civil RightsSection 1:Taking on Segregation

2. California Academic Standards:11.10.2 11.10.3 11.10.4 & 11.10. 5 • 11.10 Students analyze the development of federal civil rights and voting rights. • .2 Examine and analyze the key events, policies, and court cases in the evolution of civil rights, including Dred Scott v. Sandford, Plessy v. Ferguson, Brown v. Board of Education, Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, and California Proposition 209.

3. .3 Describe the collaboration on legal strategy between African American and white civil rights lawyers to end racial segregation in higher education. • .4 Examine the roles of civil rights advocates (e.g., A. Philip Randolph, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcom X, Thurgood Marshall, James Farmer, Rosa Parks), including the significance of Martin Luther King, Jr. 's "Letter from Birmingham Jail" and "I Have a Dream" speech.

4. .5 Discuss the diffusion of the civil rights movement of African Americans from the churches of the rural South and the urban North, including the resistance to racial desegregation in Little Rock and Birmingham, and how the advances influenced the agendas, strategies, and effectiveness of the quests of American Indians, Asian Americans, and Hispanic Americans for civil rights and equal opportunities.

5. Objectives: • Following lecture and reading of this section, students will be able to: • Explain how Plessy v. Ferguson legalized segregation • Describe NAACP’s legal challenges to the Plessy decision • Describe the divided reaction to the Brown decision • Trace the development of the Montgomery Bus Boycott

6. Explain the Philosophy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and his role with the SCLC • Summarize the role young people played in the civil rights movement • Overview: • African Americans use strong organization and nonviolent tactics to confront the South’s policies of segregation and racial inequality

7. How did Plessy v. Ferguson legalize segregation? • In 1875, the Civil Rights Act was passed decreeing non-discrimination based on race in public places, but it was overturned in 1883 • Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) legalizes segregation, in terms of separate but equal facilities • Jim Crow laws [laws aimed at separating the races] were passed throughout the nation, especially in the south

8. Forbade marriage and restricted social and religious contact between the races • Even though separate but equal was the law, African American facilities were far inferior • World War II inspires African Americans to fight for their rights, figuring if they were good enough to fight the fascists they could fight for their own freedoms • African Americans were only allowed to fight in World War II because of the shortage of soldiers

9. What were the NAACP’s legal challenges to the Plessy decision? • The NAACP exposes the unequal state of educational funding under segregation to challenge the Supreme Court precedent in Plessy v. Ferguson • White schools received ten times the amount of funding • Charles Hamilton Houston, president of NAACP, recruited his best law students, from Maryland Law School,

10. and placed them under Thurgood Marshall’s direction • Next 23 years Marshall and his team won 29 of 32 cases chipping away at Plessy • The Brown decision overturns “separate but equal” and signals the end of legal segregation • May 17, 1954: Linda Brown, 9 year old, and her dad Oliver Brown, won case ending segregation as she was denied admission to an all white school 4 blocks from her house and forced to go to school 21 blocks away to an all black school.

11. Warren court declared it unconstitutional and schools were desegregated • What was the reaction to the Brown decision? • The decision affected 12 million school children in 21 states • Some state and local governments balk (laugh) at the Brown decision, while others vow to follow • Within 1 year 500 school districts in the nation desegregated

12. It was the schools in areas with majority of blacks that desegregation faced tough opposition because whites were afraid of losing control of the schools • In 1955, the Supreme Court orders district courts to enforce the Brown decision, because it was not being enforced by congress or President Eisenhower • 90 Southern Congressmen issued the “Southern Manifesto,” denouncing Brown and calling on states to resist lawfully

13. Resistance to desegregation in Little Rock, AK, in 1948 forces President Eisenhower to send in the National Guard • The “Little Rock Nine” (nine black students who volunteered to integrate Little Rock’s Central High School) were escorted into the school by the national guard under Eisenhower’s order • The school was shut down at the end of the year by Governor Oliver Faubus, who was in opposition to desegregation and would rather shut down a school than allow desegregation to continue

14. The Civil Rights Act of 1957 was passed, 1st since reconstruction, gave attorney general more power over desegregation and authority over voting rights of African Americans • How did the Montgomery Bus Boycott develop? • African Americans in Montgomery, AL, organize a boycott to protest discrimination on city buses after Rosa Parks was arrested on December 1, 1955 for not moving to the colored section of the bus so a white man could sit down without having to sit next to any African Americans

15. News of Parks’s arrest spread quickly and the NAACP organized the boycott of the buses with the Montgomery Improvement Association, a group composed of leaders of the African-American community, they chose Martin Luther King Jr. to lead the group • The boycott thrusts MLK Jr. into the national spotlight, he is great speaker who rallies those that follow him • For 381days, the boycott lasted non-violently too • Many African Americans rode to work in carpools or walked • In a lawsuit filed by the boycotters, in late 1956, the Supreme Court outlaws segregation on buses

16. What was the Philosophy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and what was his role with the SCLC? • MLK Jr. seeks to promote civil rights through nonviolent resistance “soul force” • MLK Jr. draws his ideas from the teachings of Thoreau (the idea of civil disobedience [the right to refuse to obey unjust laws]), Gandhi (helped India throw off British rule through non-violent resistance), Jesus (who learned to love his enemies),…

17. …and A. Philip Randolph (learning how to organize the masses) • After the bus boycott ended, King joined more than 100 ministers and civil rights leaders in 1957 to found the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) “to carry on non-violent crusades against evils of second-class citizenship” • Young activists, impatient with the slow pace of change from the Brown decision, organize the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) established by Ella Baker and vow to challenge the system

18. What role did young people play in the civil rights movement? • Members of the SNCC build on methods of protest used earlier by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and wanted a more confrontational strategy to reshape civil rights • Sit-ins, a CORE strategy in which African Americans sat down at segregated lunch counters and refused to leave until they were served, attract national media…

19. …attention to the civil rights movement, showing the ugliness of racism as whites humiliated blacks that refused to strike back, even though being beaten, cursed at, and having food poured on them • Close • By the end of the 1950s, civil rights movements in the South had focused the nation’s attention. • Yet, when African Americans pressed for equality, they met massive resistance by many conservative whites • Page 721 Review “Taking on Segregation”