1950’s Civil Rights Movement

A Jack Marty and Paul Elliott Presentation

Origins of the Civil Rights Movement

• In the 1930s the NAACP and United Negro Improvement Association started challenging racial segregation through a series of Supreme Court cases.

• WWII fought racism abroad which caused Americans to condemn racism at home.

• After WWII, the black middle class grew which produced many Civil Rights Movements.

• The role of the television exposed Americans to violence of white supremacy.

The 1950’s Civil Rights Movement started the progression into major advances towards equality brought by Supreme Court cases, new activist leaders, and presidential approvals into the next decade.

Thesis Statement

Causes: segregation in schools, public places, and the bus systems

Inequality in pay, voting, jobs, and other rights

“separate by equal” Southern resistance in public schools; not

allowing blacks into white schools

Cause of the 1950’s Civil Rights Movement

• Truman’s sudden support for the Civil RightsMovement shocked many peopleHe was outraged by the dozens of murders of black veterans of WWII.Made Civil Rights a national issue in 1947.started a 15 man committee to produce new legislation that would protect everyone from discriminationFirst to address the NAACPHe promised African Americans that the federal government would act now to end discrimination, violence, and race prejudice in American life.

Truman and the Civil Rights Movement

1950-:Sweatt v. Paintor and McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents-the Court struck down segregation of African American students in law and graduate schools. The Justice Department, in its brief to the Court, said it believed Plessy was unconstitutional and should be overturned. NAACP Legal Defense Fund lawyers, led by Thurgood Marshall, began to devise a strategy that would force the Court to re-examine the constitutionality of the separate-but-equal doctrine.

1954: In Brown v. Board of Education 1955: In Brown v. Board II- the Supreme Court held

that school systems must abolish their racially dual systems, but could do so "with all deliberate speed.“

Supreme court Decisions

1956: The Supreme Court, without comment, affirmed a lower court ruling declaring segregation of the Montgomery bus system illegal, giving a major victory to Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the thousands of anonymous African Americans who had sustained the bus boycott in the face of violence and intimidation.

1958: The Supreme Court upheld the rule of law in Cooper v. Aaron, stating that official resistance and community violence could not justify delays in implementing desegregation efforts.

Source: http://www.civilrights.org/judiciary/supreme-court/key-cases.html

Supreme Court Decisions Continued

May 1954 Linda Brown was forced to go to an all-black

rather than a nearby white elementary school.

Brown denied equal protection of the laws. (14 Amendment)

Overturned the separate but equal doctrine from the Plessy v. Ferguson case

Sparked a new rise in the Ku Klux Klan and the White South to declare all out on Brown

Eisenhower accepted the Brown decision but thought it was a mistake

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka

Little Rock, Arkansas, 1957 Nine African American students attempted to

enroll in the all white school. The governor of Arkansas Orval Faubous sent

the National Guard to bar them. This sparked angry white mobs to taunt the

students Eisenhower was forced to act by sending

1,000 Federal troops to protect the black students

Little Rock showed that they were going to follow the local custom rather than the law.

Little Rock Nine

1955 Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a

white man sparking nonviolent resistance The black community appointed Rev. Martin

Luther King Jr. to lead the boycott African Americans had carpools or walked to

work to avoid the bus system The boycott worked because the Transit

Company feared bankruptcy 1956, the Supreme Court ruled

desegregation Unconstitutional

Montgomery Bus Boycott

In 1957, Rev. Ralph Abernathy and dozen of black ministers founded the SCLC

Based in Atlanta This black church moved transferred their

moral and organizational strength to the Civil Rights Movement

In this church, women were influential in their fight for civil rights

SCLC quickly joined the NAACP at the leading edge of the Civil Rights Movement

Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)

Eisenhower supported the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960

These acts created the Civil Rights Commission and the Civil Rights Division in the Justice Department

This Commission gave federal authority to register black voters

http://www.sparknotes.com/testprep/books/sat2/history/chapter19section4.rhtml

Eisenhower and the Civil Rights Movement

Developed new activist leaders: Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcom X

Ended racial segregation in schools, bus systems, and other public transportation

Brought to the beginning of new activist groups: NAACP and the SCLC

Presidents Truman and Eisenhower approved of Civil Rights Acts and the protests of the Movement

Effects

Plessy v. Ferguson-1896, Homer Plessy was ordered to leave a first class car and sent to a colored car on a Louisiana train.

The court ruled this did not violate the 14th Amendment's “separate by equal” clause.

During the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, the court ruled over the “separate by equal” ruling in 1896.

Synthesis

Little Rock Nine

Pictures

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