BIG PICTURE: In the mid-1900s, many African Americans rose up against the treatment they had endured for decades. They fought discrimination through court cases and non-violent resistance. Their efforts resulted in meaningful government protections of basic civil rights.

CHAPTER 28: THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

MAIN IDEA: In the mid-1900s, the civil rights movement began to make major progress in correcting the national problem of racial segregation.

CHAPTER 28 SECTION 1: FIGHTING SEGREGATION

The Civil Rights Movement Prior to 1954

• African Americans had been working for civil rights since the end of the Civil War• They faced set backs (like

Plessy v. Ferguson) and successes (founding of NAACP and increased programs during the New Deal)• 1940s: founding of CORE: Congress of Racial Equality to end discrimination• 1947: Jackie Robinson: 1st

AA to play for a major league baseball team

• NAACP law team worked to challenge segregation laws as violations of the 14th Amendment (equal protection)• Thurgood Marshall helped

lead the team to challenge Plessy v. Ferguson attempting to show that separate was not equal

Civil Rights Through the 1940s

Seeking Change in the courts

Brown v. Board of Education

• NAACP 1st focused on segregation in graduate schools, then on public schools• They combined several cases

challenging segregation in public schools into Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka, KS (1954)• The Court heard arguments over

two years and looked at studies of the effects of segregation on children• May, 1954: Chief Justice Earl

Warren announces a unanimous decision striking down segregated public schools

• This decision impacted 21 states, but they were slow to change because the court gave no guidance on how or when to desegregate• Many states resisted integration,

including Arkansas where Gov. Orval Faubus delayed a court order to integrate Little Rock High• He used the national guard to

turn away the Little Rock Nine (9 students who integrate the HS)• President Eisenhower eventually

sent in the National Guard to protect the students

The Supreme Court Hears Brown

The Little Rock Crisis

A Boycott Begins in Montgomery, Alabama

• Brown ruling only applied to schools, but segregation was still prevalent in other public places, like buses

• 1955 Rosa Parks, NAACP secretary challenged the segregation law by sitting in the 1st row of the black section and refusing to move when the white section filled up—was arrested

• NAACP held meetings in local churches to call for a boycott of the bus system (1 day and then indefinitely) until they were desegregated

• Martin Luther King became the movement’s leader

• Supreme Court finally ruled segregated buses were unconstitutional late 1956

• Success of Montgomery boycott led to boycotts across the South• Southern Christian Leadership Conference(SCLC) formed to help organize protests and MLK was elected their leader• the group was committed to

nonviolent protest and civil disobedience

The Montgomery bus boycott Birth of the SCLC

MAIN IDEA: The quest for civil rights became a nationwide movement in the 1960s as African Americans won political and legal rights, and segregation was largely abolished.

CHAPTER 29 SECTION 2: FREEDOM NOW!

Sit-ins and Freedom Rides

• CRM used tactics based on Gandhi and his movement in India to gain independence from GB• He believed non-violent protest was the best way to change society because it exposed the evil in the current system• Both James Farmer of CORE

and King of SCLC promoted and trained protesters in nonviolent protest tactics • Focused primarily on

boycotts

• Feb 1, 1960: sit-in movement begins in Greensboro, NC at Woolworth’s• Despite backlash from the white

community, the protests continued and spread throughout the South• By the fall, most lunch counters

across the South were desegregated and students formed their own civil rights organization: Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)• They focus primarily on sit-ins

The strategy of nonviolence

The sit-in movement

• Led by CORE to end segregation on the interstate bus system• Freedom riders included

white and black students; as they moved into the deep South, the busses and riders were attacked• A bus was fire-bombed in

Anniston, AL and in Birmingham, the riders were brutally attacked

• Attorney General Robert Kennedy arranged with the Governor of Alabama to have police protect riders in Montgomery but they did not show and riders were beaten• Outraged, Kennedy sent in federal marshals to protect the riders• Rides continued into the fall

of 1961 when the Interstate Commerce Commission integrated the stations

The Freedom RidesFederal Intervention

Integrating Higher Education• NAACP continued working against school segregation• African American students integrating white universities faced hostility and violence•When James Meredith integrated University of Mississippi in 1962, he had to be escorted by 50 federal marshals and there was still a riot and troops had to be sent in• Federal marshals stayed with him until he graduated

Albany and Birmingham

• Began with sit-ins at the bus station; they brought in MLK when the federal government ignored arrests of protesters• King’s strategy was to fill the

jails to shame the white leaders• The police chief began sending

protestors to jails in surrounding communities• Local leaders were bitter that the

SCLC came in and took over; the white leaders refused to talk to anyone but local protest leaders• King left in defeat and the Albany

campaign ended in failure

• April 1963: began sit-ins to protest segregation• Hundreds were arrested and the

white clergy criticized MLK for his tactics• In Letter from a Birmingham Jail

King addressed his critics explaining how protest was the only way things would change• May 2: children march, 900 are

arrested• May 3: 2,500 show up and chief

Eugene ‘Bull’ Connor used dogs and fire hoses on them…the American public is horrified• Eventually the federal government

stepped in to force integration

The Albany Movement The Birmingham Campaign

The Civil Rights Act of 1964

• Kennedy decided slow improvement was not enough and announced he would push for federal legislation ending segregation• Hours later, Medgar Evers,

head of the NAACP was assassinated in his driveway• Klan member was arrested

but acquitted (retried in 1994 and sent to prison)

• To build support for the new legislation, civil rights leaders planed a march on Washington in August, 1963• 200,000 attended • MLK delivers his I Have A Dream

speech• The next month, a bombing at a

church killed 4 girls• Kennedy was assassinated in

November…Johnson supported passage of the bill and signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 banning discrimination in employment and public accommodations

The Assassination of Medgar Evers

March on Washington/Civil Rights Act

MAIN IDEA: In the 1960s, African Americans gained voting rights and political power in the South, but only after a bitter and hard-fought struggle.

CHAPTER 28 SECTION 3: VOTING RIGHTS

Gaining Voting Rights

• Civil rights leaders began to focus on voting to change things in the South

• 1962: CORE and SNCC start the Voter Education Project (VEP) to register Southern African Americans to vote

• Marchers were attacked and several workers were killed in Mississippi

• Despite the violence, the project was a success, registering more than 1.5 million voters in the 1st year

• Passed in 1962, the 24th Amendment banned poll taxes

• Summer of 1964: project for mass registration of voters called Freedom Summer• Some volunteers registered voters

and others taught in Freedom Schools helping to teach basic reading and math skills• Within a week, 3 volunteers

disappeared…two months later their bodies were found in an earthen dam• The state dropped the charges on

the KKK members accused of killing them, so the federal government prosecuted them on civil rights charges (7 of 21 received 4-10 years)

Registering Voters/24th Amendment

Freedom Summer/Crisis in Mississippi

Political Organizing

• Most civil rights leaders preferred that LBJ win the election of 1964 (his opponent Goldwater voted against the Civil Rights Act) • King and other civil rights leaders suspended protests until after

election day• SNCC refused and argued that racism should be eliminated from

the Democratic Party• they helped form the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) to send delegates to the national convention in protest of the all-white racist delegation selected by the state party• Fannie Lou Hammer argued the case for MFDP before the

credentials committee on live TV detailing how she had been fired and arrested for registering to vote• The committee offered a compromise of allowing 2 of the 64

seats, but MFDP rejected the compromise- none were allowed to contribute

The Voting Rights Act

• Jan. 1965: major focus was now on voting rights and began in Selma, AL• King used marches and mass

jailing to bring attention to the issue• After a marcher is killed in

Marion, King arranges a march from Selma to Montgomery to protest police brutality• 600 African American protestors

joined the march and were attacked by police crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge• Federal agents were sent in to

protect marchers

• A week after the march, LBJ asks Congress to pass a voting rights law• Voting Rights Act of 1965:

gave federal government power to keep states from preventing African Americans from voting• Key parts were recently

declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court

The Selma Campaign and March

The Voting Rights Act of 1965

MAIN IDEA: Continued social and economic inequalities caused many young African Americans to lose faith in the civil rights movement and integration and seek alternative solutions.

CHAPTER 28 SECTION 4: CHANGES AND CHALLENGES

Expanding the Movement

• SNCC became increasingly frustrated by the violence against peaceful marchers and questioned nonviolent tactics• The movement had helped

alleviate de jure segregation (laws) but attitudes had not changed• Most places, especially up

North, suffered from de facto segregation (by practice or custom) which is harder to fight• Includes housing and job

discrimination

• 1964-1967: frustration over de facto segregation led to racial unrest in large urban centers like the Watts neighborhood of LA• After riots, LBJ appointed the Kerner Commission to study causes of urban violence: they blamed it on poverty and discrimination• King attempted to take the

movement North, but was unsuccessful (largely ignored by both the white and black community)

Conditions outside the South

Urban Unrest/The Movement Moves North

Fractures in the Movement

• Various civil rights groups began to have conflict over goals and tactics• May 1966 Stokely Carmichael

became the head of SNCC and abandoned non-violence in favor of black power: depending on the African American community for change; CORE soon embraced this idea• Huey Newton and Bobby Seale

form the Black Panther Party in Oakland in Oct. 1966: they carried guns and guarded against police brutality

• Led by Elijah Muhammad, this movement preached black nationalism, self-discipline, and self-reliance• Became widespread and

popular due to the teachings of Malcolm X• He was also critical of

nonviolence• Was assassinated in 1965 by

followers of Elijah Muhammad

Black Power/Black PanthersBlack Muslims

The Assassination of King• King’s failure in the Northern campaign helped him realized the movement needed to focus on economic issues•Went to Memphis to support a sanitation workers strike for better pay and conditions• April 4, 1968: assassinated by James Earl Ray at on his hotel balcony• Rioting erupted in more than 120 cities upon hearing the news• Robert Kennedy, a supporter of civil rights running for the Democratic nomination, urged calm

MAIN IDEA: The civil rights movement was in decline by the 1970s, but its accomplishments continued to benefit American society.

CHAPTER 28 SECTION 5: THE MOVEMENT CONTINUES

A Change in Goals/The Decline of Black Power• 1967: shift in goals towards poverty: Poor People’s Campaign • After King’s assassination, Ralph Abernathy of the SCLC led

the campaign• Their march in DC in 1968 was disastrous: gang members

showed up and protesters harassed reporters• They had no clear message and some in Congress thought

they sounded communist; they were eventually sent home• SCLC began to decline in importance to the movement• Head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, began investigating leaders

of the civil rights movement for being communist• Agents infiltrated meetings and spread rumors to weaken the

various civil rights organizations

New Changes and Gains

• Civil Rights Act of 1968: banned discrimination in sale or rental of housing• Courts began ordering the use

of bussing to integrate schools plagued by de facto segregation across the nation • Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg (1971): bussing for integration is constitutional• Further white flight eventually

led to more power for African Americans resulting in the election of several black mayors

• Affirmative action: giving preference to minority and female applicants for college and jobs• led to a shift among white

Southern and urban working class whites to the Republican Party• Throughout the 1970s,

African Americans became increasingly active in politics• Activists like Andrew Young

and John Lewis went onto serve in Congress and as ambassadors

Busing and Political Change Affirmative Action & New Black Power