Civil RightsThanks for coming in…

Where does it begin?

• Plessy v. Ferguson▫ Separate but equal?

World War II• Executive Order #8802

▫opened government jobs and defense contract work to African Americans on the basis of equal pay for equal work

• 1947 – Truman completely desegregates the US military

• Troops overseas• Hitler comparison

The Problem We All Live With

What blacks are up against, and strategies.

• 1950 Stats▫15 million blacks, 2/3 in South▫20% are registered to vote, only 5% in “deep”▫ Jim Crow Laws:

Kept blacks economically inferior, and politically powerless

• Breaking barriers▫ Jackie Robinson #42 (1947)▫Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955)

Claudette Colvin Rosa Parks Martin Luther King, Jr.

▫Sit-ins (1960) “fellows like you…”

SuperChief

•Chief Justice Earl Warren▫President Eisenhower did not want to

address Civil Rights, Warren made him Brown v. Board of Ed. Gideon v. Wainwright Reynolds v. Sims Miranda v. Arizona Warren Commission

Little Rock 9 •10 years later…▫2% of Southern

schools were integrated

•Little Rock, Arkansas (1957)▫Governor Orval

Faubus▫President

Eisenhower is forced to act

▫National Guard v. Federal Troops

Concluding thoughts.

•Is there anything you feel so powerful about that you would be willing to endure this?

•Are we, as Americans, done?