Social Studies The Civil Rights Movement 1955-1964
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Civil Rights
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Rosa Parks On December 1, 1955, Parks, a department store
seamstress, boarded a bus headed for home. When a white man
boarded, four black passengers, including Parks, were asked to get
up and stand in back. Three complied; Parks refused. She was
arrested for breaking Alabamas segregation laws. She proved the
perfect litigant in a legal test the movements leaders had been
seeking. As the lawyers prepared for trial, teachers at Alabama
State announced a boycott by blacks of the Montgomery bus system.
The boycott lasted a year, causing crippling economic damage and
testing the resolve of local blacks. The legal fight rose through
the U.S. judicial system to the Supreme Court, which upheld a
federal court ruling that nullified Alabamas and Montgomerys
requirements for segregation on buses. (Library of Congress)
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Emmett Till Fourteen-year-old Chicagoan Emmett Till is visiting
family in Mississippi when he is kidnapped, brutally beaten, shot,
and dumped in the Tallahatchie River for allegedly whistling at a
white woman. Two white men, J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant, are
arrested for the murder and acquitted by an all-white jury. They
later boast about committing the murder in a Look magazine
interview. The case becomes a cause clbre of the civil rights
movement.
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The Civil rights movement "Imagine being unable to eat or sleep
in most restaurants and hotels; being unable to sit where you
wanted in a movie theater; having to sit in the back when you
boarded a bus, even an empty one; being forced to attend an
inferior school; and even being forbidden to drink from certain
water fountains. These were the facts of everyday life for all
black people in the Southern part of the United States as recently
as 1960. They were citizens of a country founded on the principle
that all people were created equal. Yet, they were treated
unequally, and declared unequal by the law. "in the middle of the
1950s, a movement of ordinary men and women arose to challenge this
way of life. Using boycotts, marches, and other forms of protest,
they ultimately forced the South to end its peculiar system of
legalized segregation. they succeeded because, in a democracy, when
the people speak the government must listen. Home
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Little Rock Nine The Little Rock Nine was a group of
African-American students who were enrolled in Little Rock Central
High School in 1957. The ensuing Little Rock Crisis, in which the
students were initially prevented from entering the racially
segregated school by Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus, and then
attended after the intervention of President Eisenhower, is
considered to be one of the most important events in the
African-American Civil Rights Movement. On their first day of
school, troops from the Arkansas National Guard would not let them
enter the school and they were followed by mobs making threats to
lynch.
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Ruby Bridges U.S. Deputy Marshals escort 6-year-old Ruby
Bridges from William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans in
November 1960. The first grader was the only black child enrolled
in the school. Years earlier, a landmark legal decision that led to
integration of U.S. public schools was triggered by a Kansas
welders desire for his daughter to attend a whites-only school
closer to home than the school for blacks. Brown v. Board of
Education took three years to reach the Supreme Court, where it was
argued by Thurgood Marshall, chief counsel for the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People and future
justice of the Supreme Court. The case would affect more than
whether students could attend schools close to home. When the court
unanimously ruled on May 17, 1954, in favor of Brown, it ended
years of school segregation authorized by an 1896 Supreme Court
decision that found separate but equal facilities for the races
were constitutional. As Southern states and counties resisted
integrating schools, enforcement would absorb federal resources. (
AP Images)
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The Birmingham campaign In Birmingham, Dr. King and his friends
boycotted segregated businesses, much like in Montgomery. In
addition to boycotts, Dr. King also used sit-ins as a form of
non-violent protest. Boycotts entailed people refusing to enter
buses and other places that had unfair segregation laws. Sit-ins
consisted of black and white people calmly entering
white-designated businesses, such as libraries and lunch counters,
where they would sit for hours and hours to draw attention to their
cause. This action was against the law, but it was also
non-violent. The police responded by arresting hundreds of
protesters, sometimes through violent means. Even when faced with
violence, the protesters would go to jail without putting up a
fight. Newspapers all over America reported on the overwhelming
peaceful and civil tone of these protests. Since the protesters
remained nonviolent and did not fight when the police took them
away, these sit-ins painted a clear picture of segregation to the
whole country. This picture showed the real people whose rights
were being denied and showed a city torn apart by segregation. In
addition to the sit-ins, Dr. King filled the streets of Birmingham
with marches and other protests, and told the government of
Birmingham that the protests would continue until the city agreed
to desegregate. The government did not want to give in to the
protesters demands, so it declared the marches illegal. Dr. King
and his organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Council
(SCLC) decided to disobey and continued to march and fight the
unjust segregation laws. They hoped that the nonviolent protests in
Birmingham would draw so much attention to injustice and cost the
city so much money that President John F. Kennedy himself would
pass a law to end segregation across the country.
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Childrens March The 1963 campaign to desegregate Birmingham,
Alabama, generated national publicity and federal action because of
the violent response by local authorities and the decision by
Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference (SCLC) to recruit children for demonstrations. The
Childrens Crusade added a new dynamic to the struggle in Birmingham
and was a major factor in the success of the campaign.Martin Luther
King, Jr. Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) Aware
that support for protests in Birmingham was waning during April
1963, King and the SCLC looked for ways to jumpstart the campaign.
When the arrest and jailing of King did little to attract more
protestors, SCLC staff member James Bevel proposed recruiting local
students, arguing that while many adults may be reluctant to
participate in demonstrations for fear of losing their jobs, their
children had less to lose. King initially had reservations, but
after deliberation he agreed, hoping for the action to subpoena the
conscience of the nation to the judgment seat of morality. SCLC and
the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR) members
immediately canvassed colleges and high schools for volunteers and
began training them on the tactics of nonviolent direct
action.protests in Birminghamnonviolent direct action On 2 May,
more than a thousand African American students skipped their
classes and gathered at Sixth Street Baptist Church to march to
downtown Birmingham. As they approached police lines, hundreds were
arrested and carried off to jail in paddy wagons and school buses.
When hundreds more young people gathered the following day for
another march, commissioner Bull Connor directed the local police
and fire departments to use force to halt the demonstration. Images
of children being blasted by high-pressure fire hoses, clubbed by
police officers, and attacked by police dogs appeared on television
and in newspapers and triggered outrage throughout the world.Bull
Connor
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Martin Luther King Jr Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a vital
figure of the modern era. His lectures and dialogues stirred the
concern and sparked the conscience of a generation. The movements
and marches he led brought significant changes in the fabric of
American life through his courage and selfless devotion. This
devotion gave direction to thirteen years of civil rights
activities. His charismatic leadership inspired men and women,
young and old, in this nation and around the world.
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I Have a Dream Home
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Lesson Activity We Shall Overcome: Historic Places of the Civil
Rights Movement Name of Historic Place: Birmingham,AL What
important event of the Civil Rights Movement occurred at this
place? What year did this event occur? Who were the players at this
location? List everyone involved, including demonstrators,
opposition, police, etc Outline the goals of the players. Again,
include all groups involved, including opposition. What is
important about the place where the event occurred? How did Martin
Luther King, Jr. and his theory of nonviolence influence the local
protestors? Did they practice nonviolent strategies? What was the
strategy used at this place? What were the costs, if any, at this
location? What was the prize? Which players achieved their goals?
What were the short term results? Long-term gains? Finally, how did
the people at this place influence the larger Civil Rights
Movement? Home
Standard Students will understand the protections and
privileges of individuals and groups in the United States.
Objective Analyze how civil rights and liberties have been changed
through court decisions.