The Civil Rights Movement

Topic: Social Transformations in the United States (1945-1994)

A period of post-war prosperity allowed the United States to undergo fundamental social change. Adding to this change was an emphasis on scientific inquiry, the shift from an industrial to a technological/service economy, the impact of mass media, the phenomenon of suburban and Sun Belt migrations, the increase in immigration and the expansion of civil rights.

Content Statements:

23. Following World War II, the United States experienced a struggle for racial and gender equality and the extension of civil rights.

Ohio Standards

1. What are civil rights?2. What were the key events that brought the Civil Rights Movement national attention?3. What were the goals of the Civil Rights Movement?4. What were the strategies of the movement?5. In what ways did the movement succeed and fail?

Essential Questions

Founding principle of the USYet blacks were treated unequally and declared unequal by the law. Unable to sleep in most hotels Unable to eat in most restaurants Most sit in the balcony in movie theaters

and in the back of the bus …

“All Men are Created Equal”

Ordinary men and women challenge this “way of life”

Boycotts Marches Protests Most say the Civil Rights Movement

began in the 50’s and ended in the late 60’s, but it started much earlier.

1950’s

Early Struggles

Africans were brought to America as indentured servants but within a few years were forced into slavery.

By 1860 the US had about 4 million slaves. The US had a feeling of white superiority,

we had slave codes to govern the millions of slaves

Blacks could not own property, buy or sell goods, make contracts, have a gun, assemble without a white person present…

1600’s

1807- 2 boat loads of slaves starved themselves to death so they would not be sold into slavery.

Amistad slave ship, 1839- mutinied Nat Turner’s rebellion- 70 slaves killed 57 whites in

Virginia. Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad led

300 slaves to freedom. Frederick Douglass fought his cruel master and

escaped. Taught himself to read and write and became the leading spokesman.

Sojourner Truth- defied segregation laws These early activists would inspire others 100 years

later.

Early Resistance

By 1792 they were in every state They wrote and spoke about the

Abolitionist Movement Gave shelter to escaped slaves Helped elect a president who would

eventually free the slaves. After the Emancipation Proclamation,

200,000 blacks left their masters and fought with the Union army.

Anti-Slavery Societies

13th- ended slavery 14th- gave blacks citizenship and protected

their rights 15th- right to vote. Reconstruction let blacks see what

freedom was about, but it was short-lived. Whites (especially in the South) wanted to

keep blacks poor, uneducated and powerless.

KKK

The Civil War Amendments

Firmly in control by 1910 Separate restrooms, water fountains,

schools… 1896- Plessy v Ferguson- “separate but

equal”

Jim Crow Laws

“So far as the colored people of the country are concerned, the Constitution is but a stupendous sham… fair without and foul within, keeping the promise to the eye and breaking it to the heart.”

Frederick Douglass

Black Harvard-educated sociologist “American society must be

transformed if blacks are to achieve full equality.”

Established the NAACP in 1909 Began documenting racial

violence Published a magazine (Crisis)

W.E.B. DuBois

Blacks in the war and working in war-related industries yet mob violence against African-Americans was growing.

Lynchings NAACP has a silent march against

lynchings (10,000) Klan march on Washington in 1925

(40,000)

WWI era

Black creativity Painters, writers,

musicians, poets.. Express dignity and

defiance in their work Showed a deep

awareness of the impact of racism

Harlem Renaissance

Jamaica United Negro Improvement Association Black pride building a black nation in

Africa Later convicted of fraud and deported in

1927. Black pride and black self-sufficiency led

to a new movement black Nation of Islam (Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X)

Marcus Garvey

Black leaders were some of FDR’s advisors New Deal programs made available to

blacks No racial discrimination in defense

industries But when blacks returned to the US after

WWII they remained victims of racism at home

Black leaders need new strategies to bring democracy to America.

FDR

Non-violence Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)

decides to use non-violence in America.1. Training and discussion2. Blacks and whites enter segregated

restaurants, quietly sit down and refuse to leave until served.

3. They would not raise their voices or strike back.

Gandhi

Six Principles of Nonviolence1. Nonviolence is not passive, but requires courage.2. Nonviolence seeks reconciliation, not defeat of an adversary.3. Nonviolent action is directed at eliminating evil, not

destroying an evil-doer.4. A willingness to accept suffering for the cause, if necessary, but never to inflict it.5. A rejection of hatred, animosity or violence of the spirit, as well as refusal to commit physical violence.6. Faith that justice will prevail.

Interstate busses have outlawed segregation in 1946

CORE wants to see if the new rules are being obeyed.

Blacks and whites rode together on busses through the south and endured harassment without retaliating.

CORE sit-ins and Freedom Rides of the 40’s led to the civil rights activists of the 50’s and 60’s.

More on CORE

Harry Truman integrates the armed forces after WWII

Civil rights Commission established

Early Civil Rights Victories

Blacks moved north in record numbers

What 2 reasons? 1940-1960- 5 million blacks

leave the south Still faced with poverty,

unequal education and discrimination in the north but racial restrictions were less harsh.

Blacks could vote in northern states.

Great Migration

A movement of the People

{ Linda Brown’s parents

don’t want her to go to a rundown black school when there was a nice white school in their neighborhood.

Topeka, Kansas

Brown vs. Board of Education

{ Blacks all over the

country were angered over the conditions of the black schools.

NAACP decided it was not enough to fight for equal facilities… they want all schools INTEGRATED

NAACP takes the lead

{ NAACP takes 4 cases to argue that segregation was unconstitutional.

They lose in the lower courts but win in the Supreme Court.If at first you don’t

succeed…

“Segregated schools are inherently unequal”

“To separate black children solely because of their race, generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way very unlikely ever to be undone.”

U.S. Supreme Court

{ Southerners do not

believe that blacks deserve the same education as whites.

They do not want their children attending the same schools.

Southern governors state they will not abide by the ruling.

Enrage in the south

{ Montgomery, Alabama Want fair treatment on city

buses. (Blacks were 75% of the bus riders)

Blacks entered the bus in the front and paid then re-entered from the rear where they would sit in the “colored seats”

If white seats were full, blacks had to give up their seats.

City Busing

{ Many were arrested for

refusing to give up their seats.

One man was shot dead by the police after an argument with a bus driver.

Blacks were jammed together in the isles while rows of “white” seats were empty,

{

Dept. store seamstress Trained in non-violence

and civil disobedience Dec. 1, 1955 Bus was full and then a

white man boarded. Driver stopped the bus

and ordered Rosa and 3 others to vacate a row so the white man could sit down.

3 of the blacks stood up, Rosa would not and was arrested.

Rosa Parks

{ Boycott suggested Women’s Political

council organizes it Worked with black

students MLK selected as the

leader

Bus Boycott

{http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGtp7kCi_LA

Holt Street Baptist Church

{

381 days Blacks would not ride

the buses in Montgomery

Car pools, walked.. Non-violent MLK’s house was

bombed

Montgomery Bus Boycott

{

US Supreme Court outlaws bus segregation (Dec. 1956)

Showed the south that blacks could unite and launch a successful protest movement.

King goes on to establish the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference)

Victoryhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7da7I6BxrU

{ Whites fight back Expel students Close public schools

to avoid integration Swimming pools

filled and tennis courts closed

Removed library seats

Now to other public facilities

{

1957, Governor Faubus orders troops to surround Central High School to keep 9 black teenagers from entering. He wants schools segregated!!

Federal judge ordered him to let the students in

Little Rock 9

{

The next day Elizabeth Eckford tried again but was turned away by the National Guard.

Faubus again is ordered to let the students into the school.

Faubus removes the troops but will give the students no protection.

Students go to their first class but are removed after it because of the mob scene outside the school.

Elizabeth Eckford

{ President Eisenhower must

send in federal troops to protect the students.

They will stay for the entire school year.

The next year Faubus shuts down all public schools rather than integrate them.

A year later, the Supreme Court rules that “evasive schemes” could not be used to avoid integration. The Little Rock schools were finally opened to black and white students.

Eisenhowerhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iH4Zx96xbY&list=PLC388F5621BBD47DB&index=28

1962- James Meredith

Meredith decided to exercise his constitutional rights and apply to the University of Mississippi. His goal was to put pressure on the Kennedy administration to enforce civil rights for African Americans.

Univ. of Miss. is a state school, it gets federal funds, so it must be open to blacks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8VvNkTXVCM

Meredith is denied admission twice.

Filed a suit in a district court stating the only reason he was denied was his color.

Supreme Court says he is allowed to be admitted.

Miss. governor Ross Barnett, tried to block him by having the Legislature pass a law that “prohibited any person who was convicted of a state crime from admission to a state school.”

The law was directed at Meredith, who had been convicted of “false voter registration.”

After talking to RFK, Barnett lets Meredith enroll.

Riots begin. US Marshalls and National Guard sent in. Hundreds injured, 2 dead.

Many students harassed Meredith during his two semesters on campus but others accepted him.

Students living in Meredith's dorm bounced basketballs on the floor just above his room through all hours of the night. Other students ostracized him: when Meredith walked into the cafeteria for meals, the students eating would turn their backs. If Meredith sat at a table with other students, all of whom were white, the students would immediately get up and go to another table

Meredith graduates. Majored in Political Science.

Invite confrontation but remain nonviolent

{

Greensboro, NC Woolworth store 4 black students purchase

some school supplies and then head to the lunch counter and order coffee.

Told by the waitress, ”We don’t serve colored here.”

They kept their seats until the store closed.

The next day 19 more students joined in, sitting in shifts at the lunch counter

Spreads throughout NCSit-in’s

{

Within a year 70,000 people had participated in sit-in’s

Integration happened quietly and easily in some states, but not in the Deep South.

Activists were spit on, kicked, had food thrown on them, burned with cigarettes…

Many of the students were arrested or expelled from school.

SNCC formed. Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. They were becoming impatient with the slow changes and wanted to lead themselves.

Sit in’shttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbbcjn4d1cE

{ Led the SNCC “It is honorable to go to

jail for the cause of equality.”

Nonviolence was effective

Protestors were hit with fists and clubs simply for trying to exercise their rights.

Seeing these images upset Americans and forced the federal gov’t into action.

James Lawson

{ Blacks and whites- 1961 They want to test a supreme

court order outlawing segregation in bus terminals

Highly publicized They pull into Alabama on a

bus and are confronted with a mob of white men carrying pipes…

Bus driver drives off The mob catches up with the

bus and smashes the windows and throws in a firebomb.

As the bus was burning the riders rush out of the bus into the mob and were beaten.

Freedom Rides (1)

{ Busload 2 pulls

into Alabama 8 white men

board the bus and beat all the occupants.

Now on to Birmingham, and this time attacked by a mob and no policemen are there to protect them.

Several hospitalized.

Freedom Rides (2)

{

Students in Nashville want to finish the Freedom Rides.

Drove to Birmingham, arrested at the bus station and driven back to the Tenn. State line (at night).

They made their way back to Birmingham and managed to get a bus to Montgomery.

When the bus got to Montgomery they were met by a mob of 1,000 whites who beat the freedom riders without police interference.

Federal government must act to protect them.

Robert Kennedy (AG) asks the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) to issue regulations against segregated terminals.

Freedom Ride (3)

Young protestors are exposing the injustices of segregation and forcing the federal government to defend constitutional rights.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zBY6gkpbTg Freedom Rides

{Birmingham

The South’s most segregated city also known as Bombingham

{ MLK goes into

Birmingham to lead boycotts and marches.

Police commissioner “Bull” Connor orders the police to respond with force.

Police use clubs, police dogs, water guns…

All seen on TV. Hundreds arrested,

including King. MLK

{

MLK revives Birmingham School children as young

as 6 march They walk through the

police dogs and water hoses and are arrested.

Americans are horrified The federal government

comes to Alabama to work out a settlement between MLK and Birmingham’s business community.

Business community agrees to integrate downtown facilities and hire more blacks. Letter from a Birmingham

Jail

http://historicaltextarchive.com/sections.php?action=read&artid=40

{

Civil Rights are spreading

JFK and reform

“We face … a moral crisis, a great change is at hand, and our task, our obligation, is to make that revolution… peaceful and constructive for all.”

Days later JFK sends a comprehensive civil rights bill to Congress.

JFK and Civil Rights

{ 250,000 August, 1963 Lincoln Memorial “I Have a Dream

Speech”

March on Washington

{Short version

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFcbpGK9_aw orhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wDU-oYQN04

{ 3 weeks later 4 Sunday

School students were killed by a dynamite explosion in Birmingham, Alabama.

2 months later President Kennedy is assassinated

This was a big step, but…

Outlawed segregation in public accommodations

Sit-ins and freedom rides validated.

Did not address the problem of voting rights.

1964 Civil Rights Act

Fighting for the Ballot

{ 1963 First black to fill out a

voter registration form in Holmes County, Mississippi since the turn of the century

Hartman Turnbow

{ 2 firebombs at his house

two days after registering to vote

Tried to lead his wife and daughter out of the house but had to fight off a gang of white men waiting outside.

consequences

{ Turnbow and the voter

registration worker were arrested for arson.

Sheriff said they did it to draw sympathy for the voting rights campaign.

By 1965 blacks were 50% of the population of Mississippi, but only 5% were registered to vote. In some counties no blacks were registered.

{ Dangerous business in

the south Elaborate regulations

were set Those who tried to vote

were punished.

Voting

{ Poll taxes Literacy tests Read and interpret

sections of the state constitution.

Blacks who mispronounced a word were rejected, whites were approved even when they could not read at all.

Local officials could purge “unqualified voters”

Tactics to keep blacks from voting

Blacks who register can expect to lose their job.

Denied loans Rents doubled To intimidate further, Mississippi

newspapers printed all names of all voter applicants

Food cutoff in Mississippi for blacks in need

More tactics

{ Voter registration

workers were arrested for disturbing the peace…

But some blacks still risked their lives to vote.

Jail

The only way for blacks to get their rights protected was to vote.

{ Help blacks fill out voter

registration forms. Helped the poor get

government assistance Taught black children

how to read and write. Because of this voter

registration goes up.

Voter registration projects

{

Bring attention to voter rights abuses.

College students brought to Mississippi to register voters and teach.

If the white volunteers were beaten maybe the country would take notice.

1964- Freedom Summer

{ Day 1- three civil rights

workers were kidnapped and killed.

By the end of the summer 37 black churches were burned. 30 homes bombed, 80 civil rights workers beaten, more than 1,000 arrested.

The American public takes an interest.

Mississippi Burning

80,000 blacks registered

The end of the summer

{ Also fighting for voting

rights. MLK and the national

press come to Selma Violence March from Selma to

Montgomery (4 days) “The Civil Rights Act of

1964 gave negroes some part of their rightful dignity, but without the vote it was dignity without strength.”--MLK

Selma, Alabama

{ Viola Gregg Liuzzo, killed

while helping transport Selma marchers.

Rev. Reeb, beaten to death on Selma street.

In response to the killings and the Selma march, Congress passed the voting Rights Act of 1965.

Outlawed obstacles to blacks voting and authorized federal officials to enforce fair voting practices

killings

Civil Rights Act of ‘64- federal government can monitor school integration and prosecute racially motivated crimes.

Voting Rights Act of ‘65- Federal government can protect black voters

The legislation of the 60’s

{ Some blacks critical of

MLK Some question

nonviolence Others object to whites

being involved Some believe that blacks

should build their own independent political structures.

Vietnam War took money away from the war on poverty

Inner tensions

{ SNCC (student non-

violent coordinating committee)

Want whites to leave the organization

“Black Power”

Stokely Carmichael

{ Grew to 100,000 by 1970 Black separatism Led by Elijah Muhammad Spokesman was Malcolm

X- criticized nonviolence. “It is criminal to teach a

man not to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks.”

Later he would renounce violence and urged blacks not to hate whites.

Malcolm was assassinated in Feb. 1965.

Nation of Islam

{ Some blacks not

affected by the successes of the Civil Rights Movement

In poverty, bad schools, no jobs…

Frustrated Riots develop ‘64-’67

Cities erupt

{

MLK is planning for the Poor People’s March- 1968

While in Memphis, TN he was shot and killed by James Earl Ray (4-4-1968)

US public turns against the militant factions of the movement

New focus is urban blacks

{ Inequalities in housing Education Job opportunities Health care

Today’s challenges

Blacks more likely to… live in poverty Die in infancy Drop out of school Earn less money work at lower skilled jobs

Statistics

{But as we have learned ordinary people can change their world.

Unfortunately attitudes towards blacks still exist.

U2- Pride http://

www.youtube.com/watch?v=56mjwycKuXA

Civil Rights opened the windows. When you open the windows, it does not mean that everybody will get through. We must create our own opportunities.

Mary Frances Berry

Essential Questions

{

1. What are civil rights?

Right or rights belonging to a person by reason of citizenship including especially the fundamental freedoms and privileges guaranteed by the 13th and 14th amendments and subsequent acts of Congress including the right to legal , social and economic equality.

2. What were the key events that brought the Civil Rights Movement national attention? A. Brown v. Board of Education B. Little Rock 9 C. Freedom Rides D. Freedom Summer E. Civil Rights Act of ‘64 F. Voting Rights Act of ’65 G. Montgomery Bus Boycott H. Sit-ins

3. What were the goals of the Civil Rights Movement?

The goals of the civil rights movement were meaningful civil rights laws, a massive federal works program, full and fair employment, decent housing, the right to vote, and adequate integrated education.

The right to vote was passed and placed in the bill of rights (15th amendment) in 1870 part of the reconstruction era. So during 1960's during the civil rights movement the right to vote was not one of their goals because it was already in effect for African Americans to vote.

{

•

Nonviolenceboycotts, sit-insgetting national attentiongrassroots

4. What were the strategies used in the Civil Rights Movement?

5. In what ways did the movement succeed and fail?Succeed-Fail-

Reflection

Given the chance to participate in any of the events of the Civil Rights Movement, which events would you participate in, and why?

You are asked to speak at a dedication of the memorial to the victims who lost their lives in the Civil Rights Movement. What would you say?