Civil Rights 1950s-1970s

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Civil Rights 1950s-1970s
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Truman and Civil Rights

• Justice department begins to support
  anti-segregation laws
• Color barrier in baseball is broken when Jackie
  Robinson plays for the Brooklyn Dodgers
• 1948 Truman orders "equality of treatment and
  opportunity to African-Americans in the armed
  services

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Presidents and Civil Rights

• Truman made attempts to advance the cause
• Eisenhower was a segregationist. Not rabid, but
  certainly doesnt take steps to integrate
• JFK was a tepid supporter of civil rights, but he
  finger was always testing the political wind,
  which drove his decision making
• LBJ does more for Civil Rights than any other
  President ironyhes a Southerner

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Emmett Till - 1955

• An African-American boy (14 yrs) from Chicago
• In Mississippi visiting relatives
• He apparently whistled at a white store clerk,
  who informed her husband, Roy Bryant
• Bryant and JW Milam killed Till, beating him,
  gouging out on eye, shooting him and dumping the
  body in a river.
• His mother insisted on an open casket and allowed
  photos of her mutilated son that were circulated
  in papers
• His murderers admitted to the killing, but were
  acquitted by a jury of 12 southern white men.
• They deliberated for just over an hour
• There was moral outrage throughout the US and
  Europe. This helped to spark the civil rights
  movement

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Public School Integration
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Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka - 1954

• Linda Brown 3rd Grader had to travel 1 mile
  to all-black school, passing a white school along
  the way
• NAACP works with Browns challenging school
  segregation
• Supreme Court overturns Plessy v. Ferguson said
  that Separate but equal denied students rights
  under Constitution
• The first step in eliminating segregation

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Loophole in Brown v. Board Decision

• with all deliberate speed
• Southern states did not move to quickly to reform
• Southern Manifesto Southern Congressmen sign
  this document asserting that the Supreme Courts
  decision violates states rights
• Some Southern states threatened to disband public
  schools and make all schools private

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Integration in Schools

• Ike did not advance the ball with integration
• Did not crack down on states that ignored Brown
  v. Board
• States further North desegregated peacefully, but
  in the South, African-Americans met more violence
  and taunts
• Little Rock Crisis 1957
• Central High School , city admitted 9 blacks
• Gov. Orval Faubas used National Guard to keep
  blacks out
• Faubas withdraws guardsmen under national
  pressure
• Eisenhower sends in 101st Airborne to keep the
  peace

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State Universities

• Slow to integrate, particularly in the South
• 1956 University of Alabama admitted Autherine
  Lucy under court order, but expelled her before
  she could attend
• 1962 James Meredith attended the University of
  Mississippi (transfer from Jackson St)
• Opposed by Governor Ross Barnett sparking riots
• Kennedy sent in the army
• Meredith graduated the next year - Political
  Science
• In 1963 Governor of Alabama, George Wallace,
  was vocal in his opposition to integration of the
  University of Alabama
• Ran for President in 1968

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Autherine Lucy James Meredith
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Equal Access to Public Facilities
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Jim Crowism (1877-1960s)

• Practiced in most Southern states, 3 of 4 border
  states, and a few in the west
• Separated the races in many public facilities
  like buses bus terminals, movie theaters,
  drinking fountains and restrooms.
• Hotels and restaurants may deny African-Americans
  service

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Examples of Jim Crow
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Montgomery Bus Boycott

• Dec, 1955 Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus
  seat to a white passenger she was arrested
• Montgomery Bus Boycott - Womens Political
  Council (college educated African-American women)
  started a boycott of the bus company in
  Montgomery
• Martin Luther King took a leadership role in this
  effort
• Lasted several months received national media
  attention
• Supreme Court ruled almost a year later that bus
  segregation was unconstitutional Browder v. Gayle
• Martin Luther King was made famous

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Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)

• Civil rights organization founded in 1957
• Co-founded by Joseph Lowrey and Ella Baker.
• It was later headed by MLK.
• The organization, sparked by the success of the
  Montgomery Bus Boycott, focused on nonviolent
  civil disobedience through protests and marches
  to gain civil rights for blacks.
• They thrived on media coverage to gain support
  around the world.
• While NAACP focused on court-based reform, SCLC
  focused on community-based reform

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Ella Baker

• Civil rights activist involved with the NAACP and
  SCLC.
• She formed SNCC and went to work with them
  forming the plans for sit-ins and freedom rides.
• Her ideas on group-centered organizing and direct
  action influenced the philosophy of participatory
  democracy put forth by SNCC

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Ella Baker
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Lunch Counter Sit-Ins

• 1960 Four African-American college students sat
  at the lunch counter of a Woolworths in
  Greensboro, NC
• Waited for a day without being served
• Sparked similar demonstrations throughout the
  South
• Had varying effects
• Some lunch counters integrated as a result
• Violence by angry whites and arrests happened in
  other areas

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Woolworths Sit-In - Greensboro
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Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
- 1961

• Founded under the guidance of Ella Baker led by
  John Lewis
• Focused membership on the younger generation
• Involved in sit-ins, freedom rides, March on
  Washington.
• Its purpose was to coordinate the use of
  nonviolent direct action to attack segregation as
  well as other forms of racism.
• Later led by Stokely Carmichael
• Began to focus on black power, Vietnam and
  started to abandon the idea of passive
  resistance.
• One of the first groups to used a decentralized
  organizational structure

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John Lewis

• Civil rights activist.
• Involved in sit-ins and the freedom rides during
  college.
• During the Selma to Montgomery march, police
  brutally beat him.
• At the March on Washington, Lewis, the Pres of
  SNCC, was critical of the Kennedy administration

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Freedom Rides - 1961

• Began in May, shortly after the Bay of Pigs.
• Black and White students from SNCC boarded busses
  to travel through the south to test the
  enforcement of laws prohibiting segregation.
• The riders ran into trouble in Alabama where mobs
  stopped the buses and beat some of the riders.
• They continued the ride
• RFK cut a deal with the Governor of Miss to
  protect the riders in exchange for the justice
  department not enforcing segregation laws.

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Freedom Rides
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Birmingham - 1963

• SCLC concentrated its efforts on the heavily
  segregated Birmingham, Alabama
• Hold sit-ins protest marches
• Commissioner of Public Safety, Bull Connor,
  turned the fire hoses dogs on these people
• Some were arrested
• MLK wrote Letter from a Birmingham Jail
• We have not made a single gain in civil rights
  without determined legal and non-violent
  pressure Freedom is never voluntarily given by
  the oppressor it must be demanded by the
  oppressed

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March on Washington (for Jobs and Freedom) Aug
1963

• Approx 200-500,000 people attended.
• King delivered his I Have a Dream speech.
• Kennedy felt that this would undermine pending
  civil rights legislation and hurt other domestic
  initiatives.
• JFK concerned this would embarrass the United
  States in the world community
• Helped to push through the Civil Rights Act of
  1964 and Voters Rights act of 1965

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Civil Rights Act of 1964

• LBJ has taken over Presidency after JFKs murder
• LBJ is a creative legislator and pushes through
  the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as a tribute to the
  fallen President
• Prohibited segregation in public accommodations
  (hotels, restaurants, gas stations, theaters
  parks)
• Outlawed employment discrimination on federal
  projects

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Equitable Voter Registration
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Freedom Summer - 1964

• Civil rights organizations like SNCC launched a
  campaign to register as many black voters as they
  could in Mississippi counties that had a
  noticeably low black voter turnout.
• Violence hindered the campaign when three
  students were apprehended by the KKK and
  murdered.
• Their murders sparked an investigation by the FBI
  and became a symbol of the civil rights movement

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Freedom Summer
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Selma to Montgomery March

• MLK and SCLC demonstrated in Selma, Alabama for
  voter rights
• Only 2 of eligible blacks were registered in
  that county
• Protestors were arrested
• John Lewis organized a group to march from Selma
  to Montgomery
• The protestors were met by state troopers who
  beat the protestors when they failed to disperse
• TV cameras caught the violence

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Voting Rights Act - 1965

• Signed by Johnson
• Outlawed literacy tests
• Federal voting registrars would be sent to states
  with less than 50 of eligible population
  registered

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Black Power

• Attitude in America, urban riots, fueled
  separatists from the nonviolence camp

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Nation of Islam

• Elijah Muhammad - The leader of the Nation of
  Islam from the 30s to the 70s.
• He was similar to the Pope in that he was the
  voice of Allah on Earth.
• From an early age he developed a deep hatred for
  white people because of the violence he witnessed
• father killed by whites.
• He preached that whites were devils and inferior.
  
• He preached complete separation from white
  community (black separatism) as well as black
  nationalism.
• He believed in rehabilitating blacks who were
  alcoholics, drug users and criminals which he
  had success doing.
• Had a profound impact on Malcolm X.

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Nation of Islam

• Malcolm X
• Becomes the leading Black Muslim
• Break free of white dominance by using any means
  necessary
• Emphasized African cultural heritage self-help
• Pilgrimage to Mecca softened his stance
• Assassinated by members of the Nation of Islam

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Black Panthers - 1966

• Founded by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton
• This was a militant group of civil rights
  protesters who believed in black nationalism and
  believed in armed resistance to stop black
  oppression.
• They monitored police to look for abuse.
• They are an example of the new wave of civil
  rights activists, tired of the non-violent
  approach.