The Civil Rights Era

1
The Civil Rights Era

• USHC-8.1 Analyze the African American Civil
  Rights Movement, including initial strategies,
  landmark court cases and legislation, the roles
  of key civil rights advocates and the media, and
  the influence of the Civil Rights Movement on
  other groups seeking equality.

2
AIM

• To understand the African-American struggle for
  civil rights during the 1950s and 1960s.

3
What color does a person have to be?

• What does Colored actually mean? How did you
  come to that meaning?
• Jim Crow Laws
• What was the main goal of these laws?
• Demean, suppress, and keep separate
• Separate but Equal
• Was this the case?
• Laws challenged
• 1950s and 1960s
• How were they challenged? What were the
  consequences of challenging these types of laws?
  

4
AIM

• TLW explain how legalized segregation deprived
  African-Americans of their rights as citizens.
• TLW summarize civil rights legal activity
  including the response to the Plessy and Brown
  cases.

5
Vocabulary

• Segregation-the separation of people on the basis
  of race
• Desegregation-end of segregation
• Jim Crow Laws-laws enacted by Southern states
  and local government to separate white and black
  people in public and private facilities.

6
Segregation

• Plessy v. Ferguson
• Civil Rights Act of 1875 act outlawed segregation
• In 1883, all-white Supreme Court declares Act
  unconstitutional
• 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson ruling separate but
  equal constitutional
• Many states pass Jim Crow laws separating the
  races
• Facilities for blacks always inferior to those
  for whites

7
Challenging Segregation in the Courtroom

• The NAACP Legal Strategy
• Professor Charles Hamilton Houston leads NAACP
  legal campaign
• Focuses on most glaring inequalities of
  segregated public education
• Places team of law students under Thurgood
  Marshall
• win 29 out of 32 cases argued before Supreme
  Court
• Brown v. Board of Education
• Marshalls greatest victory is Brown v. Board of
  Education of Topeka
• In 1954 case, Court unanimously strikes down
  school segregation

8
Reaction to Brown

• Resistance to School Desegregation
• Within 1 year, over 500 school districts
  desegregate
• Some districts, state officials, pro-white groups
  actively resist
• Court hands Brown II, orders desegregation at
  all deliberate speed
• Eisenhower refuses to enforce compliance
  considers it impossible

9
Questions to ponder(Exit Slip 3/20/12)

• Is/Was there any way that separate educational
  facilities could ever be considered equal?
• How important is education to achieving
  opportunities?

10
AIM

• TLW explain how legalized segregation deprived
  African-Americans of their rights as citizens.
• TLW summarize civil rights legal activity
  including the response to the Plessy and Brown
  cases.
• Sub-objective
• Analyze political cartoons and photographs to
  understand the response to the Brown case.

11
Making connections

• Do you believe that rejection is a key part of
  discrimination?
• Can you recall a time when you felt rejected by
  friends or peers?
• What feelings were associate with your rejection?

12
Brown Vs. Board of Ed. Review

• Segregation in Education is NOT Equal!
• All schools will be integrated, not just the
  Topeka School District.
• President Eisenhower did not want to force this,
  but some events made cause for intervention.
• Were the schools integrated in a timely fashion?
  Why or why not?
• What region of the country do you think resisted
  integration in the schools?

13
Exit Slip

• How did the Brown decision affect the cause of
  civil rights?
• Did this court case decision effectively end
  segregation? Why or why not?

14
Review Effects of Brown

• How did the Brown decision affect schools outside
  of Topeka?
• Why werent school in all regions desegregated
  immediately after the Brown II decision?
• What was the historical impact of the Brown
  decision?

15
AIM

• TLW analyze initial strategies used in the
  African-American Civil Rights Movement.
• TLW analyze the role of media in the Civil Rights
  Movement.
• Sub-objective
• Making connections and relating to media/text to
  better understand the Civil Rights Movement.

16
Think about

• What motivates a person to defy authority and
  risk jail?
• Why would a whole community organize a boycott?
• What can happen when enough people defy
  authority?
• How can we categorize demonstrations that took
  place during the American Civil Rights movement?

17
Vocabulary

• Boycott
• refusal to have dealings with (like a store,
  restaurant, person, organization)
• Sit-Ins
• demonstration used to protest discrimination, sit
  down in a segregated business and refuse to leave
  until served
• Freedom riders
• activists who rode buses through the South in the
  early 1960s to challenge segregation

18
The Montgomery Bus Boycott

• Boycotting Segregation
• 1955 NAACP officer Rosa Parks arrested for not
  giving up seat on bus
• Montgomery Improvement Association formed,
  organizes bus boycott
• Elect 26-year-old Baptist pastor Martin Luther
  King, Jr. leader
• Walking for Justice
• African Americans file lawsuit, boycott buses,
  use carpools, walk
• Get support from black community, outside groups,
  sympathetic whites
• 1956, Supreme Court outlaws bus segregation
• What kind of demonstration was this?

19
Demonstrating for Freedom

• SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee)
  adopts nonviolence, but calls for more
  confrontational strategy
• Influenced by Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
  to use sit-ins
• - refuse to leave segregated lunch counter
  until served
• First sit-in at Greensboro, NC Woolworths shown
  nationwide on TV
• In spite of abuse, arrests, movement grows,
  spreads to North
• Late 1960, lunch counters desegregated in 48
  cities in 11 states

20
Riding for Freedom

• (Congress of Racial Equality) COREs Freedom
  Rides
• 1961, CORE tests Court decision banning
  interstate bus segregation
• Freedom ridersblacks, whites sit, use station
  facilities together
• Riders brutally beaten by Alabama mobs one bus
  firebombed
• If bus segregation was ban, why did these riders
  take these bus trips?

21
Freedom Summer

• Freedom SummerCORE, SNCC project to register
  blacks to vote in MS
• Volunteers beaten, killed businesses, homes,
  churches burned

22
AIM

• TLW analyze the role of media in the Civil Rights
  Movement.

23
Media
Fannie Lou Hammers speech to the Democratic
National Convention 1964
Central High School in Little Rock Arkansas 1957
TV Coverage of Civil Rights Movement
The Greensboro Sit-In Feb. 1960
The Selma March 1965
24
Media

• What part did the media play in the Civil Rights
  Movement?
• What effect do you think television coverage of
  events such as integration in Little Rock have on
  the nation?

Effects of Media on the Civil Rights Movement
25
Exit Slip

• Can you recall a time when you or someone you
  know took an unpopular stand? Explain the
  situation, motivation, and results. How is this
  similar to the civil rights activists stand?
• How did freedom riders expose Southern resistance
  to desegregation rulings?

26
AIM

• Analyze the African American Civil Rights
  Movement including the roles of key civil rights
  advocates.
• TLW analyze key legislation during the Civil
  Rights Movement.

27
Vocabulary

• De facto segregation-
• racial separation established by practice and
  custom, not by law
• De jure segregation-
• a racial separation established by law

28
Example MLK Jr.

• Tactics
• Non-violent soul force
• Civil Disobedience
• non-violent protests, demonstrations, boycotts
• Organizations
• NAACP (National Associate for the Advancement of
  Colored People)
• Southern Christian Leadership Conference
• Legacy
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
• I Have a Dream
• Non-violence
• Greatest Contribution
• King used nonviolence to advocate for equal
  rights.

29
Exit SlipFill in the spider diagram with
examples of organizations, leaders, and Supreme
Court decisions of the civil rights movement up
to 1960.
Supreme Court Decisions
Organizations
Challenging Segregation
Leaders
Tactics
30
AIM

• TLW analyze key legislation during the Civil
  Rights Movement.

31
Civil Rights Act of 1957

• 1st Civil Rights law since Reconstruction
• Gave the attorney general greater power over
  school desegregation
• Gave the federal government jurisdiction
  (authority) over violations of African-American
  voting rights.

32
Civil Rights Act of 1964

• Prohibited discrimination because of race,
  religion, national origin, and gender.
• All citizens had the right to enter libraries,
  parks, washrooms, restaurants, theaters, and
  other public accommodations.

33
Voting Rights Act of 1965

• Eliminated the so-called literacy tests that had
  disqualified many voters
• Stated federal examiners could enroll voters who
  had been denied by local officials.

34
Civil Rights Act of 1968

• Ended discrimination in housing
• Fair Housing Act
• Prohibits discrimination in the sale, rental,
  financing, or advertising of housing
• Illegal to refuse to sell or negotiate!

35
Vocabulary

• Affirmative action-involved making special
  efforts to hire or enroll groups that have
  suffered discrimination
• Polarization-separation into opposite camps