Freedom Now

1
Freedom Now
Young blacks protest Jim Crow via sit-in at a
lunch counter

• Section 17.2

2
Review

• 1865- New Const. Amendments
• 1877- End of Reconstruction
• 1896- Plessy v Ferguson
• 1945/53- Truman Administration
• 1954- Brown v Board of Ed.
• 1957- Little Rock Nine

White high school students demonstrate against
integrated schools
3
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) legalized segregation.
If you were black, living in Montgomery Alabama
in 1955, you could be forced to give up seat on a
bus for a white person.
Rosa Parks, after winning her point, sits in the
front of the bus.
4
How might you change the injustice of segregation?

• Use violence
• Retaliations likely
• Doesnt change peoples heart
• Ignore the law
• May get arrested
• More dignified
• Bring a lawsuit (Brown v Board of Education)
• Legal victory
• Did not really change things
• Boycott
• Refuse to ride the bus
• Hits them where it hurts ()

5
Today we will identify how blacks, led by Martin
Luther King, used their economic power through
boycotts and sit-ins, to fight the oppression of
the White South.
Cartoon shows black man waving off a bus Uh,
uhIm not going your way.
6
Who was Rosa Parks?

• 43 year-old respected black woman who was the
  former local secretary for the NAACP in
  Montgomery, Alabama.
• Riding bus home from work one day during the busy
  Christmas season.
• Refused to give her seat up for a white man.
• She was arrested.

Above another picture of Rosa sitting up front
below Rosa Parks being fingerprinted after arrest
7
Why do you think Rosas arrest drew so much
attention?

• Dignified, Soft Spoken, Likable
• A Woman
• Idea of a woman being forced to give up seat to a
  man seemed abhorrent
• Hard to find any fault with her
• Agreed to take case all the way (to Supreme Ct.)

Rosa and attorney walk up steps to court
8
How did Civil Rights Leaders react to Rosas
arrest?

• Organized Montgomery Bus Boycott
• Refused to buy or use services
• Blacks made up 60 of bus riders
• Bus co. lost 40 thousand riders per day
• Dr. Martin Luther King (the Leader)
• historians will have to pause and say there
  lived a great people-a black people who injected
  a new meaning and dignity into the veins of
  civilization.
• Montgomery blacks used cabs, station wagons
• Wagons called rolling churches
• Insured by Lloyds of London
• Lasted nearly 400 days
• Supreme Court ruled bus segregation
  unconstitutional

Above blacks pile into a cab below boarding
bus after strikes end
9
Parks Arrested
Capture that colonial flag again
10
Who were Dr. Martin Luther King and the SCLC?

• Young, charismatic, well-educated
• Held doctorate in theology
• Created the SCLC- Southern Christian Leadership
  Conference
• Organization of 60 ministers to direct the
  movement
• Held workshops on passive resistance
• How to protect oneself?
• Spat on, jeered
• MLK was influenced by
• Thoreau- Civil Disobedience
• Gandhi

Above King in front of SCLC building below
King marches with other civil rights leaders
11
What are Sit-ins?

• 4 freshmen in Greensboro, NC sat at all-white
  lunch counter and refused to move until served
• Brought 27 students the next day
• 300 by day 5
• Sat in shifts
• Sales dropped 33
• Finally served 6 months later
• Started a Grass Roots Movement.
• 1960, 2,000 students sit-ins
• Read-ins, wade-ins (at beaches), kneel-ins (at
  churches)

Above liquids poured on students at Greensboro
lunch counter below one of the many copycat
demonstrations
12
Describe the tactics of the SNCC

• Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee
• Young whites and blacks who followed Kings
  passive resistance ideology
• Pronounced Snick
• Jail, not bail
• SNCC members refused to have bail posted
• Why?
• Bails costly
• Placed the cost of feeding, sheltering protesters
  on the police and local officials
• Gave them moral high ground

Above SNCC logo of a black and white hand shake
below protestors allow themselves to be arrested
13
Urban scene, 1960s, from Peter Jennings
documentary