301 Monday

Civil Rights

WWII offered the possibility of equalityMilitancy began to rise in the fight for

Civil RightsBlack Press highlighted the many

varied faces of segregationPeople tried to force a flexible and

encompassing use of Executive Order 8802

CORE (Congress of Racial Equality)An interracial groupStarted in the north in 1942 to highlight

northern racismBy 1960s became a major proponent of sit-ins

Legal Challenge

Brown V Board of EducationCharles HoustonArgued by Thurgood Marshall on

behalf of NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People)

NAACP aims to get people out of the streets and in to the courts

1954 Brown decision ended separate but equal in schools

White Reaction

1956 “Southern Manifesto”A statement by a number of Southern states announcing their intent to avoid integration and defend segregation

1957 Little Rock, ArkansasIntegration of Central High

SchoolGovernor Orville FarbusSent in State Guard to stop

six black students entering white school

Rosa ParksDecember 1, 1955, Rosa

Parks boards a city bus to go home.

When she refuses to move from white only seats she is arrested

December 5. A new and popular minister in Montgomery by the name of Martin Luther King, Jr. is chosen to lead the boycott

Supreme Court rules — on November 13, 1956 — that Montgomery's segregation laws are unconstitutional

If the 50s were a time when the legal approach made a dramatic impact i.e. the Brown decision

Then the 60s were the period of public display and mass movement in the style of the bus Boycott

The large percentage of TV owners now means that TV is the medium that transfers information

Single moments highlight an entire event or movement

Both popular culture events such as Woodstock

And civil rights moments e.g. Montgomery, Selma

Sit ins

February 1960Greensboro

North Carolina Woolworth lunch

counter

Mass Media TV etc. spreads the message faster and in amore dramatic fashion than before

The Greensboro sit in is very quickly followed by 70,000 more

SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating committee)

SNCC - organized in 1960limited membershipthe vanguard of the protest movementcommando tacticssome failure some success but

crystallizes the movementSNCC begins to register voters

COREIn reaction to

SNCC - CORE shifts its policy and begins to organize protests

e.g. 1961 Freedom Rides

Rides organized to test the Federal Interstate Commerce Act which bans segregation on interstate travel

When the busses reach the segregated south they are met with hostility

White mobs burn, bomb and shoot both busses and people

The riders are both black and white the white involvement ensures media interest and images of racist violence is broadcast over the country and the world

Albany GA 1961-2SNCC Organizes a major civil disobedience

campaign to desegregate AlbanyDay after day hundreds of people are

arrested and the jails are overcrowded with men,women and children

Leads the way for more peaceful mass protest

Birmingham, Alabama 1963April 63MLK launches a

campaign of nonviolent demonstrations against segregation

Police Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor

Connor uses attack dogs, tear gas, electric cattle prods and fire hoses on protestors

Thousands of Americans watched nightly in disbelief and disgust at his actions

MLK arrested and writes “Letter from Birmingham City Jail”

“create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused

to negotiate is forced to confront the issue”

IN 1960 JFK had been elected President a change was seen to accompany his election

- the youngest president ever at the time

- Born in the 20th Century

June 11 1963 makes a speech in which he states that civil rights is not a legal issue but a moral issue

Promises to put in place legislation to end segregation

Same night NAACP official Medgar Evers shot dead as he returned home

I have a dream

1963 March on Washington DC ends with a series of speeches the most well know is MLK’s

“I have dream that one day . . . The sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveholders will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood”

But this time had not yet arrived ……..

September 196316th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham is

bombed 4 black girls waiting for Sunday school are killed

The four men who committed the act are known in the community

but it is not until 1977 that the first is arrested and convicted

2001 a second is convicted 2002 a third is convicted

November 22 1963 JFK assassinatedLyndon Johnson become PresidentPushes hard for civil rights legislation

in honor of JFK

At the same time protests are continuing

march from Selma to Birmingham to protest lack of voter registration

LegislationFor the first time since the New Deal the

full weight of the government is brought for social change

In part it is a reaction to public pressure and media representation of the events

1964 Civil rights ActEnds segregation in Public Places1965 Voting ActBrings in 2 million new voters

Legislation is in place and people continue to push and racial divides are raised through uprising and fire

Summer of 1964 Watts in Los Angles a primarily minority neighborhood erupts in flames

80,000 arrestsIt isn’t only the south where problem

exists

Black PowerGradually as the decade continued

some African-Americans pulled away from peaceful demonstrations

SNCC became more radical

Stokely Carmichael leader in 1966

“We reject an American dream defined by white people and must work to construct an American reality defined by Afro-Americans”

H. Rap Brown next leader

“get you some guns” and “kill the Honkies”

Most well know and powerful voice of the Black Power movement was

Malcolm LittleBetter known asMalcolm X“The black race in the

United States is in extremely bad shape. You show me a black man who isn’t extremist and I’ll show you one who needs psychiatric attention”

Remember NO CLASS Wednesday

and Friday