america’s second reconstruction
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America’s Second Reconstruction. The Civil Rights Movement, 1954 - 1968. The Unfinished Business of Reconstruction. In what ways had African Americans experienced success during the Reconstruction era? In what ways had Reconstruction failed African Americans? - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
America’s Second Reconstruction
The Civil Rights Movement, 1954 - 1968
The Unfinished Business of Reconstruction
In what ways had African Americans experienced success during the Reconstruction era?
In what ways had Reconstruction failed African Americans?
Where did African Americans stand in American society by 1950?
The Need for a Civil Rights Movement
Key Events in African American History, 1857 - 1900Dred Scott Decision (1857)Civil War Amendments (1865 – 1869) Vigilante “justice”, the KKK, and
lynchings (1870s-1960s)Plessy vs. Ferguson Court Case
(1896)Jim Crow Laws
The Need for a Civil Rights Movement
Key Events in African American History, 1900 – 1950Creation of NAACP (1910)Great Migration (1916 – 1920)Harlem Renaissance (1920s)WWII and the “Double V” Campaign
(1941 – 1945)Truman’s desegregation of the military
(1947)
School Desegregation
Thurgood Marshall and NAACP lawyers following the Brown decision
Brown Family, Topeka, KS
School Desegregation: Southern Opposition
Protesting Desegregation in Arkansas
Protesting Desegregation in Alabama
School Desegregation: State vs. Federal Authority
Roots of the Movement (1954 – 1957)
Brown vs. Bd of Ed Legal justification for desegregation based
on 14th Amendment Separate can never be equal
Emmett Till Murder Generated anger change
Montgomery Bus Boycott Proved the power of non-violent direct action Leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
High Tide of the Movement (1957 – 1965)
Creation of Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957 Built on energy of Montgomery Bus Boycott Organization of ministers and community leaders; led
by King Message
• 20th Century Social Gospel • Christians have a responsibility to make society better
and more just• Nonviolent Resistance (Ghandi)
• Highly confrontational, but not violent• Civil Disobedience (Thoreau)
• Peacefully disobey unjust laws• Love, not hate (Jesus Christ)
High Tide of the Movement(1957 – 1965)
Student Involvement and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) – 1960 Biracial and “grassroots organizing” Worked with SCLC, but more radical and
impatient for change Sit-In Movement
Attempt to desegregate lunch counters using nonviolent, direct action and civil disobedience
Greensboro, NC and Nashville, TN Boycotts of national chains in support of
movement
Sit-In Movement
Greensboro, NC 1960
Northern support for sit-ins
Being jailed was a “badge of honor” to many SNCC members
Sit-In Movement
Jackson, Mississippi 1963 @ Woolworth’s
High Tide of the Movement(1957 – 1965)
Election of 1960
High Tide of the Movement(1957 – 1965)
Freedom Riders (May 1961) CORE and SNCC participation Testing federal interstate bus desegregation
mandates• Create a crisis situation that forces the federal
government to intervene Trouble in the Deep South
• Anniston, AL• Birmingham and Montgomery, AL• Robert Kennedy and federal intervention• Jackson, MS – riders arrested and sentenced to
60 days in prison
Freedom Riders
Bus Burnings – Anniston, AL
Rider Jim Zwerg – Montgomery, AL riots
High Tide of the Movement(1957 – 1965)
1963: “the year of the Negro Revolution” – Dr. King Birmingham, AL (April 1963)
Most racially segregated and explosive city in the South• End segregation here symbolically end it everywhere
King, Shuttlesworth, SCLC organize to desegregate the city
• Boycotted stores• Public demonstrations and protests
King arrested “Letter from Birmingham Jail” – a defense of civil disobedience
Children’s Crusade – May 2• Why kids?• 900+kids arrested “Fill up the jails”• Reactions of Bull Connor dogs, fire hoses, tear gas• Americans and the world shocked, horrified
High Tide of the Movement(1957 – 1965)
Birmingham Campaign and March on Washington (1963) Civil Rights Act of 1964
Outlawed discrimination in all public accommodations; equal employment opportunities
Voting Rights 24th Amendment (1964) – no poll taxes Freedom Summer (Mississippi 1964) – Bob Moses and SNCC Selma – Montgomery March (March 1965)
• Jimmie Lee Jackson’s murder people need to constructively grieve• Violence at Edmond Pettus Bridge – “Bloody Sunday” (March 7)
• Use of media national condemnation; issue of human rights
• SNCC vs. SCLC• SCLC build support for new voting rights legislation• SNCC impatient for change; work locally
• Lowndes County Freedom Organization Black Panther Party• March resumed on March 21 under protection of federalized AL National Guard
(LBJ); 25,000 marchers Voting Rights Act – August 1965
• Banned literacy tests• Federal authority to register voters• Tripled African American voting #’s in 1 year • 5 days later Watts riots in LA
Challenges and Dissent in the Movement: 1965 - 1968
De jure segregation vs. de facto segregation Mid 1960s 70% of Af. Am. live in cities
Do African Americans work as insiders to integrate peacefully into the established system?
Do African Americans work as outsiders who demand an equal, if not separate, position in American society taken by force if necessary?
Do “civil rights” include a guarantee to earn a decent living and enjoy a respectable standard of living?
Challenges and Dissent in the Movement: 1965 - 1968
March 26, 1964
Challenges and Dissent in the Movement: 1965 - 1968
Urban Race Riots (northern cities 1965 – 1968) a reflection of growing frustrations over economic and social inequalities “White flight” black ghettos Police brutality Kerner Commission (1968)
• White racist attitudes to blame• Separate, but unequal society developing
Kerner Commission’s solution Federal involvement to equalize employment, educational,
and housing opportunities (context: Great Society) Black Panther Party Solution (1966)
Take control of own communities establish social services
Meet violence with violence; armed self-defense
Challenges and Dissent in the Movement: 1965 - 1968
Current race relations http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrp-v2tHa
Do – Obama’s “More Perfect Union Speech – March 2008
Your assessment of current relations? Some current statistics:
• 57% of African American and Hispanic students graduate from high school (78% of whites)
• 27% of African Americans live in poverty; 26% of Hispanics live in poverty (15% for total population)
• 25-30% of Af. Am. and Hispanic students attend schools that are non-integrated