Civil Rights

Civil Rights

• League of Latin American Citizens– Felix Longoria, WWII

veteran dies and funeral home refused to bury him

– Delgado v. Bastrop ISD: made segregation of Mexican American children in Texas illegal

Native Americans

• Currently on reservations

• Discrimination, poverty and little real political representation is the norm

• Government adopts a “termination” policy– Goal was to assimilate

Native Americans into the mainstream of American life

– Policy later abandoned

African American influence

• 1910-1940 Migration North– NYC 60,000 to 450,000 was a common theme with

other large cities

• WWII– Increased demands for labor in the northern cities

• 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson– Stated: segregation of the races in public institutions

and accommodations was constitutional as long as facilities were “separate but equal”

NAACP

• National Association for the Advancement of Colored People– Thurgood Marshall and

Oliver Hill• Marshall known as “Mr.

Civil Rights”• Hill succeeded in

winning more than $50 million in higher pay and better education facilities

Brown v. Board of Education

• Oliver Brown was his 8 year-old daughter Linda to attend the nearby white school

• Court case goes all the way to the Supreme court• Supreme court decides “separate but equal” is

unconstitutional• Reaction

– Eisenhower says he has sworn to uphold the law– Congressional representatives of states in the Deep South

joined together in March 1956 to protest the Supreme court’s order to desegregate public schools

– “Southern Manifesto”

Montgomery Bus Boycott

• Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man and was charged with violating the segregation laws

• Boycott– African Americans refuse to use the entire bus

system until the bus company changed their policy

– Over 50,000 African Americans walked, rode bicycles or car pooled to avoid using the bus

People stepping up and speaking out

• Martin Luther King, Jr.– Son of a Baptist preacher

– Graduated high school early

– Divinity degree at Crozer Theological Seminary

– Doctorate in theology at Boston University

– Became not only the leader in the African American civil rights movement but also symbol of nonviolent protest for the entire world

– http://www.thekingcenter.org/

Timeline

• http://www.voicesofcivilrights.org/history.html