kerner commission

• Why does racism still exist? What are some of the steps that would be necessary to eliminate racism, not only in the United States, but also in other parts of the world?

• Why was segregation still practiced in southern states in the middle of the 20th century, despite the passage of constitutional amendments prohibiting segregation following the Civil War?

Kerner Commission

• 11-member commission established by Presiden LBJ to investigate the causes of the 1967 Race Riots in the US and to provide recommendations for the future.

Segregation

• de facto segregation - segregation (especially in schools) that happens in fact although not required by law

• de jure segregation - segregation that is imposed by law

CIVIL RIGHTS

• Civil Liberties:• guarantees of freedom of

speech,press or religion; due process of law; and other limitations on the power of the state to restrain the action of individuals

CIVIL RIGHTS

• Civil Rights:

• Implies that the state has a role in ensuring all citizens have equal protection under the law and equal opportunity to exercise the privileges of citizens regardless of race,religion,sex

Civil Rights

• 13th Amendment: Abolishment of slavery 1865

• 14th Amendment: All persons born in the U.S. are citizens and have all privileges given to citizens of US 1866

Fifteenth Amendment

• prohibits each government in the United States from denying a citizen suffrage based on that citizen's "race, color, or previous condition of servitude" (i.e., slavery). 1870.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(classification_of_humans)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colored

What were Jim Crow laws?

From the 1880s into the 1960s, most American states enforced segregation through "Jim Crow" laws (so called after a black character in minstrel shows). From Delaware to California, and from North Dakota to Texas, many states (and cities, too) could impose legal punishments on people for mingling with members of another race. The most common types of laws forbade intermarriage and ordered business owners and public institutions to keep blacks and whites separated.

Plessy vs Ferguson

• Arguments in the case:

• Did the Louisiana law requiring segregated seating violate Plessy’s “equal protection” under the law?

• Do separate but equal facilities meet the standard of the 14th amendment?

Civil Rights Background

• Plessy v. Ferguson

• 1896

• Became policy of the nation regarding civil rights


• Court ruling

• Separate but equal

• Louisiana law did not violate Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution

• “ Legislation is powerless to eradicate racial instincts or to abolish distinctions based upon physical differences….”

• In other words, legislation cannot change public attitudes


• Created laws banning integration

• Jim Crow laws


• Laws supported segregation

• Enforced by lynching of African Americans


• 1889 to 1930, over 3,700 men and women were reported lynched in the United States--most of whom were southern blacks

Civil Rights Brown vs Board or Education

1954• Linda Brown challenged

Topeka segregation policy

• Enrolled in a school ( all white)

• 2 blocks from here house

Objective: To examine the importance of the Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, KS.

http://americanhistory.si.edu/brown/history/6-legacy/images/doorcartoon-lg.jpg

Civil Rights The Beginning

• Spent 10 times as much on white students as African American students


• She was denied admission

• Challenged all the way to the Supreme Court

• May 17, 1954

· With help from the NAACP, the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka reached the Supreme Court, challenging the constitutionality of Plessy v. Ferguson.

http://www.naacp.org/

http://brownvboard.org/

· In the case, Oliver Brown challenged that his daughter, Linda, should be allowed to attend an all-white school near her home instead of the distant all-black school she had been assigned to.

Oliver Brown was a welder for the Santa Fe Railroad and a part-time assistant pastor at St. John African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Linda Brown was in the third grade when her father began his class action lawsuit.

· Brown’s lawyer, Thurgood Marshall, argued that “separate” could never be “equal” and that segregated schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee to provide “equal protection” to all citizens.

Thurgood Marshall(1908-1993) Associate Justice, U.S. Supreme Court.

Standing outside a Topeka classroom in 1953 are the students represented in Oliver Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, From left: Vicki Henderson, Donald Henderson, Linda Brown (Oliver's daughter), James Emanuel, Nancy Todd, and Katherine Carper.


• NAACP led fight for integration

• Howard University served as a training ground for young lawyers to fight segregation

Civil Rights The Resistance

• Decision was fine

• Question now became how do you implement the decision


• Coalition of Southern congressmen call for massive resistance

• Governor Herman Tallmadge• People of Georgia do not

agree with this ruling


• First ruling was not enough

in Brown v Topeka

• In a second ruling Brown II

• Ordered integration with

• “all deliberate speed”


1957• Little Rock Arkansas

• Governor Faubus planned to stop the integration of Black students in Central High

· Gov. Faubus was violating federal law.

· In 1957, he called out the National Guard in order to prevent African Americans from attending an all-white high school.

Bottom Row, Left to Right: Thelma Mothershed, Minnijean Brown, Elizabeth Eckford, Gloria Ray; Top Row, Left to Right: Jefferson Thomas, Melba Pattillo, Terrence Roberts, Carlotta Walls, Daisy Bates(NAACP President), Ernest Green

· President Eisenhower sent troops to Little Rock where, under their protection, the African American students were able to enter Central High School.

African American students arriving at Central High School, Little Rock, Arkansas, in U.S. Army car, 1957.

• Each student had a military guard to escort them to and from school.

• The students were still beaten.

• Governor Faubus signed a bill to shut down Little Rock schools

• This was eventually deemed unconstitutional

Results

• Of the 9 original students Earnest Green graduated the 1st spring.

• The others eventually were split going to other local schools, all graduated

• Melba Patillo who had been stabbed and had acid thrown in her eyes teaches at Central High which is now 60% African American

Members of the 101st US-Airborne Division escorting the Little Rock Nine to school


• However the Governor of Arkansas

• Orval Faubus• Ordered National guard to

turn away African American students Little Rock 9


• President Eisenhower at first was reluctant to get government involved

• Little Rock Changed that idea


• Again television was important

• Sent the Army to escort students to school

Civil Rights The Response

• Governor Faubus in response

• Closed the High School rather than desegregate

Civil Rights The Response

• Montgomery Alabama

• Jo Ann Robinson(English Prof and Alabama state college

• Wrote a letter to mayor of Montgomery to end sitting in “colored section” of bus


• He refused

• December 1, 1955

• Rosa Parks refused to give her seat up

• She was arrested


• Rosa parks was an officer of the local NAACP


• News again spread quickly

• Jo Ann Robinson helped form a boycott of the buses

• MIA: Montgomery Improvement Association


• 26 year old minister was elected chairman of the boycott

• Dr. Martin Luther King


• Buses were boycotted• Instead car pools walking

long distance • 381 days long• 1956 Supreme Court

outlawed bus segregation

Civil Rights Rise of the Movement

• SCLC (still exists)

• Southern Christian Leadership Conference

• 60 people from 10 states

• Dr. King Leader


Dr. King called the non violent movement

“Soul Force”


• Freedom Riders 1961

• Many were part of CORE

• (Congress of Racial Equality)


• Ride to enforce segregation of Buses

• Wanted to incite violence

• Got what they wanted


• Whites attacked and burned buses


• When stopped in Birmingham Alabama

• Attacked by white mobs

• Still they carried on


• Federal troops sent to protect riders

• Finally all riders occupied the “whites only waiting room”


• Freedom Riders Bus Site Monument


• Result

• ICC (interstate commerce commission) banned all segregation at waiting rooms restrooms and restaurants


• 4 principles of the Civil Rights Movement

• Teachings of Jesus

• David Thoreau(civil disobedience)

• Ghandi: Resist without violence

• Phillip Randolph: Mass demonstrations


• SNCC

• (Snick)

• Students for Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

• Sit ins


• 1st 1960

• Woolworth’s in NC

• Students sat in the “whites only” section of a counter restaurant


• Service was refused

• Stayed until it was closed

• Next day more sat at counter

• More the third day

• Youth in more than 100 Southern cities staged sit-ins

• Within 1 year 70,000 had participated in sit-ins, 3,600 arrested

• Youth were beaten,arrested

SIT -INS

• Met with violence• NAACP Field Director Medgar

Evers• WWII vet, denied admission to law

school • Leader who was targeted, shot

and killed

COFO

• Council of Federated Organizations• Organized the Freedom vote in Miss. In

1963–Show that African Americans wanted

to vote–Give them practice in casting a ballot–93,000 voted in a mock election

FREEDOM SUMMER

• 1964, SNCC voter registration drive(Student nonviolent coordinating committee)–Expand Black voter registration –establish “freedom School”–open community centers–Mississippi Freedom Democratic

Party (MFDP)

FREEDOM SUMMER

• 1964 _ 6.7% of voting –age Blacks were registered to vote

• 1969 – 66.5% were registered to vote


1961• Universities

• James Meredith

• 1st black student to

• Attend Univ. Of Miss.

• NAACP helped fight for

• His admittance into the all white school

CIVIL RIGHTSRISE of the MOVEMENT

• 1962• MLK arrested and jailed in Birmingham• Writes famous “letter from Birmingham

jail”–Moral duty to disobey unjust laws–Continued TV coverage of brutal

beatings of demonstrators

CIVIL RIGHTS 1963

• 1963: 250,000 blacks and whites marched on Washington

• Lincoln Memorial : “I have a Dream “ speech

• 24th Amendment abolishes Poll tax in 11 states

“I Have a Dream Speech”

• Aug. 1963

• 200,000 people

• join the march

• on Washington

Birmingham bombing

• 2 weeks after King’s speech

• Bomb killed 4 Sunday School Students in Birmingham Baptist Church used for Civil Rights meetings

• Unsolved until 1977: Robert Chambliss of the KKK found guilty

• Others linked in 2000

CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

• 1963

• 24th Amendment abolishes the Poll Tax

• Instituted by 11 southern states after Reconstruction

SELMA to Montgomery MARCH 1964 for voting rights

• March 7 demonstrators attempted to march from Selma to the Capitol and were brutally beaten

• March 25th after 4 days of walking crowds gathered at state capitol. 25,000 strong

• Voting Rights Act signed 1965

BLOODY SUNDAY March 7th

The Civil Rights bill was brought before Congress in 1963

• in a speech on television on 11th June, Kennedy pointed out that:

• "The Negro baby born in America today, regardless of the section of the nation in which he is born, has about one-half as much chance of completing high school as a white baby born in the same place on the same day; one third as much chance of completing college; one third as much chance of becoming a professional man; twice as much chance of becoming unemployed; about one-seventh as much chance of earning $10,000 a year; a life expectancy which is seven years shorter; and the prospects of earning only half as much."


• 1964: Civil Rights Act– The 1964 Civil Rights Act made racial

discrimination in public places, such as theaters, restaurants and hotels, illegal.

– It also required employers to provide equal employment opportunities.


• 1965

• Voting Rights Act passed• It outlawed the discriminatory voting

practices adopted in many southern states after the Civil War, including literacy tests as a prerequisite to voting.

• The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was readopted and strengthened in 1970, 1975, and 1982.


• “Black Power” rise in a more militant movement looking for more racial self determination and racial equality

• (dissatisfied with pace of change)• Stokely Carmichael (head of SNCC)

phrased the term• Malcolm X emerges• Black Muslim

MALCOLM X

• Father killed in racial beating• Studied Teachings of Elijah

Muhammad leader of the Nation of Islam

• Jail time/Black Muslim (Lost-found Nation of Islam

• Appointed minister and spokesman of the Nation of Islam

Nation of Islam

• religious and political organization whose origins are somewhat mysterious

descendants of the tribe of Shabazz Est. 1930 by Wallace D. Ward in Detroit

• NOI became recognized as a black nationalist religious organization that advocated racial separatism and self-sufficiency for African Americans.

• Elijah Muhammad Leader

Nation of Islam/Malcolm X

• Called for racial separation• Didn’t agree with the non violence and felt

Civil rights movement had made small progress

• Advocated self defense in the face of white violence

• 1964 Malcolm X disassociated himself from Elijah Muhammad and Nation of Islam


• Criticized strategy of nonviolence

• Renounces violence just before his assassination 1964


• Increased membership from 500 to 30,000 in 1963

• Lost faith in Elijah Muhammad

• Death Threats


• Repeated attempts on his life

• Killed at a speaking engagement in Feb. 1965

BLACK PANTHERS1966

• Founded by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale(after Malcolm X’s death)

• Stokely Carmichael (SNCC) coins the phrase “Black Power”–Coming together of black people to

fight for their liberation by any means necessary

Black Panther Party

• The Panthers practiced militant self-defense

• dignity and self-respect to stand up and fight to win equality for all oppressed minorities

• Often militant and violent tactics against the police

• Huey Newton: Trouble with law

• Embezzled funds

• shot and killed in 1989

• Bobby Seale: Conflict with law

• Spends time dedicating time to education programs

Black Panther Party 1966 - 1982

• The Party's ideals and activities were radical

• Black Nationalism

• FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover called it "the greatest threat to the internal security of the United States."

Black Panther Programs

• armed citizens' patrols to evaluate behavior of police officers

• Free Breakfast for Children program.

• group's political goals were often overshadowed by their confrontational, militant, and sometimes violent tactics against police

• uniform of blue shirts, black pants, black leather jackets, black berets,

• displayed loaded shotguns

• Had a Ten Point Program

» Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 » Olympics: Showed the Black Panther

symbol


• 1964

• 3 civil rights murdered by the KKK

• MALCOLM X is shot to death


• 1966: Thurgood Marshall 1st black Supreme Court Justice

Civil Rights Rise of the Movement 1965

• Cities erupted into violence

• NY, Chicago, Phila.

• Watts,LA 34 killed ; 5,000 arrested

Watts

• Watts was the site of six days of race riots in 1965 that claimed 34 lives and caused over $200 million in property damage

• 1992 more Race riots after the acquittal of white police officers who beat a black motorist; 58 people died and approximately $1 billion in property was destroyed


• 1968

• Loving vs. Virginia : Supreme Court rules that prohibiting interracial marriage is unconstitutional

• April 4th Martin Luther King is shot by James Earl Ray(dies 1998)

MARTIN LUTHER KING Jr.

• Assassinated April 4th 1968

• Memphis, Tenn by James Earl Ray after his I’ve Been to the Mountain top” Speech.

• James Earl Ray


• 1968

• President Johnson signs Civil Rights Act of 1968

–Prohibiting discrimination of sale, rental, and financing of housing

CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT1971

• Busing can be used a a legitimate means of achieving integration

• The Supreme Court, in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education,

Continues into the 1990s


• 1988:

• Congress passes the Civil Rights Restoration Act : which expands nondiscrimination laws within private institutions receiving federal money


• 1992

• First race riots in years in south-central LA over Rodney King case


• 2003

• AFFIRMATIVE ACTION : Bakke Case

• Supreme court Upholds the Univ. of Michigan policy ruling that race can be one of many factors considered by colleges

CIVIL RIGHTS Movement

• 2005

• Ringleader of Mississippi murdered civil rights workers convicted on 41st anniversary of the crime

kerner commission

Documents

jure segregation segregation

civil rights backgroundplessy

equal louisiana law

citizens race

united states

process of law

american states

southern states