THE CIVIL RIGHTS ERA

1945-1968

Ms. Humes

8th Period

Contemporary American History (Honors)

Background Two Parts (Commonly accepted)

First Part: 1945-1954○ Reaction from WW2○ Changing attitudes about race in America

Second Part: 1955-1968“Spoiled Utopia” – things won’t be easy

○ Legislation Passed○ Race Riots

Why Did the Civil Rights Movement Take Off After 1945?

Black equality became a significant political issue

for the Democratic Party;

WWII had been fought against racism abroad—

hard to keep harboring it at home;

Black veterans came home dedicated to change;

Increasing number of White Americans condemned

segregation;

Discrimination in the United States hurt our

propaganda battle against the Communists

Battle in the Courts Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

“separate but equal” facilities = legal

Richmond County Board of Education (1899)Applied Plessy to the schools

Smith v. Allwright (1944)First attack = “separate is not equal”

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954)

Separate but equal = unconstitutional

Brown vs. Board of Education The verbatim decision:

"segregation of white and colored children in

public schools has a detrimental effect upon

the colored children. The impact is greater

when it has the sanction of the law; for the

policy of separating the races is usually

interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the

Negro group."

Executive Order 8802 Signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 25,

1941, to prohibit racial discrimination in the

national defense industry. It was the first federal action,

though not a law, to promote equal opportunity and

prohibit employment discrimination in the United States.

The Committee on Fair Employment Practice was

established by Executive Order 8802 within the Office of

Production Management to investigate alleged

violations and "to take appropriate steps to redress

grievances which it finds to be valid."

The verbatim, operative statement:

“It is hereby declared to be the policy of the President

that there shall be equality of treatment and

opportunity for all persons in the armed services

without regard to race, color, religion or national origin.

This policy shall be put into effect as rapidly as

possible, having due regard to the time required to

effectuate any necessary changes without impairing

efficiency or morale.”

Executive Order 8802

Check-in Question Using what you

remember from the constitution, how could the President abolish segregation in the military, but it took court cases and legislation to get rid of it in the schools?

Check-in Answer Since the President is the Commander-in-

Chief of the Military (and the Military is part of the executive branch).

The President has the authority to make changes as he or she sees fit.

The schools operate under the laws of national, state, and local governments, so it requires action by the people who make (Legislative) and interpret (Judicial) those laws to make effective change.

1955: Major Events

1. Chicagoan Emmett Till is visiting family in Mississippi

when he is kidnapped, brutally beaten, shot, and

dumped in the Tallahatchie River for whistling at a white

woman. Two white men, are arrested for the murder and

acquitted by an all-white jury. They later boast about

committing the murder in a Look magazine interview.

2. Rosa Parks, member of the NAACP, refuses to give up

her seat to a white passenger, and is arrested. The

incident leads to the famous Montgomery Bus Boycott

led by the Reverend Martin Luthor King.

Emmitt Till Emmett Till in a

photograph taken by his mother on Christmas Day 1954, about six months before his murder.

Scholars state that when the photo ran in the Jackson Daily News Emmett Till and his mother were given "a profound pathos in the flattering photograph" and that the photograph "humanized the Tills"

Emmitt Till Till's mother insisted on an

open casket. Images printed in black

publications The Chicago Defender and Jet magazine of Till made international news and directed attention to the rights of the blacks in the U.S. South.

Response to 1955 Emmitt Till

Originally sparked a massive outcry from both black and white.

But, as time passed, many whites in Mississippi framed the issue by saying that segregation was for the protection of blacks

Xenophobia in the white south was very racist—hated outsiders trying to “influence” them

The sheriff, who originally said the case was open-and-shut. Now said he didn’t think the body was Tills, that he thought Till was still alive, and that the NAACP planted the body in the river.

Rosa Parks Rosa Parks in 1955,

with Martin Luther King, Jr. in the background

Response to 1955 Rosa Parks

Became an international icon of resistance to racial segregation.

Sparked Montgomery Bus Boycott○ From December 1, 1955, to December 20, 1956○ Led to  a federal ruling, Browder v. Gayle, took effect,

and led to a United States Supreme Court decision that declared the Alabama and Montgomery laws requiring segregated buses to be unconstitutional.

1957: Organization & ActionIn January, Martin Luther King, Charles K.

Steele, and Fred L. Shuttlesworth establish the

Southern Christian Leadership Conference,

The SCLC becomes a major force in organizing

the civil rights movement and bases its

principles on nonviolence and civil disobedience.

"We must forever conduct our struggle on the

high plane of dignity and discipline," he urges.

The first major test of this discipline and dignity

comes in September when the “Little Rock

Nine”are integrated into Little Rock High School

later that year.

The Little Rock Nine

The Tide Begins to Turn

Feb 1, 1960

Four black students from North Carolina Agricultural and

Technical College begin a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth's

lunch counter. The event triggers many similar

nonviolent protests throughout the South.

Woolworth’s Sit InCommemoration

1963: Major Change

1963: Major Change April 16

Martin Luther King is arrested and jailed during anti-segregation protests in Birmingham, Ala.; he writes his seminal "Letter from Birmingham Jail,"

1963: Major Change May

During civil rights protests in Birmingham, Ala., Commissioner of Public Safety Eugene "Bull" Connor uses fire hoses and police dogs on black demonstrators.

1963: Major Change June 12

Mississippi's NAACP field secretary, 37-year-old Medgar Evers, is murdered outside his home. Byron De La Beckwith is tried twice in 1964, both trials resulting in hung juries. Thirty years later he is convicted for murdering Evers.

1963: Major Change Aug. 28

About 200,000 people

join the  march on

Washington.

Congregating at

the Lincoln Memorial,

participants listen as

Martin Luther King

delivers his famous "I

Have a Dream"

speech.

1963: Major Change Sept. 15

Four young girls (Denise

McNair, Cynthia Wesley, Carole

Robertson, and Addie Mae

Collins) attending Sunday

school are killed when a bomb

explodes at the Sixteenth Street

Baptist Church, a popular

location for civil rights meetings.

Riots erupt in Birmingham,

leading to the deaths of two

more black youths.

Letter from a Birmingham Jail King‘s letter is a response to a statement made by eight white

Alabama clergymen on April 12, 1963, titled “A Call for Unity”. The

clergymen agreed that social injustices existed but argued that the

battle against racial segregation should be fought solely in the courts,

not in the streets.

They criticized Martin Luther King, calling him an“outsider”who

causes trouble in the streets of Birmingham.

To this, King referred to his belief that all communities and states

were interrelated. He wrote: Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in

an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.

Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly… Anyone who lives inside

the United States can never be considered an outsider…”

1964: The Civil Rights Act

July 2President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The most sweeping civil rights legislation since Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination of all kinds based on race, color, religion, or national origin. The law also provides the federal government with the powers to enforce desegregation.

Black Power Movement Emerged to enlarge the aims of the Civil Rights

Movement Looking For:

Racial DignityEconomic and Political Self-SufficiencyFreedom from white oppression