The Civil Rights Movement1954 - 1968

Chapter 24

The Impact Today

• Civil rights laws provide protection against discrimination for all citizens.

• Economic programs for inner-city residents by government and social service agencies continue.

Origins of the Movement

After WW II, Black Americans and other supporters of civil rights challenged the practice of segregation in the U.S.

• 1955 - Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man; was arrested.

• Civil rights leaders organized boycott of the bus system in Montgomery, Ala.

• 1956 - Supreme Court ruled that segregation of buses was unconstitutional.

• In places without segregation laws, such as in the North, there was de facto segregation --- segregation by custom and tradition.

• The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) had supported court cases trying to overturn segregation since 1909.

• It provided financial support and lawyers to African Americans.

• In Chicago in 1942, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) was founded.

• Sit-ins were used as a form of protest against segregation and discrimination.

• Called attention to segregation.

• These sit-ins resulted in the integration of many restaurants, theaters, and other public facilities in Chicago, Detroit, Denver, and Syracuse.

The Civil Rights Movement Begins

• When African Americans returned from WW II, they had hoped for equality.

• When this didn’t happen, the civil rights movement began with protests and marches to end prejudice.

• African American attorney and chief counsel for the NAACP Thurgood Marshall worked to end segregation in public schools.

• 1954 - several Supreme Court cases regarding segregation – including the case of Linda Brown – were combined into one ruling.

• The girl had been denied admission to a neighborhood school in Topeka, Kansas, because she was African American.

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas:

“Segregation of public schools is inherently unequal and violates the

equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.”

This ruling overturned Plessy v. Ferguson (“separate but equal”).

• Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., gained national prominence as the leader of the Montgomery bus boycott.

• He called for a nonviolent passive resistance approach to end segregation and racism.

Eisenhower and Civil Rights

• Little Rock, Arkansas - Governor ordered the state National Guard to prevent African American students from entering Little Rock Central High School.

• President Eisenhower demanded that the state troops be removed.

• Troops left, but an angry mob beat two African American reporters. School windows were broken.

• Eisenhower ordered U.S. Army troops to surround the school, and the students were escorted into the building.

• The troops remained for the entire school year.

• Civil Rights Act of 1957 - passed to protect the right of African Americans to vote.

• This was the first broad civil rights law since Reconstruction.

• It marked an important first step in bringing the federal government into the civil rights debate.

Eisenhower signs the 1957 Civil Rights Act into law.

Methods of Civil Rights Protest:

Sit-ins - focus on segregation in restaurants, on campus, etc.

Freedom Summer - black & white civil rights workers travel South to register black voters.

Freedom Riders - black & white protesters ride buses South to desegregate bus terminals

Marches - example: Selma, Alabama

Many protests were met with violence, which was seen on TV….led Americans to support the protesters and oppose the segregationists!

• In 1962 James Meredith, an African American Air Force veteran, tried to register at the segregated University of Mississippi but was denied admission. He wrote to the Justice Department for help.

• Meredith was met by the governor blocking his path into the school.

• President Kennedy ordered 500 federal marshals to escort Meredith to the campus.

• A full-scale riot occurred, with two rioters killed.

• The army sent in thousands of troops.

• For the rest of the year, Meredith attended classes under federal guard until he graduated the following August.

The March on Washington - 1963

“I have a Dream…..”

The Civil Rights Act of 1964

• Democrat Alabama Governor George Wallace blocked the way for two African Americans to register for college.

• President Kennedy appeared on national TV to announce his civil rights bill.

”…segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever…” - Governor George Wallace

• After JFK’s death, President Johnson succeeded in getting the bill passed.

• The Civil Rights Act of 1964 gave the federal government broad power to stop racial segregation in public places and schools and to require employers to end discrimination in the workplace.

• Voting Rights Act 1965 sent federal examiners to register qualified voters, bypassing local officials who often refused to register Black Americans.

• Result: 250,000 new Black American voters; more Black Americans elected in the South.

In the mid-1960s, civil rights leaders began to understand that they had to address the problem of Black Americans’ economic status.

Problems Facing Urban African Americans

• Even after new civil rights laws of the 1950s and 1960s, racism was common.

• The civil rights movement had resulted in many positive gains for African Americans, but their economic and social problems were much more difficult to address.

RACISM...

STOP IT !!

• Race riots broke out in many American cities between 1965 and 1968.

• A race riot in Watts, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, lasted six days.

• The worst of the riots occurred in Detroit when the United States Army was forced to send in tanks and soldiers with machine guns to gain control.

The Shift to Economic Rights

• By the mid-1960s, MLK, Jr., was criticized for his nonviolent strategy; it had failed to improve the economic condition of African Americans.

• He began focusing on economic issues.

• Chicago Movement - effort to call attention to the deplorable housing conditions that many Black Americans faced.

Black Power

• After 1965 many African Americans began to turn away from the nonviolent teachings of MLK, Jr.

• Young African Americans called for black power, a term that had many different meanings.

Mexico City Olympics 1968

• Dr. King and many African American leaders were critical of "black power" movement.

• Early 1960s - Malcolm X had become a symbol of the Black Power movement.

• A member of the Nation of Islam, known as Black Muslims; believed that African Americans should separate themselves from whites and form their own self-governing communities.

• Malcolm X later broke from the Nation of Islam and began to believe an integrated society was possible.

• 1965 - three Nation of Islam members shot and killed Malcolm X.

• Remembered for his view that although African Americans had been victims in the past, they did not have to allow racism to victimize them now.

• Black Panthers - result of a new generation of militant African American leaders preaching black power, black nationalism, and economic self-sufficiency.

• They believed that a revolution was necessary to gain equal rights.

The Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

• By late 1960s – the civil rights movement had fragmented into many competing organizations.

• Result: no new laws for civil rights.

• A sniper killed MLK on April 4, 1968, creating national mourning as well as riots in more than 100 cities.

• In the aftermath of King’s death, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1968, which contained fair housing provision.