The Civil Rights Movement, 1954 to 1965

Before 1954: The Long Civil Rights Movement

• abolition and antislavery• runaways and rebels • the Underground Railroad • the Civil War• Reconstruction governance• 1896, “Separate but Equal”• Jim Crow and Lynching• World War I• Great Depression and New Deal• World War II

NAACP

• Founded 1909 by black and white activists.

• Embraced DuBois’s notion of confrontation to secure legal rights.

• Multiple court cases in 1910s-1950s challenged racial discrimination across America.

Brown v Board of Education, 1954• 1951 case, African American parents sued the

Topeka, Kansas school board over segregated schooling.

• Kansas Courts referred to 1896 Plessy case to support “separate but equal” schools.

• Five similar cases around the nation were bundled for review by the US Supreme Court on appeal.

• Chief Justice Earl Warren, former Governor of California during WW2 and Eisenhower Court appointee.

• Unanimous ruling after contentious hearings that segregation was harmful to African American children, in violation of the 14th Amendment.

• Court orders desegregation across the nation “with all deliberate speed.”

Emmett Till, 1955

14 Year-old Chicago youthVisiting Mississippi familyAllegedly whistled or cat-

called at a white female grocery store clerk

Kidnapped, beaten, and shot to death

Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955-1956• Rosa Parks and NAACP provoked an

arrest for violation of bus segregation.• Planned to take to courts following

Brown, but Parks prosecuted for disorder not segregation infraction.

• NAACP, local churches organized boycott instead.

• Authorities targeted church-organized carpooling as unlicensed commerce, licensed African American taxi drivers offered rides for “bus fare,” many simply walked.

• 1956 Alabama courts ruled segregation illegal, but pending appeal it remained company policy until December 1956.

The Sit In Protests, 1960

Freedom Rides, 1961

Birmingham, Spring 1963

“I have a dream…”

Voter Registration Drives, 1961-1966

SNCC, SCLC, CORE, NAACP: all began urging black men and women to register to vote.

Voter Education Programs, Mississippi Summer Project, and other similar plans sought to increase black voting.

The KKK, local police and employers, and the Democratic Party in the South opposed these programs.

1964: The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party founded, sent delegates to national convention to challenge whites-only Democratic delegates.

Literacy Poll Test

The Civil Rights Act, 1964• Outlaws racial segregation and discrimination• Kennedy proposed the Bill in June 1963, but assassinated

November 1963• Lyndon Johnson completes JFK’s term.• Southern Democrats filibuster the Bill, Johnson breaks the

filibuster in March 1964.• Johnson signs Act in July 1964.• Re-elected November 1964, with Hubert Humphrey as

running mate, a proponent of Civil Rights in the Senate• “We have lost the South” - LBJ• Voting Rights Act, 1965

The Civil Rights Act, 1964• Title I: No discrimination in voter registration.• Title 2: Outlaws discrimination in interstate commerce.• Title 3: Outlaws segregated public facilities.• Title 4: Empowers Attorney General to prosecute segregated school

districts.• Title 5: Civil Rights Commission authority expanded.• Title 6: Prohibits federal funds from agencies that discriminate.• Title 7: Prohibits discrimination in workforce, hiring, etc. (EEOC)• Title 8: Data collection and monitoring of Southern states for voting

fairness.• Title 9: Federalizes state civil rights cases• Title 10: Community Relations Service established to mediate local

disputes.• Title 11: Establishes penalties and jury trials for accused of violating this

Act.

Voting Rights Act, 1965

• Restated principles of Amendment 15• Outlawed voter registration requirements that are indirectly

discriminatory• Created federal agency to oversee registrations and

elections in select regions• Shelby County, Alabama argued and won in Court in June

2013 that the 1960s formula should be revised by Congress. It has been struck, with the Court requesting that Congress revise.

Housing

Restrictive Covenants, 1948Redlining, 1934-1968Mortgage Discrimination, 1977

A mix of public policy and private behavior restricted home ownership by race until the Civil Rights movement.

Busing & “White Flight”

Various state and municipal governments use “busing” to integrate- not the same thing as desegregate- schools.

Massachusetts in 1965, Richmond VA in 1971, battles across the nation.

White and black parents oppose long rides, zoning students to unwelcoming schools, disruption of “neighborhood” school model.

1971 Court case upholds busing as legal but most states abandon as unpopular and impractical.

Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam

Nation of Islam:• Founded in Detroit, 1930 by mysterious Wallace

Muhammad• Led by Elijah Muhammad, 1934 to 1975, born

Elijah Poole in Georgia, migrated North during Great Migration

• Wallace and Elijah Muhammad embraced Islam as an “African” religion, rejected Christianity as a “White” religion, and developed an entirely new theology entirely distinct from traditional Islam

Malcolm X and the Nation of IslamMalcolm Little embraced the Nation of Islam and

renamed himself Malcolm X• Initially preached black self-empowerment• Rejected Martin Luther King, Jr.’s message, did

not believe integration possible or beneficial for blacks

• Organized urban blacks in the North into Nation of Islam “mosques” for material and spiritual leadership outside of white society

• Malcolm X eventually began exploring and converting to more traditional expressions of Islam, and during a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1964 claims to have had an “epiphany” about the unity of mankind

• 1964-1965 X began to slowly divide the Nation of Islam until his assassination in February 1965

Black Power

Stokely CarmichaelSNCC leader, nonviolent protest

supporter, integrationist1966: Conversion to more militant

black nationalismRejected nonviolence, demanded

black leadership of organizations, supported expulsion of white activists from SNCC and the Movement.

Black Panthers1966• Founded in Oakland, CA• Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale• Black Panther Party for Self Defense• Black Panther newspaper• Armed patrols of neighborhoods• Organized preschools and day cares• Advocated black self-empowerment• Targeted by FBI and local police as subversive

group

Race Riots, 1965-1970

By the mid-60s the Civil Rights movement was fracturing and frustrated.

SNCC embraced Black Power, Malcolm X moved youth away from King’s nonviolence message.

1963 and 1964: Desperate fights in the South, filibustering in DC over CRA, increasing conflict in urban North over integration.

Assassination of Kennedy (1963), Malcolm X (1965), Martin Luther King, Jr. (1968) and Bobby Kennedy (1968) increased sense of hopelessness.

Race Riots, 1965-19701964: Harlem1965: Watts1966-67: 15+ Major riots, especially during

the summer in towns including Detroit, Oakland, Baltimore, Newark, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, and Brooklyn.

1968: Riots followed news of King’s murder in 12+ cities.

After the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, as well as various commissions on rioting, federal and local governments initiated anti-discrimination efforts targeted at the roots of urban anger.

Black Political Empowerment (since the end of Reconstruction)First black Senator since

Reconstruction, Edward Brooke, 1967, Massachusetts, Republican.

First and only black woman Senator, Carol Mosley Braun, 1993-1999, Illinois Democrat.

Barack Obama, 2005-2008 (incomplete one term), Illinois Democrat.

Roland Burris, 2009-2010 (aptd., served Obama’s term), Illinois Democrat.

Black Senators today?

Black Political Empowerment (since the end of Reconstruction)

Legacies?

Civil Rights Act and federal agencies established to support victims of racism.

White flight and de facto segregation instead of de jure segregation.

Urban blight, especially in de-industrializing North.

Collapse of white, working-class support of the Democratic Party, especially in the South.

Embrace of Martin Luther King, Jr. as American national hero.