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TRANSCRIPT
The Struggle for Civil Rights
1950s – 1960s
The Great Migration
World War II & the Cold War
WWII led to great increase
in black activism
– “Double V”
– NAACP
– James Farmer founded
CORE (Congress Of Racial
Equality)
– Cold War put pressure on
U.S. gov’t to live up to
stated ideology
Desegregating the Schools
NAACP Legal Division made strategic
decision to devote limited resources to
school desegregation
Took gradual approach to overturn Plessy
– Sweatt v. Painter (1950): separate black law
school couldn’t be equal due to “intangible
factors”
Brown v. Board of Ed. of Topeka
(1954): “separate educational facilities
are inherently unequal”
Charles Houston
Thurgood Marshall
The Reaction
White backlash:– Southern Manifesto
– Revival of Ku Klux Klan
Little Rock (1957):– Orval Faubus called out state
militia to prevent integration of Central High School
– Eisenhower sent troops
Ole Miss (1962):– James Meredith
– Kennedy sent federal marshals & troops
Little Rock, 1957
James Meredith, 1962
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and
the Montgomery Bus Boycott Became pastor of Dexter
Ave. Baptist Church in Montgomery, Sept. 1954
Lead Montgomery Improvement Association’s bus boycott, Dec. 1955 - Dec. 1956
Coretta & Martin King
March 22, 1956
The Southern Christian
Leadership Conference
Based on Christianity & Gandhi’s example
Dramatized evil to shock white consciences
Based on respect for laws & American ideals
Integrationist, not separationist
Deliberately picked virulent racists whom they
knew would provide violent drama
– Bull Connor in Birmingham, 1963
– Jim Clark in Selma, 1965
March on
Washington,
Aug. 28, 1963
Originally to be about jobs
Became rally in support of
Kennedy’s civil rights bill
King’s “I Have a Dream”
speech appealed to
patriotism, using lyrics from
“America”
Photos from David Cone,
Martin & Malcolm & America
Congress Of Racial Equality
and the Freedom Rides
CORE had sponsored
initial Freedom Rides
in 1947, to test
Morgan v. Virginia
decision
1961 Freedom Rides
tested Boynton v.
Virginia ruling
Met with violence in
Alabama
The Greensboro Sit-Ins, 1960
Ezell Blair, Jr., Joseph McNeil, David Richmond & Franklin McClain
– All Southerners, NAACP
– Dressed neatly & acted politely, asked to be served
– 100s joined them by Saturday
Woolworth’s sales declined 20% & profits 50% in 1960
July 25 – integration finally achieved
Led to creation of SNCC
Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee
April 15-17, 1960 conference at Shaw University
in Raleigh, N.C. called & funded by SCLC
– More than 200 delegates from 50 schools & 13 states
– Ella Barker was SCLC advisor to SNCC
By Spring 1964, SNCC had over 150 field
workers across the South, concentrating on voter
registration
Major effort = Mississippi Freedom Summer,
1964
Senator Lyndon B. Johnson
and Civil Rights Refused to sign Southern Manifesto
Got Civil Rights Act of 1957 through Congress:
– As a senator from Texas
Civil Rights Act of 1960:
– extended life of CRC
– provided federal court referees to register blacks
– made it a federal crime to interfere with court orders or cross
state lines to commit violence
The Civil Rights Act of 1964
Discrimination in all places of public accommodation outlawed (hotels, restaurants, etc.)
Required literacy tests to be administered in writing, & presumed all 6th grade graduates were literate
Attorney General empowered to bring school desegregation suits
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission created
Pres. Johnson hands pen to
Rev. King after signing the
Civil Rights Act of 1964
Extending African-American
Voting Rights
24th Amendment (1964) ended poll tax
Court ruled Congressional districts must have “substantial
equality”:
– Wesberry v. Sanders (1964) – “one man, one vote” rule est.
– Reynolds v. Sims (1964) applied rule to state legislatures
Voting Rights Act of 1965:
– Authorized Attorney General to send federal registrars of voters
– Suspended literacy tests in counties where less than half of adults
had voted in 1964
– Required any change in voting laws to be pre-cleared with Justice
Dept.
The Impact of the Voting Rights Act
and other legal changes
Copyright 1997, Prentice-Hall, Inc.
Black Power New SNCC leaders Stokely
Carmichael & Rap Brownabandoned nonviolent strategy and goal of integration
Malcolm X & the Nation of Islam espoused radical black separatism
Spawned growing white backlash
– Riots seemed to show ingratitude of blacks
– Northerners couldn’t see ghettoes as products of racism
– Affirmative action seemed to be reverse discrimination
Stokely Carmichael
Malcolm X &
Elijah Mohammed