Free at LastCivil Rights in the USA

1918-1968

Sourcebook 3 –The Civil Rights

Movement

Lesson 9 – The demand for Civil Rights after 19451

Source 1 – from bbc.co.uk/history

Blacks had high hopes that World War Two would enable them to regain some of their lost rights. For one thing, they believed that if they fought for their country they should be rewarded with equal citizenship. In the second place, President Roosevelt defined the conflict as a war for democratic freedom. Blacks were quick to compare the racial theories of the Nazis with the racist beliefs of Southern whites. They vowed to conquer 'Hitlerism abroad and Hitlerism at home'. This was called the ‘Double V’ campaign. Finally, the expansion of the wartime economy enabled blacks to enter industries that had previously barred them, leading them to hope for promotion and access to more decision-making positions.

Source 2 – from the A. Philip Randolph Institute

Asa Philip Randolph was a leader in the  civil-rights movement. He led the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first predominantly black labour union. He was angry that even though America was preparing for war and that the munitions factories were booming, black Americans were not being given access to these jobs and higher wages.

Randolph travelled throughout the nation just before World War II, in 1940 and 1941. His mission was to unite Blacks against the discrimination, which shut them out of well-paying jobs in the factories. All over the United States committees of Blacks were forming to "March on Washington" in protest. Influential people tried to turn Randolph away from his goal, but he remained strong and steadfast. Finally, recognizing that Randolph could not be swayed, President Franklin D Roosevelt signed an order, six months before Pearl Harbour, in June 1941, which called for an end to discrimination in defence jobs. The most powerful leader in the world, the President of the United States, had given in.

Source 3 – from pbs.org

Most of the black soldiers who enlisted in the armed services during World War II knew that they would serve in segregated units. The Marines and the Army Air Corps refused to accept blacks until later in the war. Most men in the army were used in non-combat military jobs. But some did get a chance to serve at the front lines. The Tuskegee Airmen won glory for providing fighter escorts for bombers over Germany. They never lost a single plane they protected. The 761st tank battalion saw action in Europe. For other soldiers, the war enabled them, through military service or employment, to discover the large cities of the North. Many encountered unimagined experiences for the first time. For James Jones, who served in

the 761st Tank Battalion and saw action in Europe, it was the French who made a profound difference in his life. "The French had a certain kind of openness and warmth that they exhibited towards minorities that was just unexplainable. You wouldn't know you were black when you were in their company." Relationships between black and white soldiers were mixed. Some white outfits were openly hostile towards black soldiers. The hostility would

2

sometimes break into violence and white soldiers would attack, beat, and even kill blacks. Some black and white soldiers formed friendships when serving together -- especially men who fought together on the front lines. But when they returned home, the colour line once again reappeared. 

When blacks came home after the war, whites were prepared to "put them back in their place." Henry Murphy said that when he returned to the states and called his father in Mississippi, his father warned him not to come home with his uniform on. "He said that the police was beating black soldiers and searching them. If they had a picture of a white woman

in his wallet, they'd kill him." Dabney Hammer, who came back to Mississippi wearing his war medals, encountered a white man in his home town of Clarksdale, Mississippi. "Oweee, look at them spangles on your chest. Glad you back. Let me tell you one thing don't you forget ... you're still a nigger." One service woman said "It had to change, because we're not going to have it this way anymore." Some veterans came back with a militant attitude ready to fight. They realized that Jim Crow was not inevitable and the South didn't have to be that way. "We thought it was the way it

was supposed to be", one soldier remarked. "We was dumb to the facts and didn't know." But when they were treated as human beings by Europeans and Australians and other whites in different countries, "It opened up my eyes to the racial problems."

Source 4 – from bbc.co.uk/history

The outcome of the war, however, proved a massive disappointment. The government refused to abandon racial segregation in the forces, and was even reluctant to send black troops into battle. Roosevelt did nothing to challenge the mass disenfranchisement of black voters in the South. And although the president ordered an end to discrimination in the defence industries, white workers stubbornly resisted the recruitment and promotion of blacks. When a shipyard in Alabama, under government pressure, employed a dozen black welders, thousands of white welders rioted.

Source 5 – from the Intermediate 2 History pack

In 1896 the Supreme Court had decided that segregation was acceptable. They said that black people and white people should have ‘separate but equal’ facilities such as schools. However, everyone knew that in reality facilities for blacks and whites were separate but not equal.

The Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s was sparked off by an argument about education. In 20 American states schools were segregated. Black schools were almost always worse than white schools so black children were denied the same opportunities in life as white children.

3

Source 6 – from Watson.org

In Topeka, Kansas, a black third-grader named Linda Brown had to walk one mile through a railroad switchyard to get to her black primary school, even though a white elementary school was only seven blocks away. Linda's father, Oliver Brown, tried to enrol her in the white primary school, but the principal of the school refused.

In 1951, the NAACP (a Civil Rights protest group) went to court to ask them to forbid the segregation of Topeka's public schools. At the trial, the NAACP argued that segregated schools sent the message to black children that they were inferior to whites; therefore, the schools were inherently unequal. The Board of Education's defence was that, because segregation was part of everyday life, segregated schools simply prepared black children for the segregation they would face during adulthood.

Source 7 – Decision of the Supreme Court, 1954

To separate black children from others of similar age and qualifications just because of their colour makes black children feel inferior and that might affect them for the rest of their lives. We have decided that in education the idea of separate but equal has no place.

Source 8

While visiting family in Money, Mississippi, 14-year-old Emmett Till, an African American from Chicago, was brutally murdered for flirting with a white woman four days earlier. His murderers-the white woman's husband and her brother--made Till carry a heavy fan to the bank of the Tallahatchie River and ordered him to take off his clothes. The two men then beat him nearly to death, gouged out his eye, shot him in the head, and then threw his body, tied to the fan with barbed wire, into the river.

Till grew up in a working-class neighbourhood in Chicago, and though he had attended a segregated school, he was not prepared for the level of segregation he encountered in Mississippi. His

4

Figure 1- Chicago Defender, 1954

mother warned him to take care because of his race, but Emmett enjoyed pulling pranks. On August 24, while standing with his cousins and some friends outside a country store in Money, Emmett bragged that his girlfriend back home was white. Emmett's companions, disbelieving him, dared Emmett to ask the white woman sitting behind the store counter for a date. He went in, bought some candy, and on the way out was heard saying, "Bye, baby" to the woman. There were no witnesses in the store, but Carolyn Bryant -the woman behind the counter-claimed that he grabbed her, made lewd advances, and then wolf-whistled at her as he sauntered out.

Roy Bryant, the owner of the store and the woman's husband, returned from a business trip a few days later and found out how Emmett had spoken to his wife. Enraged, he went to the home of Till's great uncle, Mose Wright, with his brother-in-law J.W. Milam in the early morning hours of August 28. The pair demanded to see the boy. Despite pleas from Wright, they forced Emmett into their car. After driving around in the Memphis night, and beating Till in shed behind Milam's residence, they drove him down to the Tallahatchie River.

Three days later, his corpse was recovered but was so disfigured that Mose Wright could barely identify it. Authorities wanted to bury the body quickly, but Till's mother, Mamie Bradley, requested it be sent back to Chicago. After seeing the mutilated remains, she decided to have an open-casket funeral so that the entire world could see what racist murderers had done to her only son. Jet, an African American weekly magazine, published a photo of Emmett's corpse, and soon the media picked up on the story.

Less than two weeks after Emmett's body was buried, Milam and Bryant went on trial in a segregated courthouse in Sumner, Mississippi. On September 23, the all-white jury deliberated for less than an hour before issuing a verdict of "not guilty". Many people around the country were outraged by the decision. The Emmett Till murder trial brought to light the brutality of Jim Crow segregation in the South.

Lesson 10 – The Montgomery Bus Boycott and Martin Luther King

Source 1 – from ‘Stride Toward Freedom’ by Martin Luther King

Frequently Negroes paid their fare at the front door, and then were forced to get off and re-board at the rear. An even more humiliating practice was the custom of forcing Negroes to stand over empty seats reserved for "whites only". Even if the bus had no white passengers, and Negroes were packed throughout, they were prohibited from sitting in the front four seats (which held ten persons). But the practice went further. If white persons were already occupying all of their reserved seats and additional white people boarded the bus. Negroes sitting in the unreserved section immediately behind the

5

whites were asked to stand so that the whites could be seated. If the Negroes refused to stand and move back, they were arrested.

Source 2 – from history.com

In 1955, African Americans were still required by a Montgomery city law to sit in the back half of city buses and to give up their seats to white riders if the front half of the bus, reserved for whites, was full. On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks was returning home from her job at a local department store. She was seated in the front row of the “coloured section.” When the white seats filled, the driver asked Parks and three other black passengers to vacate their seats. The other riders complied, but Parks refused. She was arrested and fined $10, plus $4 in court fees.

Source 3 – from ushistory.org

In 1955, a little-known minister named Martin Luther King led a Baptist church in Montgomery. King organized a boycott of Montgomery’s buses when they heard about Rosa Parks’ arrest. Together with Martin Luther King, Ralph Abernathy organized the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and helped lead the nonviolent struggle to overturn Jim Crow laws.The demands they made were simple: Black passengers should be treated with courtesy. Seating should be allotted on a first-come-first-serve basis, with white passengers sitting from front to back and black passengers sitting from back to front. And African American drivers should drive routes that primarily serviced African Americans. On Monday,

December 5, 1955 the boycott went into effect.

Montgomery officials stopped at nothing in attempting to sabotage the boycott. King and Abernathy were arrested. Violence began during the action and continued after its conclusion. Four churches — as well as the homes of King and Abernathy — were bombed. But the boycott continued.

King and Abernathy's organization, the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), had hoped for a 50 % support rate among African Americans. To their surprise and delight, 99% of the city's African Americans refused to ride the buses. People walked to work or rode their bikes, and carpools were established to help the elderly. The bus company suffered thousands of dollars in lost revenue.

Finally after 381 days of this type of action the bus companies gave in! Segregation on the buses was declared illegal! And this meant that all other forms of segregation could be questioned.

Source 4 - from history.com

6

Figure 2 - Car pooling

The Montgomery Bus Boycott was significant for several reasons. First, it is regarded as the earliest mass protest on behalf of civil rights in the U.S., setting the stage for other campaigns. The boycott showed that African Americans had the economic power to make authorities listen. Second, in his leadership of the MIA, Martin Luther King became a prominent national leader of the civil rights movement. King’s non-violent approach remained a tactic of the civil rights movement throughout the 1960s. Shortly after the boycott’s end, he helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), a highly influential civil rights organization that worked to end segregation throughout the South. The boycott also brought national and international attention to the civil rights struggles occurring in the U.S., as more than 100 reporters visited Montgomery during the boycott to profile the effort and its leaders.

Source 5 – from a modern historian, Rachel Kennedy

In practically every other setting, other than transport, Montgomery remained segregated. The City's councillors moved to strengthen segregation in other areas, and in March 1957 passed a law making it "unlawful for white and coloured persons to play together, or, in company with each other . . . in any game of cards, dice, dominoes, checkers, pool, billiards, softball, basketball, baseball, football, golf, track, and at swimming pools, beaches, lakes or ponds or any other game or games or athletic

contests, either indoors or outdoors.

Source 6 – a speech by Martin Luther King during the Montgomery bus boycott.

There comes a time when people get tired ... For many years we have shown amazing patience ... One of the great glories of democracy is the right to protest for right ... Our method will be that of persuasion, not coercion. Our actions must be guided by the deepest principles of our Christian faith. Once again we must hear the words of Jesus when he said, ‘Love your enemies’. We must protest bravely yet with dignity. We have no choice but to

protest. We are protesting for the birth of justice. In our protest there will be no cross burnings. No white person will be taken from his house by a hooded Negro mob and brutally murdered. There will be no threats or bullying. Love must be our ideal. Love your enemies and pray for them.

Source 7 – Martin Luther King speaking to a crowd of white racists outside a church in Alabama, 1963.

We will not hate you yet we will not obey your evil laws. We shall wear you down with our capacity to suffer.

Source 8 – from ‘Stride Toward Freedom’ by Martin Luther King

7

Figure 3 - Martin Luther King addresses his congregation

In the summer of 1956 the name of Mahatma Gandhi was well-known in Montgomery.  People who had never heard of the little brown saint of India were now saying his name with an air of familiarity.  Nonviolent resistance had emerged as the technique of the movement, while love stood as the regulating ideal.  In other words, Christ gave us the spirit and the motivation while Gandhi gave us the method.

Lesson 11 – Little Rock

Source 1 – from historylearningsite.co.uk

The Little Rock Central High School incident of 1957 in Arkansas brought international attention to the civil rights cause. The Montgomery Bus Boycott may have been important but it hardly had media appeal. Here at Little Rock, you had a state fighting against the government, national guard troopers facing professional paratroopers and a governor against a president. As part of a media circus, it proved compulsive viewing - but what happened was shown throughout the western world and brought the civil rights issue into the living rooms of many people who may have been unaware of what was going on in the South.1957 saw serious problems for President Eisenhower over desegregated schools in Little Rock. What happened at Little Rock surprised many as the school board and the city’s mayor both agreed that token efforts should be made to accept the law desegregating schools. The governor of Arkansas, Orville Faubus, had other ideas.On the day before the school should have accepted a number of black students, Faubus ordered 270 National Guards troops to move into the Little Rock Central High School. He argued that the troops were needed to maintain law and order as the introduction of black youths to a white school could provoke trouble. Therefore, his explanation for the troops

being there was the maintenance of social order. In fact, their task was to keep nine African American students out of the white Little Rock Central High School.On the first day of the school year, the nine students did not show up - on the advice of the school board. On the second day, they arrived escorted by two white ministers and two black ministers. They were stopped from entering by the National Guard. As the students left, they were verbally abused by white students and adults from Little Rock. These scenes were captured on television and shown throughout the world. America was shocked at what it saw. In this case, the camera could not lie.Here was a

national law being challenged by a state governor. If Eisenhower failed here, where would it end? Little Rock was in a state whereby the people could have become very violent and law and order could have disintegrated.On Monday 23rd September, the nine African American students arrived at the school

8

again. They got in to the school by a delivery entrance. When a large white mob heard that they were in the school building, their anger spilled over and black people in the street were attacked as were reporters known to be writing for northern newspapers - only 150 local police were on standby to protect everybody from a much larger body of thugs. The mayor of the city phoned the White House to ask for Federal help fearing a total breakdown of law and order. The nine students were smuggled out of the school for their own safety and sent home. The 150 police clearly showed that they were in sympathy with the mob - one took off his badge and simply walked away.On that day Eisenhower did nothing and simply asked for the mob to go home. The next day - the 24th September - another white hate mob turned up at the school and Eisenhower was forced to send in 1,100 paratroopers to establish law and order. The paratroopers stayed until the end of November. The National Guardsmen - under Federal control - stayed for one year. Eight of the nine students stayed for the whole academic year and one - Ernest Green - graduated to college. The students during their year were regularly spat at by a small but nasty minority. The school’s principal had his life threatened and threats were made to bomb the school.Faubus was re-elected for another four terms as governor of Arkansas. In the academic year 1958 to 1959, he closed all schools in Little Rock rather than accept desegregation. In this

sense, he lost the battle of Little Rock but he won the war. Little Rock Central High School did not open up with a desegregated school population until 1960. As late as 1964, only 3% at a maximum of African American school children attended desegregated schools. Forcible desegregation of schools simply would not work if the students there did not want it to work.

Source 2 – from Spartacus Educational

James Meredith was born in Mississippi in 1933. While attending Jackson State College, Meredith attempted to become the first African American to gain admission to the University of Mississippi.

Twice rejected in 1961, Meredith filed a complaint with the district court on 31st May 1961. Meredith's allegations that he been denied admission because of his colour was rejected by the district court. However, on appeal, another court reversed this ruling. By a 2 to 1 decision the judges decided that Meredith had indeed been refused admission solely because of his race and that Mississippi was maintaining a policy of educational segregation.

9

Meredith's admission to the University of Mississippi was opposed by state officials and students and the Attorney General, Robert Kennedy, decided to send federal marshals to protect Meredith from threats of being lynched. During riots that followed Kennedy's decision, 160 marshals were wounded (28 by gunfire) and two bystanders were killed.

Despite this opposition, Meredith continued to study at the University of Mississippi and successfully graduated in 1964.

Lesson 12 – Sit-ins and Freedom Rides

Source 1 – from ushistory.org

By 1960, the Civil Rights Movement had gained strong momentum. The nonviolent measures employed by Martin Luther King Jr. helped African American activists win supporters across the country and throughout the world. On February 1, 1960, a new tactic was added to the peaceful activists' strategy. Four black college students walked up to a whites-only lunch counter at the local Woolworth’s store in Greensboro, North Carolina, and asked for coffee. When service was refused, the students sat patiently. Despite threats and intimidation, the students sat quietly and waited to be served. The civil rights sit-in was born.

Source 2 – from Intermediate 2 Resource Pack

Next day they returned with another 80 black and white students. The students ‘sat in’ all day despite insults and attacks. The students were using non-violent protest to draw attention to illegal segregation that still went on in American towns and cities.

The idea of the ‘sit-in’ soon caught on and spread quickly across the southern states. There were sit-ins at theatres that refused to sell tickets to blacks and swim-ins at segregated swimming pools. By the end of 1960 70,000 protesters had taken part in sit-ins.

Non-violent protest was met by white violence. Night after night TV viewers across America saw peaceful students being insulted, beaten and dragged off to jail. This was direct action and another slogan was heard from black protesters - ‘Fill the jails’. As jails in police stations across the south reached bursting point and courts could not cope with the numbers of black and white students breaking state law, something would have to be done. By July 1960 segregated lunch counters had disappeared from 100 cities across America. Once again

nonviolent direct action and national TV coverage was forcing change.

Source 3 – from Spartacus Educational

As a result of the sit-ins Martin Luther King realised that black students could play an important part in the civil rights campaign. Negro and white students who wanted to campaign for civil rights were invited to form a new organisation called the Students Non-violent Coordinating Committee - the SNCC for short.

10

Source 4 – from the Intermediate 2 Resource Pack

The sit-ins showed students that they could take action themselves. They could change things by personally confronting racism. Young black people realised that they, not the federal government or big business or even the older generation, could make a difference to civil rights.Source 5 - from the Intermediate 2 Resource Pack

Many black people who had seen the success of non-violent protest in Montgomery and the sit-ins at Greensboro decided to use the same methods just to see how effective federal law was. In 1961 students decided to test laws which banned segregation on interstate buses and trains. It was organised by a non-violent protest group called CORE - the Congress of Racial Equality. In May 1961, 13 members of CORE rode from Washington to New Orleans in the south. The plan was that black students would try to use ‘whites only’ wash rooms at stopping points along the route. The civil rights campaigners became known as ‘Freedom Riders’.

Source 6 – from pbs.org

Entering the Deep South, the Freedom Riders began to meet strong opposition. Riders are arrested in North Carolina and attacked in South Carolina. When they reached Georgia, the riders met with Martin Luther King.

On leaving Georgia, one of the buses is firebombed in Alabama. The second bus makes it to Birmingham, only to face a brutal KKK mob, supported by the police. Many Freedom Riders are brutally beaten.

The Freedom Riders were forced to complete their journey to New Orleans by plane, under protection of the government. New students stepped in to take their place. Before they can leave, they were trapped inside a church in Montgomery by an angry mob. Federal

troops were sent in to protect them.

President Kennedy was concerned about the ‘Freedom Rides’. He sent one of his advisers to the South and he was beaten unconscious. The FBI was sent in to investigate the violence and US laws officers to protect the students. Martin Luther King attempted to get the students to stop, but they refused.

The Riders entered Mississippi, where they were jailed ‘for their own protection’. Jails become the new destination for Freedom Riders throughout the summer of 1961. Finally, in late 1961, the government ordered the end of segregation in airports, rail and bus stations.

Source 7 – from an American historian.

The freedom riders, like the sit-ins before them, were successful in publicising the way black people were treated in the southern states. Klan assaults were shown in bloody detail in the national newspapers and on television. All across America ordinary people saw shocking scenes of violence in ‘the land of the free’. Public opinion polls showed Americans increasingly sympathetic to the civil rights cause.

11

Lesson 13 – The March on Birmingham (Project C)

Source 1 – historylearningsite.co.uk

Birmingham was a KKK stronghold and King described it as America’s worst city for racism. City businessmen actually believed that racism held back the city but their voices were usually quiet. In recent years, the KKK had castrated an African American; pressured the city to ban a book from book stores as it contained pictures of black and white rabbits and wanted black music banned on radio stations.

Source 2 - bombingham.wikispaces.com

Birmingham, the largest city in Alabama, was notorious for its segregation and racial hatred, gaining the nickname "Bombingham" for the many violent acts against black citizens. The authorities were also known to be racist; Governor George Wallace declared, "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever,"

Source 3 – from Wikipedia.org

In the early 1960s, Birmingham was one of the most racially divided cities in the United States, both as enforced by law and culturally. Black citizens faced legal and economic inequalities, and violent retribution when they attempted to draw attention to their problems. Protests in Birmingham began with a boycott meant to pressure business leaders to open employment to people of all races and end segregation in public facilities, restaurants, and stores.

Source 4 - historylearningsite.co.uk

The head of the police was called "Bull" Connor - a man who believed in segregation. When the Freedom Riders had driven through Birmingham and were attacked, there were no police to assist them as Connor had given them the day off as it was Mother’s Day…

Source 5 – historylearningsite.co.uk

The campaign used a variety of nonviolent methods of confrontation, including sit-ins at libraries and lunch counters, kneel-ins by black visitors at white churches, and a march to the county building to mark the beginning of a voter-registration drive. However, many local African Americans did not join in. The campaign was going nowhere.

King’s saving grace was Connor. He had a notorious temper and he saw the protests as a threat to his ‘rule’ in Birmingham. He set police dogs on to the protesters and suddenly Birmingham got national attention. King was arrested for defying an injunction that denied his right to march. He was kept in solitary confinement and was refused the right to see his lawyer. Only the intervention of J F Kennedy got his release.

Source 6 – from Stanford.edu

12

The Civil Rights leaders encouraged children to protest. On 2 May more than 1,000 African American students attempted to march into downtown Birmingham, and hundreds were arrested. When hundreds more gathered the following day, Commissioner Connor directed local police and fire departments to use force to halt the demonstrations. During the next few days images of children being blasted by high-pressure fire hoses, clubbed by police officers, and attacked by police dogs appeared on television and in newspapers, triggering international outrage. In the meantime, the white business structure was weakening under bad publicity and the unexpected decline in business due to the boycott.

Source 7 – Martin Luther King

‘‘Don’t worry about your children, they’re going to be alright. Don’t hold them back if they want to go to jail. For they are doing a job for not only themselves, but for all of America and for all mankind’’

Source 8

The Birmingham Campaign ended with a victory in May of 1963 when local officials agreed to remove "White Only" and "Black Only" signs from restrooms and drinking fountains in downtown Birmingham; desegregate lunch counters; deploy a "Negro job improvement plan"; and release jailed demonstrators. The scenes of police dogs attacking children and youths pushed President Kennedy into greater action - civil rights legislation shortly followed. Furthermore, The media had once again shown America what life was like for African Americans in the South and probably provided the movement with its greatest boost.

However, desegregation would take place slowly over the next few months coupled with violent attacks from angry segregationists, including the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church that killed four young girls. In addition, 1100 students who had attended the demonstrations were expelled for truancy from city schools and colleges.

Lesson 14 – The March on Washington

Source 1 – President Kennedy, speech on national television, 11 June 1963.

"If an American, because his skin is dark, cannot eat lunch in a restaurant open to the public, if he cannot send his children to the best public school available, if he cannot vote for the public officials who will represent him, if, in short, he cannot enjoy the full and free life which

13

all of us want, then who among us would be content to have the colour of his skin changed and stand in his place?...

I am, therefore, asking Congress to pass laws which will give all Americans the right to be served in facilities which are open to the public. I am also asking Congress...to end segregation in public schools”.

Source 2 – John Kerr, Modern Historian

Civil Rights leaders knew it would not be easy to get a new civil rights law passed. Politicians, such as Governor Wallace of Alabama, had said they would stop it becoming law. What could be done to make sure that the federal government kept its promise?

Source 3 – A selection of the ’10 demands’ made by the marchers.

1. A massive federal program to train and place all unemployed workers — Negro and white — on meaningful and dignified jobs at decent wages.

2. A national minimum wage act that will give all Americans a decent standard of living. 

3. Decent housing for all Americans.

Source 4 – Martin Luther King

“I worked to get these people the right to eat hamburgers, and now I've got to do something … to help them get the money to buy them."

Source 5 – from the CORE website

Operating out of a tiny office in Harlem, civil rights organisers had only two months to plan a massive event. Money was raised by the sale of buttons for the march at 25 cents apiece, and thousands of people sent in small cash contributions. The staff tackled the difficult issues of transportation, publicity, and the marchers' health and safety. Attention to detail was crucial, for the planners believed that anything other than a peaceful, well-organized demonstration would damage the cause for which they would march.

 On August 28 the marchers arrived.  By 11 o'clock in the morning, more than 200,000 had gathered by the Washington Monument, where the march was to begin. It was a diverse crowd: black and white, rich and poor, young and old, Hollywood stars and everyday people. Despite the fears of the government, those assembled marched peacefully.

Many different speakers spoke about the importance of ‘jobs and freedom’. King, the last speaker of the day, stirred the audience and built to his "I have a dream" finale. The organizers then met with President Kennedy.

14

Source 6 – Martin Luther King

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character...

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Source 7 – from crmvet.org

Millions of Americans, Black and white, watched the march and rally on TV. For most of them, this was their first direct exposure to the Freedom Movement beyond brief tv and newspaper appearances. While the march did little to change the minds of some white segregationists, for the rest of the population the dignity, strength, purpose, and discipline of the freedom marchers had a positive effect.

A national poll reported that more than 75% of white Americans supported ending segregation in public facilities, equal job opportunities, "good" housing for Blacks, and integrated schools. But, 97% of whites opposed preferential hiring of Blacks to make up for past discrimination.

Source 8 – from Spartacus Educational

The 1964 Civil Rights Act made racial discrimination in public places, such as theatres, restaurants and hotels, illegal. It also required employers to provide equal employment opportunities. Projects involving federal funds could now be cut off if there was evidence of discrimination based on colour.

The Civil Rights Act also attempted to deal with the problem of African Americans being denied the vote in the Deep South. The law stated that the same rules had to apply to all Americans when it came to voting. Schooling to sixth grade was legal proof of literacy and the government was given power to begin legal action in any area where they found a pattern of resistance to the law.

Source 9 - John Kerr, Modern Historian

Most people agreed that the Civil Rights Act was a big move towards helping black

Americans achieve full civil rights. Of course, it was impossible to make a law to change the

15

way that people thought and felt. However, many politicians believed the Civil Rights Act had gone as far as the law could to help black Americans.

On the other hand, some black Americans were concerned that the Civil Rights Act did nothing to solve discrimination in housing or give black people a fair and free vote. The act did not end fear and discrimination. The KKK, often helped by the police, still used terror against any black person who tried to use freedoms that the act was supposed to guarantee.

16