The Civil Rights Movement

¨If you will protest courageously and yet with dignity and Christian love, in the history books that are written for future generations, the historians will have to pause and say ´there lived a great people—a black people—who injected a new meaning and dignity into the veins of civilization´. This is our challenge and our responsibility.”

— Martin Luther King, Jr., December 5, 1955

With these words, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., minister of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, helped lay the foundation of the African-American civil rights movement of the 1950’s and ‘60’s. At the same time, King also established his own reputation as the most eloquent advocate for change through nonviolent means.

The spark that started that civil rights movement was a Supreme Court case called Brown vs Board of Education, Topeka, Kansas. That case overturned a previous court ruling (Plessy vs Ferguson, 1896) that had legalized the southern policy of Separate But Equal. Most of southern society, including the schools, was segregated and as long as the facilities were “equal” the policy had been considered legal. Brown vs Board changed that by declaring that segregation in and of itself was unconstitutional even if the facilities were equal, which they often were not.

White-only restaurant Theater for colored people

Discussion Questions: What would it be like to live in a segregated society? What clear message would segregation send about non-white people?

In a historic victory for African-Americans, the court ruled in the Brown v Board case that segregation was unconstitutional. The ruling extended to all forms of segregation, not just in school. Southerners, however resisted. The Southern Manifesto publicly declared their intent to fight integration. True integration did not occur in the south until after Martin Luther King, Jr. and his followers forced it to happen in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s with the public and nonviolent protests.

Discussion Questions: What does it say about an issue that elected officials were willing to openly and publically state

their intention to defy a Supreme Court ruling? Why do you think Southerners were so upset about the idea of integrating schools? Why were schools such an important place to integrate?

The first step down the road of integration was where King delivered the speech quoted at the beginning of this reading, the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Rosa Parks had been arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man who demanded it. The story of how Parks was treated galvanized Montgomery’s African-American community. White critics accused the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) of planting Parks on the bus a political statement, but Parks claimed she was simply tired from a day of shopping and did not see the need to give up her seat. Encouraged by King and other community leaders, African-Americans refused to ride the buses until segregation was ended and African-American drivers were hired for certain routes. The boycotts lasted for over a year with people car-pooling or walking instead. Some walked over five miles to get to work rather than ride the city buses.

Despite repeated harassment and violence that included the bombing of King’s home, the boycotters succeeded in forcing an end to segregation on the buses. News of the courageous and peaceful efforts of the Montgomery boycotters inspired a generation of civil rights advocates with the hope that change could come without violence. King said of the boycott: “If there is a victory it will be a victory not merely for fifty thousand Negroes, but a victory for justice and the forces of light. We are out to defeat injustice and not white persons who may happen to be unjust.”

Prior to the boycott, civil rights organizations like NAACP had focused their efforts on winning several important court battles like Brown vs Board of Education. While these victories were significant and even necessary for reform to occur, their impact on their own was worth nothing if the South was allowed to get away with its resistance. Across the nation, communities opposed to integration had devised clever and effective means of impeding the implementation of the court rulings. Most African-Americans continued to live in a world sharply divided on the basis of skin color. The success of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, however, inspired African-Americans to take the movement to the streets of America and force change through peaceful protest.

Discussion Questions: Why was the boycott successful? In what other ways could Civil Rights activists use economics to further their cause?

King established the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957 to help coordinate the actions of this new movement. One of the organization’s functions was to train civil rights activities in nonviolent resistance methods, including how to protect themselves from physical attack. King was adamant that protestors not respond to violence even in self-defense.

Discussion Questions: Could you have resisted the urge to defend yourself if attacked at a protest? Why did King push non-violent resistance so much and oppose the use of violence even in

self-defense? What are the benefits and drawbacks to such a philosophy?

Also in 1957, school segregation again became the focal point of the movement. Several African-American students tried to enroll at the public high school in Little Rock, Arkansas. The Arkansas governor supported the school’s decision to refuse admittance to the students and even supplied National Guard troops to keep them out. President Eisenhower was forced to call in federal troops to escort and protect the students.

College students were among the most dedicated of the emerging activists. Many of them had become active politically for the first time protesting America’s involvement in Vietnam. On hundreds of college campuses across the nation, young people enthusiastically accepted the challenge of change through nonviolence. In early 1960 one such group in North Carolina staged a sit-in at a segregated Walgreen’s lunch counter. Their goal was to occupy as many seats as they could forcing the business to integrate and serve them or lose money. The sit-in’s success led to more sit-in’s nation-wide despite the verbal and physical abuse they often inspired. This technique was one example of passive resistance, or making a non- violent political statement.

The success of passive resistance led many activists to try outright civil disobedience, or purposely violating unjust laws non-violently to make a point. King embraced and encouraged these activities. Many times he even led them and spent many nights in local jails. “Fill up the jails” even became the movement’s battle cry.

Discussion Question: What was the difference between “passive resistance” and “civil disobedience”?

Despite the successes that the movement enjoyed, they were slow and came with a cost. Protestors were often beaten by local crowds and even police forces that were opposed to their efforts. The police unleashed their dogs on protesters or used high pressure hoses to break up peaceful marches. Protesters and their leaders were often harassed, intimidated, or even killed. In 1962, James Meredith applied for and was denied enrollment to the University of Mississippi, Even with a court order in his hand, Meredith

was turned away from the admissions office by Mississippi’s governor himself, who proclaimed “Never! We will never surrender to the evil and illegal forces of tyranny.” President Kennedy was forced to send in federal marshals to escort Meredith to the campus where they were met with an angry mob. A riot broke out that lasted all night, forcing Kennedy to send in federal troops to keep the peace and protect Meredith for the rest of the school year. In 1963, Medgar Evers, leader of the Mississippi branch of the NAACP, was murdered in his own driveway.

James Meredith

Non-violent protesters also had to deal with the opposition from other African-Americans. Militants like Malcolm X believed that African-Americans should live separately from white society and use violence to defend themselves if necessary. Some even believed the King was doing more harm than good for African-Americans Many of these people were people that had grown disillusioned with the non-violent movement because of the horrible violence and death suffered by many of its supporters and the slowness of its pace and the change it was achieving. Malcolm X himself softened his stance later in his life after making a pilgrimage to Mecca and was assassinated by some of his own followers as a result. Eventually, even Martin Luther King, Jr. was gunned down, allegedly by James Earl Ray, on April 4, 1968.

Malcolm X James Earl Ray

The death of Martin Luther King, Jr. inflicted a terrible blow to the civil rights movement. The movement has been unable to replace one of its most influential leaders even to the present day. Congress did pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which helped make discrimination and segregation illegal, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which helped eliminate the barriers that many African-Americans faced when trying to vote, but the promise and progress of the late 1950’s and early ‘60’s did not carry over to the following decades. King’s vision for equality that he so eloquently expressed in his “I Have a Dream” speech has not yet been realized.

Discussion Questions: How might things have turned out differently if the Supreme Court had struck down “Separate

But Equal” in 1896 rather than 1954? What did the failure of the Court to do so allow to happen that made getting rid of segregation

and discrimination more difficult in the 1950s and 60s?