Civil Rights Movement, 1955-65
Civil Rights Movement, 1955-65
KEY THEMES & ISSUES
1. The Brown decisions
2. Methods of struggle
nonviolent direct action
3. Massive Resistance
4. Federal responses
The Brown Decision(s), 1
May 17 1954, Brown decision
Supreme Court declares segregated schools “inherently unequal” & unconstitutional
May 31 1955, Brown 2
Court calls for school desegregation “with all deliberate speed”
Greeted as death knell for segregation in all areas of southern life
Montgomery, 1955-6, 1
Rosa Parks arrested, Dec. 1, 1955
Boycott Dec. 5, 1955-Dec. 20 1956
Builds on existing activist tradition
NAACP
E.D. Nixon; Parks
Women’s Political Council
JoAnn Robinson
Montgomery Improvement Association
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Learns about Nonviolent Direct Action during boycott
After Montgomery….
Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
Period of indecision, 1957-60
White Massive Resistance hardens
Southern Manifesto, 1956
“legal” maneuvers
Freedom of Choice acts
White Citizens Councils
Mob Action
Little Rock, 1957
Nonviolence in Action: Sit Ins
The Sit-Ins
Greensboro, NC, Feb, 1 1960
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC/”SNICK”)
students dominate
Seminary roots, but gradually more secular
John Lewis
nonviolent direct action tactics
grass roots organizing
biracial (until c.1967)
NVDA, 2: Freedom Rides
Congress of Racial Equality
Boynton Decision, 1960
Buses leave DC, May 4 1961
White Violence:
Anniston & Birmingham, Ala (“Bull” Connor)
SNCC resumes rides
Montgomery – more violence
Mass arrests in Jackson, Miss
Attorney-General RFK & Interstate Commerce Commission
Birmingham, 1963
Strong local activist tradition
Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth
SCLC action well-planned & timed
Easter = economic leverage
Birmingham white community disunited
Businessmen “want” change
2 rival administrations
Movement gets dramatic media images
mass arrests & white brutality
Violence compels federal Intervention
RFK; JFK proposes Civil Right bill, June 11 1963; Act passed by LBJ, 1964
Voting Rights
Voter Education Projects, 1961-
Mississippi Freedom Summer, 1964
SNCC (& CORE)
Chaney, Schwerner & Goodman
Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
Atlantic City Convention
Fannie Lou Hamer
Liberal/LBJ “betrayal”
Selma, 1965
LBJ & the Voting Rights Act of 1965
The limits of liberal reform
Statutory equality…
Conclusions
1. Brown & Montgomery marked the tentative start of a new phase of mass southern protest, building on a long tradition of activism.
2. After Brown, Montgomery & other protests & suits, Massive Resistance intensified in the South.
3. A truly mass southern civil rights movement emerged with the sit-ins & freedom rides of 1960-1.
4. Nonviolent direct action was the most effective way to exert economic & moral pressure on the South, win national support &, ultimately, federal intervention.
5. Federal govt. initially responded to the civil disorder (white violence) which greeted black protest & only belatedly addressed the deeper causes of those protests.
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