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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