Civil Rights Movement in the United States



Civil Rights Movement in the United States

• Civil RIGHTS—Struggle by black Americans for full citizenship/racial equality

1. First and foremost a challenge to segregation

a. Individuals/civil rights groups challenged segregation and discrimination

b. Variety of activities:

1) Protest marches

2) Boycotts

3) Refusal to abide by segregation laws

2. Period from Montgomery bus boycott (1955) to Voting Rights Act (1965)

• CIVIL RIGHTS AS A NATIONAL MOVEMENT

1. School Desegregation

a. NAACP’s legal strategy became more successful—Thurgood Marshall

b. Important cases:

1) Sweat v. Painter (1950) University of Texas had to integrate its law school

2) Brown v. Bd. of Ed. (1954) Segregated education is unconstitutional

c. White Southerners received these decisions with varied reactions

1) Many were relieved—ready to move on (“the silent majority”)

2) Some were violent—most vocal/noticeable (media coverage)

d. The resistance strategy—persuade all whites to resist compliance with the desegregation orders

1) If enough people refused to cooperate, it could not be enforced

2) White Citizens Council led opposition to desegregation in the South

3) Blacks who favored integration fired from jobs

e. Little Rock, AR (1957) Governor Faubus defied a federal court order to admit black students to Central High School—“Little Rock 9”

1) President Eisenhower sent federal troops to enforce desegregation

2) Covered by the national media

3) Showed seriousness of the desegregation issue to many Americans

f. The process proceeded gradually

1) Segregated neighborhoods = segregated schools

2) 1970s—Some bussed students to schools outside their neighborhoods

g. Membership of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) grew

1) Targeted anyone favoring desegregation or black civil rights

2) Violence was widespread in the South in the 1950s and 1960s

3) 1955—Emmett Till slain for “flirting” with a white woman

2. Montgomery Bus Boycott

3. —December 1, 1955

a. Rosa Parks

1) Told to give up her seat on a city bus to a white person

2) Parks refused to move and was arrested

3) NAACP used arrest to rally local blacks to protest segregated buses

4) Immediate success—support from the 50,000 blacks in Montgomery

5) The boycott lasted for more than a year—national attention

b. November 1956—Supreme Court ruled bus segregation unconstitutional

c. The decision went into effect December 20, 1956—boycott the next day

3. Martin Luther King, Jr.

a. The greatest civil rights figure in American History

b. Baptist minister

c. Believed in non-violent protest and civil disobedience as a means for change

1) Based on Christianity, Thoreau/Emerson’s philosophies, and the methods used in India by Gandhi

2) Basic principle was to not give up anything that could be used against the movement—no negativity

3) Wanted respect and empathy to be at the heart of change for the nation—expose injustice and violence with peaceful demonstrations

d. Became the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) when it was founded in 1957

1) Advocated use of nonviolent, direct action to protest segregation: marches, demonstrations, and boycotts

2) Violent white response forced the federal government to confront the issues of injustice and racism in the South

e. King had a powerful appeal to liberal Northerners that helped him influence national public opinion

1) Attracted supporters among peace activists

2) Forged alliances in the American Jewish community

3) Developed strong ties to influential leaders throughout America and the world

f. Methods were effective

1) Sit-ins, freedom rides, boycotts, marches, church meetings, rallies, etc., drew national attention

2) KKK and Klan-influenced local law enforcement often reacted with extreme violence—bombed churches/homes/businesses, beatings, murders, riots—to intimidate anyone from supporting King/civil rights

3) Hatred/injustice of segregation were exposed to the nation

4) Led to Federal government involvement

g. Used media attention to expose injustice of segregation

h. Eloquent speaker and effective writer

1) Any open forum was used to further the cause

2) Used his arrest for protesting to his advantage

a) Wrote an essay outlining the case for civil rights—“The Letter from the Birmingham Jail”

b) Sent to newspapers and publishers

c) Changed people’s minds about what he was doing

i. Gained support from political leaders

1) President Kennedy’s administration favored his nonviolent approach

2) Many politicians withheld support—public opinion—but did not condemn King—stated his case so well

j. The March on Washington

1) Put pressure on Kennedy administration/Congress to pass the civil rights legislation

2) March on Washington planned for August 1963

3) Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke to 200,000+—“I Have a Dream” speech

4) Expressed the ideals of the civil rights movement

5) Kennedy was assassinated—Johnson pushed for passage—tribute to Kennedy

6) Johnson pushed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 through Congress

a) It prohibited segregation and discrimination in education and employment

b) Gave the executive branch of government the power to enforce it

k. Push for Voter Registration (1961-64)

1) With support of the Federal Justice Department

2) Challenged disfranchisement in the South

3) Workers went all over the South educating voters/registration

l. Racists reacted violently to King’s message

1) Protestors attacked by angry mobs

2) KKK bombings

3) June 1963—Medgar Evers, NAACP field secretary in Mississippi, shot and killed in front of his home

4) 3 voting rights activists were murdered in Mississippi (1964)

5) Birmingham police met protesters with violence—attack dogs, tear gas, fire hoses, billy clubs

6) Shocking scenes of violence on TV—Bloody Sunday (Alabama 1965)

m. Voting Rights Act of 1965

1) Ended voter qualification tests—Later amendments banned these tests

2) By 1968—almost a million more blacks in the South registered to vote—black voters were significant in Southern politics

3) 1970s—blacks sought and won public offices in majority-black electoral districts

• Changing Methods

1. After the Voting Rights Act of 1965—focus began to change

2. Martin Luther King, Jr.—poverty and racial inequality in the North

3. Younger activists challenged his leadership

a. Criticized his interracial strategy and his appeals to morality

b. No longer believed that non-violence could work

4. 1968—King was assassinated in Memphis, TN

a. National mourning for his loss

b. Rioting broke out in black neighborhoods in many cities

5. Stokely Carmichael

a. Popularized the term the Black Power

b. Led opponents of King’s moderate policies

6. Malcolm X

a. Nation of Islam minister

b. Black separatism/self-sufficiency—black pride and self-assertion

c. After a trip to Mecca—began to soften his stance on the “White Devils”

d. Assassinated by the Nation of Islam during a speech—too open-minded for their views (1965)

7. Media reported Black Power as a new and dangerous development in the civil rights movement

8. Leaders of the other national civil rights organizations also denounced Black Power—undermine what had once been a unified campaign for civil rights

9. Opposition became stronger in 1968—Black Panther Party

a. Began promoting Black Power

b. Advocated violence to achieve their goals

c. Battled police in Chicago and Oakland

d. Several of its leaders were killed, and others were imprisoned for killing policemen

• End of the Civil Rights Movement

1. For many activists and some scholars, the civil rights movement ended in 1968 with the death of Martin Luther King, Jr.

2. Others have said it was over after the Selma march

3. Some argue that the movement is not over yet because the goal of full equality has not been achieved

4. 1960’s-70’s—Urban poverty represented a continuing and worsening problem and remained disproportionately high among blacks

5. Controversy in the 1970s—desegregation of public education required busing students outside of their school districts

6. Equal opportunity for blacks—affirmative-action emerged in the 1970s

a. Supported the hiring and promotion of minorities and women

b. Their fairness continues to be debated and litigated

7. Legal segregation as a system of racial control was dismantled, and blacks were no longer subject to the humiliation of Jim Crow laws

8. Public institutions were opened to all

9. Blacks achieved the right to vote and the influence that went with that right in a democracy

10. Some Southern states in attempted to atone for some of the killings perpetrated by racists during the civil rights movement

a. Many of the perpetrators were never brought to trial to face state murder changes, leaving the South with a legacy of unpunished crimes

b. 1994—Ku Klux Klan member Byron de la Beckwith was convicted of the 1963 murder of NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers in Jackson, Mississippi

c. 1998—Ku Klux Klan imperial wizard Sam Bowers was convicted of the 1966 murder of NAACP leader Vernon Dahmer

d. 2001-2002—two men were convicted for the 1963 bombing of a black church in Birmingham, Alabama, that killed four young black girls

e. 2003—KKK member was convicted of killing black sharecropper Ben Chester White

f. 2005—former KKK member Edgar Ray Killen convicted on manslaughter charges and sentenced to 60 years in prison for the 1964 murders of three civil rights workers

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