5th Grade Civil Rights Movement

A Summary of Civil Rights Legal Precedent and Significant Tennesseans who contributed to the Civil Rights Movement

A Summary of ResourcesCompiled by: Dr. Donna Artrip

What are Civil Rights?

Civil Rights are the rights of personal liberty guaranteed to United States citizens by the 13th and 14th amendments to the United States Constitution.

Citation: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/civil%20rights

What is the 13th Amendment of the United States Constitution?

The 13th amendment abolished slavery in the United States and provides that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except

as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place

subject to their jurisdiction.”

Citation: http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/13thamendment.html

What is the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution?

Key Clauses of the 14th Amendment:Four principles were asserted in the text of the 14th amendment. They were:1. State and federal citizenship for all persons regardless of race both born or naturalized in the United States was reaffirmed.2. No state would be allowed to abridge the "privileges and immunities" of citizens.3. No person was allowed to be deprived of life, liberty, or property without "due process of law.” 4. No person could be denied "equal protection of the laws.”

Citation: http://americanhistory.about.com/od/usconstitution/a/14th-Amendment-Summary.htm

Brown vs. Board of Education

This landmark case opened the doors of all schools to all people across the United States. It allowed people of all colors to have an equal opportunity to a free and public education no matter where they lived or what their race was. Segregation of children in the public schools solely on the basis of race denies to black children the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, even though the physical facilities and other may be equal. Education in public schools is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms.

Citation: http://teaching.about.com/od/law/p/Brown-V-Board.htm

MONTGOMERY BUS BOYCOTT

Sparked by the arrest of Rosa Parks on December 1st 1955, the Montgomery Bus Boycott was a 13-month mass protest that ended with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that segregation on public buses is unconstitutional.

Citation: http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_montgomery_bus_boycott_1955_1956/

Birmingham Civil Rights March

On May 2, 1963 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.

Citation: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_was_the_Birmingham_Civil_Rights_March

Civil Rights Act of 1964

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. 

Citation: http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/about/history/CivilRightsAct.cfm

Diane Nash

By 1961, Diane Nash had emerged as one of the most respected student leaders of the sit-in movement in Nashville, TN. Raised in middle-class Catholic family in Chicago, Nash attended Howard University before transferring to Nashville's Fisk University in the fall of 1959. Shocked by the extent of segregation she encountered in Tennessee, she was a founding member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in April 1960. In February 1961 she served jail time in solidarity with the "Rock Hill Nine" — nine students imprisoned after a lunch counter sit-in.

Citation: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/freedomriders/people/diane-nash

John & Viola McFerren

Two years after the passage of the 1957 Civil Rights Act, civil rights activists John and Viola Harris McFerren led voter-registration drives in Fayette County. Unyielding proponents of the right of African Americans to exercise the franchise, the McFerrens were among those who organized Fayette County's Freedom Village, a makeshift community of army tents. Better known as "Tent City," the village assembled when white farm owners evicted hundreds of African American tenant farmers who had registered to vote.

Citation: http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entry.php?rec=864

Benjamin Hooks

Benjamin Hooks, born in Memphis, Tennessee, became a minister and public defender during the civil rights movement. He worked with Martin Luther King, Jr. and later became the first African-American commissioner of the FCC. Hooks resigned the position to become the executive director of the NAACP (1977-1993).

Citation: http://www.biography.com/people/benjamin-hooks-9343297

Billy Kyles

The Reverend Samuel "Billy" Kyles was born in Shelby, Mississippi, on September 26, 1934. A longtime leader in the civil rights movement, Kyles has been pastor of the Monumental Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee, since 1959. After Memphis sanitation workers went on strike in February, 1968 due to low wages and inhumane working conditions, Kyles helped to form and lead the effort to gain community support for the striking workers. Part of that effort involved persuading the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to come to Memphis in support of the strike.

Citation: http://www.ccsu.edu/uploaded/departments/AdministrativeDepartments/Institutional_Advancement/Keyles.pdf

Maxine SmithExecutive secretary of the Memphis NAACP for over forty years, Maxine Smith was born in Memphis on October 31, 1929. She graduated from Booker T. Washington High School in Memphis at the age of fifteen, received her A.B. degree in biology from Spelman College (Atlanta) in 1949, and a master's degree in French in 1950 from Middlebury College in Vermont. Ironically, this civil rights leader attended Middlebury College because the University of Tennessee would not admit her--or any other African American student. Because the Memphis City Schools remained largely segregated and were slow to change, Smith was at the forefront of Black Mondays, school boycotts initiated in 1969 to force the issue of total integration of all aspects of the Memphis City Schools. Many students, teachers, and principals stayed out of school. This effort resulted in the restructuring of the school board into district representation that led to the election of African Americans to the board.

Citation: http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entry.php?rec=1220