the civil rights movement libertyville hs. plessy v. ferguson (1896) la passed law requiring...

The Civil Rights

Movement

Libertyville HS

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

• LA passed law requiring separate AA & white rail cars

• Homer Plessy, 1/8 AA, enlisted to challenge law

• USSC: 7-1 LA law did not violate 14th Am.

• Confirmed “separate but equal” doctrine

Jim Crow South

• Laws mandated legal segregation of all public facilities• Public schools• Restaurants• Public

transportation• Restrooms• US military /

bureaucracy

Jim Crow South

Jim Crow South

Brown v. Board of Ed. Topeka Kansas (1954)

• School segregation accepted throughout country (required, in South)

• Brown: unanimously decided by USSC

• Ruled that school segregation was unconstitutional

• Overturned Plessy

• Integrate with “all deliberate speed”

Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

Massive Resistance• “The Southern

Manifesto”• 100

congressmen sign document pledging defiance to Brown

• White Citizen’s Councils formed throughout South to organize resistance

Massive Resistance

Murder of Emmett Till1955

• Segregationist backlash against black citizens by gangs of whites

• Emmett Till: 14 year old Chicago boy visiting cousins in Mississippi

• On dare, said “Bye, Baby” to white woman, while exiting a store

• Several days later, woman’s husband, brother hunt Till down

Emmett Till

• Body found 3 days later in river• Barbed wire around

neck• Bullet in brain• Eye gouged out• Forehead crushed on

one side

Jury in Till Case

• Eyewitness testimony against both men

• All white, all male jury found bothmen “not guilty”

• Galvanized a generation of young black men

Rosa Parks & the Montgomery Bus Boycott,

1955-1956• Rosa Parks, 43, a

seamstress

• Refused to give up bus seat to white man; arrested

• Dexter Ave. Baptist Church meeting of 50 ministers (incl. MLK)

• Plan boycott of bus companies

Bus Boycott

• Boycott deprived company of 65% of its revenues

• MLK arrested, charged with 1 year in jail or $500 fine

• USSC: 8 months later, court decided that bus segregation violated the Constitution

Little Rock (1957)

• Little Rock Central HS supposed to start ‘57 year desegregated

• Gov. Orval Faubus announced AK Nat’l Guard would “monitor” the school

• NG blocked students from entering school

Central High School• 9/20: injunction

vs. Governor – students try again

• 9/23: white mob of 1000 townspeople blocked access

• Ike: ordered 1000 paratroopers to Little Rock to escort students

(5)• Southern

Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) founded, 1957

• Important as coordinating group for protests nationwide

Sit-Ins• Greensboro NC

Woolworth’s lunch counter refused service to Joe McNeill, an A-A college student

• McNeill returned, refused service next 3 days

• NYT wrote article covering sit in; soon, students across nation began sit in campaign

Sit ins• Sit ins met with

white violence• Beatings• Dumped ammonia

on them• Heavy court fines• Arrest &

imprisonment

• Police eventually given orders not to arrest them due to negative publicity

Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee

(SNCC)• As a result of

success of campaign, students encouraged to create new group

• Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee formed

• Worked with SCLC to coordinate protests

Freedom Riders• 1961: busloads of

volunteers of mixed races traveled cross country to end segregation of bus terminals

• Test segregated seating on interstate buses and trains

• Local segregation laws used to arrest freedom riders

Freedom Riders• Riders through deep

South were savagely attacked in Montgomery, AL

• JFK sent in 600 federal marshals sent in for a confrontation with AL law enforcement

• JFK cut deal with southern state leaders: no fed troops if no mob violence vs riders

James Meredith & the Integration of Ole

Miss• 1962: President Kennedy ordered federal marshals to escort James Meredith to attend University of Mississippi

• First black student to enroll at the school

• Riot broke out – two students killed before troops could arrive to back up marshals

Birmingham• Birmingham AL one of

the most segregated cities in America• Sit-ins at lunch counters• “kneel ins” on steps of

churches• 100s of demonstrators

fined, imprisoned

• MLK led protest march in May 1963; met with cops w/ dogs, fire hoses

• Arrested, jailed, wrote “Letter from Birmingham Jail”

“Justice too long delayed

is justice denied”

“Letter from Birmingham Jail”,Dr. King 1963

16th St. Bombing and Medgar Evers

• Sept 1963: KKK bombed Birmingham Baptist church

• Four little girls preparing to lead service killed

• Riots, fires broke out throughout town; 2 more teens killed

• Mississippi Director of NAACP, Medger Evers, assassinated in driveway in the midst of leading a boycott against Jackson, MS businesses

March on Washington

• August 28, 1963: 200k marchers appeared to support Civil Rights movement

• Purpose: show support for proposed CR bill

• Dr King delivered his “I have a Dream” Speech

Civil Rights Act of 1964

• LBJ called for CR Act as monument to JFK

• Passed House; overcame Senate filibuster by Southern Democrats through massive lobbying campaign by Civil Rights, religious leaders

• Prohibited segregation in public facilities

Twenty Fourth Amendment

• Prohibited use of poll tax

• Illinois first state to ratify

• Eight states have still not ratified it• Wyoming • Arizona • Texas • Oklahoma • Arkansas

• Louisiana • Georgia • South Carolina

Freedom Summer & “Mississippi Burning”

• SNCC organized voter registration drive in South

• Mainly in Mississippi

• Strategy teamed black southern volunteers w/ white northern volunteers

• White southerners resented strategy

• 3 freedom summer workers disappeared; found later, shot and buried – arrested, beaten, by police, then turned over to KKK

Freedom Summer

Presiding Judge William Cox, in handing down lenient sentences for 7 of 18 white men convicted of charges (not murder):

“They killed one ni—r, one Jew, and a white man. I gave them all what I thought they deserved.”

Malcolm X• Joined Nation of Islam, a

black separatist religion

• Left movement in 1964, converted to Islam

• Alternative approach to civil rights• Rejected non-violence of

MLK• Rejected integration with

whites• Advocated

black separatism, black nationalism

• The Ballot or the bullet

• Assassinated Feb 1965 at NY rally by NOI members

The Selma March (1965)

• AL state troopers kill demonstrator; march organized by MLK

• Gov. refuses to authorize march; MLK goes to LBJ

• Marchers go anyway; state troopers at city line use billy clubs and tear gar to disperse demonstrators

• Called “Bloody Sunday” by CR movement

• LBJ promised action in honor of Selma

Voting Rights Act (1965)

• LBJ followed throughwith Voting Rights Act, prohibiting literacy tests• Also sent federal

registrars into south to register AA

Watts RiotAAs riot in poor neighborhood of LA after cops beat black teen

AA youths frustrated with brutality of police, pace of reform

34 people die; Nat’l Guard called in to stop violence

Affirmative Action (1965)

• Driven by frustration that Civil Rights legislation had not stopped discrimination

• Employers, universities need to actively recruit minorities to make up centuries of discrimination

• Issue continues to this day• Grutter v. Bollinger

(2003): USSC upheld U of M’s admission policy allowing race to be a factor

Chicago, 1966• MLK led march to

end housing, employment discrimination

• In Cicero, whites show up throwing bricks and obscenities

• MLK later says the hateful racism he saw in Chicago surpassed the racism from Jim Crow South

Radicalization: Stokely Carmichael

• 1966 - SNCC dropped its commitment to non violence

• New leadership: Carmichael an advocate of Black Power• Blacks to take bold

action to achieve equality, freedom

• Promoted black nationalism, Afro-centric culture and history

Radicalization: Black Panther Party (1966)

• Founded by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale

• Militant group providing social services to poor black neighborhoods

• Stood up against police, city authorities

• Armed, angry black men scare white people

• Coincided with violent protest on college campuses against Vietnam war

Assassination of King (1968)

• Memphis Tennessee: supporting strike of sanitation workers

• MLK’s focus had changed focus to poverty, Vietnam war

• Government considered him dangerous

• Assassinated by James Earl Ray while on balcony of Lorraine Motel

Kerner Commission (1968)

“…our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white- separate and unequal.”

Kerner Cmm’n

• LBJ organized commission in reaction to violence in northern cities following MLK’s death

• Kerner – former IL gov

• 7 month investigation• “Profound

frustration” amongst nation’s urban blacks

• Racism was deeply embedded in society

Civil Rights Act 1968• Prohibited discrimination in sale or

rental of housing