brown girl dreaming by Jaqueline Woodson

Pre-reading Information

Civil Rights (Civil War - 1963)

1863- Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in the 3rd year of the Civil War. This stated that “all persons held as slaves within the rebellious states are, and henceforth shall be free.”

1865 Thirteenth Amendment was passed, abolishing slavery in all of the United States.

1868- the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed equal protection under the law to all

1870- the Fifteenth Amendment granted African-American men the right to vote

“Jim Crow” LawsEven though national laws were passed, African-Americans in the south lived in a world of segregation at the state and local levels.

Blacks could not attend the same schools, use the same restrooms, or drink at the same water fountains as whites.

They were expected to sit in the back of public buses and theaters.

Most hotels and restaurants were closed to blacks.

Segregation in the SouthThe judicial system was unsympathetic to blacks.

Groups like the Ku Klux Klan terrorized and killed blacks.

Segregation existed in other areas of the US: in neighborhoods where blacks were not allowed to live; quotas for minorities in colleges; voting restrictions

1896- US Supreme Court ruled that as long as separate facilities for the separate races were equal, it did not violate the 14th Amendment (Plessy v. Ferguson)

This was overturned in 1954 when the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education stated that separate could not be equal. This was the beginning of the integration of schools.

ProtestsOrganized protest did not begin until 1955 after Rosa Parks refused to sit in the back of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama.

When she was jailed, a black community boycott of the city’s buses began.

The boycott lasted more than a year.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who was the boycott movement’s most effective leader, realized that nonviolent tactics used by Mahatma Ghandi in India could be used effectively by blacks in the South.

1963- Alabama governor George Wallace stands on steps of state capitol declaring, “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”

Dr. MLK, Jr. worked to try and desegregate schools peacefully (lots of followers including school children) while police were brandishing clubs and high-pressure water hoses.

The clashes in Alabama and other civil rights efforts prompted President John F. Kennedy to push for passage of new civil rights legislation.

August 28th- March on Washington- more than 200,000 protestors (25% of them were white)- King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech and said that “1963 is not an end, but a beginning.”

Famous People Mentioned in brown girl dreaming

James BaldwinBorn in Harlem, NY 1924

Writer and playwright broke literary ground with the exploration of racial and social issues in his works

Published Go Tell it on the Mountain among other books and essays

Lived most of his adult life in France where he died in 1987

Ruby BridgesBorn in 1954 on farm her parents & grandparents sharecropped in Tylertown, Mississippi

Was 6 yrs old and living in New Orleans when she became the first African-American child to attend an all-white public elementary school

Had to be escorted to class by her mother and US marshals due to violent mobs who threatened her

She paved the way for continued Civil Rights action

Shirley ChisolmBorn in Brooklyn, NY 1924

First African-American congresswoman

1968 elected to serve New York State in the US House of Representatives- served for 7 terms

1972 first major-party black candidate to make a bid for the US presidency

Fought for educational opportunities and social justice

Left Congress to teach in 1983

Died in 2005

Angela DavisBorn in Birmingham, AL 1944

Studied at the Sorbonne

Joined US Communist Party and was jailed for charges related to a prison outbreak

Author of books such as Women, Race and Class

Worked as a professor and activist advocating gender equality, prison reform, and alliances across color lines

Currently a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz teaching the history of consciousness

Sally HemingsBorn in Virginia in 1773

An enslaved African-American who worked on the Monticello plantation of Thomas Jefferson

Nursemaid to Jefferson’s daughter Mary and traveled with the family to Paris

Rumored that she had several children with Jefferson, family and historians denied the claim

Recent DNA testing has concluded that Hemmings’ children are connected to the Jefferson bloodline

Langston HughesBorn in Joplin, MO 1902

Poet, novelist, playwright

African-American themes made him a primary contributor to the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s

Attended Columbia University but left after 1 year to travel

The Weary Blues was his first book published in 1926- established his poetic style and commitment to black themes and heritage.

Wrote his entire life- died in 1967

John F. KennedyBorn in 1917

Served in US House of Representatives and US Senate

35th president of US- faced foreign crises in Cuba and Berlin

Achieved Nuclear Test Ban and Alliance for Progress

Assassinated- November 22, 1963

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.Born in Atlanta, Georgia 1929

Baptist minister and social activist who led the Civil Rights Movement in the US from the mid-1950s until he was assassinated in 1968

Leader of Southern Christian Leadership Council- played important role in ending legal segregation of African-Americans and well as the creation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965

Nobel Peace Prize winner 1964

Malcolm XBorn in Omaha, Nebraska 1925

African-American leader and prominent figure in the Nation of Islam

Spoke about concepts of race pride and black nationalism in the 1950s and 1960s

Encouraged blacks to cast off the shackles of racism “by any means necessary,” including violence

He separated himself from the Nation of Islam and violence shortly before he was assassinated in 1965.

Rosa ParksBorn in Tuskegee, Alabama 1913

Civil rights activist who refused to surrender her bus seat to a white passenger in 1955, was jailed overnight

Inspired the Montgomery bus boycott and other efforts to end segregation

Member of the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP; chapter’s youth leader and secretary to NAACP President E. D. Nixon

Died in 2005 after a lifetime of work to promote her goals.