The 1960’sEra of Protest and Promise

Social Movements

• During the 1960’s, Americans took a hard look at their world and were not happy with what they saw. Through a number of social movements, everyday Americans challenged the status quo in an effort to create the best of all possible worlds.

Civil Rights Victories

In 1954, the Supreme Court Trial, Brown v. Board of Education, ruled that segregation was unconstitutional. This verdict opened the way for the civil rights legislation of the 1960’s.

Civil Rights Movement

In addition to fighting the Vietnam War abroad, Americans were also waging war at home to win basic civil rights for African Americans.

The World of Jim Crow

Sit-Ins• On Monday afternoon in 1960, four black college

students walked into a Woolworth’s store in Greensboro, North Carolina. They bought a tube of toothpaste and some school supplies. Then they sat down at the lunch counter and ordered coffee. “We don’t serve colored here,” the waitress told them.

• The four men kept their seats until the store was closed.

• The next day, they were joined by 19 other black students. By the week’s end, 400 students, including a few whites, were sitting in shifts at the Woolworth’s lunch counter.

• The following week, sit-ins were taking place in seven North Carolina cities.

• Youths in more than 100 American cities began to conduct sit-ins in restaurants, swimming pools, and parks.

The Greensboro FourDavid Leinail Richmond, Franklin Eugene McCain, Ezell Blair Jr., Joseph Alfred McNeil

Smithsonian

Sit-Ins

• Within a year, over 70,000 people had participated in sit-ins and 3,600 had been arrested.

• In the deep South, protesters were beaten, kicked, sprayed with food, and burned with cigarettes.

• These young protestors organized the SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), and were heavily influenced by James Lawson, a Nashville theology student who had studied the nonviolent philosophy of Gandhi. He believed that love could overcome hatred.

Freedom Rides

• On May 4, 1961, a group of blacks and whites set out on a highly publicized trip to test a Supreme Court order outlawing segregation in bus terminals. Many belonged to CORE and called themselves Freedom Riders.

• On Mother’s Day, outside of Anniston, Alabama, a mob of white men carrying pipes, clubs, bricks, and knives attacked the bus. They smashed the windows and tossed a firebomb into the bus.

• As the bus went up in flames, the riders of the mob were brutally beaten.

A "Freedom Bus" in flames, six miles southwest of

Anniston, Ala., May 14, 1961.

Freedom Riders Jimmy McDonald, left, and Hank Thomas and regular passenger Roberta Holmes sit in front of the burned-out shell of a "Freedom Bus" on May 14, 1961.

Freedom Rides

• When the second group of Freedom Riders stepped off their bus in Birmingham, they were attacked by another mob. There were no policemen to protect them.

• Several were hospitalized. One protestor experienced a stroke that left him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. James Peck, a leading CORE activist, required 53 stitches.

• Federal officials arranged for the protestors to be flown out of Alabama, and students from Nashville went down to finish the rides. Their bus was met in Montgomery by an angry white mob of 1000 people, and they were beaten without police intervention. This made headlines around the world.

Ku Klux Klansmen beat black bystander George Webb in the Birmingham Trailways bus station, May 14, 1961. The man with his back to the camera

(center right) is FBI undercover agent Gary Thomas Rowe.

Jim Peck, seated, talks with a Justice

Dept. representative and Ben Cox

on the "freedom

plane" to New Orleans, May

15, 1961. Photo by Theodore

Gaffney.

Federal Intervention

• President Kennedy did not support the Freedom Rides and tried to stop them. When he couldn’t, he charged his brother, Robert Kennedy (attorney general) to protect these riders.

• Robert Kennedy told Southern governors if they protected the riders, the federal government would not intervene. Otherwise, federal troops would be sent into the South to protect them.

• Freedom Riders made it safely to Jackson, Mississippi where they were arrested.

• 328 Freedom Riders spent time in Mississippi prisons.• Attorney General Kennedy took the unusual step of asking the

Interstate Commerce Commission to issue regulations against segregated terminals. In September, the commission complied, ordering bus companies to obey Supreme Court rulings.

Integration of Ole Miss

• James Meredith tried to enroll in the University of Mississippi in the fall of 1962. He was turned away by Governor Ross Barnett, who vowed no black person would attend the state’s most prestigious white college.

• President Kennedy sent in federal troops to ensure his safe enrollment.

• The entire world covered the battle over Ole Miss, and a French reporter, Paul Guihard, was shot in the back and killed. Reporters were seen as enemies of the Southern whites because their reports portrayed the whites in a negative manner.

• Over 300 federal marshals were stationed around the main building at Ole Miss. A crowd of whites was gathered awaiting his arrival.

James Meredith

James Meredith

• The crowd attacked. By morning, Army and National Guard troops had to be sent in as reinforcements. Of the 300 marshals, 28 had been shot and 130 injured. A white man, Ray Gunter, was found dead from stray gunfire. Within two weeks, 20,000 troops were brought into Oxford to maintain order.

• James Meredith did graduate from Ole Miss. His years there were marked with harassment and alienation. He was seriously injured four years after his graduation when he was making a one-man march through Mississippi.

Birmingham

• Birmingham was known as the South’s most segregated city.

• Because of this, Martin Luther King became determined to end segregation.

• Martin Luther King’s Brother was a pastor in this city, so there was a family connection.

Birmingham 1963

• When King came to Birmingham to lead the anti-segregation boycotts and marches, many protestors, including King, were jailed.

• King composed his famous “letter from a Birmingham jail” which addressed white ministers’ demands that he be more patient.

• He replied, “I guess it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, ‘Wait.’ “ But, he said, “freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”

• During the Birmingham marches, it was decided to let children participate in the marches to galvanize public support for the movement.

• On May 3, 1963, thousands of children marched against police dogs and fire hoses.

The jails of Birmingham were filled with young protestors.

A Birmingham police officer grabs Martin Luther King by the seat of his trousers as he arrests him in April, 1963.

King composes the famous “Letter from

a Birmingham Jail” in which he refuses to

be patient any longer in

waiting for justice.

Excerpt from King’s Letter

• "When you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick, and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society ... when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) ... then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait...."

Protestors Encounter Violence

Although African-Americans used nonviolent protests, they encountered violent resistance from white Americans in Birmingham.

Marchers Encounter Fire Hoses, Dogs

The police chief of Birmingham, Bull Connor, became

notorious for using fire hoses

and dogs to disperse peaceful

marches. Ironically, his

actions actually helped galvanize

sympathy and support across the nation for the Civil Rights Movement.

Birmingham 1963

• Federal mediators were dispatched to Birmingham to work out a settlement.

• Eventually, the business community agreed to integrate downtown facilities and to hire more blacks.

National Response

• June 11, 1963, Kennedy delivered his strongest civil rights message ever. “We face…a moral crisis. A great change is at hand, and our task, our obligation, is to make that revolution…peaceful and constructive for all.”

• Kennedy sent a comprehensive Civil Rights Bill to Congress days later.

• In August, 250, 000 blacks and whites marched on Washington to show their support for passage of the bill.

• King gave his “I Have a Dream” Speech. This is remembered as the highpoint of the Civil Rights Movement.

• The Birmingham Bombing and the assassination of Kennedy took place two months later.

Medgar EversJune 1963

• After President Kennedy’s speech, Medgar Evers, the first NAACP Field Secretary for the NAACP in Mississippi, was shot and killed as he got out of his car at his home. He was unloading a stack of shirts that said “Jim Crow Must Go.” His children were waiting up for their daddy and heard the gunshot.

• Police discovered a high-powered rifle with a telescopic sight on the ground in some honeysuckle. An FBI investigation proved that the fingerprints on the gun matched those of Byron De La Beckwith, a charter member of the White Citizens Council.

• Beckwith was tried twice for murder, but both trials ended in a hung jury.

• Evers was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. The day of his funeral, the Jackson mayor hired the first black police officer.

Medgar Evers

• Evers explained his willingness to risk his life in the following manner: “I am a victim of segregation and discrimination, and I’ve been exposed to bitter experiences. These things have remained with me. But I think my children will be different. I think we’re going to win.”

Byron De La Beckwith Sentenced

• In 1990, a series of investigative reports in Jackson's Clarion-Ledger, a committed prosecutor, and the indefatigability of Evers' widow, Myrlie Evers-Williams, produced new evidence. The case was reopened, and four years later, Beckwith was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. He died in Jan. 2001 at age 90.

Church BombingsIn addition to attacking

protesters, white supremacists also

bombed a number of African-American

churches in the South. By 1963, over 60 black churches were bombed. In this picture, a local

African-American church in Birmingham, Alabama

had assembled for Sunday School. A car

drove by, and someone threw a bomb with as many as 15 sticks of

dynamite.

Bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham

The bomb went off in the basement in an

unoccupied room. The blast, however, blew

down the hall way into a room where children were assembling for closing prayer. The

church at the time of the blast held close to

400 people, 80 of which were children. It was Youth Sunday.

Birmingham Bombing

Results of the Blast

The blast from the church crushed two nearby cars and blew windows out of buildings blocks away. Football size cement chunks littered the basement. Only one stained glass window remained in the entire church. It was a picture of Christ leading a group of children.

Deaths

Dozens of people were hurt. At least 20 had to be taken to the hospital for treatment. Four children also died in the blast: Denise McNair, 11; Addie Mae Collins, 10; Carol Robertson,

14; and Cynthia Wesley, 14.

Denise McNair Addie Mae Collins Carol Robertson Cynthia Wesley

Prosecutions

In 1971 Alabama Attorney General Bill Baxley reopened the case.

In 1977, 14 years after the bombing, Robert Edward Chambliss was convicted of one count of murder in the death of Carol McNair. In 1980 Jefferson County’s district attorney reopened the case after a report from the U.S. Justice Department found that former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had blocked evidence that prosecutors could have used.

In 1988 Gary A. Tucker, a former bus driver dying from cancer, admitted in helping with the bombing. Federal and State prosecutors then reopened their investigation into the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Bombing.In 2000 Former Ku Klux Klan members Thomas Blanton Jr. and Bobby Frank Cherry surrendered to authorities after a grand jury indicted them on first-degree murder charges in connection with the bombing. In 2001 almost 40 years after the bombing Thomas Blanton Jr. was found guilty and received four life terms. Bobby Frank Cherry was found mentally incompetent and may never face trial.

Freedom SummerSeason of Terror

• Hundreds of college students went to Mississippi in the summer of 1964. Their main goal was to register black voters. They also taught in “Freedom Schools.” Their goal was to teach black children about their heritage. Many of these schools were held in black churches, and as a result, the churches were burned.

KKK Declares War

• On May 3, 1964, White Knights Imperial Wizard Sam Bowers issued his declaration of war against Freedom Summer workers:

• “The event which will occur in Mississippi this summer may well determine the fate of Christian civilization for centuries to come. In an Imperial Executive Order, he commanded members to conduct “counterattacks” against “selected individual targets.”

KKK• Members of the South’s

most violent Klan organization, the Mississippi White Knights, were planning a response. They burned 64 crosses on a single April evening through Mississippi.

• By June the White Knights had established 29 chapters with approximately 10,000 members.

Sunday, June 21, 1964Three Civil Rights Workers Disappear

National Reaction• Top officials at the US Justice

Department were notified. President Johnson met with the parents of Goodman and Schwerner.

• By the end of the week, 100 FBI agents were assigned to search for the missing men.

• No one in Neshoba would tell the FBI anything.

National Reaction

• The FBI dragged 50 miles of the Pearl River and marched in columns through the swamps looking for bodies.

• Agents interviewed 1000 people and built up a 150,000 page case file.

• Finally an anonymous member of the Klan talked in order to get the $30,000.00 reward money.

The Truth Emerges

James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner had gone to investigate the burning of their freedom school. They felt responsible because they had begged the congregation to let them use the church, and then it was burned as a result.

After they left the church, they were pulled over by Neshoba County Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price for speeding. Chaney, the driver, was an African American who lived in the town and helped the white civil rights workers by driving them around the back roads.

Goodman and Schwerner were arrested for burning down the Freedom School that day. The police said they had burned it as a publicity stunt.

The Truth Emerges• The three were released

from jail at 10 o’clock that night and told to go back to Meridian. They had not gotten far when Price pulled them over once again. This time, he was accompanied by two carloads of Klansmen.

• The three men were ordered into the backseat of Price’s car. Then they were taken to an isolated spot and shot at point-blank range. Their bodies were deposited at a nearby farm where an earthen dam as under construction.

Freedom Summer in Mississippi

By the end of 1964, 80 people had been beaten, 35 shot at, 5 murdered and more than 20 black churches had been burned to the ground.

Finding the Bodies

A team of FBI agents and a hired bulldozer moved ten tons of dirt to uncover the decomposed bodies. Andy Goodman had a tightly clenched fist full of dirt from the dam. The day of his murder was Andy’s first day in Mississippi.

The bulldozer operator had been hired by the Klan to scoop out a hole for the bodies and build the dam above them.

Funeral• At a Baptist church in Meridian on August

7, veteran CORE worker Dave Dennis rose to speak. He said the following words:

• “I’m not going to stand here and ask anyone not to be angry, not to be bitter tonight. I’m sick and tired, and I ask you to be sick and tired with me. The best way we can remember James Chaney is to demand our rights…If you go back home and sit down and take what these white men in Mississippi are doing to us…if you take it and don’t do something about it…then God damn your souls”

Indictments

Several Klansmen gave evidence to the FBI, but no charges were brought until civil rights activists sued for the legal right to prosecute the suspects. Finally, the US Justice Department called a federal grand jury and won indictments against 19 men, including police officials and klansmen, for the murders.

Sentencing

• On October 20, 1967, seven Klansmen, including Samuel Bowers and Deputy Price, were found guilty of federal civil rights violations in the deaths of the three men. They were sentenced to prison terms ranging from three to ten years. Three other defendants were freed by a hung jury, and three were acquitted.

• It was the first time a jury in Mississippi had ever convicted Klansmen in connection with the death of a black person or civil rights worker.

Sheriff Lawrence Rainey wasacquitted.

Two More Bodies Discoveredin Mississippi

The bodies of two black Civil Rights workers, Charles Moore and Henry Dee, were discovered on July 12, 1964 in the Mississippi River. They had disappeared in early May. They had been killed by the Klan because the Klan claimed that they were conspiring with the Black Muslims to start a local armed revolt. They were tied to a tree, beaten until they were unconscious, bound, and thrown into the river. It is interesting that the Federal Government made no great attempt to find them.

John F. Kennedy AssassinatedNovember 22, 1963

The Civil Rights Act of 1964July 2, 1964

Out of respect for JF Kennedy, Congress

passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964,

which outlawed segregation in public

accommodations. However, it did not

address the problem of voting rights.

Voting Rights

• After the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, the movement began to focus upon fighting for voting rights.

The Rise of Black Militance

During the civil rights era, there arose a new religious movement, anchored largely in northern urban areas. The Nation of Islam was founded in the United States by Elijah Muhammad.

Malcolm X

Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska. The son of a Baptist minister, he dropped out of school after being discouraged by a racist teacher and later drifted toward a life of crime in Boston and New York. While serving a term in prison, he became a member of the Nation of Islam and a follower of Elijah Muhammed. He took the name Malcolm X (where the X represented, according to Muhammed, the African surname that would never be known).     

Malcolm XMalcolm X quickly rose to prominence as a leader in the Nation of Islam and among northern blacks generally. His philosophy differed quite substantially from the southern-born Martin Luther King. Malcolm X emphasized black nationalism. He argued that blacks must overcome racism and oppression "by any means necessary." While not an advocate of violence, Malcolm X argued that blacks must be prepared to defend themselves from violence. He thus disagreed, philosophically, with Martin Luther King's strategy of "turning the other cheek" in direct action confrontations.

The Death of Malcolm XIn 1964, Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad had a

falling out and Muhammad "cast him out" of the Nation

of Islam. This was the product of internal political

disputes and Malcolm X continued to be an activist.

On February 21, 1965, he was about to begin a

speech at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem. As he

stood on the stage, an assassin in the audience

rose and opened fire. Malcolm X died from the gunshot wounds. Three

men -- all members of the Nation of Islam and

followers of Muhammad -- were arrested and

convicted for the murder.

Increasing Violence

• In 1964 the Civil Rights Act prohibited discrimination in voter registration. In 1965, Martin Luther King launched a massive voter registration drive, leading 400 African Americans to the Selma, Alabama Courthouse where they were turned away by policemen with clubs and cattle prods.

• Over the next seven weeks, these marches continued in surrounding towns and thousands of African Americans were arrested.

• On March 2, in the town of Marion, a mob of police officers and white people attacked peaceful demonstrators and killed one man, Jimmie Lee Jackson, as he tried to stop a policeman from beating his grandfather and mother.

• King called for a march from Selma to Montgomery on March 7 in response to Jackson’s death.

Attack on Edmund Pettus Bridge

Marchers were attacked by state troopers on horseback using teargas, clubs, and whips on the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

Bloody Sunday

March to Selma

Selma March

• Martin Luther King asked for ministers across the country to join in this march.

• Thousands of people from across America joined the march to Selma after watching the attack on the bridge on television.

James Reeb

• Rev. James Reeb went to Selma in March 1965. As he and three others were returning to their hotel, they made a wrong turn and passed in front of a rough white bar.

• A white man came out of the bar and struck Reeb in the head with a club, yelling, “Hey, ya’ll niggers! That’s how it feels to be a nigger down here!”

• While the White House had remained silent about Jackson’s death, the President phoned Reeb’s wife, and the vice-president attended his funeral.

Reeb’s Impact

• One of the ministers attacked with Reeb said, “It’s a terrible thing to say, but it took the death of a white clergyman to turn things around. When James Reeb, a white clergyman from the North, was killed in Selma, people suddenly sat up and took notice and from then on things changed in the movement. People came from all over the country to Selma.”

Punishment

• Reeb’s death went unpunished. • Although four white men were

arrested and indicted, it took a jury only 90 minutes to decide they were not guilty.

Legislation PassedFour days after Reeb

died, President Johnson delivered a Voting

Rights Bill to Congress. In a nationally televised

speech, Johnson said the struggle in Selma “is

part of a larger movement…Their cause must be our cause, too.

Because it’s not just Negroes but really it’s all

of us who must overcome the crippling

legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall

overcome.”

March 25, 1965The March to Montgomery

President Johnson intervened to facilitate the march from Selma to Montgomery. Following a

federal court ruling on March 17th that the march could proceed, Johnson met with Governor Wallace

at the White House, federalized the Alabama National Guard, and sent an additional 2200 troops

from the U.S. Army to protect the marchers. On March 25th, over 3000 marchers crossed the

Edmund Pettus bridge and were joined by thousands of others for the rally in Montgomery.

Marchers from across the country cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

Marchers jubilantly reach Montgomery

Viola Liuzzo

• Viola Liuzzo, a 39-year-old white mother from Michigan, used her car to shuttle marchers between Montgomery and Selma.

• A carload of Klansmen spotted her Michigan plates and noticed a black man in her car. They had found a target of their hatred: an outsider and race mixer.

The murder of Liuzzo

• Le Roy Moton was riding with her to help drive back a group of marchers from Montgomery in March, 1965. The white men pursued her car.

• Soon both cars were racing 100 mph down a dusty road. Finally the Klansmen pulled alongside and, as she looked straight into his eyes, one of the men held his arm out the window and shot her in the face.

Murder of Liuzzo

• The car crashed, and Moton feigned death when the Klansmen came back to survey their deeds. Moton then flagged down a truck carrying more civil rights workers for help.

• Liuzzo’s family became victims of hate mail and phone threats after her death. The Klan and the FBI smeared her good name.

• A poll in Ladies Home Journal showed that only 26% of its readers approved of Liuzzo’s mission.

Indictment

Wilkins Thomas Eaton

Three Klansmen—Eugene Thomas, William Orville Eaton, and Collie LeRoy Wilkins, Jr.—were indicted for the murder of Liuzzo. The fourth Klansmen in the car, Thomas Rowe, Jr., was a police informant who had seen everything. He testified against the three at the trial.

• The first trial ended in a hung jury.• In their second trial, they were acquitted by an all-white jury.

Federal Intervention

• Many people, including federal officials, were becoming frustrated at the consistent failure of Southern juries to convict civil rights opponents.

• In an unusual move, the US Justice Department decided to bring federal charges against the three men for conspiring to violate the Civil Rights of Mrs. Liuzzo.

• A federal jury found them guilty and a federal judge handed down the maximum sentence of 10 years each.

• The Liuzzo case is considered a milestone in the history of Southern justice.

The worst blow to the Civil Rights Movement was the assassination of Martin Luther King.

In March and April 1968, Martin Luther King made several trips to Memphis in support of the striking sanitation workers.

While in Memphis, King and his aides stayed at the Lorraine Motel. 

On the evening of April 3rd, King spoke at the Bishop Charles Mason Temple, the home of the Church of God in Christ.  King was

introduced by Ralph Abernathy

His talk that evening came to be called the "Promised Land" sermon. He spoke in what many termed a prophetic voice about his own death.

The next evening, the evening of April 4, 1968, King was standing on the balcony of the motel when he was shot and killed.

The shots came from a window across the street.

The assassin of  King was James Earl Ray, a chronic criminal and drifter. Ray was arrested and sentenced to life in prison. On one occasion he escaped but was recaptured. Near the end of his life, he made claims of innocence and knowledge of a conspiracy to murder Dr. King.

The Movement Splits

After the assassination of Martin Luther King, the divisions within the civil rights movement increased.  Former members of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) became increasingly dubious of the "King approach." There was debate, at times vitriolic, about whether to work from "inside" or "outside" the system.  The Nation of Islam retained its influence. The Black Panthers gained prominence in the urban non-South, particularly in California and Illinois.

Black Power

• Stokely Carmichael rose through the ranks of the SNCC and eventually took over the Washington chapter. After being beaten and jailed, he was tired of nonviolent protest. While King’s supporters chanted,”We shall overcome,” Carmichael’s chanted, “We shall overrun.”

• He advocated BLACK POWER.

http://www.learn.co.uk/

The Black Panthers

• Bobby Seale and Huey Newton formed a new militant political party called the Black Panthers. Newton’s motto was taken from Mao Zedong’s words, “Power flows from the barrel of a gun.” Panthers set up daycares and free breakfast programs. They also had violent encounters with the police.

• Their new slogan was, “Black is beautiful.”

Original six Black Panthers (November, 1966) Top left to right: Elbert "Big Man" Howard; Huey P. Newton (Defense Minister), Sherman Forte, Bobby Seale

(Chairman). Bottom: Reggie Forte and Little Bobby Hutton (Treasurer).

Watts Riots

In August of 1965, violence broke out in the Watts section of Los Angeles, California. A minor police incident escalated into five days of arson, looting, and violence.  This required a force of 16,000 police, highway patrol, and National Guardsmen to quell the violence. At the end, there were 34 dead, 1,000 injured, and 4,000 in jail. Over 250 buildings were burned (Isserman and Kazin, America Divided, p. 141)

WattsRiots

Urban RiotsThe outbreak of such violence was repeated during

the summers of 1966 and 1967. In 1966, the cities included were Brooklyn (NY), Chicago (Ill),

Cleveland and Dayton (Ohio), San Francisco (Cal).  The unrest spread during the summer of 1967 and included Tampa  (Fla), Boston (Mass),

Cincinnatti (Ohio), Buffalo (NY), Newark (NJ), Toledo (Ohio), South Bend (Ind), New Haven

(Conn), Chicago (Ill), Rochester (NY), and East Harlem (NY).  The worst of the episodes occurred

in Detroit, Michigan. The governor of the state certified to President Johnson that Michigan could

not guarantee "public safety" and, as a result, President Johnson ordered 4700 U.S.

paratroopers to the city to help restore order.

Urban Violence

The Kerner Report

• In 1968, in response to the violence in the streets, a National Advisory Commission of Civil Disorders was established. It was headed by former Illinois governor Otto Kerner.

• In 1968, the Kerner Commission declared that the riots were an explosion of anger from the ghettos caused by racism. The report said that “our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.”

Overview of Civil Rights ActsIn the 1960 presidential election

campaign John F. Kennedy argued for a new Civil Rights Act. After the

election it was discovered that over 70 per cent of the African American vote went to Kennedy. However, during the

first two years of his presidency, Kennedy failed to put forward his

promised legislation.

1

The Civil Rights bill was brought before Congress in 1963 and in a speech on television on 11th June, Kennedy pointed out that: "The Negro baby born in America today, regardless of the section of the nation in which he is born, has about one-half as much chance of completing high school as a white baby born in the same place on the same day; one third as much chance of completing college; one third as much chance of becoming a professional man; twice as much chance of becoming unemployed; about one-seventh as much chance of earning $10,000 a year; a life expectancy which is seven years shorter; and the prospects of earning only half as much."

2

Overview of Civil Rights ActsKennedy's Civil Rights bill was still being debated by Congress when he was assassinated in November, 1963. The new president, Lyndon Baines Johnson, who had a poor record on civil rights issues, took up the cause. His main opponent was his long-time friend and mentor, Richard B. Russell, who told the Senate: "We will resist to the bitter end any measure or any movement which would have a tendency to bring about social equality and intermingling and amalgamation of the races in our (Southern) states." Russell organized 18 Southern Democratic senators in filibustering this bill.

3

However, on the 15th June, 1964, Richard B. Russell privately told Mike Mansfield and Hubert Humphrey, the two leading supporters of the Civil Rights Act, that he would bring an end to the filibuster that was blocking the vote on the bill. This resulted in a vote being taken and it was passed by 73 votes to 27.

4

Civil Rights Acts Overview

The Civil Rights Act of 1960 required that voting and registration records be maintained and preserved by the Civil Rights Commission.

Overview of Civil Rights ActsThe 1964 Civil Rights Act made racial discrimination in public places, such as theaters, restaurants and hotels, illegal. It also required employers to provide equal employment opportunities. Projects involving federal funds could now be cut off if there was evidence of discrimination based on colour, race or national origin.

The Civil Rights Act also attempted to deal with the problem of African Americans being denied the vote in the Deep South. The legislation stated that uniform standards must prevail for establishing the right to vote. Schooling to sixth grade constituted legal proof of literacy and the attorney general was given power to initiate legal action in any area where he found a pattern of resistance to the law.

 

Civil Rights Legislation

• The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was ratified July 2, 1964. It was and remains a very significant step in the African American and women’s civil rights movements.

• Title II prohibited discrimination in public accommodations such as restaurants and theaters because of race, religion, or sex. Title III prohibited the same discrimination in public facilities.

• Title IV of the Act prohibited discrimination in public schools. The failure of the South to abide by this law often led to rioting over African American school enrollments.

Voting Rights Act

• The Voting Rights Act said that federal officials could register voters in places where local officials were blocking registration of African Americans. The act also effectively eliminated literacy tests and other barriers. In the year after the law passed more than 400,000 African Americans registered to vote in the deep South.

• Together, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 created an entirely new voting population in the South.

The Twenty-fourth Amendment

The Twenty-fourth amendment to the constitution, ratified in 1964, barred the use of the poll tax in

federal elections.

Accomplishments of the Civil Rights Movement

• 1. Outlawed segregation• 2. Legal/Constitutional changes

ensuring the basic civil rights of all Americans

• 3. Increased black high school and college enrollment/graduates

• 4. Improved individual pride in race and culture

• 5. Began Affirmative Action programs

Evolution of the Civil Rights Movement

• The early civil rights movement focused on battling de jure segregation, racial separation created by law.

• Modern civil rights leaders combat de facto segregation, the separation caused by social conditions such as poverty. De facto segregation is a fact of life in most American cities and in rural America.

The End of an Era

• The Civil Rights Movement lost its momentum in 1968.

• All of its national leaders were assassinated.

• Robert Kennedy would have continued the battle, but he was killed while campaigning for the Democratic ticket.

Assassination of Robert KennedyJune 4, 1968, was an important but nerve-wracking day for Robert Francis Kennedy, senator from New York. A week earlier he had lost a vital race for West Coast votes in the state of Oregon to Senator Eugene McCarthy in the Democratic Primary, dampening the spirit of the Kennedy campaign. But, now, here in California, his supporters foresaw good things to come.

1

With the ballot boxes having closed at sunset, and the California networks updating returns

throughout the evening, nearly 2,000 campaign workers crowded the Embassy Ballroom, of the

Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles; the mood was festive and the hopes high. As the evening progressed, and the monitors showed RFK’s

numbers taking the lead, his supporters on site went wild and started chanting for him. They

wanted a speech. They knew he was upstairs and they were waiting for that moment when he would join the party, flick on the podium microphones and officially announce what they expected all day – a

Kennedy Victory!Meanwhile, RFK remained watchful, cautious.

2

Finally, Kennedy came down to talk to his supporters. After he gave a speech to his admiring crowd, he exited through the kitchen while they chanted, “BOBBY!BOBBY!”

If Senator Kennedy spotted the small, swarthy young man approach him at all, he would have figured he was just one of the many hotel personnel who wanted to shake his hand or beg an autograph. But as this comer neared, he leveled a gun in Kennedy’s direction and opened fire.

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At that moment, history blurred. A .22 caliber pistol flashed and Kennedy seemed to waver sideways. Some in the room froze at the sound, but others, recognizing it, dodged and ducked. The gun barked again, and in that instant, speechwriter Paul Schrade spun to the ground, hit in the forehead. By this time, maitre’d Uecker had been able to catch the shooter’s gun arm and press it down on the steam table beside him. Nevertheless, the gun continued to explode, a third time, a fourth time, and more, its barrel aiming straight into the procession. Rosey Grier, Rafer Johnson and others struggled to disarm the assailant and corral him.

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But, in the 40 seconds it took to pry the gun loose, all eight cylinders of the weapon emptied. Kennedy sprawled on the floor, spread-eagled and in pain. Behind him, Schrade writhed. Seven-year-old Irwin Stroll was clipped in the kneecap; ABC-TV director William Weisel grabbed his stomach where a bullet had entered; reporter Ira Goldstein’s hip had been shattered; and an artist friend, Elizabeth Evans was unconscious from a head wound. Confusion and horror gripped the onlookers, some of them speechless, numbed.

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Kennedy’s Last Words

"Come on, Mr. Kennedy, you can make it," pleaded busboy Juan Romero, who pressed a pair of rosary beads in the senator’s upward palm. He bent down to hear the victim’s barely audible voice asking, "Is everybody all right?"

Sirhan Sirhan

• Sirhan Sirhan was a Palestinian who had been pushed off his homeland by the new Jewish state of Israel. He was angry about American foreign policy that supported the foundation of this state and killed Kennedy to make his point. Psychiatrists found him to be psychotic.

• Sirhan Sirhan was found guilty of murder in the first degree and sentenced to death in the gas chamber.

• Since California abolished the death penalty, he is now serving a life sentence.

Democratic National Convention

1968• The Democrats met in Chicago in

1968 for one of the most unbelievable Democratic Conventions in American history.

• After Kennedy’s death, Hubert Humphrey became the leading Democratic contender for the Presidency.

Democratic National Convention

1968Months before the convention, political activists planned demonstrations in Chicago to share the spotlight with the Democratic political leaders. Some groups, such as the Yippies, came to Chicago determined to challenge traditional political process and authority. Tensions increased and turned into violence when police refused to allow these groups near the main hotels and the conventional hall.

Violence EruptsAs the riots escalated, Mayor Richard J. Daley called in the troops. In total, 11,900 Chicago police, 7,500 Army regulars, 7,500 Illinois National Guardsmen, and 1,000 FBI and Secret Service agents were stationed in the city. Police and other authorities used force to keep the demonstrators away from the delegates' headquarters at the Conrad Hilton Hotel and the Amphitheatre. At the end of convention week, police announced that 589 persons had been arrested and more than 119 police and 100 demonstrators injured.

Election of Richard Nixon• After Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated, and

after Lyndon B. Johnson dropped out of the presidential race, the two main candidates left were Republican candidate Richard M. Nixon and Democratic candidate Hubert Humphrey. Nixon decided that his running mate would be Spiro Agnew, the unheard of governor of Maryland. Nixon created a very good and tactical campaign team that helped him to mold his presidential campaign. Nixon and his campaign team molded Nixon's presidential campaign around the major issues that the United States was facing at that time: crime in the streets, the perseverance of law and order, and putting an end to American presence in Vietnam.

Nixon appealed to the “Silent Majority” of Americans who wanted peace and order in the streets and an end to the Vietnam War. The Tet Offensive had just occurred in Vietnam, and Americans felt that we would never win the war. When he was elected in 1968, it was the end of a violent upheaval in American History. While Humphrey would have continued the fight for Civil Rights, Americans understood Nixon’s campaign promise to restore order as an end to presidential support of the movement.

The EndOf an Era