Download EVENT SIGNIFICANCE

Why is the Civil Rights movement
important to everyone?
• With no shared ethnicity or religion,
one thing that really unifies us as a
nation is an agreement
– that everyone has value,
– government that is fair and based on
the will of the people: POPULAR
SOVERIEGNTY
– that it is the duty of the majority to
extend justice to each minority,
EVENT
SIGNIFICANCE
• Declaration of • Puts forth the
Independence
premise that all
1776
men are created
equal
EVENT
SIGNIFICANCE
• Leaves slavery in
• US
place and includes
Constitution the 3/5ths
1788
compromise for
counting slaves for
representation.
Fifth amendment
will be used to
argue property
rights.
EVENT
• Amendment
13,14,15
1868
SIGNIFICANCE
• Ended slavery.
• Forbids any state
from depriving
citizens of their
rights.
• Gave all men the
right to vote.
EVENT
• Plessy v.
Ferguson
1896
SIGNIFICANCE
• Case that rules
that separate but
equal facilities for
the races is legal.
Gives legal
approval for Jim
Crow laws.
EVENT
SIGNIFICANCE
• Booker T.
• Arguing that
Washington
gradual progress is
the best path for
• Up From
blacks,
Slavery
Washington
1901
focuses
on
job
•
training and self
help will bring
opportunities.
EVENT
• Niagara
Movements
1905
SIGNIFICANCE
• WEB DuBois
demands
immediate racial
equality and helps
create the NAACP
in 1909.
EVENT
• WWI -Great
Migration
1918
SIGNIFICANCE
• Searching for war
industry jobs
moves many
southern black to
northern cities.
Segregation de
jure in the south.
Segregation de
facto in the north.
EVENT
SIGNIFICANCE
• Jessie
• In the face of
Owens wins
Hitler’s Nazi
in Berlin
philosophy of a
Olympics
pure Aryan race
1936
Jesse Owens wins
Olympic gold in
track.
EVENT
• Jackie
Robinson
joins the
Dodgers
1947
SIGNIFICANCE
• Pasadena resident
and UCLA alum
Robinson breaks
the color barrier by
being the first black
man to play major
league baseball
EVENT
• Armed
Forces
integrated
• 1948
SIGNIFICANCE
• President Truman
issues executive
order requiring
integrated units
in the armed
forces.
EVENT
SIGNIFICANCE
• Supreme Court
• Brown vs.
reverses Plessy by
Board of
stating that separate
Education of
schools are by
Topeka 1954
nature unequal.
Schools are ordered
to desegregate
“with all deliberate
speed”.
EVENT
SIGNIFICANCE
• Over 100 southern
• Southern
members of
Manifesto
Congress sign
urges
document attacking
resistance to
the Supreme Court
desegregation
decision. Only
efforts
Lyndon Johnson,
Estes Kefauver, and
Albert Gore (sr)refuse
to join protest
EVENT
SIGNIFICANCE
• After Little Rock school
board votes to integrate
• Little Rock
schools, National Guard
Central High
troops prevent black
School
children from attending
Integrated
school. 1000 federal
1957
paratroopers are needed
to escort black students
and preserve peace.
Arkansas Gov. Faubus
responds by closing
schools for 1958-59
school year
EVENT
• Montgomery
Bus Boycott
1955-7
SIGNIFICANCE
• Rosa Parks
ignites a 381 day
bus boycott
organized by Rev.
Martin Luther
King, Jr.
•The boycott lasts for
381 days and the bus
company suffers nearbankruptcy. The
Supreme Court outlaws
bus segregation in
1956.
Martin Luther King and
the SCLC
• The SCLC (Southern Christian
Leadership Conference)
advocated non-violent
resistance in civil
disobedience.
EVENT
SIGNIFICANCE
• Freedom
• Blacks and
riders oppose whites take buses
segregation
to the South to
1961
protest bus
station
segregation.
Many are greeted
with riots and
beatings
Freedom Riders
• CORE (Congress of Racial
Equality) members test
Supreme Court decision
banning segregated seating
on interstate bus routes
and segregated facilities
in bus terminals
• Freedom Riders hope to
provoke a violent reaction
that would convince the
Kennedy administration to
enforce the law;
• The riders are beaten in
Montgomery and President
Kennedy sends U.S. Marshals
to protect the riders
• Interstate Commerce
Commission banned
segregation in all
interstate travel
facilities, including
waiting rooms, restrooms,
and lunch counters
EVENT
SIGNIFICANCE
• James
• 5000 federal troops
Meredith
are sent by Pres.
enrolls at
Kennedy to allow
the
Meredith to register
University of for classes. Riots
Mississippi
result in 2 deaths
1962
and hundreds of
injuries
Standing Firm
• September 1962 – President
Kennedy orders federal marshals
to escort James Meredith as he
enrolls in the all-white
University of Mississippi
EVENT
SIGNIFICANCE
• Desegregation • King and SCLC
drive in
(Southern Christian
Birmingham
Leadership
April 1963
Conference) oppose
local laws that
support
segregation. Riots,
fire-bombing, and
police are used
against protestors
EVENT
SIGNIFICANCE
• In response to white
• "Letter from
ministers who urge
Birmingham
him to stop causing
jail" April 16,
disturbances, King
1963
issues articulate
statement of
nonviolent resistance
to wrongs of
American society
EVENT
SIGNIFICANCE
• Gov. Wallace • Standing in the
stops
schoolhouse door
desegregation and promising
of the
segregation "today,
University of
tomorrow, and
Alabama June forever," Wallace is
1963
forced by Pres.
Kennedy to allow
blacks to enroll
EVENT
• Medgar
Evers
murdered
June 11,
1963
SIGNIFICANCE
• Head of Mississippi
NAACP is shot outside
his home on the same
night that Pres.
Kennedy addresses the
nation on race, asking
"Are we to say to the
world...that this is a
land of the free except
for Negroes"
EVENT
• March on
Washington
• August 28,
1963
•
SIGNIFICANCE
• More than
200,000 blacks
and whites gather
before Lincoln
Memorial to hear
speeches
(including King's
"I Have a Dream")
and protest racial
injustice
EVENT
• Bombing of
Birmingham
church
September
1963
SIGNIFICANCE
• 4 black girls are
killed by bomb
planted in church
EVENT
SIGNIFICANCE
• Poll tax (which had
• 24th
been used to prevent
Amendment
blacks from voting)
passed
outlawed. Black voter
January
registration increases
1964
and candidates begin
to turn away from
white supremacy
views in attempt to
attract black voters
EVENT
• Civil Rights
Act passed
July 1964
SIGNIFICANCE
• Overcoming Senate
filibuster, Congress
passes law forbidding
racial discrimination
in many areas of life,
including hotels,
voting, employment,
and schools
EVENT
• Mississippi
Summer
Freedom
Project
Summer 1964
SIGNIFICANCE
• Civil rights
workers seek to
register blacks to
vote. 3 are killed
and many black
homes and
churches are
burned. National
outrage helps
pass civil rights
legislation
EVENT
• Voting
Rights Act
approved
August 6,
1965
SIGNIFICANCE
• After passage,
southern black voter
registration grows by
over 50% and black
officials are elected to
various positions. In
Mississippi, black
voter registration
grew from 7% to 67%
EVENT
• Watts Riots
August 1965
SIGNIFICANCE
• In first of more than
100 riots, Los
Angeles black
suburb erupts in
riots, burning,
looting, and 34
deaths
EVENT
SIGNIFICANCE
• Malcolm X
• Rejecting
assassinated
integration and
February
nonviolence,
1965
Malcolm splits off
from Elijah
Muhammad's
Black Muslims
and is killed by
black opponents
Malcolm X
• Studied the teaching of
Elijah Muhammad, head of the
Nation of Islam (Black
Muslims)
• Excellent speaker who called for
separation of the races; armed
defense
• After pilgrimage to Mecca he
separated from the Nation of
Islam and called for the use of
the Ballot Box…
so they killed him.
EVENT
SIGNIFICANCE
• Race riots in • Worst riots in U.S.
Detroit and
history results in 43
Newark 1967
deaths in Detroit
and federal troops
being called out to
restore order
Black Power
• The Black Power movement, led
by Stokely Carmichael, called
for blacks to define their
own goals and to lead their
own organizations through
gained political power and
black pride.
• The Black Panthers, a
political party, was
founded to fight
police brutality in
the ghetto
EVENT
SIGNIFICANCE
• King
• While supporting
assassinated sanitation workers'
April 4. 1968
strike which had
been marred by
violence in
Memphis, King is
shot by James Earl
Ray. Riots result in
125 cities
Assassination of Martin
Luther King Jr.
• April 3, 1968 – Memphis – Led
to the worst urban rioting in
United States history
Kerner Report
• Urban violence caused by one
main cause: White Racism
• Called for new jobs, new
housing, and an end of
destructive ghetto
environment