Download Civil Rights Gains

Civil Rights
What rights are worth fighting for?
Taking on Segregation
Main Idea
Activism and a series of Supreme Court
decisions advanced equal rights for
African Americans in the 1950’s and
1960’s.
Why it Matters Today
Landmark Supreme Court decisions
beginning in 1954 have guaranteed civil
rights for Americans today.
The Segregation System
• Segregated buses might never have rolled through the streets of
Montgomery if the Civil Rights Act of 1875 had remained in
force.
• It promised that all persons, regardless of race, color, or
previous condition, was entitled to full and equal employment of
accommodation in "inns, public conveyances on land or water,
theaters, and other places of public amusement."
Segregation
Plessy v. Ferguson
1896
Segregation in the
20th Century
Civil Rights Movement
Separate but equal
Jim Crow Laws-South
African Americans
Find segregation
Throughout the nation
Shortage of white laborers
African Ams in the military
Challenged Jim Crow Laws
& voting rights
Challenging Segregation in Court
• The desegregation campaign was led largely
by NAACP, which had fought since 1909 to
end segregation.
• The NAACP Legal Strategy
• Charles Michael Houston
• Public Education
• Thurgood Marshall
• Morgan v. Virginia, Sweatt v. Painter
• Brown v. Board of Education
• May 17, 1954
• Supreme Court struck down segregation in
schooling unconstitutional
Reaction to the Brown Decision
Crisis in
Little Rock
Resistance to
School Desegregation
The Montgomery Bus Boycott
• The face-to-face confrontation at Central HS
was not the only showdown over segregation
in the mid-1950’s.
• Boycotting Segregation
• Dec. 1, 1955- Rosa Parks
• Montgomery Improvement Association
• Martin Luther King- 26 years old.
• Walking for Justice
• Dec. 5, 1955- filed a lawsuit and refused to
ride the buses for 381 days
• 1956- Supreme Court outlawed bus
segregation.
Martin Luther King and the SCLC
• The Montgomery bus
boycott proved to the
world that the African
American community
could unite and
organize a successful
protest movement.
MLK &
The SCLC
Soul Force
From Grassroots Up
Peaceful Protest
SCLC
SNCC
The Movement Spreads
• Although SNCC adopted King’s ideas in
part, its members had ideas of their
own. Many people called for a more
confrontational strategy and set out to
reshape the civil rights movement.
• Demonstrating for Freedom
• Sit-Ins
• Lunch Counters
Taking on Segregation
Review
• What were Jim Crow laws and how were they
applied?
• Jim Crow laws, passed in the South, were aimed
at separating the races. Application of these laws
included separate schools, streetcars, and public
restrooms.
• What were the roots of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s
beliefs in nonviolent resistance?
• King’s beliefs were rooted in Jesus’ teaching of
love one’s enemy. Thoreau’s concept of civil
disobedience, Randolph’s techniques for
organizing massive demonstrations, and Gandhi’s
use of nonviolent resistance.
The Triumphs of a Crusade
Main Idea
Civil Rights activists broke through racial
barriers. Their activism prompted
landmark legislation.
Why it Matters Today
Activism pushed the federal government
to end segregation and ensure voting
rights for African Americans.
Riding for Freedom
• 1961- James Peck, a white civil rights activist,
joined members of CORE and a trip across
the South.
• Freedom Riders
• New Volunteers
• Bus companies refused to carry CORE
freedom riders
• SNCC volunteers carried on
• Arrival of Federal Marshals
• Kennedy sends U.S. Marshals to protect
freedom riders in Montgomery, AL.
Standing Firm
• With the integration of interstate travel facilities
under way some civil rights workers turned their
attention to integrating some Southern schools
and pushing the movement into additional
Southern towns.
Kennedy
Takes a Stand
Integrating
Ole Miss
Letters from
Birmingham Jail
March to Washington
• The civil rights bill that President Kennedy
sent to Congress guaranteed equal access to
all public accommodations and gave the U.S.
attorney general the power to file school
desegregation suits.
• Dream of Equality
• Aug. 28, 1963- 250,000 people
• “I Have a Dream Speech”
• More Violence
• Two weeks after the speech 4 Birmingham
girls are killed.
• 2 Mos. Later JFK killed
• Civil Rights Act of 1964
Fighting for Voting Rights
• 1964- African Americans began to register to
vote in the South
• Freedom Summer
Voting Rights
Freedom
Summer
New Political
Party
Selma
Campaign
Voting Rights
Act of 1965
Recruited College
Students
Mississippi Freedom
Democratic Party
Fannie Lou Hamer
1965- SCLC walk from
Selma to Montgomery
Eliminated Literacy Tests
The Triumphs of a Crusade
Review
• What was the significance of the federal court
case won by James Meredith in 1962?
• Meredith won a federal court case allowing
him to enroll in the University of
Mississippi.
• Cite three examples of violence committed
between 1962 and 1964 against African
Americans and civil rights activists.
• Fannie Lou Hamer was beaten trying to
register to vote; a bomb in a Birmingham
church killed four African-American girls;
Klansmen, with the support of local police,
murdered three civil rights activists in
Mississippi.
Challenges and Changes in the
Movement
Main Idea
Disagreements among civil rights groups
and the rise of black nationalism
created a violent period in the fight for
civil rights.
Why it Matters Today
From the fight for equality came a
resurgence of racial pride for African
Americans, a legacy that influences
today’s generations.
African Americans Seek Greater
Equality
• What civil rights groups had in common in the early
1960’s were their calls for a newfound pride in black
identity and a commitment to change the social and
economic structures that kept people in a life of
poverty.
• Northern Segregation
• De Facto Segregation- segregation that exists by
practice and custom.
• De Jure Segregation- segregation by law.
• During WWII many African Americans headed
north
• “White Flight”
• 1966- “Open City”
• Urban Violence
• Aug. 15, 1965- Watts; Los Angeles
• War on Poverty
New Leaders Voice Discontent
• Malcolm X, declared to a Harlem
audience, “If you think we are here to
tell you to love the white man, you
have come to the wrong place.”
Voice of
Discontent
African Am.
Solidarity
Nation of Islam
Elijah Muhammad
Malcolm X
Ballots or Bullets?
Pilgrimage to Meca
Feb. 21, 1965- Harlem
Black Power
Black Panthers
Stokely Carmichael-SNCC
“Black Power”
Oct.1966
Huey Newton
& Bobby Seale
1968-A Turning Point in Civil
Rights
• MLK objected to the Black Power
movement. He believed that preaching
violence could only end in grief.
• King’s Death
• April 3, 1968- King addressed a crown in
Memphis, TN
• James Earl Ray
• Reactions to King’s Death
• Over 100 cities exploded into flames
• Baltimore, Chicago, Kansas City, and
Washington, D.C.
• June 1968- RFK was assassinated.
Legacy of the Civil Rights
Movement
• Mar. 1, 1968- the Kerner Commission- appointed by
President Johnson to study the causes of urban
violence.
• One main cause outlined- “White Racism”
• Civil Rights Gains
• Ended De Jure Segregation
• Civil Rights Act of 1968
• Greater pride in African American culture
• Black studies in colleges
• 1970- 2/3 were registered to vote
• Rev. Jesse Jackson
• Unfinished Work
• Affirmative Action
• Federal government jobs
Challenges and Changes in the
Movement- Review
• What were some of the key beliefs advocated
by Malcolm X?
• Black nationalism, self-determination,
racial pride, self-respect, the use of selfdefense
• Why did some civil rights leaders urge
Stokely Carmichael to stop using the slogan
“black power”?
• Leaders felt that the slogan “black power”
antagonized whites.