The Civil Rights Movement

in the United States of

America

Most Americans Think:Civil Rights = The Constitution

Freedom of • Religion• Speech• Press• the right to due process of law &• the right to equal protection under the

law.

Civil Rights Movement

• 1950s to early 1970s• Historically, it spans much farther back in

time...

• 1783 Massachusetts legally outlaws slavery

• 1850 Compromise admits California to the Union without slavery, slave trade ends in Washington D.C.

• 1857Dred Scott Supreme Court ruling that slaves not free when taken into a free state

• 1863President Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation freeing “all slaves in areas still in rebellion”

• 1865 13th Amendment to Constitution abolishing slavery

• 1868 14th Amendment added allowing citizenship

• 1870 15th Amendment bans racial discrimination in voting

• 1875Congress passes Civil Rights Act, granting equal rights in public places

• 1896Supreme Court approves “separate but equal” segregation ruling

• 1909 National Congress on the Negro meets → National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

• 1948 President Truman issues and order outlawing segregation in the U.S. Military.

1950sSegregation still existed despite repeatedefforts to affirm African American rightsto be treated as equal citizens.

• Existence of KKK• 1951 Brown vs. Board of Education• 1955 Rosa Parks, Montgomery, Alabama

Ku Klux Klan (KKK)

• Kyklos “Circle of Brothers”• 1865, Tennessee Confederate soldiers• White supremacy• Targeted freedmen & allies• Burned houses, attacked & killed• 3 waves:

1965, 1915, 1950s

Medgar Evers 1925-1963

1964 Civil Rights leaders murdered4 girls killed in Baptist

Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama

Billie Holiday ‘Strange Fruit

Brown vs. Board of Education

• 1954 Supreme Court rules all schools, in all states are to be “desegregated” or integrated.

Topeka, Kansas

Nina Simone – I Wish I Knew How it Felt to Be Free

1957 Arkansas• September tested federal government policies on civil

rights when a federal court ordered that 9 African American students be admitted into an all white high school.

• President Eisenhower federalized the conflict and put the school under federal control.

• 10 000 members of the Arkansas National Guard to surround the school and help the students in.

Rosa Parks 1955 – 1956 Montgomery Bus Boycott

•December 1st 1956 arrested•Boycott lasted until December 20th 1956, 381 days, Supreme Court rules to end segregation on buses. •Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led boycotts

We Shall Overcome – Louis Armstrong

1960s• 1960 Greensboro, NC Sit-ins• Leadership of Dr. MLK Jr. & Malcolm X• 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and

Freedom• 1965 March from Selma to Montgomery

Greensboro, North Carolina

• February 1, 1960• 4 students from a Black college• Woolworth lunch counter• Led to 6 months of sit-ins, wade-ins, kneel-

ins, and demonstrations • in front of movie theatres • & department stores.• Nashville Photo Links

Woolworth Lunch Counter 1960 Jackson, MS

Sam Cooke – A Long Time Coming

March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

• Wednesday August 28th 1963• Led by Dr. MLK Jr.• 100 years since Emancipation Proclamation• Over 250,000 marched to Lincoln Memorial• “I Have a Dream”

Malcolm X & Dr. Martin Luther King Jr Debate

1964 Civil Rights Act

• outlawed major forms of discrimination against African Americans and women, including racial segregation.

• ended unequal application of voter registration requirements and racial segregation in schools, at the workplace and by facilities that served the general public.

Bob Dylan – The Times are A-Changin’

Bloody Sunday March

• March 7th 1965• Selma to Montgomery, Alabama• Protest of how Black voters were treated• 30,000 Black & White Americans joined• Blacks were forced to pay a tax or harrassment to vote• President Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act• 1966 60% of African Americans were registered &

starting to fill public office• Legal segregation had ended

Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On

Other Moments in Civil Rights & Music

• Fight the Power 1989 – Public Enemy• Man in the Mirror 1988 – Michael Jackson