Freedom Now

Section 17.2

Young blacks protest Jim Crow via sit-in at a lunch counter

Review• 1865- New Const.

Amendments• 1877- End of

Reconstruction• 1896- Plessy v

Ferguson• 1945/53- Truman

Administration• 1954- Brown v

Board of Ed.• 1957- Little Rock

Nine

White high school students demonstrate against integrated schools

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) legalized segregation. If you were black, living in Montgomery

Alabama in 1955, you could be forced to give up seat on a bus for a white person.

Rosa Parks, after winning her point, sits in the front of the bus.

How might you change the injustice of segregation?

• Use violence• Retaliations likely• Doesn’t change people’s ‘heart’• Ignore the law• May get arrested• More dignified• Bring a lawsuit (Brown v Board of Education)• Legal victory • Did not really change things• Boycott• Refuse to ride the bus

– Hits them where it hurts ($)

Today we will identify how blacks, led by Martin Luther King, used their economic power

through boycotts and sit-ins, to fight the oppression of the White South.

Cartoon shows black man waving off a bus: “Uh, uh…I’m not going your way.”

Who was Rosa Parks?

• 43 year-old respected black woman who was the former local secretary for the NAACP in Montgomery, Alabama.

• Riding bus home from work one day during the busy Christmas season.

• Refused to give her seat up for a white man.

• She was arrested.

Above: another picture of Rosa sitting up front; below: Rosa Parks being fingerprinted after arrest

Why do you think Rosa’s arrest drew so much attention?

• Dignified, Soft Spoken, Likable

• A Woman

– Idea of a woman being forced to give up seat to a man seemed abhorrent

• Hard to find any fault with her

• Agreed to take case all the way (to Supreme Ct.)

Rosa and attorney walk up steps to court

How did Civil Rights Leaders react to Rosa’s arrest?

• Organized Montgomery Bus Boycott

– Refused to buy or use services

– Blacks made up 60% of bus riders

• Bus co. lost 40 thousand riders per day

• Dr. Martin Luther King (the Leader)

– “historians will have to pause and say there lived a great people-a black people who injected a new meaning and dignity into the veins of civilization.”

• Montgomery blacks used cabs, station wagons

• Wagons called ‘rolling churches’

• Insured by Lloyds of London

• Lasted nearly 400 days

• Supreme Court ruled bus segregation unconstitutional

Above: blacks pile into a cab; below: boarding bus after strike’s end

Parks Arrested

Capture: that colonial flag again…

Who were Dr. Martin Luther King and the SCLC?

• Young, charismatic, well-educated

• Held doctorate in theology

• Created the SCLC- Southern Christian Leadership Conference

– Organization of 60 ministers to direct the movement

• Held workshops on passive resistance

– How to protect oneself?

– Spat on, jeered

• MLK was influenced by:

– Thoreau- Civil Disobedience

– Gandhi

Above: King in front of SCLC building; below: King marches with other civil rights leaders

What are Sit-ins?• 4 freshmen in Greensboro, NC

sat at all-white lunch counter and refused to move until served

• Brought 27 students the next day• 300 by day 5• Sat in shifts• Sales dropped 33%• Finally served 6 months later• Started a “Grass Roots”

Movement.• 1960, 2,000 students sit-ins

– Read-ins, wade-ins (at beaches), kneel-ins (at churches)

Above: liquids poured on students at Greensboro lunch counter; below: one of the many copycat demonstrations

Describe the tactics of the SNCC:• Student Non-Violent Coordinating

Committee • Young whites and blacks who followed

King’s passive resistance ideology– Pronounced ‘Snick’

• “Jail, not bail”– SNCC members refused to have bail

posted• Why?

– Bail’s costly– Placed the cost of feeding, sheltering

protesters on the police and local officials

– Gave them moral high ground

Above: SNCC logo of a black and white hand shake; below: protestors allow themselves to be arrested

Urban scene, 1960s, from Peter Jennings documentary