THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVMENT

1954 - 1968

25.1 – THE MOVMENT BEGINS

• What does the term “Civil Rights” mean to you?

• What does the term “segregation” mean to you?

• Does segregation still exist in the U.S. today?

25.1 – THE MOVEMENT BEGINS

• After WWII many people started challenging segregation

• Federal gov’t started to take a stronger stand in support of African-American Rights

U.S. SUPREME COURT

JIM CROW LAWS

• It shall be unlawful for a negro and a white person to play together in or in company with each other in any game of cards or dice, dominoes or checkers

• Birmingham, Alabama 1930

JIM CROW LAWS

• No colored barber shall serve as a barber to white women or girls

• Atlanta, Georgia 1926

JIM CROW LAWS

• Marriages are void where one party is a white person and the other is possessed of one-eighth or more negro, Japanese, for Chinese blood

• Nebraska, 1911

JIM CROW LAWS

• Separate free schools shall be established for the education of children of African descent; and it shall be unlawful for any colored child to attend any white school, or any white child to attend a colored school

• Missouri 1929

JIM CROW LAWS

• Any white woman who shall suffer or permit herself to be got with child by a negro or mulatto…shall be sentenced to the penitentiary for not less than 18 months

• Maryland, 1924

JIM CROW LAWS

• All railroads carrying passengers in the state (other than street railroads) shall provide equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races, by providing two or more passenger cars for each passenger train, or by dividing the cars by partition, so as to secure separate accommodations

• Tennessee 1891

25.1 – ORIGINS OF THE MOVEMENT

Rosa Parks/Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955)

Thurgood Marshall - NAACP

CORE – Sit-ins

SCLC – Martin Luther King, Jr.

Brown v. Board - 1954

Little Rock, Arkansas - 1957

25.1 – SIGNIFICANT COURT CASES(read on your own)

• Norris v. Alabama (1935)• Juries

• Morgan v. Virginia (1946)• Interstate buses

• Sweatt v. Painter (1950)• State law schools

EMMETT TILL

EMMETT TILL

25.2 – CHALLENGING SEGREGATION

• Sit-in Movement• African-Americans asked to be

served at segregated restaurants

• 1960 Woolworth’s in Greensboro, N.C.

• By 1961 sit-ins had spread to over 100 cities

• Heavy student involvement

• Students eventually formed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC); alternative to the NAACP and/or SCLC

Ella Baker

25.2 – CHALLENGING SEGREGATION

• Freedom Riders• Groups of people encouraged

to travel in the South to bring attention to segregated buses/bus terminals

• Angry mobs often attacked the buses/passengers

• Horrific violence in Alabama in 1961

• The movement (3)• The tactic (1)• The strategy (2)• The governor

“Bull” Connor

25.2 – KENNEDY AND CIVIL RIGHTS

• Promised to support the CRM• AAs voted in large numbers for

him

• Early on he was timid, disappointed many AAs, why?

• Robert Kennedy (Attorney General) took charge of he administration’s support of the CRM

• By 1962 the segregation of interstate buses was over

JAMES MEREDITH

• 1962 – The Governor of Mississippi refused to allow Meridith to enroll at the University of Mississippi

• Riots break out, JFK eventually has to send in federal troops to guard Meridith for the rest of the school year

• Meredith statue vandalized

VIOLENCE IN BIRMINGHAM• Frustrated wit the pace of reform,

MLK began demonstrations in Birmingham, Alabama (1963)• Why did he do this?

• MLK was arrested, wrote his famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail”

• Under orders from Bull Connor, the police used clubs, dogs, and hoses on the demonstrators (us video)

• JFK prepares a new Civil Rights Bill

• Was this MLK’s plan all along?

25.2 – PURSUIT OF A CIVIL RIGHTS BILL

• 1963 – JFK starts pushing for a Civil Rights Bill after the speech by Wallace and the murder of Medgar Evers

• August 28, 1963 – over 200,000 march on Washington, D.C. to push for a Civil Rights bill• MLK gives his “I Have a

Dream” speech (us video)

Medgar Evers

25.2 – THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1964

• Lyndon Johnson (LBJ) became president after JFK was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963

• Under LBJ’s leadership the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed

25.2 – THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1964

1. Gave the federal gov’t broad powers to prevent racial discrimination

2. Made segregation illegal in most places of public gathering/accommodation

3. Gave citizens of all races and nationalities equal access to public facilities

4. Gave the U.S. Attorney General more power to bring about lawsuits to force school desegregation

5. Required private employers to end discrimination in the workplace

6. Established the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission)

25.2 – THE STRUGGLE FOR VOTING RIGHTS

• 24h Amendment• Passed in 1964; did away

with poll taxes in federal (not state) elections

• AAs were still fighting a major battle to gain full voting rights; were often physical attacked for registering voters or voting itself

• MLK organized a march in Selma, Alabama to bring attention to the issue (1965); leads to “Bloody Sunday” (us video)

• LBJ was outraged, started pushing for new voting rights law

25.2 – VOTING RIGHTS ACT OF 1965

WHAT IT DID1. Federal examiners could be

sent to register voters

2. Suspended discriminatory devices (literacy tests) in counties where less than half of all adults had been registered to vote

RESULTS1. By the end of 1965 almost

250,000 new AAs had been registered

2. # of elected AA officials in the South increased

Now the 2 major goals of the CRM (outlawing of segregation and laws to prevent voting rights) had been legislated. The movement now started to shift towards acquiring full social and economic equality; focus on poverty and cities