Outcome: The Movement Changes

The Civil Rights Era

1. Setting the Stagea. Many were growing impatient even though many significant

gains had been madeb. People began to question Martin Luther King’s effectiveness

The Movement Changes

2. Watts Riotsa. Six days or riots in Watts neighborhood of Los Angelesb. Started when a white police officer arrested a black driver

after he failed the field sobriety test (drunk driving)c. Angry crowd watched and started threw rocks and

threatened policed. In the end: 34 dead, 2,034 injured, 3,952 arrestede. Riots were viewed by some as a reaction to racial tension

The Movement Changes

Watts Riots

Malcolm X

3. Malcolm X and the Movement in the Northa. A movement was growing in the North calling for

“segregation as equals”b. Emerged in late 1960sc. Unlike the South, wanted no white participationd. Not very organizede. Malcolm X was part of the Black Muslimsf. He rejected integration and believed in Black

Supremacyg. Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965

The Movement Changes

4. March Against Feara. James Meredith organizes the March Against Fear

and is shot & wounded b. Martin Luther King arrives to help finish the marchc. Helps fuel the violent side of the changing movement

The Movement Changes

5. Black Powera. Stokely Carmichael of SNCC started preaching

“Black Power” due to anger, frustration, and impatience

b. In 1966, a militant group called the Black Panthers was organized

The Movement Changes

6. Supreme Courta. Thurgood Marshall became the 1st black man

appointed to the Supreme Court in 1967

The Movement Changes

7. What a Year: 1968a. The Kerner Commission concluded that white racism

was cause of urban violenceb. Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis on April 4

while there to support a black sanitation worker’s strikec. The Civil Rights Act of 1968 is passed prohibiting

discrimination in housing

The Movement Changes

Result: The movement does not die with Martin Luther King’s assassination, but it does begin to fade away. The work had been done, however. Schools, busses, and bus facilities were integrated, voting rights were established, blacks were served at lunch counters, and the movement had the Federal government on its side. Today, although not perfect, blacks in this country have many freedoms and opportunities available to them that were only made possible by those patient protesters who worked hard to bring about change during the Civil Rights Movement.

The Movement Changes