III. The Struggle for Equal Rights

• Many struggles for minority groups in 1960’s to gain equal rights:A. Civil rights for African AmericansB. American Indian MovementC. Equal rights for Hispanic AmericansD. Women’s Liberation Movement

A. Black Civil Rights Movement

• De Jure Segregation in the U.S. in 1950

Milestones in the Civil Rights movements prior to JFK?– Executive Order 9981 desegration of military 1948– Brown vs. Board of Education 1954– Rosa Parks Montgomery Bus Boycotts 1955

1. JFK’s Civil Rights Record• Kennedy’s hand forced by civil rights

groups• 1961: JFK sent federal troops to the south

after white mobs savagely attack CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) freedom riders in Alabama (defying unconstitutional segregation of interstate buses)

• JFK hesitated to support civil rights fully: afraid of splitting up the Democratic Party & setting of filibusters in the Senate and losing the re-election

• Appointed many African Americans to federal offices, but also placed white segregationists in many positions

• Took 2 years to fulfill his campaign promise of signing an executive order to end segregation in federally funded housing

• 1962 JFK sent troops to Univ. Mississippi to protect James Meredith (1st black student enrolled)

• Baptist Pastor, head of Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)

• Fall of 1960 MLK joined forces with CORE (Congress of Racial Equality)

• Mississippi Freedom Summer Project (volunteer college students to run freedom schools (literacy skills to blacks) run by SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee)– used sit-ins, etc to challenge the status quo in MI & GA to encourage

Blacks to resist segregation and to register to vote.

2. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Video: SNCC Brown University video

• 1963 – MLK Jr exposed viciousness of black racists in the south and compelled JFK to act,

• Led marches, sit-ins, and pray-ins in Birmingham, Alabama

• Birmingham Police Chief Bull Conner sent police in front of cameras with electric cattle prods, pressure water hoses and attack dogs against the peaceful demonstrators

• Televised brutality aroused intl indignation

• Allowed Kennedy to convince Alabama leaders to desegregate stores and upgrade African American employees

• Concessions won encouraged Freedom NOW protests in hundreds of other cities

• JFK began to realize that if the federal govt didn’t commit the nation to peaceful and constructive reform of racial relations, African Americans might begin to follow leaders who preached the need for violence

• JFK forced segregationist governer George Wallace (Alabama) to desegregate Univ. Of Alabama (Wallace attempted to block entry to 2 black students)

• June, 1963 JFK proposed a broad civil rights bill

• March on Washington, August 28, 1963MLK delivers “I have a Dream” speech• 200,000 peaceful demonstrators

present

Video: I have a dream Speech

• MLK Unable to convince Congress to pass the civil rights bill

• Southern white terrorism against African Americans rampant in 1963:o Medgar Evers, head of MI chapter

NAACP assassinated by KKK in JuneoChurch bombing in Birmingham,

killing 6 children in September

Civil Rights Movement Under JFK

• Mood of black movement insistent but goals still moderate– Directed against segregation and

inequality, not against white America

• MLK Jr by far most popular leader• 90% of black population supported

JFKGoal of the revolution = integration

“wanted not to get out of white society but to get deeper into it.”

LBJ takes up the torch• LBJ urged Congress to pass Civil Rights Bill

and proposed Tax cut as a memorial to JFK• Johnson’s speech at Gettysburg:

“we do not answer those who lie beneath this soil – when we reply to the Negro by asking, ‘Patience’.”

• MLK :“I am happy to know that a fellow Southerner is in the White House who is concerned about civil rights.”

A Time of Revolution• Summer of 1963

‘vast majority’ of blacks now demanded an immediate end to all forms of discrimination. ‘We have woke up,” one Alabama woman said. Black leaders were all more or less militant, ‘partly by choice-and partly because they have no choice.’ Their followers wanted ‘complete equality, nothing less.’ They wanted it right away. And three out of four of them would not be deterred if that meant bloodshed. ‘Fights, shooting’, said an unemployed black man in Miami, shrugging, ‘it takes that to make the world better.’

Black PowerOn May 3, five new county “freedom organizations” convened and nominated candidates for the offices of sheriff, tax assessor, members of the school boards. Their ballot symbol is the black panther: a bold beautiful animal, representing the strength and dignity of Black demands today. A man needs a black panther on his side when he and his family must endure —as hundreds of Alabamians have endured—loss of job, eviction, starvation, and sometimes death for political activity. He may also need a gun, and SNCC [Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee] reaffirms the right of Black men everywhere to defend themselves when threatened or attacked. As for initiating the use of violence, we hope that such programs as ours will make that unnecessary; but it is not for us to tell Black communities whether they can or cannot use any particular form of action to resolve their problems. Responsibility for the use of violence by Black men, whether in self-defense or initiated by them, lies with the White community.

Source: Stokely Carmichael, “What We Want,” New York Review of Books, September 22, 1966

Building Tensions• Nations’ resources deflected by Vietnam• Liberals and blacks frustrated by limits of

Great Society• Blacks living in ghettos of Northern cities

did not benefit from civil rights laws• Race riots broke out in hundreds of U.S.

cities in 1964=alienating white middle class from movement

Race Riots 1965-1968

The Long, Hot Summers• (1965-1968)– Race riots in cities around the country• Harlem, NY; South Chicago; Watts, L.A.;

Detroit

– $5 M in property damage, 7,000 injured; 200 casualties

Johnson’s Response– Commission on Civil Disorders: Johnson’s

investigation found causes: persisting white racism which subjected black Americans to poverty, slum housing, poor education, police brutality

– Report recommended more Federal aid to poor urban African Americans

– Johnson did not act!!!

LBJ’s reaction to the riots “How is it possible that all these people could be so ungrateful to me after I had given them so much? I tried to make it possible for every child of every color to grow up in a nice house, to eat a solid breakfast, to attend a decent school, and to get a good and lasting job. I asked so little in return. Just a little thanks. Just a little appreciation. That’s all.”

Source: Lyndon B. Johnson, interview, 1967

The Majority ReactionI’m sick of crime everywhere. I’m sick of riots. I’m sick of “poor” people demonstrations (black, white, red, yellow, purple, green or any other color!) . . . I’m sick of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling for the good of a very small part rather than the whole of our society . . . I’m sick of the lack of law enforcement . . . But most of all, I’m sick of constantly being kicked in the teeth for staying home, minding my own business, working steadily, paying my bills and taxes, raising my children to be decent citizens, managing my financial affairs so I will not become a ward of the City, County, or State, and footing the bill for the minuses mentioned herein. Source: Letter from private citizen to Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina,

June 18, 1968.

A New Black Voice– Radicalization of the civil rights movement– Initially influenced by teachings of the

Nation of Islam under Elijah Mohammed then Malcom X

– Race pride, self determination– Rejected MLK’s non-violence

Malcolm X, Black Muslims, Nation of Islam

– Questioned value of integration– After 1966, SNCC and CORE switch from

interracial, integrationists to all black militant separatists willing to engage in violent confrontations

– Angry rhetoric of Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown; Black panthers: same violent message

Video: Malcom X and MLK Debate

What were the main differences between their approaches concerning the following?:

• Non-violent resistance• whites• desegregation• riots

B. American Indian Movement

• Inspired by Civil Rights Movement for African-Americans

• Sense of pride and redress of grievances• 1961 400 members of 67 tribes gather to

denounce Termination policy–Withdrawal of federal gov’t recognition of

tribes as legal entities– Subject to same local jurisdiction as whites– Policy of cultural assimilation, loss of cultural

distinctiveness

• Demands to include Indians in War on Poverty program

• Johnson responded by ending Indian Termination Policy and endorsing Indian self-determination

• Created National Council on Indian Opportunity: directed more Federal funding into improving conditions on Indian reservations

• 1968 because of persistent poverty, militant young native Americans organized AIM (American Indian Movement)

• Call for Red Power• 1968 Congress passed Indian Civil Rights Act

– Accorded protection of Bill of Rights + legitimacy of tribal laws within reservations

• 1969 – Dissatisfaction – Occupied federal prison on Alcatraz Island offshore from San Francisco for 1 ½ years

• 1970 – Nixon promises increased tribal self-determination & federal aid

• 1972 – demonstrators occupy building of Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington 6 days

• 1973 - Wounded Knee, SD – AIM seizes and occupies town - symbolic place of suffering– Demanded radical changes of administration of

reservations– Federal gov’t treaty obligations– Hostages, starved out by federal troops

• Equality and Justice not attained but new legal rights and protections strengthened their position

• Video: American Indian Movement 5’36• Video: Civil Rights Native Americans 1’20 – 4’02

Homework: Reading Assignments• Unfinished Nation, Chapter 30: The Other America, pp.

797-803– Rural poverty; inner cities; The Rise of the Civil Rights Movement;

The Brown Decision and Massive Resistance; The expanding movement; Causes of the Civil Rights Movement

• Unfinished Nation, Chapter 31: The ordeal of Liberalism pp. 819-824; 834-839– The Battle for Racial Equality, expanding protests, a national

commitment; the battle for voting rights; the changing movement; urban violence; black power

– The King Assassination; The Kennedy Assassination and Chicago

• Unfinished Nation, Chapter 32: The Crisis of Authority pp. 848-855– The mobilization of minorities; seeds of Indian Militancy; The

Indian Civil Rights Movement; Latino Activism; The New Feminism

• Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, Chapter 19: Surprises (see blog)– Women’s Movement and Native American Movement