The Civil Rights The Civil Rights MovementMovement

Essential Questions• What impact did the Dred Scott case and the

Emancipation Proclamation have on the early struggle for civil rights?

• Why did the Supreme Court interpret early civil rights laws and the 14th Amendment narrowly in the late 19th century?

• What gains did the movement make in desegregating schools and public places in the mid-20th century?

• What other goals did the civil rights movement strive for in the middle and late 1960s?

• In what ways did the civil rights movement evolve in the late 1960s and early 1970s?

• What overall impact did the civil rights movement have?

The Dred Scott Case: Origins• Slave whose master had

moved him to free territory for several years

• Sued for his freedom• Lost in state and federal

courts• Case appealed to U.S.

Supreme Court in 1857

Dred Scott

The Dred Scott Case: Decision• Majority opinion written

by Chief Justice Taney• Ruled that a slave wasn’t

a citizen and couldn’t sue in court

• Also ruled the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional

Chief Justice Roger B. Taney

The Emancipation Proclamation• Announced by

Lincoln in 1862 after the Battle of Antietam

• Freed slaves only in “territories in rebellion,” not border states

• Signed on January 1, 1863

• Essentially unenforceable

President Abraham Lincoln reads the Emancipation Proclamation to his Cabinet

The “Civil War” Amendments• 13th Amendment abolished

slavery• 14th Amendment granted ex-

slaves citizenship; guaranteed equal protection, due process

• 15th Amendment gave African American men the right to vote

• Supreme Court ruled these only applied to the federal government

A print celebrating the passage of the 15th Amendment

“Jim Crow” Laws• Name came

from a minstrel show character

• Mandated separate facilities for whites and blacks

• Black facilities usually worse Laws dictating separate drinking fountains for whites

and blacks were commonplace in Southern states

Plessy v. Ferguson• Case involved segregated

train facilities in Louisiana

• Court ruled that “separate but equal” did not violate 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause

• Harlan only dissenting justice

Justice John Marshall Harlan

Washington vs. Du BoisBooker T. Washington:• Believed that blacks should

assimilate into the “world of work” by learning technical skills

• Established the Tuskegee Institute

W.E.B. Du Bois:• Contended that blacks

should receive a liberal-arts education

• Co-founded the NAACP

Booker T. Washington

W.E.B. Du Bois

The New Deal and Civil Rights

• FDR’s commitment to civil rights lukewarm

• Several New Deal agencies discriminated against blacks

• Tenant farmers and sharecroppers protested

• Randolph proposed a “March on Washington”

A flyer for A. Philip Randolph’s proposed “March on Washington”

Eleanor Roosevelt

The First Lady prepares to fly with a pilot from the

Tuskegee Airmen

• Worked privately to promote civil rights

• Publicly supported anti-lynching bill

• The “Black Cabinet” • Resigned her DAR

membership over Anderson affair

• Continued to work for civil and human rights after FDR’s death

Blacks in WWII• More than a million

served• Many did menial or

dangerous duty• Port Chicago disaster• Tuskegee AirmenFirst

black Marine Corps troops

• “Double V” Campaign Tuskegee Airmen

Desegregating the Military• Attacks on black

veterans• President’s

Committee on Civil Rights

• Executive Order 9981 ended segregation in the military

Discussion Questions1. Did the Dred Scott decision and the Emancipation

Proclamation do that much to further the cause of freedom for blacks? Why or why not?

2. What was the Supreme Court’s rationale for its Plessy v. Ferguson decision? What impact do you think the decision had on the North? The South?

3. Based on your knowledge of the 1930s, should FDR have been more active in the area of civil rights? Why or why not?

Early School Segregation Cases

• Sweatt v. Painter (1950)

• McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education (1950)

• Both provided a framework for the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case

A classroom in an all-black school, 1950s

Brown v. Board: Origins• Sought to overturn Kansas

law allowing school segregation

• NAACP recruited Brown, others to try to enroll children in schools nearest their home

• When schools refused, NAACP filed a suit

• Lost in district court; appealed to Supreme Court

Thurgood Marshall• Grandson of a slave• Chief legal counsel for

NAACP• Won Brown case in 1954• Appointed Supreme

Court justice in 1967• Died in 1993

Brown: NAACP’s Arguments• The 14th Amendment:–Was misinterpreted in

Plessy v. Ferguson– Prohibited state-level

discrimination– Did not guarantee state

discrimination in public education

• Segregation psychologically damaging to black children

The plaintiffs’ brief in Brown

Opponents’ Arguments• No constitutional requirement

to integrate schools• Segregation a regional issue,

not national• No evidence that segregation

harmed blacks• Desegregating schools would

set back blacks trying to “catch up” from effects of slavery John W. Davis, who argued in

defense of “separate but equal” in a case related to Brown

Brown: The Supreme Court• Case went to Supreme

Court in 1952• Chief Justice Fred

Vinson died in 1953• Replaced by Earl

Warren• Warren guided Court to

its decision

Chief Justice Earl Warren

Brown: The Decision• Court ruled unanimously• Warren wrote majority

opinion• Public-school

segregation unconstitutional

• “Separate but equal” inherently unequal

• “Brown II”

The Brown lawyers rejoice after the decision

Discussion Questions1. How did the earlier Supreme Court cases argued by

the NAACP help build the framework for the Brown v. Board of Education decision?

2. What made the Topeka portion of Brown so important to the NAACP’s fight against school segregation?

3. Why do you think the Supreme Court ruled so differently in Brown than in Plessy v. Ferguson?

4. Would you have implemented a quicker timeline for desegregation than what was announced in “Brown II”? Why or why not?

The “Little Rock Nine”• School board planned

to integrate high schools in 1957

• Nine black students agreed to be first to attend an all-white school

• Eight of the nine graduated from Little Rock Central

Arkansas NAACP President Daisy Bates (standing, second from right)

poses with the Little Rock Nine

Faubus’s Response• Supported segregation• Sent Arkansas National

Guard to block black students

• Controversy divided the city

• Injunction forced Faubus to remove guardsmen

Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus

Eisenhower’s Response• Mayor asked Eisenhower

for assistance• 101st Airborne deployed• National Guard replaced

regular troops• Students able to finish

school year• End of the crisis

Federal troops escort members of the Little Rock Nine to school

The Arrest of Rosa Parks• Montgomery, Alabama• Arrested in December 1955• Refused to give up her seat

to a white man• Violated city ordinance

Rosa Parks’s fingerprints, taken after her arrest

The Montgomery Bus Boycott• Organized prior to

Parks’s arrest• Planned by NAACP

president E.D. Nixon• Created Montgomery

Improvement Association

• Martin Luther King made president of MIAMartin Luther King during the bus boycott

Supporting the Boycott• Some blacks walked;

others carpooled, biked, or hitchhiked

• Black taxicab drivers charged black riders 10-cent fares (the same as bus fare)

• Some white housewives drove their maids to and from work

The bus on which Rosa Parks was arrested, now an exhibit at the Henry Ford Museum

The Boycott: White Resistance• Some joined the White

Citizens’ Council• Martin Luther King and

Ralph Abernathy’s homes firebombed

• Boycotters physically attacked

• Some boycotters arrested

A segregated bus station

The Boycott: Integrating the Buses

• Federal District Court ruled segregation on city buses unconstitutional

• Decision appealed, but upheld by Supreme Court

• A city ordinance soon ended segregation

An MIA document on how best to proceed with integrating the buses

The Boycott: Impact• A major victory for the

civil rights movement• Segregation on buses

ended in Montgomery• Rosa Parks regarded as a

hero• Martin Luther King rose

to national prominence

Rosa Parks, with Martin Luther King in the background

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.• Born in 1929• Headed Southern

Christian Leadership Conference

• Youngest man to win Nobel Peace Prize

• Known as a fiery, masterful speaker

• Assassinated in April 1968

MLK’s Philosophy of Nonviolence

• Influenced by Thoreau and Gandhi

• Nonviolent civil disobedience

• No fighting back, even if assaulted or arrested

• Explained in “Letter From Birmingham Jail”Thoreau Gandhi

“Letter From Birmingham Jail”• Response to white

clergy who advocated legal action, not protests

• Advocates direct action to force negotiation

• Says people have a “moral responsibility” to disobey unjust laws

“You may well ask: ‘Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn’t negotiation a better path?’ You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored.”

An excerpt from King’s letter

Discussion Questions1. If you had been a black student in Little Rock in

1957, would you have elected to attend an integrated high school? Why or why not?

2. Why was the arrest of Rosa Parks such a major event in the Civil Rights Movement?

3. What qualities or characteristics do you think helped make Martin Luther King Jr. so great a figure in the Civil Rights Movement? Which of these do you feel was most important? Why?

4. Do you think that King’s philosophy of civil disobedience was more effective than other possible strategies? Would it work today? Explain.

The Murder of Emmett Till• Money, MS, in 1955• Accused of whistling

at a white woman• Till was brutally

beaten and shot in the head

• His death became a galvanizing event in the Civil Rights Movement

Fourteen-year-old Emmett Till and his mother, shortly before his murder

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

• Founded in 1957 in Atlanta• Included several prominent

activists, including MLK and Ralph Abernathy

• SCLC relied on influence of black Southern religious leaders

• SCLC led 1963 protests in Birmingham as well as the March on Washington

SCLC leader Ralph Abernathy

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

• Founded by Ella Baker in 1960

• Involved in Freedom Rides (1961), March on Washington (1963), “Freedom Summer” (1964), and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party

• Later focused on “Black Power” SNCC chairman John Lewis

The Greensboro Sit-In• Four black students

denied service at lunch counter; stayed until closing time

• Hundreds joined the protest

• Expanded to other local businesses

• Sparked sit-ins in cities across the country

A replica at the Smithsonian Institution of the lunch counter at the Greensboro

sit-in

“Freedom Rides”• Supreme Court ordered bus

terminals desegregated in 1961

• SNCC decided to test if Southern cities had complied

• Riders beaten in South Carolina, firebombed in Alabama

• Federal injunctions finally integrated bus terminals

A route map of the Freedom Rides

James Meredith and “Ole Miss”

• Black student who tried to enroll at the segregated University of Mississippi (“Ole Miss”)

• Successfully sued for admission

• JFK forced to use military and U.S. marshals to ensure his safety

• Graduated in 1963

James Meredith walking to class at Ole Miss, accompanied by U.S. marshals

Integrating the University of Alabama

• Hood and Malone sought admission

• Governor George Wallace made a “stand in the schoolhouse door” to block their enrollment

• Justice Dept. officials and federal troops forced Wallace to relent

Governor George Wallace attempting to block integration at the University of Alabama

The Birmingham Campaign• Birmingham known as “most

segregated city” in U.S.• SCLC protests• Police Commissioner “Bull”

Connor used fire hoses and police dogs to stop demonstrations

• Publicity gave movement high level of visibility

• Downtown merchants relented

Bomb damage at the Gaston Motel in Birmingham, where Martin Luther King and

other civil rights leaders were staying

The Murder of Medgar Evers• Field secretary for Mississippi

NAACP• Shot outside his home in June

1963• Byron De La Beckwith charged

with Evers’s murder; tried twice but each ended in a hung jury

• De La Beckwith tried again in 1994; convicted of murder

Discussion Questions1. What made the death of Emmett Till such a

galvanizing event in the early Civil Rights Movement?

2. Why do you think that college students led the sit-in in Greensboro, North Carolina, as opposed to other groups?

3. Do you think that the gains the Freedom Riders helped make were worth the risks they took? What alternative strategies might they have pursued to integrate bus terminals? Explain.

JFK’s Civil Rights Bill• Kennedy decided to act

after the Birmingham campaign

• Introduced comprehensive civil rights bill in June 1963

• Bill finally passed during Johnson presidency

President John F. Kennedy announces his proposed federal

civil rights legislation

From JFK’s Speech Announcing the Bill

“We are confronted primarily with a moral issue... The heart of the question is whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities, whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated. If an American, because his skin is dark, cannot eat lunch in a restaurant open to the public, if he cannot send his children to the best public school available, if he cannot vote for the public officials who will represent him, if, in short, he cannot enjoy the full and free life which all of us want, then who among us would be content to have the color of his skin changed and stand in his place? Who among us would then be content with the counsels of patience and delay?” 

The March on Washington• Conceived by A. Philip

Randolph in 1941• “Big Six” organized

1963 march• Purpose of march

changed to encompass civil rights legislation, as well as employment rights and a higher minimum wage

More than 250,000 marched from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln

Memorial

The March: Opposition • JFK disapproved at first• Malcolm X called it the

“Farce on Washington”• Members of the Nation of

Islam faced suspension for participating

• While many labor unions supported the march, the AFL-CIO remained neutral Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad

The March: Highlights• Estimated at over

250,000 participants• More like a celebration

than a protest• Several celebrities spoke

and performed• Dr. Martin Luther

King’s “I Have a Dream” speech

King at the March on Washington

16th Street Church Bombing• September 15, 1963• The site of several civil

rights meetings in Birmingham

• Four girls killed in blast; two dozen wounded

• Ku Klux Klan members identified as culprits

• FBI withheld evidence about the case to prosecutors

A CORE march in memory of the girls killed in the bombing

Civil Rights Act of 1964• Introduced by JFK• Guided through

Congress by LBJ• Prohibited

discrimination in public accommodations

• Ended unfair voting requirements

• Made enforcement of legislation easier

President Johnson signs the bill into law as Martin Luther King and others watch

“Freedom Summer”• Established by the Council of

Federated Organizations (COFO) in 1964

• Designed to register blacks in Mississippi to vote

• Also set up voluntary schools• Over 1000 enlisted, mostly

white Northern college students

Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman

• Three civil rights workers killed by Ku Klux Klan members

• Disappeared in June; bodies found in August

• Perpetrators tried for civil rights violations; received light sentences

• One not convicted until 2005

Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party

• Alternative to segregationist Democratic Party

• LBJ concerned about losing Southern support

• Hamer addressed Credentials Committee

• Failed to seat delegates• Brought attention to

blacks’ lack of political representation

Aaron Henry, chair of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party delegation, speaks

before the Credentials Committee at the Democratic National Convention in 1964

Discussion Questions1. Do you think that the March on Washington achieved its

goals? Were any concerns about possible negative effects justified? Explain.

2. Why do you think it took so long in cases such as the 16th Street Church bombing and the murders of Medgar Evers and the three civil rights workers to bring the killers to justice? Explain.

3. Why did legislators base enforcement of Civil Rights Act of 1964 on the Constitution’s commerce clause instead of the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause?

4. Why do you think so many Northern college students participated in the “Freedom Summer” project? What impact do you think this had on the civil rights movement? Explain.

Selma to Montgomery Marches

• Marches for voting rights in 1965

• First march known as “Bloody Sunday”

• MLK led second, symbolic march

• Third march reached Montgomery

“Bloody Sunday”: Alabama state police attack marchers with tear gas and batons at the Edmund Pettus Bridge

Voting Rights Act of 1965• Strengthened

enforcement of 15th Amendment

• Allowed for federal oversight where registration or turnout was under 50 percent in 1964

• Banned literacy tests as qualifications for voting

• Had dramatic results

In the Capitol Rotunda, President Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act into law

The Watts Riots• Los Angeles, August 1965• A white police officer

stopped a black motorist; driver, passenger, and driver’s mother arrested

• Crowd assembled, began throwing rocks

• Riots resulted in 34 deaths and $35 million in damages

A building burns during the riots

Vietnam’s Impact on the Movement

• Due to need, Johnson lowered draft standards, making many more blacks eligible

• Many social welfare programs abandoned to pay for the war

• Blacks 11% of population but nearly 22% of war dead

• Very few African American officers

• MLK spoke out against the war A black soldier in Vietnam

Malcolm X• Born Malcolm Little• Embraced the Nation of

Islam; changed name• Second most powerful

Black Muslim• Controversial statements• “By any means

necessary”

Malcolm X (continued)• Broke from

Nation of Islam, converted to Sunni Islam

• Change in philosophy

• Assassinated in 1965

Malcolm X with Martin Luther King

The “Black Power” Movement• A more militant

philosophy than MLK’s• Stokely Carmichael• Advocated racial

separation, black nationalism, violence in certain circumstances

• Important to blacks’ self-worth to make gains without whites’ assistance

“One of the tragedies of the struggle against racism is that up to this point there has been no national organization which could speak to the growing militancy of young black people in the urban ghettos and the black-belt South. There has been only a ‘civil rights’ movement, whose tone of voice was adapted to an audience of middle-class whites. It served as a sort of buffer zone between that audience and angry young blacks.”

Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton, Black Power

The Black Panthers• Founded in 1966 by Huey

Newton, Bobby Seale, and others

• A means of armed resistance against oppression of blacks

• Developed “Ten Point Plan” of goals including self-determination, full employment, adequate housing and education

• Party disintegrated in 1970sBlack Panthers gather at the

Lincoln Memorial, 1970

Discussion Questions1. Why do you think the Alabama State Police used

such force against the protestors marching from Selma to Montgomery? What effect did this have on the cause of civil rights?

2. Why was passing the Voting Rights Act of 1965 necessary, even though the 15th Amendment had already given blacks the right to vote?

3. Why do you think that more militant philosophies, like those of Malcolm X and the Black Panthers, appealed to some blacks in the mid-1960s? Do you feel militancy helped or hurt the Civil Rights Movement as a whole? Explain.

The Assassination of MLK• April 4, 1968, in

Memphis, TN• Shot while standing on a

motel balcony• James Earl Ray pleaded

guilty and received a 99-year sentence

• King’s death left the Civil Rights Movement without definitive leadership

Buildings in Washington, D.C. damaged after the rioting in the wake of King’s

assassination

The Poor People’s Campaign• Brainchild of MLK• Planned for a multiracial

“army” of the poor to come to Washington D.C.

• Campaign continued after King’s assassination

• 7000 marchers protested at various federal agencies, but “Economic Bill of Rights” not passed

Marchers in the 1968 “Poor People’s Campaign

The Kerner Commission • Officially, the “Special

Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders”

• Headed by Illinois Governor Otto Kerner

• Warned the U.S. was facing a “system of apartheid” in major cities

• LBJ rejected committee’s recommendations

CORE Chairman Roy Wilkins, Otto Kerner, and President Johnson (from left)

Civil Rights Act of 1968• Prohibited housing

discrimination on the basis of race, religion, national origin, or sex

• Also banned retaliation against those asserting their rights

• Later amendments included disability and family status as protected classes

LBJ signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968

Affirmative Action• Policy created to increase

opportunities for minority groups

• Favored socially disadvantaged groups in employment and educational opportunities

• Usually enforced by use of quotas

De Facto Segregation• Segregation “in fact” or “in

practice,” not by rule of law• Schools were frequently

segregated into the 1970s• Segregation occurred not by

law, but by large minority populations in school districts

• Mandated school busing was an attempt to deal with de facto segregation

The Swann Case• Decided in 1971• Charlotte only 30% black,

but over 50% of black students attended all-black schools

• Supreme Court approved forced busing and race ratios as a means of achieving integration

• Led to violence in Boston, other cities

The Bakke Case• 1978 case about “reverse

discrimination”• UC Davis denied Bakke (a

white male) admission though he scored higher than some who got in

• Court ruled for Bakke, but upheld constitutionality of affirmative action

Justice Lewis Powell

Rainbow/PUSH• Rev. Jesse Jackson• Operation PUSH (1971):– Increased corporations’ business

ties with the black community• National Rainbow Coalition

(1984):– Pressed for voting rights, social

programs, and affirmative action for all disadvantaged people

• Merged in 1996Jesse Jackson

Effects of the Civil Rights Movement

• More opportunities for African Americans• Could vote and hold office in larger numbers• Greater acceptance of African Americans in society

and the workplace• However, total equality for African Americans in

society has yet to be achieved

Discussion Questions1. What effect did the assassination of Martin Luther King

have on the Civil Rights Movement? Why do you think losing him had such an effect? Explain.

2. Do you agree with the Kerner Commission’s conclusion regarding “two societies” in America? Why or why not? Does this still hold true today?

3. Is forced busing an effective policy for dealing with the problems of de facto segregation? Why or why not? If not, what sorts of solutions would you offer instead?

4. Do you think the Bakke decision strengthened or weakened the Civil Rights Movement’s goal of equal opportunity? Explain.