Civil Rights Movement

Civil Rights Movement

$1.25

Friday, April 28, 2017

Vol XCIII, No. 311

Significant Gains

Segregation In The United States

Separate but Equal?

• Eliminated legal or de jure segregation
• Knocked down barriers of voting and political participation for African Americans
• Poverty rates fell
• Increase in the number of African Americans high school graduates
• Appointment of Thurgood Marshall as the first African American Supreme Court Justice in 1967
• Fair Housing Act
• Work to be done: Affirmative Action: increase African American representation in schools and the workforce
• Racism
• Social and Economic gap
• Black Lives Matter

Post-WWII

• Jim Crow laws: Mandated separation of races in the South. Schools, hospitals, transportation & restaurants were segregated
• De jure (by law) segregation enforced by law vs. De facto (by custom)
• 1896: Plessy v. Ferguson allowed for Separate but equal facilities

After The World War

Segregation in the North

• African Americans were unhappy with their continued second-class status, even after the war
• They believed they deserved more after fighting in the war
• The Civil Rights Movement is a broad and divers effort to achieve racial equality

Not By Law, By Custom

• De facto segregation: Segregation based on custom, tradition, "the way it always is."
• Blacks were denied housing in many neighborhoods and faced discrimination in employment in the Northern US

African Americans had low paying jobs. High rates of poverty and illiteracy. Lower rates of home ownership. Unable to vote

Freedom Ride and Sit-Ins

Marching Forward

Little Rock Nine/ Bus Boycott

NAACP Challenges Segregation

• Freedom Rides sought to test federal government's commitment to enforce segregation on interstate buses
• Defied segregation codes
• Buses were firebombed and attacked
• Federal Transportation Commission issued a order to desegregate interstate transportation
• Four black students at North Carolina sat down in a white diner and were told that they would not be served, yet stayed
• Sit ins became a new way to protest segregation of public facilities

Desecration of blacks and whites

• March on Washington: To put pressure on Congress to pass the new civil rights bill
• Drew more than 200,000
• MLK-"I have a dream"
• One of the largest political demonstrations
• A model for peaceful protest
• Civil Rights Act of 1964: The act banned segregation in public accommodations
• Gave the federal government the ability to desegregate schools
• Prosecute individuals who violated people’s civil rights
• Outlawed discrimination in employment
• Established the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)

NAACP: largest and most powerful civil rights organization

Thurgood Marshal let the team that challenged the legality of segregation in Brown v. Board

Malcolm X and Black Power

The Push For Voting Rights

• The Supreme Court agreed with the NAACP argument that segregation in public schools violated the US constitution
• Effects:
• Great impact since it touched so many Americans
• Opposition to the ruling declared that the South would not be integrated (White Citizens Council)

• President Eisenhower sent federal troops to Little Rock to protect African American student who entered school
• Federal troops escorted the students for the entire year
• US president refused to let states defy laws
• But some states maintained segregation
• Rosa Parks actions transformed the movement
• NAACP began preparing a legal challenge
• Rise of MLK: urged non-violence
• Boycott lasted a year
• In 1956 the Supreme Court ruled the Montgomery bus segregation law was unconstitutional
• Revealed the power African Americans could have if they joined together
• King established the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
• Advocated nonviolent resistance to fight injustice

• States created literacy tests, poll taxes, and used intimidation to keep black from voting
• Spurred by actions of protesters and the President, Congress passed the act
• It banned literacy tests and empower the federal gov to oversee voting registration
• By 1975, Congress extended to Hispanic voters
• Black participation jumped from 7% in 1964 to 70% in 1986

• Malcolm X: Influenced by race riots
• While in jail, converted to the Nation of Islam
• Strict rules of behavior, no drugs or alcohol, and demanded a separation of the races
• However, he broke away and formed his own
• Three members were later convicted of assassinating Malcolm
• After his pilgrimage to Mecca, Malcolm was more willing to consider limited acceptance of whites
• Black Power: Move away from nonviolence
• Stokley Carmichael’s definition: it meant African Americans should collectively use their economic and political muscle to gain equality
• Black Panthers: Symbol of young militant African Americans
• Protected urban neighborhoods from police abuse
• Created antipoverty programs
• Stokely was “honorary Prime Minister”

NAACP challenged the "separate but equal" ruling