18.3 New Successes and Challenges

Objectives• Explain the significance of Freedom Summer and the march on

Selma• Explain why violence erupted in some Americans cites in the

1960s• Compare and contrast the goals and methods of African

American leaders• Describe the social and economic situation of African

Americans by 1975

Push for Voting Rights• Freedom Summer• 1,000 volunteers, registering African Americans to vote in

Mississippi and new political party, MFDP• 3 volunteers disappeared, found dead

• Marching on Selma• MLK and SCLC put pressure on gov. for voting rights• “Bloody Sunday”• March on Selma

• Voting Rights Act 1965-banned literacy tests and federal gov. would oversee voting registration

• 24th Amendment- banned poll taxes

Racial Violence in Cities• Race riots in Los Angeles, Newark, Detroit• Kerner Commission: determine the causes of the riots,

recommended expanding federal programs to urban ghettos• Pres. Johnson did not follow up because of Vietnam War

New Voices• Malcolm X• Radical, joined Nation of Islam (believed in separation of races)• Malcolm X Interview

• Black Power• SNCC Stokely Carmichael • African Americans should use their economic and political muscle

to gain equality• Black Panthers• Huey Newton and Bobby Seal • Militant group, protect from police abuse, antipoverty programs

MLK• Disagreed with “black power” • “Poor People’s Campaign” toured cities to put pressure on the

nation to address the need of the poor• Assassinated by James Earl Ray

Gains and Controversial Issues• Effects of Civil Rights Movement• End of de jure segregation • Federal laws to protect civil rights• End of legal barriers to voting and political participation • Creation of affirmative action

• Gives special consideration to women and minorities to makeup for past discrimination