America’s Second Reconstruction

The Civil Rights Movement, 1954 - 1968

The Unfinished Business of Reconstruction

In what ways had African Americans experienced success during the Reconstruction era?

In what ways had Reconstruction failed African Americans?

Where did African Americans stand in American society by 1950?

The Need for a Civil Rights Movement

Key Events in African American History, 1857 - 1900Dred Scott Decision (1857)Civil War Amendments (1865 – 1869) Vigilante “justice”, the KKK, and

lynchings (1870s-1960s)Plessy vs. Ferguson Court Case

(1896)Jim Crow Laws

The Need for a Civil Rights Movement

Key Events in African American History, 1900 – 1950Creation of NAACP (1910)Great Migration (1916 – 1920)Harlem Renaissance (1920s)WWII and the “Double V” Campaign

(1941 – 1945)Truman’s desegregation of the military

(1947)

School Desegregation

Thurgood Marshall and NAACP lawyers following the Brown decision

Brown Family, Topeka, KS

School Desegregation: Southern Opposition

Protesting Desegregation in Arkansas

Protesting Desegregation in Alabama

School Desegregation: State vs. Federal Authority

Roots of the Movement (1954 – 1957)

Brown vs. Bd of Ed Legal justification for desegregation based

on 14th Amendment Separate can never be equal

Emmett Till Murder Generated anger change

Montgomery Bus Boycott Proved the power of non-violent direct action Leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

High Tide of the Movement (1957 – 1965)

Creation of Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957 Built on energy of Montgomery Bus Boycott Organization of ministers and community leaders; led

by King Message

• 20th Century Social Gospel • Christians have a responsibility to make society better

and more just• Nonviolent Resistance (Ghandi)

• Highly confrontational, but not violent• Civil Disobedience (Thoreau)

• Peacefully disobey unjust laws• Love, not hate (Jesus Christ)

High Tide of the Movement(1957 – 1965)

Student Involvement and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) – 1960 Biracial and “grassroots organizing” Worked with SCLC, but more radical and

impatient for change Sit-In Movement

Attempt to desegregate lunch counters using nonviolent, direct action and civil disobedience

Greensboro, NC and Nashville, TN Boycotts of national chains in support of

movement

Sit-In Movement

Greensboro, NC 1960

Northern support for sit-ins

Being jailed was a “badge of honor” to many SNCC members

Sit-In Movement

Jackson, Mississippi 1963 @ Woolworth’s

High Tide of the Movement(1957 – 1965)

Election of 1960

High Tide of the Movement(1957 – 1965)

Freedom Riders (May 1961) CORE and SNCC participation Testing federal interstate bus desegregation

mandates• Create a crisis situation that forces the federal

government to intervene Trouble in the Deep South

• Anniston, AL• Birmingham and Montgomery, AL• Robert Kennedy and federal intervention• Jackson, MS – riders arrested and sentenced to

60 days in prison

Freedom Riders

Bus Burnings – Anniston, AL

Rider Jim Zwerg – Montgomery, AL riots

High Tide of the Movement(1957 – 1965)

1963: “the year of the Negro Revolution” – Dr. King Birmingham, AL (April 1963)

Most racially segregated and explosive city in the South• End segregation here symbolically end it everywhere

King, Shuttlesworth, SCLC organize to desegregate the city

• Boycotted stores• Public demonstrations and protests

King arrested “Letter from Birmingham Jail” – a defense of civil disobedience

Children’s Crusade – May 2• Why kids?• 900+kids arrested “Fill up the jails”• Reactions of Bull Connor dogs, fire hoses, tear gas• Americans and the world shocked, horrified

High Tide of the Movement(1957 – 1965)

Birmingham Campaign and March on Washington (1963) Civil Rights Act of 1964

Outlawed discrimination in all public accommodations; equal employment opportunities

Voting Rights 24th Amendment (1964) – no poll taxes Freedom Summer (Mississippi 1964) – Bob Moses and SNCC Selma – Montgomery March (March 1965)

• Jimmie Lee Jackson’s murder people need to constructively grieve• Violence at Edmond Pettus Bridge – “Bloody Sunday” (March 7)

• Use of media national condemnation; issue of human rights

• SNCC vs. SCLC• SCLC build support for new voting rights legislation• SNCC impatient for change; work locally

• Lowndes County Freedom Organization Black Panther Party• March resumed on March 21 under protection of federalized AL National Guard

(LBJ); 25,000 marchers Voting Rights Act – August 1965

• Banned literacy tests• Federal authority to register voters• Tripled African American voting #’s in 1 year • 5 days later Watts riots in LA

Challenges and Dissent in the Movement: 1965 - 1968

De jure segregation vs. de facto segregation Mid 1960s 70% of Af. Am. live in cities

Do African Americans work as insiders to integrate peacefully into the established system?

Do African Americans work as outsiders who demand an equal, if not separate, position in American society taken by force if necessary?

Do “civil rights” include a guarantee to earn a decent living and enjoy a respectable standard of living?

Challenges and Dissent in the Movement: 1965 - 1968

March 26, 1964

Challenges and Dissent in the Movement: 1965 - 1968

Urban Race Riots (northern cities 1965 – 1968) a reflection of growing frustrations over economic and social inequalities “White flight” black ghettos Police brutality Kerner Commission (1968)

• White racist attitudes to blame• Separate, but unequal society developing

Kerner Commission’s solution Federal involvement to equalize employment, educational,

and housing opportunities (context: Great Society) Black Panther Party Solution (1966)

Take control of own communities establish social services

Meet violence with violence; armed self-defense

Challenges and Dissent in the Movement: 1965 - 1968

Current race relations http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrp-v2tHa

Do – Obama’s “More Perfect Union Speech – March 2008

Your assessment of current relations? Some current statistics:

• 57% of African American and Hispanic students graduate from high school (78% of whites)

• 27% of African Americans live in poverty; 26% of Hispanics live in poverty (15% for total population)

• 25-30% of Af. Am. and Hispanic students attend schools that are non-integrated