Freedom Now

The Civil Rights MovementChapter 20, Section 2 Notes• Page 674-679

The Bus BoycottAlthough the civil rights movement had already begun, the decision by Rosa Parks not to give up her seat on a segregated bus set in motion a chain of events that thrust the movement into the forefront.

Civil rights leaders such as Jo Ann Robinson and Martin Luther King, Jr., organized a boycott of the Montgomery bus system, which had Parks arrested.

King’s house was bombed and 88 other African American leaders were arrested, but the boycott stayed in effect. The end finally came when the Supreme Court ruled that segregation on Montgomery buses was unconstitutional.

FBI director J. Edgar Hoover was no supporter of Martin Luther King, Jr. He compiled information to use against the civil rights leader. When King won the Nobel Peace Prize, Hoover redoubled his efforts to discredit King and turn government leaders against him.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

After the Montgomery boycott, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., emerged as the unchallenged leader of the African American protest movement. At a conference of 60 Southern ministers, King was appointed president of the newly formed Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).

From the start, King urged his followers to use nonviolent resistance. King linked his ideas to the Christian theme of loving one’s enemy. He also knew of and studied the ideas of Mohandas Gandhi.

The Gandhian strategy of nonviolence involved four steps: investigation, negotiation, publicity, and demonstration. Basically civil rights organizers followed these steps to challenge segregation.

Soon after the victory in Montgomery, nonviolent methods were used in a startling new way by students in colleges and universities all over the country. They vowed to integrate the nation’s segregated lunch counters, hotels, and entertainment facilities using a simple strategy—sitting.

A Season of Sit-insAfter African American students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College organized the first sit-in, backed by a boycott of stores with segregated lunch counters, the sit-in movement spread like wildfire.

By September 1961 some 70,000 African American and white students were sitting in for social change. The targets of many sit-ins were part of national chains. In some Northern cities, students picketed stores in the same chain.

Students used variations of the sit-ins to integrate other segregated facilities: “kneel-ins” at churches, “read-ins” in libraries, “wade-ins” at beaches, and “sleep-ins” in motel lobbies.The driving center of the civil rights movement had spread from the legal committees of the NAACP and African American churches to college campuses. The students were impatient. Inspired by the freedom movements in Africa, they sought change at home.

Ella J. Baker, executive secretary of King’s SCLC, was impressed with the courage and commitment of students. She called together some of the student leaders of sit-ins in a 1960 conference. Out of that meeting came a new civil rights organization, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

King addressed the founders of SNCC, stressing the moral power of nonviolence. One of the slogans warmly applauded by students was “jail not bail. ” In adopting this slogan, SNCC followed an American tradition of civil disobedience.

Within a year SNCC evolved into a full-fledged civil rights organization poised to break down the system of segregation that divided American society.