NO EASY ROAD TO FREEDOM

Essential Question• Was nonviolent, civil disobedience an effective way to

accomplish the goals of the Civil Rights movement?

Brown v. Reality• Showed the court room could be used as a weapon.• Wide spread opposition showed restrictions to the legal

strategy.• Little Rock showed Ugly Racism.

• Did show Presidential support.

• African Americans would have to help themselves.

Martin Luther King’s Rise• Born in 1929 in Atlanta, brought

up in the middle class.• Graduated from prestigious all

black Morehouse College, earned a Ph.D. in theology from Boston University.

• 381 day Montgomery Bus Boycott ended and make King a national figure.

• King was featured on both Time magazine and Meet The Press.

King’s Studies• In Graduate school, he studied many philosophers and

political thinkers.• Drawn to American Theologian Walter Rauschenbusch.• Greatly admired Mohandas Gandhi.

• Believed in nonviolent protests.• Be ready to suffer to expose injustice.• These practices led to some self doubt

King’s lessons from the Boycott• King used passion and intelligence to unite the movement.• He had 6 key lessons from the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

• African Americans can stick together for a common cause.• Leaders to not have to sell out.• Threats and violence to not necessarily intimidate African Americans.• Church is stressing social gospel and personal salvation.• New sense of dignity and destiny.• Discovered a new and powerful weapon; non-violent resistance.

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

• Wanted to take advantage of Montgomery Bus Boycott momentum.

• King and 100 other black ministers found the SCLC.• King elected President.• Non-violence is not a sign of weakness.• SCLC saw themselves as leading the fight by preaching

about nonviolent protests.• Mostly gained support among black ministers, limited

support in the overall black community.

Greensboro Sit-ins• Started out as 4 black

college freshman sitting at a lunch counter at Woolworth’s.

• Knew they would be refused service.

• Gained sympathizers and support.

• By the end of the week 100’s of black students and a few white students jammed the lunch counters.

Sit-In Results• City Officials wanted to negotiate peace, but business

men and politicians were unwilling for change.• April 1, sit ins continued, 45 black students arrested.• African Americans were outraged, boycotted targeted

stores.• Pressure on white business men made them fold.• July 25. 1960 first African American ate a meal at Woolworth’s

• Made national news, sparked sit ins in dozens of communities.

• New form of direct action protest.• Dignified, powerful, peaceful, hard for whites to ignore.

Nashville and Reverend James Lawson

• Lawson led nonviolent workshops since 1958, conscious objector to Korean War, observed Gandhian tactics on missions trip.

• Lawson gathered committed students from Nashville Schools and talked to them about Social Change.

• Spring of 1960 more than 150 Nashville Students were arrested.

• Don’t strike back or curse if abused…Show yourself courteous and friendly at all times…Report all serious

incidents to your leader in a polite manner. Remember Love and Nonviolence.

Atlanta• Students from Atlanta Universities organized mass sit ins.• Sat in at restaurants at City Hall, the State Capitol and

other Government offices.• Julian Bond and Lonnie King, Morehouse Undergraduates

led the Atlanta movement.• Organized sit in and boycotts of many businesses.• Hundreds of protestors went to jail.• This movement had the support of the Black community.

Student Impact• Sit in movement brought new energy and a generation.• Students had to fear for their own safety and their families

• John Lewis’s, Nashville.

• Caused trouble within the Black Community.• Many black professionals had to maintain civil relations

with white officials.• Ella Baker of the SCLC counseled the students.

• Encouraged them not to associate with any existing Civil Rights groups.

• Encouraged them to create their own group.

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

• Takes the nonviolent, moral high ground approach.• Emphasis on fighting segregation through civil

disobedience. • Local groups of SNCC were allowed to determine what

and how they protested.• SNCC would be at the head of almost every major Civil

Rights battle in the coming years.

Race and the Election of 1960• Nixon had been the Republican Voice for Civil Rights in

the 1950’s.• Kennedy virtually had little experience with Civil Rights.• During campaign, Kennedy favored Civil Rights and

endorsed the sit in movement.• Personally called Martin Luther King’s Wife when he was

jailed, assured her it would be ok.• Nixon didn’t want to alienate Southerners, avoided Civil

Rights.• Kennedy won the Election with 70% of the black vote.

Minimum Legislation, Maximum Executive Action

• Close election made it difficult for Kennedy to pass Civil Rights Legislation.

• Lost ground in the House and Senate.

• Appointed Thurgood Marshall to the federal appellate court.

• Established a committee on Equal Employment Opportunity.

Kennedy Strengthens Justice Department

• Civil Rights division of department has been around since 1957, weak under Eisenhower Administration.

• Attorney General Robert Kennedy assembled team of lawyers, headed by Burke Marshall.

• Kennedy encouraged them to get into the field.• Pressured Louisiana School Board into Desegregation.• Political dilemma: how to advance Civil Rights without

alienating white southern democrats.• Energized southern civil rights would awaken murderous

white extremists.

Freedom Riders• CORE leader James Farmer announced plans for

Freedom Ride through the South.• Intention was to get arrested, force the Justice

department to act.• SCLC and NAACP supported Farmer and Core. • May 4, 1961 a interracial group of 7 black and 6 white

people started riding the interstate Bus.

Freedom Riders’ Troubles• Started out in 2 groups from Washington DC.• Freedom Riders attacked in Aniston Alabama.• Violence escalated in Birmingham Alabama.• Busses constantly attacked, local police did nothing.• May 17, the Freedom Riders abandoned busses, took a plain to

New Orleans.

Second Batch of Freedom Riders• 21 new volunteers to ride from Birmingham to

Montgomery.• When they arrived, a mob of several 100 beat them and

anyone else around them.• Police again did not help.• Freedom Riders made front Page news around the world.• JF Kennedy had his first summit with Khrushchev

approaching, would have been an embarrassment.• Attorney General R. Kennedy tried to convince Civil

Rights leaders it would embarrass the President.• Eventually brokered a deal with Mississippi to limit

violence.

Freedom Riders Results• Freedom Riders jailed and beaten.• Turned them into Civil Rights Leaders.• The Justice Department petitioned the Commerce

Commission to ban interstate travel segregation.• Freedom Riders created a crisis and forced the Kennedy

Administration to act.• Exposed ugly southern racism to the world, deepened

southern hatred and refusal to desegregate.

The Albany Movement• SNCC and the NAACP formed a

coalition in the small Georgia town, Albany.

• African Americans practiced sit ins, boycotts and other civil disobedience practices.

• More than 1000 blacks were jailed in the first year.

• Martin Luther King and the SCLC arrived and turned Albany into a national symbol of the struggle.

Problems with the Albany Movement• Infighting between the NAACP and

SNCC.• Arrival of King was feared to

undermine the city’s efforts.• Albany Police Chief Laurie Pritchett

kept mistreatment to a minimum.• “Met nonviolence with nonviolence.” • King was arrested twice, but quickly

released.• Pritchett claimed the city was as

segregated as ever.

Segregation of the University of Mississippi

• Fall of 1962 James Meredith tried to enroll.• Gov Ross Barnett personally blocked his enrollment.• R. Kennedy dispatched 500 Marshalls to campus to

protect him.• Barnett encouraged people over the radio to protest.• A night of violence left 2 dead, many wounded.• R. Kennedy ordered 5,000 army troops to stop the

violence.• Meredith graduated the following summer.

Essential Question• Was nonviolent, civil disobedience an effective way to

accomplish the goals of the Civil Rights movement?