The Civil Rights Movement

US History: Spiconardi

Segregation

Segregation in all public facilitiesSegregation in all public facilities ““two separate worlds”two separate worlds” by law in the Southby law in the South by “tradition” in the Northern citiesby “tradition” in the Northern cities

Discrimination in employment and payDiscrimination in employment and pay not allowed into most unionsnot allowed into most unions

Few can voteFew can vote Violence and lynching still commonViolence and lynching still common Few protections in the court systemFew protections in the court system

Brown V. Board of Education Linda Brown requested

to attend an all-white school closer to her home in Topeka, KS as opposed to an all-black school further away

Due to segregation she was denied admission

NAACP sued & appealed until case goes before the Supreme Court

Brown v. Board of Education

Chief Justice Warren“in the field of public education the

doctrine ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal”

The unequal facilities create in black children “a feeling of inferiority.”

However, ruling did not demand immediate desegregation of schools

The Little Rock Nine

One year after Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court ordered school desegregation, but never gave a timetable

Southern states called for “massive resistance” to fight against school desegregation

The Little Rock Nine

The Governor of Arkansas uses the National Guard to prevent nine black students from attending an all-white high school

Federal judge orders the governor to withdraw the guardsmen

White threaten to storm the school if the black children are let in

The Little Rock Nine

Eisenhower has to call in the National Guard to protect the black children in school One child decides not

to go to the high school

Little Rock closes all public high schools from ’58-’59 instead of desegregating

Montgomery Bus Boycott

Rosa Parks is arrested in 1955 for refusing to give her seat up to a white passenger.

Civil Rights groups elected Martin Luther King, Jr. to lead a boycott of the Montgomery, AL bus system

Montgomery Bus Boycott

Boycott lasted 381 days Courts ruled segregation on public

transportation was illegal MLK emerges as the leader of the

Civil Rights movementUse of civil disobedienceModel activism after Gandhi

Greensboro

Four black students use civil disobedience at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, SC

Inspires many other acts of similar civil disobedience (Sit-In movement)

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organizes sit in movement Make “We Shall Overcome” anthem of the

civil rights movement

Birmingham

MLK and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) attempt to desegregate Birmingham, AL with acts of civil disobedience and protests

Police used dogs and hoses to break up the march

Over 2,000 arrested

Birmingham

Television cameras and journalists capture the violence against the protesters on film

Rallied support for the Civil Rights Movement

Birmingham

Martin Luther King arrested “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”

• “Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dark of segregation to say, ‘Wait.’ But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim;…when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted…as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park…and see the tears welling up in her eyes when she is told Funtown is closed to colored children…then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.”

March on Washington

In 1963 JFK asks for legislation to end discrimination in employment and segregation in public accommodations

250,000 march to show support of the proposed legislation

“I have a dream…”

KKK Strikes back

To “protest” against proposed civil rights legislation KKK bombs the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham 4 children killed Violence outbreaks as more blacks killed by

police Police commissioner: If you're going to

blame anyone for getting those children killed in Birmingham, it's your Supreme Court."

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Outlaws discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin

Opened public facilities to people of all races (stores, restrooms, restaurants, hotels)

Twenty-fourth Amendment & Voting Rights Act

Outlawed poll tax in federal elections Attorney General

allowed to take action against states that continued to employ a poll tax

Voting Rights Act (1965) Ended the use of

literacy tests