The Black Civil Rights Movement

The Jim Crow South

Right after Reconstruction state legislatures passed laws aimed at keeping blacks from voting.

  Jim Crow Laws

Poll tax Literacy test Grandfather clause

Segregation= forced separation of races.

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) Homer Plessy arrested for

sitting on a train in a “white” coach.

Court rules that the law could require separate facilities as long as they were equal.

Integration= an end to racial segregation

Brown v. Board of Education Segregation makes equal education impossible. Schools must desegregate with “all deliberate speed.”

The Late 1800’s

Jump Jim Crow

The Age of Jim Crow

Legal Segregation laws were passed in various Southern States- named after a blackface minstrel’s famous song

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)upheld the Jim Crow laws & deemed “separate but equal” constitutional

Institutionalized segregation and lynching became common place.

Foremothers and Forefathers of the Civil Rights Movement

Ida B. Wells-Barnett

Black Journalist who led the Red-Crusade

Co-founder of the NAACP

Called for immediate equality for Blacks

Booker T. Washington

Preached Accomodationism/Gradualism

Stressed vocational training- Tuskeegee Institute.

Saw economic success as the key to white acceptance

W.E.B. Du Bois

Co-founder of the NAACP

Preached immediate equality

Aggressive political agenda: black suffrage, abolition of segregation, and social equality

Marcus GarveyEstablished the UNIA-Universal Negro Improvement

Association

Stressed racial unity and influenced many of the black power/pride groups of the 1960’s

Dark Days: The Great War, Roaring 20s

WWI: 400,000 African Americans served in segregated units- questioned why they were denied the freedoms they fought to secure for others

Black Migration 1910-1940s: Almost 2 Million African Americans migrated North due to low wages, crop failures and unemployment

1920s: Rise of the KKK- once again target blacks amongst others

Harlem Renaissance: Culture movement in NYC reflected black pride, identity & unity. Many black icons emerged.

The Great Depression, New Deal & WWII

New Deal: FDR didn’t support black efforts to eliminate poll taxes or pass anti-lynching laws. However, the Fair Employment Practices Commission was passed. Many African Americans joined the Democratic Party.

WWII: I million black Americans served; discrimination grew & lynchings increased; black enrollment in civil rights organization increased dramatically

Truman Administration: Appointed a presidential commission on Civil Rights; banned segregation in the armed forces; biggest impact-appointment of Supreme Court Justices

Black Icons & Sports Heroes

Jessie Owens

Joe Lewis

Jackie Robinson

Brown V. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas 1954

Supreme Court ruled unanimously that segregation is not equal over turning Plessy

NAACP legal defense led by Thurgood Marshall

Brown II (1955)- Schools must integrate “with all deliberate speed”

Lynching of Emmett Till August 27, 1955

14 yr. Old boy who talked and perhaps whistled at a white woman

Beaten and shot to death by white men

Became a martyr for the cause as the media publicized the story shocking many Northerners

Montgomery Bus Boycott 1955-56

Montgomery, Alabama: Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat & her arrest inspired the boycott of city busses

The SCLC led by Dr. Martin Luther king, Jr. used civil disobedience to protest segregation of public facilities

381 days of boycotting the AL bus company desegregated

Little Rock Crisis-1957

Arkansas governor resists integration of Little Rock Central High School

President Eisenhower called in the National Guard to enforce Brown

The Greensboro Four-1960 4 students from NC A&T

State University sat at a whites-only lunch counter at the Woolworth Store

They were beaten & arrested

By the 4th day the original four grew to hundreds and more sit-ins grew

Led to the integration of lunch counters at Woolworth’s and other chains

JFK Civil Rights Address 1963

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYuVKbEPgoc

March on Washington- August 3rd 1963

Sponsored by many Civil Rights organizations

Over 200,000 blacks and white brethren marched on DC demanding “freedom now”

King gave his “I have a Dream” speech

Revealed growing restlessness and division w/in the ranks of black leadership

Malcolm X & Black PowerJoined Elijah Muhammad’s

Black Muslim movement

“The day of nonviolent resistance is over. If they have the Ku Klux Klan nonviolent, then I’ll be nonviolent…”

Assassinated on Feb. 21, 1965 after breaking from the Nation of Islam and establishing his own organization

Voting Rights Act of 1965

Voting Rights Act signed into law by LBJ

Act makes literacy tests illegal

Authorizes the federal govt. to register voters where local registrars refuse to do so

Number of Black Southern Legislators, 1868-1900 and 1960-

1992

                     

                                                  

1967 Riots

Riots had previously broke out in 65 & 66

Summer of 67- racial rioting hit 65+ cities across the nation

Reflection of the frustration of poor blacks

Army tanks were used to quell the violence in Detroit

Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

• April 3rd, 1968King gave his last and one of his most famous speeches: “The Mountain Top”

• MLK was shot and killed the next day by James Earl Ray

The End of the Civil Rights Movt.

Many people mark the end of the movement with the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Although the movement brought political equality, many argue that it did not go far enough in securing economic and social equality

Urban poverty still a major problem and even with the passage of the Civil Rights Acts of 64 & 68 which forbade race discrimination in industry, employment, housing, and edu. institutionalized racism continued

Affirmative Action Programs

Emerged in the 1970s and have been debated and litigated since

Supported hiring and promotion of minorities and women

Regents of University of CA v. Bakke (1978):Upheld affirmative action but made the quota system illegal