How far did black Americans go in achieving equality in civil rights in the

1950s and 1960s?(Part I)

How far did black Americans go in achieving equality in civil rights in the

1950s and 1960s?(Part I)

Focus Task: Voting on Civil Rights• Over the next several days you are going to study the main

events of the civil rights campaign. You will see that campaigners used a range of methods and tackled a wide range of issues. Make your own copy of this chart and complete it as you work through the chapter.

Method of campaigning

Example Score out of 5 & comment

Court case/legal challenge

Non-violent direct action

Empowering ordinary people

Marches & demonstrations

Violent protest

The times they are a changing’• 1920s & 1930s:

– Vicious race riots & prejudice

• World War II:– Significant gains, particularly in military

(desegregated in 1949), but still far to go

• 1950s …

1950s• Racism still every day experience,

particularly in the South– 17 states had ‘Jim Crow’ laws (segregation)– Though voting was legal right violence

often deterred black Americans (Example: Mississippi saw numerous lynchings, & 5% black voter registration)

– White police participated in violence– White juries acquitted whites of killing

blacks – Legal & official discrimination in

employment & education– White teachers paid 30% more than black

teachers– Best universities closed to blacks– 1958: Clemson King, black teacher,

committed to mental asylum for applying to University of Mississippi

‘Jim Crow’ states

Joan Baez & SNCC Freedom Riders singing the hymn We Shall Overcome

The Civil Rights Movement• In a fair country every citizen has equal

rights– US Constitution guaranteed it– Black citizens were clearly being failed

• Many people campaigned for equal rights

• Powerful minority opposed to them– Believed equal rights posed grave danger

to their way of life– They would fight every inch of the way

Struggle for Equal Education• Segregation in schools was legal

– Schools for black children poorly funded

• National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) took action– 1940s: Hired Thurgood Marshall, black

attorney, to argue against segregation in schools, eventually reaching Supreme Court

– 1950: Supreme Court ruled (decision written by Judge Julius Waring) states must provide ‘equal protection’, did not order desegregation

Therlow Snape, a British reggae artist, singing his song, Black or White

Brown v Board of Ed., Topeka, 1954• Many states ignored SC’s 1950 decision

• September 1952:– NAACP sued BoE, Topeka, Kansas– Linda Brown walked miles to school & crossed

dangerous railroad tracks even though all-white school was a few 100 yards from home

– Test case to see if SC would continue segregation

• May 1954:– Chief Justice Earl Warren announced for Brown– Segregated school inherently unequal– Schools ordered desegregated ‘with all

deliberate speed’

• Pattern established– NAACP finds a test case to bring to SC– If SC declares a law unconstitutional then states

had to take action, according to the Constitution

Singing the Blues, 1956 #1 Hit

Little Rock, Arkansas, 1957• Some states complied, others resisted

– 1957: Arkansas still not integrated– Governor Orval Faubus activated state’s

national guard to prevent integration of nine black students at Little Rock HS

– Claimed he did it to protect the nine students

• President Eisenhower intervenes– Ordered 101st Paratroopers to Little Rock– Faubus backed down– Troops remained for six weeks

• Aftermath– > troops withdrew there were no serious

racist incidents @ Little Rock HS– Faubus gained so much popularity for

stance that he was reelected for six termsBob & Marcia, a UK group, with their 1970 hit Young, Gifted & Black

Focus Task

• Imagine that you are a representative in the United Nations and the following question is posed: “How can the US justify its position in the Cold War and its goal of winning the hearts and minds of newly independent people of Africa, when several groups in your own country are not equal both de facto (fact) and de jure (law)

• Find a person around you, construct a response to the question from the perspective of a US delegate in 1950

Fin

PSDs on Civil Rights Movement• Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a

detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law; for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the Negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation to learn. Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to retard the educational and mental development of Negro children. – Supreme Court ruling on Brown v BoE, segregation in schools (17th May,

1954)

• At a time when we face grave situations abroad because of the hatred that communism bears towards a system of government based on human rights, it would be difficult to exaggerate the harm that is being done to the prestige and influence and indeed to the safety of our nation and the world. Our enemies are gloating over this incident and using it everywhere to misrepresent our whole nation. We are portrayed as a violator of those standards which the peoples of the world united to proclaim in the Charter of the United Nations. – President Dwight Eisenhower, television broadcast on Little Rock (24th

September, 1957)