4/13/2012

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The Civil Rights Movement

2 Phases:

1945-1965 : End Segregation and Get

Voting Rights

Post 1965: Economic demands

What were Jim Crow

laws?

From 1880s to 1960s

Named after Minstrel Show

character

Legalized segregation

Most Common:

No inter-marriage

Public facilities forced to

segregate

At the bus station, Durham, North Carolina, 1940.Greyhound bus terminal, Memphis, Tennessee. 1943.

A rest stop for bus passengers on the way from

Louisville, Kentucky to Nashville, Tennessee, with

separate entrance for Blacks. 1943.

A sign at bus station, Rome, Georgia. 1943.

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A highway sign advertising tourist cabins for

Blacks, South Carolina. 1939.Cafe, Durham, North Carolina. 1939.

Drinking fountain on the courthouse lawn, Halifax,

North Carolina. 1938.

Movie theater’s "Colored" entrance, Belzoni,

Mississippi. 1939.

The Rex theater for colored people,

Leland, Mississippi. June 1937. Restaurant, Lancaster, Ohio. 1938.

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Water cooler in the street car terminal, Oklahoma City,

Oklahoma. 1939.Sign above movie theater, Waco, Texas. 1939.

Beale Street, Memphis, Tennessee. 1939.

Why Did the Civil Rights

Movement Take Off After 1945?

• Democratic Party– Realignment under FDR

• Double V in WWII– Victory over hate abroad/Victory over hate at

home

• Black Vets returning home

• White people begin to condemn it– Why?

• Can we discriminate and still beat the Commies?

– Propaganda

The Truman Years (1945-1952)

• Jackie Robinson’s breakthrough (1947)

• Truman advocated Civil Rights (1948 Platform)

• Congress: ignores civil rights legistlation

• Truman does it on his own:– Desegregation of the

military (1948)

Jackie Robinson

• Debuted April 17,

1947

• Selected to Hall of

Fame in 1962

• Rookie of the Year

1947

• MVP 1949

• World Series

Champ: 1955

• Career .311 BA

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Civil Rights in the Courts

• Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)– “separate but equal” facilities =

legal

• Sweatt vs. Painter (1946)– First attack = “separate is not

equal”

– There were certain times when separate but equal does not exist (Law School)

• Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954)

-- Chief Justice Earl Warren

Battle in the Courts (cont.)

• Eisenhower disapproves

of Brown decision

• Desegregation “with all

deliberate speed”

• Other Warren Court Civil

Rights decisions

(reapportionment)

• Popular opposition to the

Brown decision

• No real progress on

desegregation at first

The Eisenhower Years (1953-1961)

• Eisenhower’s philosophy related to Civil Rights laws

• First Civil Rights Acts passed since the Civil War (1957 and 1960)

• Opposition to the integration of Little Rock Central High School (1957)

--Governor Orville Faubus

Out of the Schools and Into the Buses

• The arrest of Rosa Parks

(December, 1955)

• The Montgomery, Ala.

Bus Boycott

• The leadership of Martin

Luther King, Jr.

• The “Montgomery” model

for Civil Rights activism:

boycott, publicity, courts

• Southern Christian

Leadership Conference

formed (1957)

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A Mass Movement Takes Shape

• Lunch counter “sit-

ins” begin:

Greensboro, NC

(February, 1960)

• Student Non-Violent

Coordinating

Committee created

(April, 1960)

• CORE “Freedom

Ride” (May, 1961)

A Mass Movement Takes Shape

(cont.)• Demonstrations in

Birmingham, Alabama

(April, 1963)

--Eugene “Bull” Connor

• “Letter from Birmingham

City Jail”

– “Injustice anywhere is a threat

to justice everywhere”

• Governor George Wallace

tries to block integration of

the University of Alabama

(Fall, 1963)

A Mass Movement Takes Shape

(cont.)

• JFK finally begins to campaign for Civil Rights legislation

• Continued violence even in the face of some progress

• Martin Luther King, Jr. and the March on Washington (August, 1963)

-- “I Have a Dream”

A Mass Movement Takes Shape

(cont.)• Mississippi Freedom

Summer Project (1964)

• Miss. Freedom Dem. Party Protests at the 1964 Democratic convention

• Voter registration in Selma, Alabama (1965)

--Sheriff Jim Clark

• By the mid-1960’s, substantial success in the South had been achieved

The Kennedy and Johnson Years

• JFK’s initial reluctance to

push for Civil Rights laws

• The integration of Ole’

Miss (1962)

--James Meredith

• JFK finally decides to

push past better

enforcement to new

congressional Civil Rights

legislation

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The Johnson Years (cont.)

• The role of Kennedy’s

assassination in the Civil

Rights movement

• Civil Rights Act of 1964

• Anti-poll tax Amendment

(24th—1964)

• Voting Rights Act (1965)

• Impact of the Voting

Rights Act

Landmark Civil Rights Act 1964

• Creation of the Equal Employment

Opportunity Commission

• Prohibited discrimination on account of

gender (so did we need the ERA?).

• Banning segregation in most private

facilities open to the public.

The Johnson Years (cont.)

• The tone of public political discourse changed after 1965

• Johnson appoints first Black cabinet secretary: Robert Weaver of HUD (1966)

• Much more needed to be done for Civil Rights outside of the South, so 2nd phase began

The Era of Disillusionment: Post-

1965• Early to mid-1960’s

were a hopeful time

for Civil Rights

advocates

• Goal of Assimilation

• A “Spoiled Utopia”

after 1965—things

would not be that

simple

New Problems

• Residential Discrimination

-- “Red Lining”

• The Challenges of School integration in the North

• The historical, traditional segregation of northern cities

• The resurrection of the KKK once again

• More effective White opponents in the North

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Race Riots—Summer of Fear

• Watts Riots in Los

Angeles (Summer, 1965)

• Riots each summer from

1965-1969

--Chicago and Cleveland

(1966)

--Newark and Detroit

(1967)

--Washington, D.C.

(1968)

Race Riots (cont.)

• Riots as an expression of grievance against the White American consumer society

• Riots shocked the White American public

• Frustration and self-destruction expressed in these riots

• Unlike earlier race riots, these riots were not started by White mobs

How Does This Level of Violence…

C. “Black

Power” (cont.)

• The leadership of Malcolm X

--Black Muslims

--Assassinated in 1965

• Cultural expressions of “Black Power”:

--Afro Hairstyles

--Black-studies programs

-- “Negro” no longer used

--1968 Olympics

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Assassination

• X was assassinated in

a Harlem ballroom.

• Three Nation of Islam

members were

convicted of murder.

“Black Power”

• Growing tension between SNCC and Martin Luther King, Jr.

--Stokely Carmichael

• “Black Power”

• Carmichael succeeded by H. Rap Brown as head of SNCC (1967)

“Black Power”

(cont.)

• The formation of the

Black Panther Party in

Oakland, CA (1966)

--Huey Newton

--Eldridge Cleaver

• Resurrection of the

philosophy of Marcus

Garvey

Black Panther Party

Original six Black Panthers (November,

1966) Top left to right: Elbert "Big

Man" Howard; Huey P. Newton

(Defense Minister), Sherman Forte,

Bobby Seale (Chairman). Bottom:

Reggie Forte and Little Bobby Hutton

(Treasurer).

Black Panther Party for Self-

Defense• Founded Oct. 1966

• Oakland, CA

• Founders

– Huey Newton

– Bobby Seale

Panthers

• Purpose

– Practice militant self-

defense against the US

gov’t.

– Establish revolutionary

socialism

– Established schools

– Established free food

centers

– Focused on

ECONOMIC power

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Panther’s Ten-Point Program• We want freedom. We want power

to determine the destiny of our Black Community.

• We want full employment for our people.

• We want an end to the robbery by the white man of our Black Community.

• We want decent housing, fit for shelter of human beings.

• We want education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society. We want education that teaches us our true history and our role in the present-day society.

•We want all black men to be exempt

from military service.

•We want an immediate end to police

brutality and murder of black people.

•We want freedom for all black men

held in federal, state, county and city

prisons and jails.

•We want all black people when

brought to trial to be tried in court by

a jury of their peer group or people

from their black communities, as

defined by the Constitution of the

United States.

•We want land, bread, housing,

education, clothing, justice and peace.

Panthers

• One of the very first activities undertaken by the Panthers was the citizens patrol in which they followed officers around, armed with a gun and a copy of the California Penal Code in order to protect the citizens of Oakland.

• They began programs, including a sickle-cell anemia testing program, free clinics, and food distributions. The most famous and successful of their programs was their Free Breakfast for Children Program, which fed thousands of children.

Government attacks

• The Party was targeted by the FBI's, which attempted to disrupt their activities and dissolve the party.

– COINTELPRO illegally used FBI to forged documents

• Informers

• Undercover agents

• Dirty tricks

• Raided homes and killed Panther leader

D. Decline of the

Civil Rights

Movement

• Economic contraction works against Civil Rights concessions

• Northern phase not as successful

• Resistance from White Unions

• Vietnam replaces Civil Rights as the liberal crusade

• Martin Luther King, Jr. loses influence with LBJ

Decline

• The Party fell apart due to rising legal costs and disputes resulting from the FBI. Several prominent members went on to join the armed group, the Black Liberation Party, while others (e.g. Eldridge Cleaver) embraced a more moderate, pro-peace philosophy. Many languished in prison for years as a result of FBI cases. Several left America and became citizens of various African nations

From

• SCLC

• SNCC

• MLK

• Malcolm X

• Black Panthers

• Buppies vs Gang Bangers. $$$$ fixes

everything