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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
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