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The Civil Rights Movement

Chapter 29

Lesson 1

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Ending Inequality in Education

  • Mid 1900s, Blacks started making progress towards equality
  • Fought for equal rights
    • Housing, jobs, education
  • Fought against segregation
    • Schools, housing, public places

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The World War II Years: The Movement Begins

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  • World War II was a turning point
    • War factories, military opportunities
  • 1942-Congress of Racial Equality
    • CORE
    • Led protest against public places refusing to serve Blacks
    • Restaurants, theaters, diners
  • Blacks returned home from WWII
    • Little had changed
    • Led to protest
    • Civil Rights movement born

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Brown v. Board of Education

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  • NAACP played large role
  • 1950s progress made in education
  • Supreme Court had upheld segregation - Plessy v. Ferguson
    • Separate but equal
  • Thurgood Marshall challenged idea of separate but equal schools
  • Used case of 7-year-old Linda Brown
    • Not allowed to attend white school near her home
    • Had to go across town to all-Black school

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Brown v. Board of Education (cont.)

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  • Family asked local court to let her go to nearby school - lost
  • Marshall took case all the way to Supreme Court - 1952
  • Marshall argued segregated schools were inherently not equal
  • May 17, 1954 - court ruled 9-0 that segregating school children was unconstitutional

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The Challenge of Integration

  • Ruling challenged the whole system of segregation
  • Spurred opposition to other forms of discrimination
  • Angered white southerners
  • Court then ordered the integration of classrooms “with all deliberate speed”
  • Some schools complied
  • Other parts of the South ignored the order, led to showdown with Federal government

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The Little Rock Showdown

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  • 1957-judge ordered all-white Central H.S. in Little Rock, AK to admit Blacks
  • Governor Orval Faubus called out state National Guard to stop Blacks from entering
    • Turned away 9 students
    • State defying Federal order
  • President Eisenhower sent hundreds of federal troops to protect students entering school

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Moving Beyond the Schoolhouse

  • Blacks working to gain equality outside of schools
  • 1955-events in Montgomery, AL would change everything
  • Rosa Parks boarded city bus, sat in “whites only” section
  • Driver ordered her to move - she refused
  • Arrested and fined $10

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A Bus Boycott in Montgomery

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  • Led Blacks to boycott city busses - 75% of riders
  • Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at boycott meeting
  • Boycott was extremely inconvenient for Blacks
  • Lasted more than a year
  • King’s house firebombed
  • King and other arrested
  • Bus company lost money
  • S. Court ruled segregation law unconstitutional

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The Practice of Nonviolence

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  • Montgomery made King a leader in Civil Rights movement
    • 27 Years old
  • Father, pastor in Atlanta
  • King admired A. Philip Randolph and Mohandas Gandhi
    • Non-violent methods
    • Civil disobedience
  • Started Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)

Martin Luther King Jr.