US Civil Rights Movement

• The Fourteenth Amendment (1868 - during Reconstruction after the Civil War) guaranteed all citizens with equal protection under the law.
• The Fifteenth Amendment (1870) said the right to vote shall not be denied on the basis of race (it was still denied by gender until the 19th Amendment in 1920).

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The Laws

Civil Rights Defined

Civil Rights refers to the rights of citizens to

political and social freedom and equality.

Civil rights means that people have the right to be treated the same regardless of their race, gender, or religion. These rights are law in the United States and many other nations. Civil rights are guaranteed by law to every U.S. citizen now, it was not always this way and took many years to achieve.

However. . .

• The Supreme Court decided in Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896) that separate institutions are okay if they are equal.
• Jim Crow laws required that Black people and other people of color have separate facilities.

Dallas Bus Station

Jim Crow Laws

Texas sign

Jim Crow Laws

Jim Crow Laws

NAACP

• Founded in 1909 by W.E.B. Dubois
• Fought for equality

NAACP fought in the courts

• Thurgood Marshall was hired by the NAACP to argue in the Supreme Court against school segregation. He won.
• He was later the 1^st Black Supreme Court Justice.

Brown vs. Board of Education 1954

The Fight

• Many African Americans and whites risked their lives and lost their lives to remedy this situation.
• Rosa Parks was not the first, but she was the beginning of something special.

Separate But Equal - Candy

• When you heard you were getting candy today, what were your thoughts?

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• When you realized your candy (and ability to select candy) was different in comparison to other students in the class, what were your thoughts?

Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955

Rosa Parks

was arrested

for

violating the

Segregation

laws of

Montgomery,

Alabama.

In Response. . .

• For over a year, Blacks boycotted the buses.
• They carpooled and walked through all weather conditions

Martin Luther King Jr.

While the NAACP fought in the

courts, MLK’s organization led

the boycott.

http://www.africanaonline.com/Graphic/rosa_parks_bus.gif

King’s sacrifice

• King was arrested thirty times in his 38 year life.
• His house was bombed or nearly bombed several times
• Death threats constantly

Success!

Sit ins

This was in Greensboro, North Carolina

They were led not by MLK but by college students!

Sit-in Tactics

• Dress in your Sunday best.
• Be respectful to employees and police.
• Do not resist arrest!
• Do not fight back!
• Remember, journalists are everywhere!

Other students were ready to take your place if you had a class to attend.

Not only were there sit-ins. .

• Swim ins (beaches, pools)
• Kneel ins (churches)
• Drive ins (at motels)
• Study-ins (universities)

March on Washington 1963

• President Kennedy was pushing for a civil rights bill.
• To show support, 500,000 African Americans went to Washington D.C.

School Integration

• The attitude of many schools after the 1954 Brown decision was like:

Federalism

• When Federal troops are sent to make states follow federal laws, this struggle for power is called federalism.
• The Civil Rights Movement was mostly getting the federal government to make state governments follow federal law.

Little Rock, Arkansas 1957

States were not following federal law. Feds were sent in.

James Meredith, attending University of Mississippi, escorted to class by U.S. marshals and troops. Oct. 2, 1962.

Ole Miss fought against integration

200 were arrested during riots at Ole Miss

States ignored the ’54 Brown decision, so Feds were sent in.

Police use dogs to quell civil unrest in Birmingham, Ala. in May of 1963. Birmingham's police commissioner "Bull" Connor also allowed fire hoses to be turned on young civil rights demonstrators.

Birmingham

Birmingham

• “White America” saw 500 kids get arrested and attacked with dogs.
• There was much support now for civil rights legislation.

March on Washington 1963

The event was highlighted by King's "I Have a Dream" speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial. August 28, 1963.

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Banned segregation in public places such as restaurants and buses.

Lyndon B. Johnson ’63-’68

• Pushed Civil Rights Act through Congress
• Passed more pro-civil rights laws than any other president

Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ)

• Civil Rights Act of ’64
• Civil Rights Act of ’68
• Voting Rights Act of ’65
• 24^th Amendment banning poll taxes

Freedom Riders

• Now it is time to test the small-town bus stops and highways!

Freedom Riders

• CORE volunteers, White and Black, got on buses and sat inter-racially on the bus.
• They went into bus station lunch counters

Freedom Riders on a bus that is bombed!

Mobs also attacked them at the bus stations.

John F. Kennedy

• Called Coretta Scott King to pledge support while MLK was in jail.
• Eventually sent federal protection of freedom riders
• Proposed need for civil rights legislation