Period 3: The Rights Revolution (1950s-1980s)

Period 3

The Rights Revolution (1950s-1980s)

• Topic 10: The Civil Rights Movement (1945-1970s)

• Topic 11: The Women’s Rights Movement (1963-1982)

• Topic 12: The LGBTQ Rights Movement (1950s-1970s)

• Topic 13: The Culture Clashes of the 1980s and 1990s

Topic 10: Civil Rights Movement & Key Figures

• 1945-1970s: was a political, legal, and social struggle to gain equality, full citizenship, and identity for African Americans = 2 approaches

• 1. MLK/Non-Violent Civil Disobedience wing (dominant: 1950s-mid 1960s)

  • Work within the system to make change (Reform)

  • Use tactics of non-violence and Civil Disobedience

  • Movement achieves many legislative accomplishments

• X/Black Panther Black Empowerment Wing (dominant: mid 1960s-mid 1970s) 

  • Work outside of the system to make change (Transform)

  • Use tactics of direct confrontation

  • Movement achieves cultural change 

Pressures that resulted in movement

• Continued Oppression 

  • Jim Crow Continues

  • Political Oppression Continues 

  • Poverty Continues 

  • Violence Continues (Emmett Till)

• Possible Change

  • Military Service during World War I  & World War II 

  • President Truman integrates the US Military 1947

  • Brown vs. Board of Education 1954

  • Forcible Integration of Little Rock Schools by Eisenhower 1957

  • Montgomery Bus Boycott 1955

Brown vs. Board of Education

1954: Declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional

• Overturns Plessy v Ferguson (segregation, separate but equal)

Martin Luther King Jr

• MLK/Non-Violent Civil Disobedience wing (dominant: 1950s-mid 1960s)

  • Work within the system to make change (Reform)

  • Use tactics of non-violence and Civil Disobedience

• President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (a leading group in the Civil Rights Movement)

• Received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964

• present @ signing of Civil Rights Act

• was assassinated 1968

Civil Rights Movement key events

• Civil Rights Act 1964

• 24th Amendment 1964

• Voting Rights Act 1965

• Loving v. Virginia 1967

Civil Rights Act

1964: outlawed major discrimination on basis of race, religion, or gender (outlawed Jim Crowe)

24th Amendment

1964: outlawed poll tax and fee voting restrictions

Voting Rights Act

1965: outlawed literacy test for voting (all remaining restrictions)

Loving v. Virginia

1967: Laws banning interracial marriage are unconst under the 14th amendment (Unanimous decision) 

Malcom X context

• Father died when he was young; rumored that he       was killed by white supremacists

• When he was 13 his mother was placed in a mental          hospital and he was placed in foster homes 

• Made his living as a criminal

• While in prison, X was exposed to the ideas of the Nation of Islam (a religious movement preaching black self-reliance and unification of the African diaspora

  • Believes: Black people are the original people of the world, Blacks are superior to whites

• Converts to the Nation of Islam

• Takes the name Malcolm X (Malik Shabazz) 

• Rejects a life of crime and “sin”

Malcom X Career & death

• After being released from prison in 1952, X begins to work with Elijah Muhammad to open Islamic temples throughout northern black communities.

• Rose to prominence and public attention in the early 1960s through his speeches

• 1964 X leaves the Nation of Islam after conflict with Muhammad 

• February 21, 1965 X is shot  by 3 members of the Nation of Islam while preparing to address a lecture hall in Manhattan

Shift from MLK party → Maclom/Black Panthers

Malcom X assassinated (1965), MLK assasinated (1968) Bloody Sunday (1972 peaceful protest broadcast on national television met w/ violence)

= black power + black conciousness movement SNCC + Panthers

SNCC

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Comittee = MLK ally

• Key Figure: Stokley Carmichael

Stokley Carmichael

Member of SNCC emerges as rep for someone drawn to Malcom X + desire for Blacks to have ACTUAL power not just baseline rights

• = moves to Black Panthers

• shift from equality (MLK) to exclusion of whites which scares them

• many whites move on to protesting Vietnam

Black Panthers & Social Change

Focused on black separatism + self-empowerment (no reliance on white entities)

• bear arms, monitor police in groups (vs police discrimination)

• help community w/ food & healthcare (vs the poor services gov provides)

Early-late 60s Fashion: Martin (polished, assimilation, white) vs Panthers (afro, separatism, casual)

Soul Train: blackness defined by blacks run by blacks w/ black commercials = teaches black is beautiful, cool, & mainstream

Topic 11: The Women’s Rights Movement

(1963-1982):

1940s = WWII pre movement

1950s = domesticity pre movement

Emergence of Liberal Feminism 1963
Women’s Liberation Movement 1968 

• Birth Control Pill

• Griswold v. Connecticut 1965

• Eisenstadt v. Baird