Modern History - Term 4 - CIVIL RIGHTS IN THE USA

1945-1968 are aimless periods why?

They are key periods from the return of US forces, from Wall through to rose of black power and Mexico olympics. The rise of the civil rights movement, marked by protests and demands for equality, culminating in events like the 1968 Mexico Olympics that highlighted racial issues.

The reality for black Americans after the end of the civil rights movement?

As the 19th century ended, Jim Crow laws and lynching were stark reminders of the segregation and repression chaff marked black experience, mainly in the south.

After the abolition of slavery the black Americans were affected from little day to day basis.

Civil rights movement in impacting America today:

• Black Lives Matter movement in 2017 event shows the death of a civil rights campaigner Heather Hayer, demonstrating the continuity of civil rights and the major role it has on social change in the U.S

Movement in 1960

Four black American students sit in a Woolworths lunch counter, California. This then spread as an anti-segregation movement.

Movement in 1962

SNCC opens voter registration schools in Mississippi to teach black people to pass the voter registration.

Movement in 1967

Thurgood Marshall becomes first black supreme court justice

3 groups that acted in the civil rights movements:

1. National Association at Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP)

2. Congress Of Racial Equality (CORE)

3. Southern Cristian Leadership Convention (SCLC)

3 individual involved on the civil rights movement:

1. Martin Luther King Jr

2. Rosa Parks

3. Thurgood Marshall

Events in order

1. Montgomery Bus boycott

2. Martin Luther King Jr assassinated

3. Freedom rides

4. Brown Vs Board of education of Topeka case heard by supreme court

5. March for jobs and freedom in Washington

Sharecropping and its affect on workers:

The system where black workers were given small areas of land to rent from whites, in return for a share of the crop.

The ongoing debts to white landowners and business people meant sharecropping was effectively used as a method of economic entrapment for black Americans

Define Non-Violent Direct Action (a method of protest)

Public confrontation with injustice. The goal is usually to disrupt, expose, or pressure authorities.

Examples: boycotts, sit-ins, marches, Freedom Rides,

demonstrations

Grassroots/community activism (utilised by Black Nationalist Groups)

Organising communities from the ground up. The focus is on developing leadership, participation and local power.

Examples: voter registration drives, community education, local organising, training activists

Role of the NAACP in Brown vs.Board of Education (1954)?

NAACP supported them, Thurgood Marshall the lawyer argued segregation was the 14th amendment.

Describe Brown vs.Board of Education

The BVB decision was to eliminate segregation of white and black schools. Chief justice Earl Warren argued that even if facilities in schools were equal, separation harmed black people psychologically, the Supreme Court agreed on this.

This was significant because it proved the success of the NAACp’s gradual legal approach, it seemed to destroy the constitutionally for segregation as it was overruled in the Plassy v Ferguson decision

Solo Freedom Marches of ‘James Meridith’ 1966

Aimed to encourage African Americans to register to vote and exercise that right, he was shot during his march.

Different groups agreed to come together and continue his march:

• the kings SCLC, CORE, SNCC

→ division appeared between the non-violent SCLC and more militant SNC

• it was decided the group needed protection so they caked Upton a lack Luisiana self defence group called ‘Deacons of Defence’

Black power & Black panthers

Black power came to international attention in the Mexico Olympic Games 1968

• medalists wore black leather gloves (black power symbol)

• stood barefoot (convey black poverty )

White Citizens Council WCC

Formation: in Mississippi, October 1954 in response to the Brown Vs Board of education

Members: professional business people, cotton planters, and more. This represented elites of society giving it pure respectability

Restriction: Bank leaders denied loan to civil rights supporters, whose employers fired black employees and white supporters, insurance agencies were resumed to cancel policies on home and vehicle owners pf activists, they weaponised voter registration offices with obstructive tactics and intimidation to stop African American from voting.

Violence: The WCC publicly claimed to be against violence and distancing itself from the KKK tactics. In reality they openly stored violence, putting flyers calling for racial abolition, using weapons members carried bombs and brutal beatings

Example: Byron De La Beckwith murdered NAACP leader Edgar Evers, and the WCC paid for the legal defence fees

Southern Menifesto 1956

formally titled ‘Declaration of constitutional Principles’

signed by 19 U.S senators and 82 representatives from the South.

• aim was to register official congressional opposition to Supreme Court mandated desegregation, it argued Supreme Court overstepped its constitutional bounds, creating chaos and confusion and ruining race relations.