Rights and Protest: US Civil Rights Movement - Protests and Action

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12 Terms

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Concept of Civil Disobedience

  • No violence, only to an extent to gain moral high ground
  • Having a focus on where treatment isn’t equal
  • Drawing out big issues by knowingly breaking the law
  • Forcing authorities to overwhelm the system and arrest a lot of people
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Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-56)

  • Actions of grassroots, local activists
  • Rosa Parks bus incident
  • Regarded as starting point of movement in US
  • Protestors used non-violence and civil disobedience
  • Protestors made 3 demands:
    • Pledge from city + bus company that they’ll be treated with courtesy
    • Revise city code: whites front to back, blacks back to front → no reserved areas
    • Hire black drivers for routes carrying all or mostly African Americans
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What was the effect of the Montgomery Bus Boycott?

  • Buses were desegregated but Montgomery itself was still segregated for some years
  • Only a partial victory
  • Big symbolic effect though with the impact on wider and inspiration for next frameworks
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“The Lost Year'“: 1958-59

  • Lots of legal battles in trying to implement brown
  • Little Rock incident with Faubus
  • Loss of connection between big orgs and grassroots
    • Power vacuum with leaders like MLK stuck in faraway courts
  • Students took initiative
    • Less to lose, more time, more energy than older adults
    • Direct action + non-violence
    • Universities hothoused ideas together in 1 locale
    • More concerned with practical impacts -→ want to provoke showdown to force government to implement Supreme Court decisions
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What was the relationship between the student organisaitons and the big organisations during the Lost Year of 1958?

  • Loss of connection between big orgs and grassroots
    • Power vacuum with leaders like MLK stuck in faraway courts
  • Student organisations were tense with federal government -→ government doesn’t like being rushed
  • Student orgs also tense with NAACP and SCLC too -→ the two latter prefer to do things through court
  • Overall, differences in mindset and how to do things for progress
  • Split post 1961 was imminent
    • Confrontation, decentralised grassroots leadership (SNCC) vs. established, centralised leadership (NAACP + SCLC)
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Freedom Rides (1961)

  • Wanted to challenge segregated inter-state transport
    • Facilities: terminals, waiting rooms, restaurants and restrooms
  • Meant to force government and president Kennedy to act
  • Challenging Kennedy to back up what he said about the civil rights movement in his campaign for presidency
  • Got support from SCLC and NAACP for housing and food during this campaign
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Results of Freedom Rides (1961)

  • By end of 1962, no more inter-state travel segregation
  • Specific goal of intergation achieved but no overt and maintained support from federal government
  • Support from Kennedy was limited and slow
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Freedom Summer (1964)

  • Campaign in Mississippi by the SNCC-led CORE to increase voter registration, enroll black people in Freedom Schools and generate more suffrage
  • Wanted to put pressure on Lyndon B Johnson’s administration
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Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP)

Political party formed in Mississippi during Freedom Summer as an alternative to the all-white Mississippi Democratic Party

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Civil Rights Act (1964)

  • Gave government responsibility for protecting civil rights, no individual state exceptions
  • Aimed to end discrimination and segregation
  • Federal funds were denied to any government agency that discriminated
  • Individual states could still impose their own regulations though
  • Non-immediate transition
    • Factors: foreign + domestic policies, social unrest
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Voting Rights Act (1965)

  • Civil Rights Act didn’t fully guarantee voting rights
  • Enacted investigations for if less than half of eligible citizens are registered to vote in certain states
  • After 2 years, more than half of blacks registered -→ Mississippi went from least to most amount of black voters
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How did the nature of the Civil Rights Movement change post-Voting Rights Act?

  • End of the non-violent movement with the Watts Riots (1965) in LA, Detroit, Newark
  • Goals went from racial nature to more economic and social -→ more radical = more black identity
  • From MLK to Black Power Movement and Malcom X
  • People wanted faster change and didn’t want to settle