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

Concept of Civil Disobedience

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

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

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

“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

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)

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

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

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

Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP)

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

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

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

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