history: usa - the quest for civil rights

Life in the south for black Americans in 1917

- Faced legal restrictions
- Booker T. Washington was a black American who advocated for accepting segregation
- Black teachers were paid less and schools were poorly equipped

Impact of Jim Crow laws

- Laws for segregation
- Voters had to pass a literacy qualification to vote, numbers of black Americans registered to vote dropped from 130,000 in 1896 to 1,300 in 1904.
- Separate public facilities for black people

Federal gov. intervention in the South

- Harding spoke out against lynching and broadly in favour of civil rights. Addressed 30,000 people at the Uni of Alabama on the evils of segregation
- There was mainly a lack of intervention from the government at this point, CR movement had not progressed enough for major differences to be made
- Laissez faire meant that presidents could express an opinion and try to influence behaviour, but would not enforce it by legislation

Plessy Vs. Ferguson

- Ruled that despite the 14th amendment, segregation was acceptable if it meant that people were "separate but equal."
- Not everyone agreed to it, but once ruled, the case could be used to support many other cases of segregation
- 1896

Causes of the Great Migration

- USA entered WWI, producing a rising need for workers in factories in the North
- Black Americans wanted to escape Jim Crow laws in the south

Impact of moving North, 1917-32

- Migrants found somewhere to live and had a job
- Job was low paid
- Accommodation was crowded and in the worst parts of the city
- Rent was higher for black people
- Some black professionals lived in their own communities
- Poorer black Americans moved to areas of rich white suburbs to become nannies and domestic servants
- By 1920, almost 40% of African Americans were living in Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus
- Gave black people political influence; in elections for the mayor of Chicago in 1919, it showed that the black vote could keep a mayor in power.
- Black communities and churches became areas for organising CR protests and campaigns.

Impact of the migration on the South

- Labour force shrank
- Farming areas struggled
- Poorest farmers suffered the most (they were mostly black)
- Southerners tended to see the people moving north as people voting with their feet over segregation; there was a tendency to assume that black Americans remaining in the south were accepting Jim Crow

Impact of the New Deal on black Americans

- Agencies were supposedly "colour-blind" - they credited people based off "merit"
- Black people were constantly moved off projects to make way for whites
- Social security provisions did not apply to farm workers or those who worked in other people's homes
- Black protests managed to get the National Recovery Administration to set the minimum wage for black and white people at the same rate
- Some measures helped black people because of their situation (e.g. one third of the low-income housing built had black tenants, because many of the poorest people eligible for this housing were black.)

Impact of WWII on black Americans

- White workers were preferred; A. Philip Randolph threatened a 100,000 strong march on Washington unless Roosevelt banned discrimination in the army and defence factories.
- FDR issued EO 8802 for non-discrimination in defence work
- 1942: only 3% of defence workers were black, in 1945 this was 8%
- 1943 saw outbursts of racist violence and strikes by white people over having to work with black people
- The war changed some white worker's views but many white Americans were still racist at the end of the war.

Impact of Truman

- Proposed anti-lynching, anti-segregation and fair employment laws in 1954, but failed to get them through Congress
- 1946: Set up the President's Committee on Civil Rights, which called for equal opportunities in work and housing, and urged federal support for CR.
- His focus on the Cold War meant he was more focused on fighting communism than fighting for CR.
- 1948: Issued EO to desegregate the military and all work done by businesses for the gov.

How much did NAACP membership grow?

9,000 in 1917 to 90,000 in 1919 to 600,000 in 1946.

NAACP methods

- Published pamphlets about lynching
- Demonstrated, held marches and petitioned Congress
- Took segregation cases to court
- Non-violent protest: not loud or abusive, looked respectable

Success of NAACP's early legal challenges

- Won some cases in the 30s and 40s
- Supreme Court did not enforce its rulings and weakened the force of them by not setting a time limit for desegregation
- Some schools were integrated within a year
- Schools in the Deep South did not desegregate
- 10 years after the ruling, only one black child in every 100 in the South was an integrated school
- Legal challenges were getting legal support, but they were useless unless they worked in practice.
- NAACP targeted housing because families were still living in segregated neighbourhoods; they helped to set up the National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing in 1950.

Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) methods

- Sit-ins in the Northern cities of Chicago, St Louis and Baltimore to desegregate public facilities.
- Had black and white people working together

Montgomery Bus Boycott

- Rosa Parks arrested in December 1955 for sitting at the front of the bus
- Montgomery Improvement Association formed to organise the boycott the next day.
- MLK chosen as leader
- Over 75% of bus users were black and 90% of them stayed away from the buses
- Lasted 380 days
- Media informed by MLK
- 13th Nov 1956: Supreme Court ruled bus segregation unconstitutional
- Hardened the racial divide; three days after the boycott King's home was firebombed and white candidates who favoured segregation were elected in the next local elections.

MLK

- Set up Souther Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957
- Refined non-violent protest rules
- Good speaker
- Believed getting arrested was good publicity

Little Rock

- 1957: 9 black children selected to attend the previously all-white Central High School
- Faubus (racist governor of Arkansas) sent the National Guard to stop these children from going into school
- 8 went by car with NAACP organiser, the ninth, Elizabeth Eckford didn't get the message and went on her own
- She was met with a screaming mob
- Photographs of the incident (over 250 reporters and photographers there) shocked the world
- MLK persuaded Eisenhower to intervene as he said it would damage his political image
- Eisenhower sent in federal troops to guard the children going to school
- Homes of local NAACP members were firebombed
- Central School was integrated despite Faubus closing it for the following year

The Greensboro Sit-in

- February 1st 1960: 4 black students went into a Greensboro department store and waited to be served until the store shut
- They went back the next day, and were joined by 30 students and the day after nearly all the seats were occupied by black students
- The media showed images of calm, well-dressed black students sitting waiting to be served while a crowd of white youths yelled at them and poured food over them

Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

- Set up in North Carolina on 15th April 1960
- Believed in non-violent direct action and trained students how to cope with abuse and violence during demonstrations
- Encouraged voter registration as they knew black people needed political power to get government action
- Took King's ideas further; taking non violence into areas were there was likely to be violence
- CORE also involved in the protest that followed Greensboro, then the NAACP more slowly following behind; MLK threaded his way speaking, advising and encouraging

Freedom Rides

- 1961: CORE and the SNCC carried out freedom rides to test whether bus restroom facilities had been desegregated
- Led by James Farmer of CORE
- Farmer said they planned the rides with the intention of provoking a crisis, knowing the publicity would affect the way the world looked at the USA
- Felt that desperate measures were the only way to get the gov. to enforce legislation than just pass it
- At Anniston, Alabama, one of the buses was firebombed after the bus had been chased by about 50 cars, some of them police cars.
- Media coverage showed shocking levels of violence

Birmingham, 1963

- 3rd April 1963: King and SCLC led a push to desegregate the whole town
- One tactic was to get arrested and fill the jails; at the end of the month, the jails were full
- Police used fire hoses and dogs on children protesting
- Media coverage shocked the world
- JFK sent in federal troops to restore calm on 12th May
- Helped JFK push forward with CR legislation
- After Birmingham, a poll showed that 42% of people thought race was the USA's most pressing problem, compared to only 4% in 1962

Freedom Summer, 1964

- SNCC sent 45 volunteers to the South to push for voter registration
- Most were young and white and they sent them to Mississippi
- They sent out the first batch of students on the 20th June
- The next day, 3 volunteers disappeared, two white and one black
- They were found dead 6 weeks later
- By the end of the summer, there had been 3 more murders, 35 shooting incidents and countless beatings
- 17,000 black people tried to register to vote but only 1,600 were accepted

Black Power

- Carmichael said non-violent protest was not working; he wanted the SNCC and the CR movement to radicalise and exclude white campaigners
- 1965: The movement split
- Black Power movement was not a coherent force
- Students pushed for more black staff and courses on black history
- Set up trade unions to push for more black jobs, equal pay and equal opportunities
- Ideas behind Black Power radicalised many of the long-established CR groups

Black Panthers

- Organised community projects such as free breakfasts for black schoolchildren
- Attracted gov. attention due to their uniform and the fact that they carried guns

The Northern Crusade

- King announced this to improve slums by setting up tenant unions, improving working conditions and teaching young people about non-violent protest
- King visited the overcrowded black ghettos of the North
- Many felt it did not bring about permanent change
- King's relationship with the media was turning sour; he accused them of trying to make non-violent campaigners look like militant statements
- Supported a strike of Memphis sanitation workers in March 1968 - he was assassinated while on this campaign, 4th April 1968

Limitations to CR legislation

- Even if places were forced to desegregate, black Americans still did not feel welcome or safe
- Wealthy black Americans were made to feel unequal by whites in the same social sphere
- Passing of CR Act and Voting Rights Act made some think that CR had been dealt with
- Affirmative action made some feel that they did not have jobs due to their merit
- Death of MLK made some move from CR to other issues such as the Vietnam War
- Gang culture had begun to dominate areas of the ghettos; in 1980, 75% of black high school drop-outs had criminal records

Achievements of CR legislation

- Black American upper and middle class had developed to a significant extent; black professionals had significant access to work in the higher levels of business, education, gov, the law
- On a socio-economic employment score that runs from 7 for a servant to 75, the score for black women went from 13 to 21 36.
- Black people featured more on TV and in cinema, more of their books in bookshops and magazines in paper shops
- Home ownership and number of black graduates increased
- More voting, although voter registration slowed after 1968. Increase from 58.2% in 1966 to 60% in 1980

Native American Issues

- Driven from their homelands following the Indian Removal Act of 1830
- Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) made children speak English, cut their hair and dress in "proper" clothes
- They wanted freedom to run their own affairs

Native American methods

- American Indian Movement (AIM) set up in 1968; its members mostly young people. Took a more radical stance and the slogan "Red Power." Consciously adopted direct action techniques of black American CR groups, e.g. sit-ins and demonstrations
- AIM Trail of Broken Treaties - protest drive to Washington to protest about BIA management.

Gains of Native Americans

- Nixon rejected termination and forced assimilation
- Nixon brought bills to Congress for Indian autonomy
- Congress passed the 1972 Indian Education Act (funding tribal schools)
- 1974 Indian Financing Act (lent tribes funding)
- 1975 Indian Self-Determination Act (kept the BIA but contracted out services such as health and education)
- Voting Rights Act extended to cover more racial groups and to provide language assistance when voting
- 1970: Congress returned land at Blue Lake to the Taos Pueblo Tribe

Limitations to Native American rights legislation

- Nixon did not reform the BIA
- Did not negotiate about Native American sacred sites
- No overall solution to land issues
- Various states including Hawaii in 1971, continued to evict Indians from land if the state wanted it for building or other use

Hispanic American issues

- Issue of land rights in Mexico following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
- Worker's rights as Hispanic farm workers often had appalling conditions
- Discrimination, barrios had poor gov. provision
- US immigration service deported millions of Hispanics - 3.8 mil. during Operation Wetback

Hispanic American methods

- Cesar Chavez: non-violent campaign, set up workers union and organised strikes
- Reies Lopez Tijerina: held marches and demonstrations about land rights, worked with Black Power leaders, 1967: attempted to arrest an abusive district attorney but it went wrong and was followed by a gun battle
- Rodolfo Gonzales: Crusade for Justice offered a version of black Pride and organised a student walk-out and direct action, including the Young Citizens for Community Action (YCCA) that had connections with the Black Power movement
- Brown Berets: young militant organisation like the Black Panthers, campaigned against police brutality and led student walk-outs

Gains of Hispanics

- 1966: Cuban American Adjustment Act said all Cubans who had lived in the US for a year were permanent residents
- 1968: Mexican American Legal Defense and Education fund set up to pursue CR
- 1973: SC upheld "equal provision of education" against a Texas school
- 1974: SC ruling on the rights of Limited English Proficient
- 1974: Equal Opportunities Act which provided for more bilingual teaching in schools
- 1975: Voting Rights Act provided language assistance at polling stations and extended rights
- Chavez's campaign made a difference to the conditions of farm workers

Limitations to Hispanic rights legislation

- Not until 1954 that the SC ruled that Hispanic people were equal citizens
- No other group was given the same rights as Cubans
- Level of change varied from place to place
- Issue of land rights had not been settled

Gay rights issues

- 1950s: Congress said homosexuality was a mental illness
- "Lavender scare" ran parallel to the Red Scare to hunt out homosexuals
- Legislation was a state matter, not a federal matter

Gay rights methods

- Stonewall, 1969: 400 people fighting against the police for raiding a gay bar, Gay Liberation Front set up and organised peaceful protests for gay rights
- Gay Pride marches: New York march in 1970 had about 10,000 marchers
- Liberal climate of the 60s and 70s meant the movement exploded rapidly

Gains of the gay rights movement

- 1974: Kathy Kozachenko became the first opnely gay candidate elected to public office
- 1977: Harvey Milk elected to office in SF
- 1973: American Psychiatric Association removes homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses
- 1980: Democratic party says it will not discriminate against gays and will campaign for their rights

Limitations of the gay rights movement

- Anita Bryan led a petition saying gay integration meant "normal" children would become corrupted
- Proposition 6 1978 - banned gays and supporters from working in state-funded schools in California.
- Groups projected an image of gay people as actively preying on the young
- Not much legislation passed for gay rights

How much did black population in Louisiana decrease by?

130,000 in 1896 to 1,300 in 1904

How many lynchings of black men were there between 1915 and 1930?

579

When was Brown V. Board of Education?

1954 (desegregated schools)

What did FDR issue for non-discrimination in defence work?

EO 8802

How much did the percentage of black Americans in defence work increase by?

3% in 1942 - 8% in 1945

What did Truman set up in 1946?

President's Committee on Civil Rights (proposed equal opportunity in work and housing)

What did Truman issue in 1948?

EO to desegregate the military

When was the SCLC set up?

1957

When was the Montgomery Bus Boycott?

1955

When was Little Rock?

1957

When was the Greensboro sit in?

1960

When were the Freedom Rides?

1961

When was the Birmingham protest?

1963

When was Freedom Summer?

1964

How many African Americans tried to register to vote during Freedom Summer and how many were actually accepted?

17,000 attempted, only 1,600 accepted

How much did the percentage of people who thought race was the USA's most pressing issue increase by?

4% in 1962 - 42% in 1963 after Birmingham

How much did black American voters increase by?

58.2% in 1966 - 60% in 1980

When was the Indian Removal Act?

1830

When was the Indian Civil Rights Act?

1968

When was the American Indian Movement set up?

1968

When was the Indian Education Act?

1972 (funding for tribal schools)

When was the Indian Self-Determination Act?

1975 (kept BIA but contracted out services, e.g. health and education, giving tribes more control)

When was the Cuban American Adjustment Act?

1966

When were Kathy Kozachenko and Harvey Milk elected?

1974 and 1977

when did JFK release MLK from prison

1960

what did JFK issue to ban discrimination in the allocation of federal housing

EO 1106

Voting Rights Act

* 1965
* bans attempts to stop people voting because of their race
* provisions are put in place for 5 years with federal enforcement of this

impact of Johnson’s great society on employment for black Americans

contributed to a 34% fall in black unemployment and a 25% fall in black Americans living under the poverty line

socio-economic employment scale

* a black man moved from 16 in 1940 to 31 in 1980
* a black woman moved from 13 to 36

NAACP & Charlotte

* NAACP took the town of Charlotte to court because its schools reorganisation by area meant that, as black people lived in the poorest areas, there was informal segregation
* the courts turned this down but in 1971 the Supreme Court upheld the idea of busing

in what years did the governor of California appoint 4 openly gay state judges

1979 to 1981

Martin Luther King

* media conscious
* set up the SCLC in 1957
* refined non-violent protest rules with an eye to creating the best impression in the media
* worked with white people
* led the Montgomery Bus Boycott - even when his house was firebombed and he was imprisoned he urged protesters to remain calm and peaceful
* managed to meet with Eisenhower during Little Rock and persuaded him to send in the National Guard to escort the children to school
* 1953: led the campaign to desegregate Birmingham Alabama - unlike earlier campaigns he wasn’t worried about provoking violence - his aim was to gain worldwide media attention
* march on Washington orchestrated by MLK and A. Philip Randolph
* began his northern crusade with Chicago after 1964
* influence declined as it was harder to get support for social issues rather than segregation
* relationship with the media went sour
* assassinated in 1968

Stokely Carmichael

* Carmichael said non-violence was not working in 1966 after James Meredith was shot whilst on the ‘March Against Fear’ in Mississippi
* cry of ‘freedom’ replaced with ‘black power’
* from 1965 the movement split - black power wasn’t a coherent force
* black panther movement set up in 1966 - organised free breakfasts for school children, wore uniform and carried guns
* black power set up radical trade unions to push for equal pay and job opportunities