2.1 Introduction to the Civil Rights Movement

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (formed 1909)

organization formed to fight for rights and lives of African Americans, led legal fight to overturn Plessy v. Fergusson

Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

Supreme Court’s unanimous decision to overturn Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) separate but equal doctrine

background information

• 13th, 14th, 15th amendments

• Civil Rights Act of 1866 - equal rights in contracts and opportunity

• Jim Crow’s legal and social perpetuation of Black inferiority

• post civil war servitude

  • peonage - system requiring workers to labor until their debts were paid off

  • slavery under the penal system

• racial violence and race riots (Tulsa, Elaine, Wilmington, Atlanta)

• disenfranchisement

Margold Report (1930)

report written by Nathan Ross Margold suggesting attacking segregation through courts, foundation of NAACP strategy

early court cases regarding segregation in education

• Murray v. Maryland (1936) - Donald Murray and NAACP argued the unequal education quality of secondary education available to Blacks vs. Whites, judge decided in favor of Murray, affirmed by Supreme Court 1936

• Gaines v. Missouri (1938) - separate facilities must be equal within a state

• Sweatt v. Painter (1950) - in the area of graduate schools, segregation could never be equal

• McLaurin v. Oklahoma - being segregated within the same school violates the 14th amendment’s equal protection clause (1950)

Brown II

reargued Brown v. Board, demanded integration with “all deliberate speed”

• post appointment of Chief Justice Earl Warren, favored civil rights program (1953)

• met with Southern resistance

Southern resistance to Brown v. Board

• Southern Manifesto (1956) - 96 Southern legislators pledged not to allow desegregated public schools

• Massive Resistance - Virginia’s planned inaction

• Little Rock, Arkansas (1957) - Little Rock Nine

Massive Resistance

• Gray commission (1954) - commission of Virginia state lawmakers who proposed a plan to permit but inhibit desegregation on a local level

• Massive Resistance speech (1955) - delivered by segregationist Democratic Senator Harry F. Byrd calling for the shift from planned inaction to Massive Resistance, the adoption of a more severe plan

• Stanley Plan (1956) - new plan declaring that Virginia would not permit integrated public schools

• automatic closer and defunding of integrated schools and school systems

• governor J. Lindsay Almond - Democratic supporter of Massive Resistance

  • shut down schools ordered by federal courts to integrate

  • Virginia Committee for Public Schools - White parents favored public schools

  • Perrow Plan - “freedom of choice'“, parents select school to enroll child, segregation by Pupil Placement Board

Little Rock, Arkansas (1957)

• Blossom Plan - minimal compliance with Brown v. Board, token integration, ruled constitutional by the federal court despite not being immediate integration as ordered

• White Citizens’ Councils - councils that opposed integration, promoting segregation and White supremacy across the South

• Governor Orval Faubus and Arkansas National Guard blocked African American students from entering Central High School citing concerns for “public order”

• Eisenhower’s constitutional role, sent soldiers to escort students

• The Lost Year (1961) - Arkansas attempts to end token integration, ordered by Supreme Court to continue Blossom Plan, all high schools in Little Rock were closed for an entire year

Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-1956)

starting point of African American civil rights movement, community action and grassroots movement that brought nationwide attention to the movement

• Rosa Parks’s civil disobedience

• 3 demands: pledge from city and bus company that African Americans are treated with courtesy, revision of city seating code, hiring African American drivers for mainly African American routes

• successful boycott December 5, 1955, no action from city or bus company

• Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) - created to oversee longer boycott, MLK

• “goon squads”

• violence against coordinators

• Aurelia S. Browder, et al v. WA Gayle, et al - Supreme Court affirmed the lower court ruling that Alabama bus segregation laws violated the 14th amendment

• sparked creation of Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) (1957) by King and black ministers - organization leading significant protests and demonstrations

Freedom Rides (1961)

exerted pressure on all levels of government to reinforce prohibition of segregation in interstate transportation as mixed groups rode through the deep South on a Greyhound or Trailways bus

• lack of support due to the Cold War and post-war avoidance of racial and economic disparities

• passengers on Trailways bus beaten by a mob in Birmingham, passengers of the Greyhound bus were bombed and beaten by a crowd, with complicity of law enforcement

• Kennedy administration refused to act and did not place the blame on anyone

• 2nd Freedom Riders organized by Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

• aware of danger of Southern segregationists, willing to die

• Kennedy allowed Mississippi Senator to arrest Freedom Riders in exchange for protecting them from physical violence

• did not achieve overall objective of overt, active, continued support from federal government, ICC issued ban on segregation in interstate travel

• split in civil rights movement - active confrontation and decentralized grassroots activism (SNCC) vs. centralized and established leadership (NAACP and SCLC)

Malcolm X

prominent figure during African American civil rights movement, member of Nation of Islam, advocated race pride and Black nationalism, disagreed with popular nonviolent protest of MLK