Civil Rights Movement: Key Events and Figures

Progress After the War

  • The struggle for civil rights in America spans many decades, presidents, and states, continuing today.
  • Change has been slow but steady, with court rulings and protests highlighting the need for equal rights for all Americans.
  • The chapter emphasizes key events and figures that inspired racially based social changes in mid-20th century America.

Change Driven by the People

  • World War II's Impact:
    • World War II significantly altered race relations in the United States, boosting the civil rights movement.
    • Minorities (African Americans, Native Americans, and Mexican Americans) contributed to the war effort through military service and defense industry jobs.
    • Having fought against racist regimes (Germany and Japan), they sought to claim their constitutional rights.
    • Minority groups challenged laws restricting voting and school attendance.
    • Native American veterans filed lawsuits challenging these practices.
    • Minorities aimed to retain economic gains from wartime jobs.
  • Grassroots activism:
    • Individuals engaged in grassroots activism to achieve equality.
    • Grassroots activism involves political movements driven by individuals with limited individual power who become effective through collective action.
    • Churches in the rural South and urban North supported the civil rights movement by emphasizing equality and communal support.
    • Churches served as meeting places for civil rights groups.
  • NAACP's role:
    • The NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) started with 60 members in 1909 and grew to 600,000 by 1946.
    • The NAACP worked to persuade Congress to pass federal anti-lynching laws.
    • Key NAACP leaders included Walter White, Thurgood Marshall, and James Weldon Johnson.
    • These leaders organized lawsuits against civil rights violations and used these cases to raise public awareness.
  • Other Notable Civil Rights Leaders:
    • A. Philip Randolph: Journalist and labor organizer who established the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the country's first African-American trade union.
    • Bayard Rustin: A leader in civil rights, nonviolence, and gay rights movements, and a close advisor to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
    • In 1941, Randolph and Rustin threatened a march on Washington, D.C., to protest employment discrimination in the federal government.
    • President Franklin D. Roosevelt averted the march by issuing an executive order prohibiting discriminatory hiring in government jobs.
    • The Fair Employment Practices Committee was established to investigate violations of the new policy.
  • CORE's Formation and Actions:
    • In 1942, James Farmer co-founded the interracial Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).
    • CORE fought discrimination through nonviolent protest and played a crucial role in the civil rights movement.
  • Mary Church Terrell's Activism:
    • Mary Church Terrell, an activist and NAACP member, challenged segregation in Washington, D.C.
    • In 1950, she challenged a segregated restaurant, citing 1870s laws guaranteeing equal rights in public accommodations.
    • Her case reached the Supreme Court, which ruled in her favor.

Truman's Support for Civil Rights

  • Truman's Background and Stance:
    • Harry Truman became the 33rd president after Franklin D. Roosevelt's death in 1945.
    • Despite growing up in a segregated town and being the grandchild of slave owners, Truman became a strong civil rights supporter.
  • President's Committee on Civil Rights (PCCR):
    • In 1946, Truman established the President's Committee on Civil Rights (PCCR) to protect all Americans' civil rights.
    • The PCCR report, "To Secure These Rights," detailed widespread discrimination and recommended 34 immediate actions, including desegregating the U.S. military.
    • Truman proposed stronger civil rights statutes, better protection of voting rights, and federal protection against lynching to Congress, but Republicans and conservative southern Democrats blocked the plan.
  • 1948 Democratic National Convention:
    • At the 1948 Democratic National Convention, Hubert Humphrey advocated strongly for civil rights.
    • Moderates feared losing votes in the South and favored a weaker stance on civil rights.
    • Ultimately, Humphrey prevailed.
    • Shortly after the convention, Truman abolished segregation in the U.S. military and prohibited discriminatory hiring practices in the federal civil service.
  • Truman's Re-election:
    • Truman won re-election in 1948, partly due to African-American voters' support.

The Murder of Emmett Till

  • Emmett Till's Murder:
    • In August 1955, Mamie Till-Mobley sent her 14-year-old son Emmett to visit relatives in Mississippi.
    • Emmett was killed by two white men who claimed he flirted with a white woman in a local grocery store.
    • The men beat Till, shot him, and weighted his body down in the Tallahatchie River.
    • An all-white jury quickly acquitted the men.
    • In 2008, the woman admitted she fabricated the accusations against Till.
  • Mamie Till-Mobley's Response:
    • Mamie Till-Mobley insisted on an open casket at Emmett's funeral to show the brutality of racism.
    • Jet magazine published photos of her mourning over her son's body, forcing the American public to confront the realities of racism.
    • Till's casket is now at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
    • Following Emmett's funeral, Mamie Till-Mobley helped form a campaign for justice and civil rights.