Cold War & Civil Rights

• 1896 Supreme Court case of Plessy vs. Ferguson which upheld segregation under “separate by equal” doctrine

• 1942: Formation of Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) by James Farmer to use nonviolence to fight for racial equality; embraced Mahatma Gandhi’s ideas of nonviolent direct action

• 1947 report by Presidential Committee on Civil Rights, “To Secure These Rights,” called for strong federal action to ensure African American equality

  • 1948: Truman signed executive orders to desegregate federal agencies & armed forces; urged Congress to abolish poll tax & restore the Fair Employment Practice Committee

  • 1948: Southern white Democrats, led by Strom Thurmond of SC, formed States’ Rights Democratic Party (“Dixiecrats”); blocked congressional action on civil rights in 1950s

• Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), union groups with large numbers of minority workers, improved wages & working conditions for Mexican Americans and other minorities

• 1947 case of Mendez vs. Westminster School District ruled that segregated schools for Mexican Americans were unconstitutional; laid groundwork for future challenges to segregation

• 1948: formation of American GI Forum to protest treatment of Mexican American WWII veterans (segregated military cemeteries, for example)

• Japanese Americans formed Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) who successfully challenged California’s Alien Land Law, which prohibited Japanese immigrants from owning land & allow those immigrants to become US citizens

• 1954 Supreme Court case of Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka 

  • NAACP lawyer Thurgood Marshall argued that segregation violated the 14th Amendment

  • Supreme Court declared segregation as unconstitutional

    • 1956 “Southern manifesto,” signed by 101 Congressional members denounced Brown decision as “abuse of power” & called for “massive resistance” to integration; KKK membership soared

  • 1957: nine African American students attempted to enroll at all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas; white mobs blocked doorways to school; Arkansas governor Orval Faubus sent National Guard to keep “Little Rock Nine” out

  • President Dwight Eisenhower sent federal troops to Little Rock and ordered National Guard to protect the nine students and escort them into the high school

The Protest Movement of the 1950s & 1960s

• December 1, 1955: Rosa Parks arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white man in Montgomery, AL; Parks arrested for violating segregation laws

  •  Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. organized the Montgomery Bus Boycott which lasted for 381 days until the Supreme Court ruled segregation on public transportation unconstitutional in Nov. 1956

• King co-founded Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) with other African American ministers to coordinate civil rights activity in the South

• 1960: Greensboro, NC sit-ins; four African American college students sat at a “whites only” lunch counter in quiet protest; students were harassed, beaten, pelted with food for three weeks until restaurant agreed to desegregate

• 1960 formation of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) by Ella Baker to continue protesting; 50,000 participants at sit-ins in 126 cities, with 3600 arrests

• Summer, 1961: CORE organized freedom rides on Greyhound buses to protest ongoing segregation of interstate buses which Supreme Court had ruled unconstitutional; students rode Greyhound buses throughout the South stopping at bus stations

  • Students attacked at various locations and one bus firebombed

  • Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy (JFK’s brother) dispatched federal marshals to escort and protect freedom riders

Legislating Civil Rights, 1963-1965

• MLK organized march in Birmingham, AL to protest employment discrimination; police responded with dogs, water cannons & electric cattle prods; hundreds arrested, including MLK

  • MLK penned “Letter from Birmingham Jail” which explained why direct action was needed to create change; Americans will either “preserve the evil system of segregation” or side with the “great wells of democracy, the Constitution and Declaration of Independence.”

• June, 1963: Kennedy promised a new civil rights bill and denounced racism & segregation

• August 28, 1963: March on Washington by 250,000 activists to support Kennedy’s bill, campaign for jobs and freedom, and mark the 100th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation

  • MLK’s “I Have A Dream” speech on steps of Lincoln Memorial

• November 22, 1963: Kennedy assassinated in Dallas; VP Lyndon Johnson (“LBJ”) assumed office and pledged to pass Kennedy’s bill

• Congress passed Civil Rights Act of 1964

  • outlawed discrimination on the basis of race, religion, national origin & gender

  • guaranteed equal access to public accommodations and schools

  • Created Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to fight job discrimination

• 1964: 24th Amendment ratified: outlawed poll tax

• 1965: MLK organized march from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery (state capital) to protest the murder of a voting rights activist; state troopers attacked protestors (“Bloody Sunday”)

• Johnson urged Congress to pass Voting Rights Act of 1965

  • Banned literacy tests & grandfather clauses

  • Attorney General could send federal examiners to register voters in any county where registration was less than 50%

    • 1960: 20% of African Americans had been registered

    • 1970: 62% of African Americans had been registered

Expansion of Civil Rights, 1966-1973

• Many civil rights leaders (Stokely Carmichael, Frances Beal, John Lewis) were frustrated with the slow progress of reform and the stubborn resistance by southern whites

• Many African Americans began to support black nationalism ideology; Nation of Islam

  • Wearing African-style clothing

  • Supporting African American-owned businesses

  • Total separation from white society

  • Pride in African American history

  • “Self-help”: African Americans creating their own community institutions (schools, churches, community centers, etc.)

• Malcolm X, spokesman of the Nation of Islam, advocated for black nationalism

  • Militant separatism from white society, self-defense, & aggressive confrontation to police brutality; advocated for uniting poor whites and blacks

  • 1964: broke from Nation of Islam after pilgrimage to Mecca; began to work with traditional civil rights groups

  • February 21, 1965: assassinated by members of the Nation of Islam

• 1966 creation of Black Panther Party by Huey Newton & Bobby Seale in CA

  • Militant organization dedicated to protecting African Americans from police violence

  • Empowering black community & self-defense

  • Opposed to Vietnam War & supported third world revolutionary movements

  • Free breakfast program for children; testing program for sickle-cell anemia

• Formation of Young Lords Organization (YLO) by Jose Jimenez in NY, which sought self-determination (statehood) for Puerto Rico and improved conditions for Puerto Ricans in Puerto Rico and the U.S.; inspired by Black Panthers

  • Fought against slumlords who let apartment buildings become dilapidated

  • Worked to improve access to healthcare for Puerto Rican women

• MLK assassinated on April 4, 1968 by KKK member James Earl Ray in Memphis, TN; rioting in hundreds of US cities

• Cesar Chavez & Dolores Huerta founded United Farm Workers (UFW) a union of farm workers in CA who fought for better working conditions & pay for migrant workers

  • 1965: organized nationwide boycott of grapes in support of grape pickers strike

  • 1970: CA grape growers signed contracts recognizing UFW and their ability to negotiate contracts for grape pickers

• 1967: Mario Obledo founded Mexican American Legal Defense Fund (MALDEF); based on NAACP, it focused on legal issues and fought to protect Mexican Americans from discrimination in housing, education and employment

• 1968: American Indian Movement (AIM) founded by Dennis Banks & Clyde Bellecourt, to address problems of Native Americans, including poverty and police brutality

  • Fought to end relocation programs that forced many Native Americans to move to cities

  • 1972 March of Broken Treaties; AIM members seized/ransacked Bureau of Indian Affairs office in Washington, D.C.

  • 1973: 71 day standoff at Wounded Knee, South Dakota between AIM & FBI; standoff ended with a negotiation between the two sides