Civil Rights

Context to civil rights

Slavery abolished

  • Still very unequal

    • Jim crow laws

      • Appeared once black codes were removed

      • Plessy v Furguson - Rights violated

      • ‘Separate but equal’ - Segregation everywhere

    • Black codes - removed and limited rights of blacks (loophole to still enslave)

      • Took advantage of criminals for labor

      • Challenged by president Grant - deemed unconstitutional

    • End of reconstruction

      • Rutherford v Hayes

        • Removes federal intervention of South which stopped pro-black political movements

Origins of modern movement

  • A. Philip Randolph - Known for March on Washington(1941)

    • Power of all black union

    • Stuck it to AFL and got his people in

      • AFL looked for specific and skilled laborers / not letting everyone join

    • Threatens a strike to FDR if he doesn’t stop discrimination practices

    • FDR passes order in response to organization and threat of March on Washington

  • Gilded age - violent view from public

  • Sit ins - Sit in when refused service

  • Great migration increases of rural blacks to industrial north

    • 25 race riots post WW1

    • Increased racial tension

C.O.R.E

  • Much more peaceful protests

  • Inspired by Gandhi being non-violent

Effects of WW2

Increased Patriotism

  • Defeated Nazi’s

    • They had racial superiority

  • Some U.S. ideas have the same ideas as Nazi’s

  • No segregation in Europe

    • Black Servicemen saw this society

  • Tuskegee Airmen

    • All black airmen given worst gear/training

    • Exceptional at what they do

Post WW2

Victory at home and Abroad over racism

  • Victory against racism, segregation, Jim Crow laws

  • Victory against the Nazi’s and their ideals

  • White America is scared/content/unaware of whats going on with civil rights

Early Success

  • Truman not opposed to civil rights

    • Desegregates the military

    • Pushes force less state rights

  • Morgan V Virginia

    • Segregation on interstate buses

    • Argued over interstate commerce

      • Segregation removed because it negatively impacted commerce

      • No enforcement or standards to hold people accountable

  • Jackie Robinson

    • Great baseball player

    • First African American allowed to play

    • Picked because of being patient, WW2 vet, nonviolent

  • Ralph Bunche

    • U.N ambassador

    • U.S. recognizes Israel as sovereign nation

Major organizations

NAACP

  • Advancement of colored people

  • Uncle Toms cabin

CORE

  • Peaceful protest

  • Started in Chicago

SCLC

  • Born from bus boycott

  • Organized in churches and such

SNCC

  • College students

Montgomery Bus Boycott

Rosa Parks

  • Volunteered to protest in an organized boycott by the SCLC

Freedom Taxis

  • People who owned cars would provide their own service for travel

  • Wealthy white women supported this movement

  • Federal government bans segregation in transport

Little rock Central High

  • Governor Orval Faubus

    • Pledged to never integrate schools in little rock schools

    • School was closed for weeks before they could attend again

    • Eisenhower sends in 101st airborne to enforce and protect them. Or at least try to

      • “Mob rule can not over rule law”

Birmingham children crusade

It’s important

1964 & 1965 High Point of the Movement

Southern Manifesto

  • Signed by every southern senator besides Johnson

  • The Southern Manifesto was a document signed by every southern senator except for Lyndon B. Johnson. It was a response to the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which declared that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. The Manifesto advocated for resistance to the court's ruling and emphasized the notion of states' rights, asserting that each state should have the authority to govern its own policies regarding education and segregation without federal interference. This document highlighted the ongoing struggle over civil rights and the deep divides regarding racial equality in the United States during the 1950s and 1960s.

Civil Rights act

  • Can’t discriminate based on DEI stuff

  • Desegregated public places

  • Also really impacts women

  • Equal employment opportunities

Freedom Summer

  • 3 volunteers killed over them trying to help civil rights

  • Mississippi freedom democratic party

    • Wanted delegates to go to national convention to get delegates past the primary

    • Make younger voters more radical

Selma March to Montgomery

  • March from there to there

  • Protest the killing of Jimmy lee Jackson to fight for voting rights

  • Selma known for awful voter registration and barring blacks from voting

  • Edmund Pettus bridge

    • As they tried to cross, Alabama police beat them to death, gas them

    • Spread by media

    • Puts pressure of LBJ

  • 24th amendment

    • outlawed the use of poll taxes for federal elections

Malcolm X and changes of the movement

Much more radical

  • Legacy of Marcus Garvey

  • Teachings of Elijah Muhammad

    • Muslim radical

  • Don’t incite violence but fight back

  • Believed in any means necessary

  • Back and forths with the main civil rights movement and that they were too passive

Riots

  • Riots everywhere

  • Black Panther Party

    • tried to bring about change for more than voting rights

  • Preached self defense

  • Riots in response to MLk death

Push for the platform

  • Basic rights, housing, education, literacy, economics

Unfinished business

Disproportionate soldiers in war

  • Few blacks in America, a lot of them in war

White flight

  • Moving to a different place because of change in society

  • No answers to break that cycle