Segregation

• The belief that African Americans and whites shouldn’t share the same facilities

• Enforced by Jim Crow laws

• 1896 - Plessy v. Ferguson ruled that “separate but equal” was acceptable, indirectly allowing segregation

• 1971 - The Supreme Court banned all segregation

Little Rock, Arkansas

• 1957

• Nine African American students attended an all-white high school

• They were protected by the US Army against white violence and disagreement with them attending the school

• Became the center of the struggle to desegregate public schools in the United States, especially in the South

Emmett Till

• 1955 - A 14-year-old African American boy who was abducted, tortured, and lynched in Mississippi in 1955, after being accused of offending a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, in her family's grocery store

• His white murderers were found innocent

• Was the event that started the civil rights movement

Rosa Parks

• Founded the NAACP

• 1955 - Rejected bus driver James F. Blake's order to vacate a row of four seats in the "colored" section in favor of a White passenger, once the "White" section was filled

• Started the Montgomery Bus Boycott

Montgomery Bus Boycott

• 1956

• Martin Luther King, Jr.’s first leadership role

• A political and social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama

• African Americans walked or carpooled instead of using the buses

• The Supreme Court eventually ended bus segregation

Martin Luther King, Jr.

• An important leader of the SCLC

• Believed in non-violent resistance championed by Henry David Thoreau

• Wrote the famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail”

• Gave the famous “I Have a Dream” speech during the March on Washington

• 1965 - Led the civil rights march in Selma

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)

• 1957

• Used to coordinate and support nonviolent direct action as a method of desegregating bus systems across the South

• Used nonviolent resistance to protest

• Advocacy of boycotts and other forms of nonviolent protest was controversial among both whites and blacks

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

• 1909

• Fought for African American equality and to end racial prejudice

• Became targets of the KKK, who were angry that they were protesting

• Lobbied the government for civil rights legislation

Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)

• 1942

• Pioneered the use of nonviolent direct action in America’s civil rights struggle

• Used direct protest tactics

• Provided advice and support to Martin Luther King during the Montgomery bus boycott

• Organized the Journey of Reconciliation, a multi-state integrated bus ride through the upper South in order to test the previous year’s Supreme Court ruling against segregation in interstate travel

Sit-Ins

• 1960

• In protest, African Americans would sit down at white lunch counters and refuse to leave

• A form of nonviolent protest, employed during the 1960s in the civil rights movement and later in the movement against the Vietnam War

• Aroused sympathy for the demonstrators among moderates and uninvolved individuals

• Used as the main strategy of African American youth revolts

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

• 1961

• The youth version of the SCLC

• Used non-violent protest tactics

• Participated in sit-ins to protest racial segregation

• Played an integral role in the Freedom Rides, the 1963 March on Washington, and such voter education projects as the Mississippi Freedom Summer

• Led by John Lewis and Stokely Carmichael

James Meredith

• 1962 - Became the first African American student at the University of Mississippi

  • State officials, initially refusing a U.S. Supreme Court order to integrate the school, blocked Meredith’s entrance

  • Following large campus riots that left two people dead, Meredith was admitted to the university under the protection of federal marshals

• Began a solitary protest march, which he called the March Against Fear, from Memphis, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi, when he was shot by a sniper

Freedom Rides

• 1963

• A series of political protests against segregation by Blacks and whites who rode buses together through the American South

• Challenged segregation and the separation of Blacks and whites on busses

• Exposed the injustices of the South

Medgar Evers

• An American civil rights activist and the NAACP's first field secretary in Mississippi

• Led voter registration drives and promoted African American boycotts

• Engaged in efforts to overturn segregation at the University of Mississippi, end the segregation of public facilities, and expand opportunities for African Americans

• Eventually assassinated by a white supremacist

Birmingham, Alabama

• Nicknamed “Bombingham”

• Activists in Birmingham, Alabama launched one of the most influential campaigns of the Civil Rights Movement: Project C, better known as The Birmingham Campaign

• Featured MLK writing his famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail”

• White police officers used police dogs and high pressure hoses to disperse African American protests

March on Washington

• 1963

• A massive protest march that occurred in August 1963, when some 250,000 people gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

• MLK gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech

• Aimed to draw attention to continuing challenges and inequalities faced by African Americans a century after emancipation

• 1964 - The Civil Rights Act was eventually passed

Voting Rights Act

• 1965 - Passed by Lyndon B. Johnson

• Removed barriers to vote and gave African Americans more opportunities to vote

• Voting registration would be supervised, especially in the South, to ensure that African Americans weren’t purposely left out

• The most significant statutory change in the relationship between the federal and state governments in the area of voting since the Reconstruction period following the Civil War; and it was immediately challenged in the courts

Twenty-Fourth Amendment

• 1964

• Abolished the use of poll taxes in national elections

Freedom Schools

• 1963

• Temporary, alternative, and free schools for African Americans mostly in the South

• Used to organize African Americans to achieve social, political and economic equality in the United States

• Taught African American history and encouraged non-violent protests

• Targets of the KKK and frequent bombings

Selma, Alabama

• 1965 - White policemen violently dispersed a SNCC riot using tear gas

• In an effort to register Black voters in the South, protesters marching the 54-mile route from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery were confronted with deadly violence from local authorities and white vigilante groups

• Raised awareness of the difficulties faced by Black voters, and the need for a national Voting Rights Act

Malcolm X

• An African-American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a prominent figure during the civil rights movement

• A vocal advocate for Black empowerment and the promotion of Islam within the Black community

• Believed the civil rights movement should be violent

• Eventually assassinated

Stokely Carmichael

• A prominent organizer in the civil rights movement in the United States and the global pan-African movement

• A key leader in the development of the Black Power movement, first while leading the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

• One of the original SNCC freedom riders of 1961

Black Power

• Emphasized racial pride, economic empowerment, and the creation of political and cultural institutions

• Advocated for militancy and racial separation

• Focused on expressing African American heritage

Black Panthers

• 1967

• Were a militant civil rights organization which frequently got into shoot-outs with the police

  • An ideology of Black nationalism, socialism, and armed self-defense, particularly against police brutality

• Broke from the integrationist goals and nonviolent protest tactics of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

• Shunned by many non-violent civil rights leaders

BIG PICTURE

• AA activists → Civil Rights Movement

• Civil rights associations - Protests + mobilize communities

• Non-violent protest - Voter registration + desegregation

• White supremacist campaigns

• Militant activism - “Black Power” + “black nationalism”