Civil rights movement

  • some reasons why equal rights did not happen after the cival war

    • reconstruction:

      • there were efforts to ensure equal rights for freed african americans from 187 to 1877 however white violence broke out in the 1870s as support for reconstruction waned

    • 1877 president rutherford b hayes withdrew federal troops from the south leading to the end of the reconstruction

    • Jim Crow laws were put in place to keep everyone equal but seperate

  • Ku Klux Klan

    • KKK

      • first terrorist group in the US

      • first klan was a secret vigilante and terorist group that started during reconstruction in the early 1870s then it was eventually suppressed

      • however a second group came about later in the 1890s

  • lynching

    • lynching of black people by whites most often by hanging was common in the US from the 1870s - mid 1920s

    • more than 4,000 black men,women, and children died by lynching


  • Race Riots

    • first police units in the US were the slave patrols used by plantation owners to maintain control over the slaves

    • race riots often happened during elections so that way blacks would not be able to vote

    • white authorities did little or nothing to protect african americans while clamping down hard on those who were in self defense

  • continuing forms of institutional racism through the 1960s

    • police brutality

    • redlining and neighborhood covenants

    • job discrimination

  • voluntary vs unvoluntary

    • sociologist stanley lieberson made an important distinction in an article between voluntary and unvoluntary minorities

  • voluntary minorities

    • come to host country on their own to esscape violence or search for economic opportunities

  • Involuntary Minorities

    • HAVE NOT CHOSEN TO BE IN THE HOST COUNTRY

      • They are there because of conquest or because of capture and enslavement

  • The Attitudes of blacks in American Society: Half in, Half out

    • Because blacks were not fully accepted by white society, they had a mixed attitude toward white society

    • Some wanted to be accepted, while others wanted to separate from white society

    • Some of those in the Marcus Garvey movement and those in the black muslims like Malcolm X, wanted to either leave America for Africa or separate as far as possible from white society

  • meaning of civil rights

    • it means to prevent discrimination

    • These are guarantees made by the government to prevent discrimination

  • meaning of civil liberty

    • provide basic rights and freedom

    • includes freedoms granted by the government and society that are socially accepted

  • major events of the post-war civil rights movement

    • 1947

      • Jackie Robinson integrates Major League Baseball

    • 1948

      • desegregation of the armed forces

    • 1954

      • brown v topeka board of education desegregates schools

    • 1955

      • last lynching included the murder of Emmett Till in Mississippi

    • 1955

      • Montgomery boycott led by Rosa Parks

    • 1957

      • Southern Christian Leadership Conference founded by Martin Luther King Jr

    • 1961

      • Freedom Riders from the North join protests for voting rights and to oppose Jim Crow laws

    • 1963

      • March on Washington to Oppose Discrimination, and the “I Have a Dream “ speech

  • Martin luther king jr

    • The most important member of the civil rights leaders and had a number of very able lieutenants, such as John Lewis, Ralph Abernathy, Whitney Young, A. Philip Randolph, and Roy Wilkins

    • . He was the son of a famous pastor. He received his doctorate from Boston University and very soon thereafter assumed the pulpit at ebenezer baptist church in Atlanta

  • The decline of the cotton economy

    • ,The civil war ended the use of enslaved labor in the cotton industry and cotton was the preferred crop in the South

    • the system of sharecropping in which farmers did not own the land but worked it for a portion of the profits came into widespread use

    • in later decades of the 19th century prices of cotton dropped which contributed to the poverty throught the south

  • organizational growth

    • Mcadam traces the growth of three organizations representing african americans

      • black churches

      • black college enrollments

      • and other civil rights organizations

    • between 1926 and 1962 the number of black churches grew by 17% and totoal church membership increased to 93%

  • political opportunity

    • competition for black votes between the two parties in tight elections in the 1950s and 1960

    • the decision of the democratic party to become more of a party for the north and therefore more solicitious of the african american population

  • cognitive liberation

    • the work of organizational leaders who preached a message of black activism and empowerment and created a willingness to fight for civil rights rather than passively accept segregation

    • black leaders like mlk and john luis spoke in the cadences and imagery of the black churches and inspired tens of thousands of people

  • provacative tactics were effective

    • according to McAdam the ultimate outcome was the result of tactical decisions by civil rights leaders to provoke retaliation for new modes of retallio=ation such as sit ins jail ins freedom rides crossing the selma bridge when banned from doing so

    • there was also retaliation from white supremisists which created a situation whee the federal goverment felt compelled to intervene on behalf of the protesters and the media treated the movement sympathetically because of the violence perpretrated against it