Civil Rights Movement and Freedom Struggle

Civil Rights Movement and Freedom Struggle

Desegregation Efforts

  • Housing.

  • Sports (Jackie Robinson, Marion Motley, Earl Lloyd).

  • Universities.

Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

  • NAACP funds and supports numerous attempts to attempt to overturn Plessy v. Ferguson.

  • Chief counsel Thurgood Marshall advocates for numerous plaintiffs re: school segregation and wins a favorable ruling in Brown that school segregation is fundamentally unequal.

  • Other notable court victories include Loving v. Virginia (1967), which ends legal bans on interracial marriage.

Little Rock Nine and Student Activism

  • Little Rock, Arkansas school desegregation efforts are met with violence, requiring Eisenhower to federalize the National Guard to enforce Brown.

  • Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) organize nonviolent sit-in programs and Freedom Rides.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

  • Baptist preacher from Atlanta, Georgia, assigned to a church in Montgomery, Alabama after receiving his doctorate.

  • First president of Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

  • Immensely charismatic speaker and excellent writer.

  • Advocates nonviolent resistance and broad coalition building.

  • Goals include world peace and economic equality.

Ella Baker

  • Important organizer for the NAACP and other civil rights institutions.

  • Worked largely without public recognition for close to 50 years.

  • Critiqued sexism both outside and inside the movement.

Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott

  • NAACP secretary’s arrest for refusing to surrender her seat is used as inciting incident for highly organized local boycott and nationwide protest.

  • Elevates MLK’s profile nationally and leads to desegregating of public transit.

Malcolm X and Black Power

  • Not all Black Americans shared MLK’s beliefs, methods, and objectives.

  • Nation of Islam is one of many black nationalist groups that gain popularity.

  • Malcolm X advocates for separation from white society rather than integration and encourages the use of violence in self-defense rather than nonviolent protest.

John F. Kennedy

  • Youngest elected president and first Catholic, from a prominent Massachusetts political family.

  • Intensely charismatic, useful in the developing medium of television.

  • Offers verbal support for some civil rights reforms as part of his “New Frontier” platform, but Civil Rights Act is filibustered in Congress.

Pressures at Home and Abroad

  • 16th Street Bombing, KKK beatings of Freedom Riders horrified many Americans.

  • International criticism.

  • Louis Armstrong and Jazz Ambassadors.

  • Black athletes and other stars contribute their activism.

March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

  • Organized in 1963 by A Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin.

  • Assembles 250,000 to protest segregation and economic injustice.

  • Features MLK’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

Kennedy Assassination and Lyndon B. Johnson

  • Kennedy is killed in 1963.

  • LBJ takes office and furthers “Great Society” platform.

1964 Election

  • LBJ (D) wins 90% of electoral vote and 61% of popular vote against Barry Goldwater (R).

Civil and Voting Rights Acts

  • Johnson helps pass multiple civil rights laws and the 24th Amendment in 1964.

  • Codifies prior Supreme Court decisions.

  • Any “public” service cannot discriminate in sales or hiring.

  • 24th Amendment outlaws poll tax.

  • Voting Rights Act in 1965.

Watts Uprising, Long Hot Summer, and Kerner Commission

  • Numerous uprisings in urban centers occur throughout the mid- to late 1960s.

  • 1967 Kerner Commission determines “riots” caused by poverty, unequal services, and police brutality.

  • Both Malcolm X and MLK are assassinated (‘65, ‘68).

Black Panther Party

  • A revolutionary political party formed in Oakland in 1966.

  • Offers Ten-Point Program for self-help, community programs, and advocates for armed self-defense.