10/22/2024

Civil Rights Movement; Civil Rights Legislation, People and Groups

The Civil Rights Act 1964

• Most famous of all Civil Rights Legislation

• Relies on the 14th, 15th Amendments as well as the Commerce Clause in Article I Section 8 of the US Constitution

• Areas covered in the Act 

  • Voting rights

  • Public accommodations

  • Desegregation of public facilities

  • Limits on discrimination within federally funded programs

  • Employment discrimination

  • Authorized higher court review of district court referrals to state courts

• Passed after more than a decade of action

  • Bus boycotts, business boycotts, lunch counter sit-ins, Freedom Rides, demonstrations, marches, legal battles

• Pressure had been put on President Kennedy

  • Nationally televised police violence in Birmingham Alabama – featured the use of cattle prods, fire hoses, clubs, and biting dogs.

  • 1963 – 1,000 demonstrations in 209 different cities

Kennedy and Civil Rights

• During first two years of Presidency, Kennedy proposed no civil rights legislation

• White House is tied up with foreign relations, defense and economic issues

• On June 11, 1963, Kennedy goes on television  to propose a comprehensive bill covering discrimination in public accommodations and employment, as well as strengthening voting rights enforcement mechanisms.

Violent Response Increases Pressure

• Medgar Evers is murdered outside his home the next evening. (June 12)

• March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom happens in August – further putting pressure on the federal government to act.

• September 15th, 1963 – Fire Bombing of a church in Birmingham kills four girls

  • The bill is still no sure thing to pass through congress

Lyndon Johnson Gets it Done

• Until 1957, Johnson, who was from Texas, had opposed the idea of national Civil Rights Bill

  • During consideration of the 1957 Civil Rights Bill, Johnson had worked in the Senate to weaken the bill, although he voted in favor of it

• Civil Rights Bill is filibustered by a bloc of 19 southern senators. Delays the bill roughly three months. 

  • Bill finally passes 73-27 in Senate and 289-126 in the House of Representatives

• 90% of Southern Legislators vote against the bill

• Resistance after the law is changed

  • George Wallace, who will eventually run for president, is Alabama’s Governor – tries to block desegregation of University of Alabama, when running for President, gives speech: “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever

    • Wins Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia

Voting Rights Act of 1965

• In January of 1965, the SCLC led by Dr. King, built upon previous voting rights work by SNCC and opened a voting rights campaign in Selma Alabama

  • Jimmie Lee Jackson shot by state troopers as he walked in a voting rights march from Selma to Montegomery

• “Bloody Sunday”

  • 500 protestors assemble on Edmund Pettus Bridge, faced with tear gas, billy clubs, and riders on horseback with whips

  • 50 people injured

Johnson Responds

• “I speak tonight for the dignity of man and the destiny of democracy”

• “I urge every member of both parties – Americans of all religions and of all colors – from section of this country – to join me in that cause.”

• “At times history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape a turning point in man’s unending search for freedom. So it was a Lexington and Concord. So it was a century ago at Appomattox. So it was last week in Selma, Alabama.”

• “There is no Negro problem. There is no southern problem. There is no northern problem. There is only an American problem.”

• “This great, rich, restless country can offer opportunity and education and hope to all – all black and white, all North and South, sharecropper and city dweller. These are the enemies --  poverty ignorance, disease – they are our enemies, not our fellow man, not our neighbor. And these enemies too– poverty, disease, and ignorance – we shall overcome

Voting Rights Act 1965

• Outlawed:

  • Literacy tests

  • Challenged US Department of Justice to Challenge poll taxes – which is successful

  • Gave the Attorney General the power to assign federal examiners to observe and direct voter registration where less than half of the eligible residents were registered to vote. (recently struck down in the past 8 years)

    • Law states that jurisdictions with such a history “could not implement any change affecting voting until the Attorney general or the Unites States District Court for the District of Columbia determined that the change did not have discriminatory purpose and would not have a discriminatory effect”

• From CORE

  • The law’s effects were wide and powerful. By 1968, nearly 60% of eligible African Americans were registered to vote in Mississippi, and other southern states showed similar improvement. Between 1965 and 1990, the number of black state legislators and members of Congress rose from two to 160

    • Currently there are 43 African American Congressmen and 1 Senator

Key Individuals and Groups

• Martin Luther King Jr

  • First becomes known during Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955

  • Helped create the SCLC

    • Took ideals from Christianity, and non-violent tactics from Mahatma Gandi

  • Important places he worked, spoke and marched includes:

    • Albany, Georgia

    • Birmingham, Alabama

    • Washington, DC

    • Selma, Alabam

• The Nobel Prize Reports:

  • Between 1957 and 1968, King spoke over twenty-five hundred times, appearing wherever there was injustice, protest, and action… wrote five books, was arrested upwards of 20 times and assaulted at least four times

Malcolm X

• Unlike much of the Civil Rights movement that is focused on the blatant segregation and racism in the South, Malcolm X focused on African Americans living in the Urban North

• Put in prison after being convicted of armed robbery, converts to the Nation of Islam

  • Nation of Islam teaches that blacks were God’s chosen people and that whites were the devil. It is a cult perpetuated by Elijah Muhammad, it is not true Islam

  • Preached racial solidarity and superiority, African Americans would triumph with the help of Allah

  • Preached education through reading, and that economic self-reliance and discipline were key

• Released from Prison in 1952

• Started in Chicago then moved to Harlem in 1954

• Speeches made the Nation of Islam a household name

  • Preached faith, economic self-reliance, while also preaching against all whites

• Nation of Islam membership rises to over 50,000

• Malcom X belittle civil rights leaders, did not agree with King or his methods

  • “These Negroes aren’t asking for any nation – they’re trying to crawl back on the plantation” 1963

• Black nationalism was the correct path, white society was corrupt and corrupted everything it touched – African Americans should control their own education, politics and economy

  • From famous speech “The Ballot or the Bullet” 4/3/1964:

  • Black nationalism “only means that the black man should control the politics and the politicians in his own community… that we will have to carry on a program, a political program of re-education… make us more politically conscious, politically mature.”

• Malcolm X helped bring about the Black Pride Movement

• Malcolm X is asked to stand down by Elijah Muhammad, after Malcolm is critical of the Nation of Islam leader, who had been carrying out affairs with several of his secretaries. Muhammad is weary of Malcolm’s power in the Nation and around the country

• Malcolm goes on a pilgrimage to Mecca. It is here he see Muslims of all races praying in harmony. Malcolm realizes that the Nation of Islam is not a true teaching. He converts to Sunni Islam and took the name El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz

• Malcolm X moderated his views greatly, no longer viewing whites as devils, but still condemns racism. 

• Malcolm X is assassinated by members of the Nation of Islam who are disgruntled by him leaving the Nation. He is assassinated on February 21, 1965 while speaking to a crowd in the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem

Lyndon B. Johnson

• From Texas, is a sympathetic white southerner in the White House following Kennedy’s assassination

• Civil Rights were just a portion of his vision for a “Great Society”

• State of the Union, 1964:

  • “Let me make one principle of this administration abundantly clear: All of these increased opportunities – in employment, in education, in housing, and in every field, must be open to Americans of every color. As far as the writ of Federal law will run, we must abolish, not some, but all racial discrimination. For this is not merely an economic issue, or a social, political, or international issue. It is a moral issue, and it must be met by the passage this session of the bill now pending in the House.”

• Fair Housing Act of 1968 in response to Urban riots in 1967 – banned the discriminatory practices in the sale and rental of homes and apartments – signed into law a week after Dr. King is assassinated

NAACP

• Founded in 1909 by W.E.B DuBois and others following a race riot in Springfield Illinois in 1908

• Purpose “to secure for all people the rights guaranteed in the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the United States Constitution, which promise an end to slavery, the equal protection of the law, and universal adult male suffrage”

• NAACP successful implements court strategy – Legal Defense and Education Fund (LDF)

• Key Players: Charles Hamilton Houston, Thurgood Marshall – eventually becomes Supreme Court Justice

• Membership grows to more than 500,000 post WWII

• Field offices gathered evidence of discrimination and hate crimes, fight against lynching. 

SCLC

• Southern Christian Leadership Conference

  • Made up of mostly Christian Minister and Church Leaders

• Trained thousands of activists in the philosophy of Christian non-violent resistance

• Biggest strength as a coordinating organization – training others to lead the struggle

• Influence waned with the assassination of Dr. King in 1968, coincides with the rise in the black power movement

• Key Events:

  • Albany, Georgia 1962

  • Birmingham, Alabama 1963

  • St. Augustine, Florida, 1963-64

  • March on Washington

  • Selma, Alabama 1965

  • Chicago Freedom Movement 1966

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee 

• Grassroots organization, established in 1960 in the midst of the college lunch counter sit-ins.

  • First meetings take place in Raleigh North Carolina

  • Eventually housed meetings under the SCLC in Atlanta Georgia

    • SCLC wanted SNCC to become the youth arm of the SCLC

• Key leaders: James Farmer, John Lewis, Diane Nash, James Lawson and Marion Barry

• Freedom Rides are coordinated by SNCC

• Practiced non-violent protest

• Primary Focus – voter registration

• White Supremacist violence eventually changes the group

  • During 1966 March Against Fear, organized by James Meredith, Stokely Carmichael gave his first “Black Power Speech.” SNCC began to divide.

• 1968 – N in SNCC is changed from Non-violent to National. Within two years, SNCC is disbanded and is superseded by the Black Panther Party

9/24/24

The Civil Rights Movement; Protests and Action

Protests and Action

• Schools are not the only focus area of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 60s

• The Desegregation of Public Facilities was also the target of action small and large

  • Transportation is a focal point

• Voting rights were also a focus of organized campaigns

The Montgomery Bus Boycott

• Began in December 1955 and ended a year later

• The boycott was the first community action that brought nationwide attention to the civil rights struggle

• A 27 year old Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. emergences as a charismatic leader

  • Catalyzed the creation of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)

    • Would be a major organizer of significant protests and demonstrations 

• Montgomery Bus Boycott was not the first challenge to segregated transportation

  • 1946, Thurgood Marshall and William Hastie successfully challenge segregation on Interstate Travel in Irene Morgan v. the Commonwealth of Virginia

• In Montgomery prior to the bus Boycott, English Teacher at Alabama State College Jo Ann Robinson led the Women’s Political Council in discussions over bus segregation with Montgomery Officials 

  • No Progress

• Several people were arrested in 1955 for refusing to give up their seat on buses

  • Claudette Colvin (15)

  • Aureila S. Browder

  • Mary Louise Smith

• Ed Dixon, former president of the Alabama NAACP, Jo Ann Robinson, Rosa Parks, Secretary of NAACP, Rufus Lewis, voter registration activist, and Dr. King meet with city officials but no progress is made

Rosa Parks

• Had been involved with the NAACP since 1932, officially a member since 1943

• Was involved in an incident with the same bus driver, James F. Blake, in 1943 and 1955

• 1943, elected Montgomery NAACP secretary

  • difficult job, she documented violent acts, and investigate murders, voter intimidation and rape

Montgomery Bus Boycott

• On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks and three other African Americans are asked to give up their seats to accommodate whites. All but Parks comply

  • Parks is arrested and taken to jail

• On December 2, the women’s political council (under leadership of Jo Ann Robinson), decided to organize a one day bus boycott. 

  • 50,000 leaflets were printed to publicize the event

  • Ed Nixon set up a meeting including Reverend Ralph David Abernathy and Dr. King

    • Three demands: a pledge from city and bus company officials that African Americans would be treated with courtesy, a revision of the city code that would seat white Americans from front to back and African Americans from back to front, with no reserved areas, and the hiring of African American drivers for routes that carried all or mostly African American passengers

• King – “We are not asking for an end to segregation. That’s a matter for the legislature and the courts… All we are seeking is justice and fair treatment in riding the buses”

• Bus Boycott is Monday December 5th

  • Almost no African Americans boarded the buses

• Rosa Parks appears in Court and is found guilty – pays $14 dollar fine

• Montgomery Improvement Association is founded, 27 year old king is chosen as president

• King speaks at Holt Street Baptist Church in front of over 1000, begins rise to prominence

• Vote to extend boycott passes easily

• African Americans, and a few whites, choose to walk or carpool – even if this added significant commuting time

  • MIA even raised enough money to buy two cars to ferry people around in.

  • Over 40,000 African Americans in Montgomery participate

• January 30th, 1956, King’s home is bombed while his wife Coretta and young daughter were home

• February 1, Ed Nixon’s home is fire bombed

• White Citizen’s Council tries to break the boycott, city officials brought up conspiracy charges against 90 boycott leaders

  • King and others convicted, but this brings more national support to the Boycott

• Aurelia S Browder, et al, v. W A Gayle

  • November 13th Supreme Court decides: bus segregation violates 14th amendment

• December 20th, Buses are officially desegregated

  • Many public facilities remain segregated

• December 24, 1956

  • Five white men attack a 15 year old girl

• Four Churches and two homes, including that of Reverend Abernathy were bombed on January 10th, 1957

The Freedom Rides, 1961

• Way of exerting pressure on governments at all levels, state, local, and especially federal, to enforce the right of African Americans to use interstate transportation unencumbered by segregation

• Rulings in Irene Morgan v. the Commonwealth of VA 1946 and Boyton v. Virginia couple with the US Constitution’s Commerce Clause and the Interstate Commerce Act, make segregation of buses and transportation facilities illegal

• Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) leader James Farmer hopes Kennedy will focus on enforcement of Civil Rights

  • Two mixed groups would travel from DC to New Orleans, passing through VA, NC, SC, GA, AL, and MS

  • “We put on pressure and create a crisis (for federal leaders) and then they react”

Freedom Rides

• SCLC and NAACP agrees to provide housing and food for those making the trip

  • Freedom rides are not universally supported however

    • Medgar Evers, veteran and civil rights activist, thought that the Freedom rides would reverse the progress being made in Mississippi

• Many whites in the growing middle class lived away from racial disparity, Freedom Rides would continue to bring the issue to their attention

  • Bob Dylan “how many times can man turn his head pretending he just doesn’t see” 

Freedom RIder

• May 4th, 1961, thirteen riders, six white and seven African American, begin their trip

• Relatively peaceful first part of the trip

  • Reach Alabama things change

  • Anniston – 30-50 men armed with sticks and metal bars surround the bus, rocks thrown through bus windows and two tires were destroyed

  • Bus leaves, 40 cars follow. Bus gets a flat, mob surrounds bus

    • Held off by undercover Alabama Highway patrolman who had a gun

    • Bus gets firebombed, everybody evacuates the bus, Eli Cowling threatened to kill anybody who attacked

Freedom Rides

• Other bus, gets attacked at Terminal in Birmingham Alabama.

• KKK mob of 30 men armed with baseball bats, chains and pipes first attacked reporters and news photographers, then Freedom Riders and bystanders

• Bus drivers refuse to take the groups any further

• Kennedy – publically called for calm, privately asked the Freedom Rides to stop. Kennedy had alerted local police forces about Freedom rides and know threats of violence, but did not act himself.

• CORE no longer directed Freedom rides, but the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) led by John Lewis and Diane Nash organized a second trip

  • Participants wrote last will and testaments before embarking

  • Kennedy tries to stop them, but they refuse

• Freedom riders were beaten when getting off busses in Montgomery

  • Rally held in response at Abernathy’s church. 

  • Mob surrounds church, tear gas thrown.

    • AG Bobby Kennedy called in 500 unarmed federal marshals, can barely hold back mob

  • Kennedy urges governor Patterson to call in Alabama National Guard

• Freedom riders are guaranteed protection through Alabama

• King is invited to join the freedom riders, but declines, citing his terms of probation

• Once in Mississippi, Kennedy makes a deal with the governor, allowing the arrest of Freedom Riders  for disturbing the peace. Freedom riders spend time in prison

  • In response more than 300 untrained and unsolicited Freedom Riders descend upon Mississippi

• Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) issues ban on segregation on interstate travel after pressure from Kennedy

• Freedom rides are successful, but support from Kennedy is slow and limited

• SCLC is seen as too cautious by other groups like SNCC

• Target: Political Power, specifically voting rights and political representation

• Mississippi: KKK membership includes government officials, businessmen, police and Parchman Prison employees

  • Home of the White Citizens Council

• SNCC member Robert Moses comes to the state to encourage voter registration in 1961, gets beaten, accused get acquitted by all white jury.

• State legislator EH Hurst, murders voting rights activist Herbert Lee in front of several witnesses and is never brought to trial

Freedom Summer

• Target: Political Power, specifically voting rights and political representation

• Mississippi: KKK membership includes government officials, businessmen, police and Parchman Prison employees

  • Home of the White Citizens Council

• SNCC member Robert Moses comes to the state to encourage voter registration in 1961, gets beaten, accused get acquitted by all white jury.

• State legislator EH Hurst, murders voting rights activist Herbert Lee in front of several witnesses and is never brought to trial

• Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) is created to coordinate between the NAACP, SCLC, CORE, SNCC, and the National Urban League (NUL) to carry out the newly funded Voter Education Program (VEP)

  • Fund gave them access to AG Kennedy, but the federal government offered no protection

• Goal is to register African Americans to vote across the South

  • 500,000 were registered by 1964

  • Gains had not been made in Mississippi

• Mississippi oppression: Poll Tax, Grandfather clauses, literacy test, and violence and intimidation

  • 1% of 400,000 potential African American voters registered

• Goal: combine voter education, registration and political activism

  • Freedom Schools – teach literacy and civics to both adults and children

  • Fully integrated project, middle and upper class white students help with education efforts

• Bob Moses

  • “a concern which existed within the Mississippi staff which was predominantly people who grew up and lived in Mississippi, were from Mississippi, had spent their lives in, under the Mississippi condition which was strict segregation and really living in this closed society. So they had very little working contact with white people, and they weren’t anxious to introduce them into the project which they viewed as, and rightly so, their project, their effort, something which they had created out of nothing really and at great risk.”

• “Beloved community” – term popularized by Dr. King, that comes from love and commitment to non-violence. The Beloved Community would not tolerate any form of discrimination, poverty, hunger or homelessness. Disputes, whether local or international would be resolved through the process of conflict resolution with the dual goals of peace and justice

• Private goal of COFO – get whites threatened or victims of violence. Then maybe the government would intervene.

• First major setback: three civil rights workers reported missing in Neshoba County Mississippi – James Chaney, Mickey Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman

• All three eventually found murdered

• Freedom Summer moved forward under uncertainty. 41 Freedom Schools were established, many in churches and under through of arson, more than 3000 youths attended

• 17,000 register to vote, 1,600 accepted.

• Mississippi Freedom Democratic party had been formed in April 1964 to challenge all white Democratic Party

• Mississippi Establishment does not take this lightly

  • Terms such as “carpetbaggers,” “intruders” “Communists” “racial zealots” thrown around in the press

  • From the Klan Ledger “We have taken no action as yet against the enemies of our State, our Nation, and our Civilization, but we are not going to sit back and permit our rights and the rightes of our posterity to be negotiated away by a group composed of “Jewish” priests, bluegum black savages and mongrelized money-worshippers”

• Arrests of Civil rights workers were common, often on dubious charges such as reckless driving or running a stop sign. Drivers were even arrested for car theft when driving their own vehicles.

  • SNCC recorded “35 shooting incidents, with three persons injured, 30 homes and buildings bombed, 35 churches burned, 80 persons beaten; at least six persons murdered”

• Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman found buried under an earthen dam by a search team headed by the FBI. No charges brought up, even with known KKK ties and Horace Barnette and James Jordan later admitting to the killings. Eventually, federal prosecutors charge 18 suspects with civil rights violations – 7 including KKK Grand Wizard Sam Bowers were convicted and sentenced to 3-10 years prison.

• Freedom Summer Ends with few successes, many students head back to college

• Lyndon Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act – Freedom Summer seen as partially responsible.

Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party

• Included in 1964 Democratic Convention

  • Fannie Lou Hamer gives speech at convention, speaking out about what was happening in Mississippi. 

  • President Johnson, fearful of losing the nomination, holds press conference while she is speaking, diverting media attention

• Technically, MFDP did not have seats to vote at convention, but compromise was reached to give them two votes. MFDP rejects this.

9/20/2024

Civil Rights Movement; The NAACP and The Courts

• Legally allowing jim crow laws

The Long Road to Ending Segregation

• Reminder: Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 US 537 (1896) was a landmark constitutional law case of the US Supreme Court. It upheld state racial segregation laws for public facilities under the doctrine of "separate but equal". – 14th Amendment which called for “Due Process of Law” and “Equal Protection” had not been incorporated to apply to the states

• Brown v. Board of Education: finally make school segregation illegal in 1954

  • Chief Justice of the Supreme Court: Earl Warren – liberal Justice appointed in 1953 shifts focus of US Supreme Court

  • However, the road to Brown vs. the Board is part of a long-term, deliberate strategy of the NAACP

Margold Report 1930

• Nathan Ross Margold wrote a report for the NAACP that suggested attaching segregation through the Courts

  • Designed to first rally behind anti-lynching laws! 

  • “if we boldly challenge the constitutional validity of segregation if and when accompanied irremediably by discrimination, we can strike directly at the most prolific sources of discrimination”

• The Margold Report proposed to attack the doctrine of separate but equal by challenging the inherent inequality of segregation in publicly funded primary and secondary schools.

Margold Strategy: Altered

• To go to segregation everywhere in some parts of the Country to desegregating schools would be a big, but important jump. Desegregating schools is a key to overcoming racist attitudes.

• Charles Hamilton Houston

  • A prominent African-American lawyer, Dean of Howard University Law School, and NAACP Litigation Director

  • Shifted the Margold Strategy to a more gradual on one. Would start with the most specific schooling and then would try to get general education desegregated

•  This would be a difficult task, as the NAACP was up against legal precedent and judicial restraint.

  • Legal decisions, called Opinions, guide the lower courts – Plessy v. Ferguson was accepted precedent

The State of Education

• Was the “equal” in “separate but equal” true?

  • Studies had shown in 1930 that per pupil spending was two to five times higher in White schools then in African American schools

  • Pay for African American teachers was significantly lower for African American teachers then it was for white educators

  • Facilities within schools were completely unequal

  • School year for African Americans was shorter

  • Part of the legal strategy – to truly make the schools equal would be too expensive, desegregate schools. (not the center of the winning argument in brown vs board)

The Beginning of the Road to Brown v. Board

• Murray v. Maryland 1935

  • Donald Murray was rejected from the University of Maryland School of Law. His application was not even considered, and he was told to apply to the Princess Anne Academy, which was a junior college that did not offer graduate or law classes.

  • Charles Houston, with assistance from Thurgood Marshall, successfully argued that Princess Anne Academy did not offer an education remotely close to that of the University of Maryland. The Maryland State Supreme Court upheld a lower court decision to force UMD to let him in. This case only applies in Maryland

• Gaines v. Missouri 1938

  • Missouri Law school would not admit African Americans, but would pay any tuition difference if an African American attended a law school in another state

  • Missouri Supreme Court rules against Lloyd Gaines

  • US Supreme Court overturns the decision – ruling that separate facilities had to be equal within a state – but does not comment on segregated facilities themselves

    • This was Houston’s last case argued for NAACP, but his successor Thurgood Marshall picked up where he left off.

    • Marshall would have to get the Courts to recognize that separate facilities could never be equal, even if equally funded

The Road to Brown v. Board

• Sweatt v. Painter 1950

  • In 1946, Herman Sweatt had applied for admission to the University of Texas School of Law. UT had built a second law school for African Americans.

  • US Supreme Court rules that even if the facilities were equal, a law school was more than a legal education – the interactions with students, professors and access to a law library and reputation mattered, and thus a separate law school could never be equal – this only applies to graduate schools (narrow ruling)

• McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents 1950

  • Not separate law school, but segregated facilities within schools. This was ruled against by the US Supreme Court

Brown vs. the Board of Education

• Officially this is a consolidated case, the NAACP had been arguing public school cases around the Country:

  • Briggs vs. Elliott – elementary and High school students in Clarendon South Carolina

  • Davis v. County School Board – high school students from Prince Edward County Virginia

  • Gebhart v. Belton – elementary and high school students from New Castle County Delaware. 

  • Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka – elementary school students from Topeka Kansas

  • Bolling v. Sharpe – Washington DC

• (Why brown? Because of the location. Figured pick somewhere middle of the country rather than south, representation of the us)

• Court Case would be heard by the Supreme Court twice

  • Chief Justice Fred Vinson dies of a heart attack , Earl Warren is appointed to the Court

    • Warren had never been a judge, but had been Governor of California and a was former prosecutor

Earl Warren and Brown v. Board

• Warren, was a republican, but had favored “a sweeping civil rights program, beginning with a fair employment practices act”

  • “I insist upon one law for all men”

• Over his career on the Supreme Court, Warren was the leader of the most progressive Supreme Court in US History.

  • Eisenhower, called his appointment of Warren “the biggest damned-fool mistake I ever made”

• Warren pushed for a unanimous decision on the case, he wanted a strong ruling on such a momentous and divisive issue

• While the Court Case called for the end of segregation, it also called for schools to be desegregated with “all deliberate speed”

• This leaves open the door for resistence

Resistance to Desegregation

• Majority of School districts in the South oppose the Court ruling

• 10 former Confederate States pass laws requiring or at least allowing segregated schools

  • Most of these states also prohibited tax dollars from being spent on desegregated schools

• Southern Manifesto

  • 19 US Senators and 77 congressmen, signed document pledging to not allow desegregated public schools

• Federal Courts would have over 200 desegregation hearings, with Courts often ordering the school systems to desegregate.

Virginia: Massive Resistance

• Governor Thomas Stanley appoints a commission of 32 White state lawmakers to plan a response to Brown ruling

• Interposition: idea that states could place themselves between the federal government and the citizens of the state when state officials felt the federal government had exceeded its powers

• Segregationists Democratic Senator Harry F Byrd gives a speech calling for “Massive Resistance” to federally mandated desegregation

• Virginia legislature passes a plan to close all schools that integrated. State funding would be cut off to those schools

• Virginia would go on to offer private school grants – but these were not adequate to fully fund new “academy” schools that only acceptable whites.

• Virginia tried to allow for school choice – allowing parents to place their children into the schools of their choosing.

  • Practice abolished in Green v. New Kent County

• Prince Edward County would hold out the longest in VA, closing through 1964

• Massive resistance is the workings of white politicians and white citizens in response to desegregation and integration and civil rights change

Little Rock Arkansas, 1957

• Arkansas Government comes up with Blossom Plan

  • Comply with Brown as loosely as possible

  • Plan to integrate high schools by 1957 and start elementary school integration in 1963

  • NAACP sues, but federal courts rule Blossom Plan (general transition) complies

  • 9 African American students are chosen to be the first to integrate Central High in Little Rock

•  Governor Orval E. Faubus 

  • Requests help from the federal government to protect citizens from violence, but is shot down

  • As a result Faubus sends in the Arkansas National Guard to prevent those 9 students from entering the school to prevent the breakout of violence

Little Rock 9

• On 9/23/57, Faubus has Arkansas Guard stand down, and allows the Little Rock 9 to enter the school as an angry crowd gathers

• President Eisenhower has to send in the 101st Airborne Division

  • “Whenever normal agencies prove inadequate to the task… to uphold the Federal Courts, the President’s responsibility is inescapable”

  • “Mob rule cannot be allowed to override the decisions of the courts”

• Troops are eventually replaced by the National Guard who remain at the school for the remainder of the year

• The next year, all high schools in Little Rock were closed for the year in reaction

• “We the parents of the parents of the nine negro children enrolled at Little Rock Central High School want you to know that your action in safe guarding their rights have strengthened our faith in Democracy”

• “If the federal government fails to take a strong positive stand at this time it will set the progress of integration back fifty years” – Dr. Martin Luther King

• Ernest Green graduates in 1958, Dr. King attends

9/18/2024

Civil Rights Movement; 1954-1965! Part 1: Background

Background

• Following the American Civil War, Three major Amendments passed

• 13th

  • Abolished Slavery

  • Except in the case of a crime

• 14th

  • Established Citizenship

  • “nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of law

• 15th

  • Provided for the right to vote regardless of “race, color, or condition of previous servitude (Slavery)

  • 19th ammendment gave women suffrage.. A little later!

• General Purpose of these laws: besides abolishing slavery, guarantee the rights further regardless of race. Eventual goal of some – political and legal equality of African Americans

• Civil Rights Bill of 1866: added Equal Rights in contracts and Employment, attempting to Provide for equality of economic opportunity

• Gains made after the Civil war end with the election of 1877 (corrupt bargain), ending reconstruction of the South

Opposition to Racial Equality

• The Ku Klux Klan

  • Founded by 6 former confederates, including Nathan Bedford Forrest

  • Secret Vigilante Group, members dressed as the ghosts of dead Confederates to intimidate Freedmen

  • n effect, the Klan was a military force serving the interests of the Democratic party, the planter class, and all those who desired restoration of white supremacy. Its purposes were political, but political in the broadest sense, for it sought to affect power relations, both public and private, throughout Southern society. It aimed to reverse the interlocking changes sweeping over the South during Reconstruction: to destroy the Republican party's infrastructure, undermine the Reconstruction state, reestablish control of the black labor force, and restore racial subordination in every aspect of Southern life. Dies out in 1870s with the End of Reconstruction

  • The Klan will come back in the 1920s, and again in the 1950s and 60s as protest to Civil Rights laws

Jim Crow

• Supreme Court of late 1800s erodes the power of the 14th amendment to applying to the states

• Plessy VS. Ferguson

  • Main thing that codifies shit!!

  • Legally Allows “Separate but Equal”

  • Jim Crow laws become popular in the south

  • Jim Crow laws also disenfranchise African Americans through the Poll Tax, Grandfather Clause and Literacy Tests

• Great Migration 1910-1930

  • Many African Americans flee the rural south for Northern Industrial Cities and the West. Roughly 6 Million blacks leave to escape Jim Crow

Lynching

• From 1888-1923, there were more than 2,500 African Americans lynched by White Mobs. 

  • Individuals were often burned, hanged or Shot for alleged crimes

    • Sexual Assault or Crimes against “White Women” were a common theme

Klan in the 1920s

• Membership Increases Dramatically

  • Issues of Mass Immigration to the Unites States

  • Group was Anti-Catholic, Anti-Semetic, and Anti-African American

• Popular Film of the Time – Birth of A Nation – Glorified Early KKK

  • Film was screened in the white House by President Wilson

Race Riots in America

• Wilmington North Carolina 1898

  • Democrats are defeated in 1896, come back with a vengeance in 1898

    • “If it requires lynching to protect a women’s dearest possession from ravening, drunken human beasts, then I say lynch a thousand Negroes a week.” – Rebecca Felton

  • Following victory, white Americans physically removed African American Government officials, set the African American newspaper office on fire and shot at African Americans. At least 25 were killed, but that actual number could be closer to 100. Many were banished from town

• Atlanta Georgia, 1906

  • September 22 – four alleged assaults by African American Men on white women reported in Newspapers

  • Thousands of white men assemble, destroying businesses. 

  • African Americans Arm themselves in response, brawling still occurs.

  • 250 African Americans Arrested, One Policeman Dies, two White men die, 25-40 African Americans are killed.

Race Riots

• Tulsa Oklahoma, 1921

  • Occurred over 18 hours, white mob violence responsible for deaths of 50-300 African Americans, destruction of over 1000 homes and Businesses

  • Allegedly Started like this: African American Man, Dick Rowland, stepped on the foot of a white women, Sarah Page, in an elevator. The incident was reported in the newspapers as an attempted Rape

• Elaine Arkansas, 1919

  • Armed African American Guards for a Union Meeting at Hoop Spur Church were confronted by the Sheriff and white Security Officers

    • Shots exchanged, Sheriff Wounded and White security Office was killed

  • Next day, mob of 500-100 descend on the Town. 

  • Overall, 300 African Americans were arrested, 122 charged with crimes, 12 tried and convicted of Murder, many innocents please guilty of Second degree Murder in Fear. 

  • Moore v. Dempsey – Mob dominated trials deprived people of Due Process

1. Plessy v. Ferguson: A landmark 1896 Supreme Court case that upheld state racial segregation laws under the doctrine of 'separate but equal', which led to the establishment of Jim Crow laws.

2. Brown v. Board of Education: A landmark 1954 Supreme Court case that declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional, marking a crucial turning point in the civil rights movement.

3. NAACP: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, founded in 1909, aimed to secure civil rights for African Americans, focusing on “to secure for all people the rights guaranteed in the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the United States Constitution.”

4. CORE (Congress of Racial Equality): A civil rights organization that played a pivotal role in the Freedom Rides, aiming to end segregation and discrimination through nonviolent direct action.

5. 13th Amendment: Ratified in 1865, this amendment abolished slavery, stating, "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, shall exist within the United States."

6. 14th Amendment: Established citizenship and equal protection under the law, declaring that "nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

7. 15th Amendment: Ratified in 1870, prohibiting the federal and state governments from denying a citizen the right to vote based on "race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

8. KKK: The Ku Klux Klan is a white supremacist hate group founded in the 1860s, which engaged in terrorism against African Americans and aimed to restore white supremacy in the South.

9. Great Migration: The movement of over six million African Americans from the rural South to urban areas in the North and West during the early to mid-20th century, seeking better economic opportunities and escaping Jim Crow laws.

10. Lynching: The act of murdering an individual by a mob, often by hanging, for alleged crimes. From 1888-1923, over 2,500 lynchings were recorded, usually targeting African Americans branded with "crimes" against white people, especially regarding sexual assault.

11. Poll Tax: A fee required for voting that effectively disenfranchised poorer African American voters, particularly in Southern states.

12. Literacy Test: An examination that required voters to demonstrate reading skills, used as a tool to disenfranchise black voters and enforced subjectively.

13. Grandfather Clause: A legal provision that allowed voters to bypass literacy tests and poll taxes if their grandfather had been eligible to vote prior to 1867, which effectively disenfranchised many African Americans.

14. Jim Crow Laws: State and local laws enacted across the South that enforced racial segregation and discrimination after the Reconstruction era, codifying the principle of "separate but equal."

15. Charles Hamilton Houston: A prominent African-American lawyer and NAACP Litigation Director, who played an instrumental role in advancing civil rights through legal strategies, shifting the focus to desegregation in public education.

16. Margold Report: Written by Nathan Ross Margold in 1930, this report proposed to challenge segregation in courts by connecting arguments about discrimination to the established doctrine of "separate but equal."

17. Murray v. Maryland: A 1935 Supreme Court case where the Court ruled that the University of Maryland must admit African American applicants, reinforcing the argument against the legality of separate educational institutions.

18. Gaines v. Missouri: A 1938 Supreme Court ruling overturning Missouri's policy against admitting African Americans to law schools, emphasizing that separate educational facilities must be equal.

19. Sweatt v. Painter: A 1950 Supreme Court case that found that a separate law school for African Americans was not equal to a white law school due to the differences in educational quality and social interactions.

20. McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents: A 1950 Supreme Court ruling against the segregation of facilities within educational institutions, reinforcing the idea that ‘separate’ could never be ‘equal.’

21. Thurgood Marshall: Renowned civil rights attorney who served as the chief counsel for the NAACP, eventually becoming the first African American Supreme Court Justice and a pivotal figure in civil rights litigation.

22. Earl Warren: Chief Justice of the United States (1953-1969), who led the Court in groundbreaking decisions such as Brown v. Board of Education, advocating for equality and civil rights.

23. Interposition: The theory that states could interpose themselves between the federal government and their citizens, theoretically to block federal laws they believed were unconstitutional.

24. Massive Resistance: A strategy used by Southern states to oppose desegregation through legislative and social actions designed to thwart compliance with desegregation rulings from the federal courts.

25. Little Rock 9: The group of nine African American students who integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957, facing fierce opposition and requiring federal intervention to ensure their safety.

26. Montgomery Bus Boycott: A year-long protest that began in December 1955 against racial segregation on public buses in Montgomery, initiated by the arrest of Rosa Parks, which catalyzed the civil rights movement and led to Dr. King’s rise as a leader.

27. Martin Luther King Jr.: Influential leader in the civil rights movement known for advocating nonviolent protest and civil disobedience to achieve equality; well-known for his 'I Have a Dream' speech delivered at the March on Washington.

28. Rosa Parks: A civil rights activist recognized for her pivotal role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott after she refused to surrender her bus seat to a white passenger, sparking significant societal change.

29. Jo Ann Robinson: A civil rights activist who played a key role in organizing the Montgomery Bus Boycott through the Women’s Political Council, advocating for fair treatment in transportation.

30. Women’s Political Council: An African American women's organization in Montgomery that worked for civil rights and helped spark the Montgomery Bus Boycott by mobilizing the community against bus segregation.

31. SNCC: The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, a civil rights organization established in 1960 focused on fostering youth participation in the civil rights movement through nonviolent protests.

32. Freedom Summer: A campaign launched in 1964 to increase voter registration among African Americans in Mississippi, highlighting the violence and resistance faced by civil rights workers.

33. Freedom Rides: Organized bus trips in 1961 aimed at challenging segregation in interstate bus terminals, which faced violent resistance but increased national attention on civil rights.

34. SCLC: Southern Christian Leadership Conference, founded by civil rights leaders including Dr. King, focused on coordinating nonviolent protests and advocating for civil rights across the South.

35. March on Washington: A historic rally in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 1963, where Dr. King delivered his famous 'I Have a Dream' speech, advocating for civil and economic rights for African Americans.

36. Beloved Community: A term emphasized by Dr. King that describes a society characterized by justice, peace, respect, and harmony where all individuals thrive together.

37. COFO: The Council of Federated Organizations, a coalition of civil rights organizations including NAACP, CORE, SCLC, and SNCC aimed at coordinating civil rights efforts in Mississippi.

38. Freedom Schools: Educational programs established during Freedom Summer to teach literacy and civil rights awareness, reflecting the integrated efforts of volunteers and local communities.

39. MFDP: The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party formed in 1964 to challenge the legitimacy of the all-white Mississippi Democratic Party, embodying the fight for political representation.

40. Civil Rights Act 1964: Landmark legislation that outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, marking a significant achievement in the civil rights movement.

41. Malcolm X: A civil rights activist and prominent figure in the Black nationalist movement, known for his advocacy of black empowerment and his critical perspective on mainstream civil rights strategies.

42. Voting Rights Act 1965: A pivotal piece of federal legislation prohibiting racial discrimination in voting, ensuring African Americans' access to the voting booth as part of the broader civil rights agenda.