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The Civil Rights Era 1945-1968

Ms. Humes 8 th Period Contemporary American History (Honors). The Civil Rights Era 1945-1968. Background. Two Parts (Commonly accepted ) First Part: 1945- 1954 Reaction from WW2 Changing attitudes about race in America Second Part: 1955- 1968

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The Civil Rights Era 1945-1968

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  1. Ms. Humes 8th Period Contemporary American History (Honors) The Civil Rights Era1945-1968

  2. Background • Two Parts (Commonly accepted) • First Part: 1945-1954 • Reaction from WW2 • Changing attitudes about race in America • Second Part: 1955-1968 • “Spoiled Utopia” – things won’t be easy • Legislation Passed • Race Riots

  3. Why Did the Civil Rights Movement Take Off After 1945? • Black equality became a significant political issue for the Democratic Party; • WWII had been fought against racism abroad—hard to keep harboring it at home; • Black veterans came home dedicated to change; • Increasing number of White Americans condemned segregation; • Discrimination in the United States hurt our propaganda battle against the Communists

  4. Battle in the Courts • Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) “separate but equal” facilities = legal • Richmond County Board of Education (1899) Applied Plessy to the schools • Smith v. Allwright (1944) First attack = “separate is not equal” • Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954) Separate but equal = unconstitutional

  5. Brown vs. Board of Education • The verbatim decision:"segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law; for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the Negro group."

  6. Executive Order 8802 • Signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 25, 1941, to prohibit racial discrimination in the national defense industry. It was the first federal action, though not a law, to promote equal opportunity and prohibit employment discrimination in the United States. • The Committee on Fair Employment Practice was established by Executive Order 8802 within the Office of Production Management to investigate alleged violations and "to take appropriate steps to redress grievances which it finds to be valid."

  7. Executive Order 8802 • The verbatim, operative statement:“It is hereby declared to be the policy of the President that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin. This policy shall be put into effect as rapidly as possible, having due regard to the time required to effectuate any necessary changes without impairing efficiency or morale.”

  8. Check-in Question • Using what you remember from the constitution, how could the President abolish segregation in the military, but it took court cases and legislation to get rid of it in the schools?

  9. Check-in Answer • Since the President is the Commander-in-Chief of the Military (and the Military is part of the executive branch). • The President has the authority to make changes as he or she sees fit. • The schools operate under the laws of national, state, and local governments, so it requires action by the people who make (Legislative) and interpret (Judicial) those laws to make effective change.

  10. 1955: Major Events • Chicagoan Emmett Till is visiting family in Mississippi when he is kidnapped, brutally beaten, shot, and dumped in the Tallahatchie River for whistling at a white woman. Two white men, are arrested for the murder and acquitted by an all-white jury. They later boast about committing the murder in a Look magazine interview. • Rosa Parks, member of the NAACP, refuses to give up her seat to a white passenger, and is arrested. The incident leads to the famous Montgomery Bus Boycott led by the Reverend Martin Luthor King.

  11. Emmitt Till • Emmett Till in a photograph taken by his mother on Christmas Day 1954, about six months before his murder. • Scholars state that when the photo ran in the Jackson Daily News Emmett Till and his mother were given "a profound pathos in the flattering photograph" and that the photograph "humanized the Tills"

  12. Emmitt Till • Till's mother insisted on an open casket. • Images printed in black publications The Chicago Defender andJet magazine of Till made international news and directed attention to the rights of the blacks in the U.S. South.

  13. Response to 1955 • Emmitt Till • Originally sparked a massive outcry from both black and white. • But, as time passed, many whites in Mississippi framed the issue by saying that segregation was for the protection of blacks • Xenophobia in the white south was very racist—hated outsiders trying to “influence”them • The sheriff, who originally said the case was open-and-shut. Now said he didn’t think the body was Tills, that he thought Till was still alive, and that the NAACP planted the body in the river.

  14. Rosa Parks • Rosa Parks in 1955, with Martin Luther King, Jr. in the background

  15. Response to 1955 • Rosa Parks • Became an international icon of resistance to racial segregation. • Sparked Montgomery Bus Boycott • From December 1, 1955, to December 20, 1956 • Led to  a federal ruling, Browder v. Gayle, took effect, and led to a United States Supreme Court decision that declared the Alabama and Montgomery laws requiring segregated buses to be unconstitutional.

  16. 1957: Organization & Action In January, Martin Luther King, Charles K. Steele, and Fred L. Shuttlesworth establish the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, The SCLC becomes a major force in organizing the civil rights movement and bases its principles on nonviolence and civil disobedience. "We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline," he urges. The first major test of this discipline and dignity comes in September when the “Little Rock Nine”are integrated into Little Rock High School later that year. The Little Rock Nine

  17. The Tide Begins to Turn Feb 1, 1960 Four black students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College begin a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter. The event triggers many similar nonviolent protests throughout the South.

  18. Woolworth’s Sit In Commemoration

  19. 1963: Major Change

  20. 1963: Major Change • April 16 • Martin Luther King is arrested and jailed during anti-segregation protests in Birmingham, Ala.; he writes his seminal "Letter from Birmingham Jail,"

  21. 1963: Major Change • May • During civil rights protests in Birmingham, Ala., Commissioner of Public Safety Eugene "Bull" Connor uses fire hoses and police dogs on black demonstrators.

  22. 1963: Major Change • June 12 • Mississippi's NAACP field secretary, 37-year-old Medgar Evers, is murdered outside his home. Byron De La Beckwith is tried twice in 1964, both trials resulting in hung juries. Thirty years later he is convicted for murdering Evers.

  23. 1963: Major Change • Aug. 28 • About 200,000 people join themarch on Washington. • Congregating at the Lincoln Memorial, participants listen as Martin Luther King delivers his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.

  24. 1963: Major Change • Sept. 15 • Four young girls (Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Addie Mae Collins) attending Sunday school are killed when a bomb explodes at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, a popular location for civil rights meetings. Riots erupt in Birmingham, leading to the deaths of two more black youths.

  25. Letter from a Birmingham Jail • King‘s letter is a response to a statement made by eight white Alabama clergymen on April 12, 1963, titled “A Call for Unity”.The clergymen agreed that social injustices existed but argued that the battle against racial segregation should be fought solely in the courts, not in the streets. • They criticized Martin Luther King, calling him an“outsider”who causes trouble in the streets of Birmingham. • To this, King referred to his belief that all communities and states were interrelated. He wrote: • Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly… Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider…”

  26. 1964: The Civil Rights Act July 2 President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The most sweeping civil rights legislation since Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination of all kinds based on race, color, religion, or national origin. The law also provides the federal government with the powers to enforce desegregation.

  27. Black Power Movement • Emerged to enlarge the aims of the Civil Rights Movement • Looking For: • Racial Dignity • Economic and Political Self-Sufficiency • Freedom from white oppression

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