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Aim : What were the significant events of the Civil Rights Movement?. Najee creatid dierit wetar. African-American History Review for 8 th Graders. First African Americans arrived in the 13 Colonies as early as 1619.
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Aim: What were the significant events of the Civil Rights Movement? Najeecreatiddieritwetar
African-American History Review for 8th Graders • First African Americans arrived in the 13 Colonies as early as 1619. • Many of the first African Americans who arrived in the 13 Colonies were indentured servants or people who worked on a contract and then received their freedom. • After 1660, many of the 13 Colonies changed the rules and many African Americans became slaves. By 1800, many of the northern colonies abolished slavery but the south did not.
African-American History Review for 8th Graders • African Americans never received any mention in the Declaration of Independence. The statement “all men are created equal” does not apply to African Americans. • In the Constitution, African Americans were the subject of the 3/5 Compromise. This compromise stated that 3 out of 5 African Americans counted towards the population of southern states.
African-American History Review for 8th Graders • Slavery flourished in the southern United States because of Eli Whitney’s cotton gin which made cotton picking faster and cheaper. • The northern states created the abolition movement which tried to eliminate slavery in the southern United States. • One of the major issues of the Civil War was the concept of states rights and slavery. Northern states believed that slavery was evil while the Southern states believed that slavery had every right to exist.
African-American History Review for 8th Graders • The Civil War, won by the North, pretty much ended slavery for good. • During Reconstruction, the 13th Amendment ended slavery, the 14th Amendment gave African Americans equal citizenship and equal rights while the 15th Amendment gave African American males the right to vote. • After 1877, things changed for the worse.
African-American History Review for 8th Graders • After 1877, Jim Crow laws, literacy tests, poll taxes and grandfather clauses limited the rights of African Americans in the southern United States. • In 1896, the United States Supreme Court allowed for segregation in public facilities with the Plessy v. Ferguson Case. African Americans had to live with the phrase of separate but equal and separate facilities than white. • African American groups such as the NAACP began to demand equality and justice for all. • After 1945, this came to fruition with the start of the Civil Rights movement.
Civil Rights Under Harry Truman (1945-1953) -The Truman administration took steps to end racial discrimination in the United States. -In 1946, Truman appointed a Commission on Civil Rights. The commission stated that the government should enforce civil rights and end segregation in all areas of American life. -Although Congress failed to act on the commission report, Truman then ordered desegregation in the armed forces. -This was the start of desegregation on the federal level.
On the private level, there were signs that Blacks were slowly gaining civil rights. • Black athletes like Josh Gibson and Satchel Paige were interested in playing in the white only major leagues, but were unable to due to segregation. • In 1947, Jackie Robinson became the first Black to break Major League Baseball’s color line. Two years later, Robinson won the MVP
Civil Rights Under Dwight Eisenhower (1953-1961) • During the administration of Dwight Eisenhower, some headway was made in regards to civil rights. • Eisenhower, at first, tried to stay away from addressing the issue because he was not a strong supporter of civil rights. • Eisenhower also believed that the job of government was to not change people’s mind about civil rights. • However, he was in charge of the US just as things became interesting.
In 1954, the United States Supreme Court ruled on the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. • In this ruling, the United States Supreme Court overturned the “separate but equal” principle of the Plessy v. Ferguson case (1896). • The Court held that segregation in the public schools denied Black students equal protection under the 14th Amendment.
In 1955, the Supreme Court ordered the desegregation of the public schools. • In the south, this decision was not welcomed by many leaders because the schools in the south were segregated by law. Many leaders did whatever they could to prevent this from occurring. • In 1957, Governor Orval E. Faubus of Arkansas used the National Guard to keep Black students from entering Little Rock’s Central High School. • President Eisenhower used the military to allow Blacks to enter Central High School. • By the end of his first term in office, Eisenhower backed the decision of the Supreme Court and enforced the decision to desegregate the American public school system.
Some Blacks turned to more direct action in the hopes of achieving civil rights during the 1950s. • On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white male. She was arrested soon after. • In protest, Montgomery African-American leaders E.D. Nixon and Martin Luther King boycotted the bus system for a year. • The United States Supreme Court soon declared the seating system in the Montgomery bus lines were unconstitutional.
Civil Rights Under John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson (1961-1969) • A new wave of civil rights activity began to grow across the nation in the early 1960s. • This activity targeted segregation in both the northern and southern United States. • In the northern United States, segregation prevented African Americans and whites from living in the same neighborhoods as well as their children attending the same schools. • Some African Americans expanded their goal to fighting discrimination in the North as well as the South.
High school and college students engaged in sit-ins in nearly 80 cities. • A sit-in is the act of protesting by just sitting down. • Many sit-ins took place in stores that practiced segregation. Many businesses wanted to end the disturbances and loss of business, so many stores did the right thing and desegregated.
The sit-ins launched a new group of activists called the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. • This group was formed by Ella Baker who was the SNCC’s guiding spirit and a woman who played important roles in the NAACP and the SCLC during the 1950s. • The SNCC played an important role in civil rights activism throughout the 1960s.
The United States Supreme Court ruled in 1960 against segregated bus facilities. • This led to another group, the Congress of Racial Equality, deciding to see if the decision was being enforced. • On May 4, 1961, members of CORE embarked on journey called Freedom Riders to see if desegregation was being enforced in bus stations.
The trip went smoothly until the Freedom Riders reached Birmingham, Alabama. • It was in Birmingham, where southern whites caused trouble and beat up the Freedom Riders. • The Freedom Riders found a lot of trouble in the south but they pressed on until the Interstate Commerce Commission issued new regulations banning segregation on interstate buses.
African Americans continued to apply pressure to secure their civil rights. They asked President Kennedy to take a more active role in the civil rights struggle. • In 1962, a federal court ordered the University of Mississippi to enroll African American students. • The governor of Mississippi, Ross Barnett, prevented any African Americans from registering.
This brought President Kennedy and the federal government into the civil rights struggle. • President Kennedy sent federal marshals to allow African Americans to register but not without violence. • Federal troops stayed at the University of Mississippi until the first group of African Americans graduated in 1963.
The troubles felt by students of the University of Mississippi were also felt at the University of Alabama. • In June 1963, Governor George Wallace vowed to prevent any African Americans from registering at the University of Alabama. • On behalf of his brother Robert Kennedy, President Kennedy sent the Alabama National Guard to enforce the decision and Governor Wallace backed down.
Martin Luther King and the SCLC targeted Birmingham for the site of a desegregation protest in the spring of 1963. • The police arrested hundreds of protestors, including Martin Luther King, but the demonstrations continued. • Television broadcasted the horrific images of snarling guard dogs and children being hosed down by Birmingham Police that President Kennedy sent 3,000 troops to restore peace. • Later that spring, Medgar Evers was murdered by southern whites. • Kennedy, soon after, passed legislation giving Americans the right to be served in public places and barring discrimination in employment.
