American Civil Rights Movement 1955 – 1968

1. American Civil Rights Movement 1955 – 1968

2. Questions for discussion • What was distinctive about Martin Luther King’s leadership? How much was he influenced by Gandhi, and were his methods similar to those of Gandhi, or were there important differences? • Would it be true to say that Martin Luther King's nonviolence was as much pragmatic as moral? • How crucial was the leadership of Martin Luther King to the Civil Rights movement? • Why was the Nashville lunch-counter protest of early 1960 so successful? E.g. analyse the conditions for its success. • To what extent did the movement benefit from the counter-violence of white racists? • What were the conditions that brought success to the movement in the south, but not in the north? • How justified was the Black Power critique of Martin Luther King and his nonviolence? • What was the legacy of the Civil Rights movement for the USA?

3. Formation of NAACP in 1909, BSCP 1925 • Cold War – forced to de-radicalise • Protests become more informal • Movement starts with the Montgomery Bus Boycott 1955 – 1968 with the assassination of MLK

4. Gandhian influence on the movement ‘Since WWII no single group has developed Gandhian ideas more creatively than African Americans’ - Kapur • Gandhian campaigns well reported by leading American black journals and newspapers • Du Bois and Marcus Garvey upheld Indian movement as shining example of nonviolent protest • Pre WWII visits to India by black leaders – e.g. Dr Howard Thurman, James Lawson Gandhi -“it may be through the Negroes that the unadulterated message of non- violence will be delivered to the world.”

5. 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott • 1 Dec 1955 - Rosa Parks arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a city bus • Black leaders call for a boycott on entire bus system lasting over a year • 13 Nov 1956 segregation on bus services declared unconstitutional • Martin Luther King Jr. emerges as national leader and 1957 SSLC formed • ‘King turned an inchoate aversion to violence into an explicit commitment to non-violent action as the guiding principle of the civil rights movement he would soon dominate.’ – Ackerman & Duvall

6. Lawson and the Nashville Sit-ins • 13 February 1960 - groups consisting of 25 students entered lunch counters across Nashville in the first sit-ins • 27 February – ‘Big Saturday’ • - presence of police and violence from white onlookers • - mayor appoints a biracial committee and agrees to look into segregation in lunch counters. • One week following ‘Big Saturday’ – boycott on all downtown stores. • 19 April – Z. Alexander Looby’s home bombed. • By April there were sit-ins in 78 cities and approx 70,000 individuals had participated in protests.

7. Why were the lunch-counter protests so successful? • Lawson’s knowledge of previous non-violent protests • Engaged wide public support unlike previous movements in the NAACP • The racial atmosphere in Nashville was less intimidating for black people – e.g. A number of black men had seats on the City Council • The Nashville Tennessean, the cities leading newspaper had a more liberal editorial position on race • It was the first popular nonviolent movement to unfold before the modern mass media -lifted morale of many movements - channelled material support ‘Not only did the mass media popularize the story of what was done in the American South – they universalised the impression that nonviolent force could be more powerful.’

8. Martin Luther King Jr. • Spring 1963 demonstrations Birmingham, Alabama • ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’ • 28 August 1963 - March on Washington • 200,000 marched down the mall in Washington DC singing ‘We Shall overcome’ • ‘I have a dream’ speech “One who breaks an unjust law, must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty” “We must use the weapon of love” “We must realise so many people are taught to hate us that they are not totally responsible for their hate.” J Edgar Hoover - “the most dangerous and effective Negro leader in this country”

9. ‘Long Civil Rights’ paradigm • Movement begins to be examined on a local rather than national level • ‘Scholars are only beginning to recognise the extent to which his attitudes and those of many other activists, white and black were transformed through their involvement in a movement in which ideas disseminated from the bottom up as well as the top down’, Carson

10. The Black Power Movement • Malcolm X - ‘The Ballot or the Bullet’, 1964 “I believe in action on all fronts by whatever means possible” • 1965 Malcolm X dies - Black Panther Movement emerges • 1968 King assassinated • Penial Joseph – black power transformed and redefined American democracy