CIVIL RIGHTS

1. CIVIL RIGHTS Chapter 21

2. During the 1950’s, a civil rights movement began. This was a movement by blacks to gain greater equality in American society.

3. WWII had given African Americans a taste of equality & respectability. When the war ended, many African Americans were more determined than ever to improve their status.

4. Beginning in 1938, a team of lawyers led by Thurgood Marshall began arguing several cases before the Supreme Court. Their biggest victory came in the ’54 case of Brown v. Board ofEducation of Topeka, Kansas.

5. In Brown v. Board of Education….. Supreme Court ruled that separate schools for whites & blacks were unequal….and thus unconstitutional.

6. George E.C. Hayes, Thurgood Marshall, and James Nabrit, congratulating each other, following Supreme Court decision declaring segregation unconstitutional

7. Some Southern communities refused to accept the Brown decision. In 1955, the Supreme Court handed down a 2ndBrown ruling. It ordered schools to desegregate more quickly.

8. The school desegregation issue reached a crisis in 1957 in Little Rock, Arkansas. The state’s governor, Orval Faubus, refused to let 9 black students attend Little Rock’s Central High School.

10. President Eisenhower sent in federal troops to allow the students to enter the school. U.S. Army troops from the 101st Airborne Division disperse a crowd in front of Little Rock's Central High School

11. The Little Rock Nine and Daisy Bates

12. Blacks also battled discrimination on city buses. In Montgomery, Alabama, a local law required that blacks give up their bus seats to whites.

13. In December 1955, Montgomery resident Rosa Parks refused to give her seat to a white man. She was arrested.

14. Rosa Parks' Police mugshot

15. After her arrest, African Americans in Montgomery organized a yearlong boycott of the city’s bus system. The bus on which Rosa Parks rode is now a museum exhibit

16. The protesters looked for a person to lead the bus boycott. They chose Dr. Martin LutherKing, Jr., the pastor of a Baptist Church.

17. Martin Luther King Jr., after his arrest in February of 1956, at the age of 27. He had been arrested during the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The mug shot was found in July, 2004, during the cleaning out of a storage room at the Montgomery County Sheriff's Department. Someone had written "DEAD" twice on the picture, as well as 4-4-68, the date King was killed, though it is not known who wrote it.

18. Martin Luther King Jr. preached nonviolent resistance. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference Logo. King joined w/other ministers & civil rights leaders in 1957. They formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Outside of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference Headquarters.

19. By 1960, another influential civil rights group emerged.The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was formed mostly by college students. Members of this group felt that change for African Americans was occurring too slowly.

20. One protest strategy that SNCC (“snick”) used was the sit-in. During a sit-in, blacks sat at whites-only lunch counters. They refused to leave until they were serve.

21. In February 1960, African-American students staged a sit-in at a lunch counter at a Woolworth’s store in Greensboro, N.C. The students sat there as whites hit them & poured food over their heads.

22. The "Greensboro Four" waiting to be served at Woolworth's

23. Several downtown lunch counters simply closed service to all rather than deal with the issue of integrating lunch counters during the sit-ins.

25. By late 1960, students had desegregated lunch counters in 48 cities in 11 states.

26. The Triumphs of a Crusade Section 2

27. Freedom Riders were protesters who rode buses w/the goal of integrating buses & bus stations. In 1961, a bus of Freedom Riders was attacked in Anniston, Alabama, where a white mob burned the bus. Another instance occurred when a group of Nashville students rode into Birmingham, Alabama, where they were beaten.

28. Ku Klux Klansmen beat black bystander George Webb in the Birmingham Trailways bus station, May 14, 1961. The man with his back to the camera (center right) is FBI undercover agent Gary Thomas Rowe. Oxford University Press

29. Jim Peck, seated, talks with a Justice Dept. representative and Ben Cox on the "freedom plane" to New Orleans, May 15, 1961. Photo by Theodore Gaffney.Oxford University Press

30. John Lewis and James Zwerg, two Freedom Riders beaten up by a white mob in Montgomery, Alabama.

33. Attorney General Robert Kennedy ordered a reluctant bus company to continue to carry the freedom riders. When freedom riders were attacked in Montgomery, Alabama, President Kennedy sent 400 U.S. marshals to protect the freedom riders. The Interstate Commerce Commission banned segregation in all travel facilities including waiting rooms, rest rooms, & lunch counters.

34. Civil rights workers soon turned their attention to integrating Southern schools. In Sept. 1962, a federal court allowed JamesMeredith to attend the all-white University of Mississippi. However, Mississippi’s governor refused to admit him.

35. James Meredith addresses the rally in Jackson, Mississippi.

36. The Kennedy administration sent in U.S. marshals. James Meredith heads to class, flanked by federal officials.Photo: courtesy Library of Congress They forced the governor to let in Meredith.

37. Another confrontation occurred in 1963 in Birmingham, Alabama when MLK & other civil rights leaders tried to desegregate the city. Police attacked activists with dogs & water hoses.

39. Many Americans witnessed the attacks on television. They were outraged by what they saw. Eventually, Birmingham officials gave in. They agreed to end segregation in the city.

40. The growing civil rights movement impressed President Kennedy. He became convinced that the nation needed a new civil rights law. Kennedy called on Congress to pass a sweeping civil rights bill. President Kennedy meets the leaders of the civil rights movement

41. President Kennedy’s civil rights bill outlawed discrimination based on race, religion, national origin, & gender. Civil rights leaders staged a massive march on Washington, D.C.

42. On August 28, 1963, more than 250,000 blacks & whites marched into the nation’s capital. There they demanded the immediate passage of the bill

43. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., spoke to the crowd. He called for peace & racial harmony in his now famous “I Have aDream” speech.

44. Several months later, JFK was assassinated. Lyndon Johnson became president. President Lyndon B. Johnson meets with Civil Rights leaders He won passage in Congress of Kennedy’s Civil Rights Act of 1964.

45. Credit: LBJ Library photo by Cecil Stoughton Signing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act

46. Civil rights activists next worked to gain voting rights for African Americans in the South. A group of student volunteers waiting for buses to take them to Mississippi (1964) The voting project became known as Freedom Summer.

47. The workers focused their efforts on Mississippi. Mississippi police departments beefed up their forces in preparation for the Summer Project, which state politicians called an invasion by "outside agitators." They hoped to influence Congress to pass a voting rights act.

49. Meanwhile, civil rights activists challenged Mississippi’s political structure. MFDP 5th Congressional District caucus. Local leaders (left to right) Marie Blalock, Peggy Jean Connor, Vassie Patton At the 1964 Democratic National Convention, SNCC organized the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP).

50. The new party hoped to unseat Mississippi’s regular party delegates at the convention. Atlantic City boardwalk, August 1964. Vigil in support of the MFDP challenge to the Democratic Convention.