The Civil Rights Movement

1950-1968

• The Civil Rights Movement has often been called the 2nd Reconstruction. Write a brief description of what happened during Reconstruction (1865-1877) and Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) based on anything that you remember.

• Then, write your opinion on the meaning of the cartoon.

WWII renewed interest in civil rights• minorities fighting against oppression

abroad only to return home to the same• armed forces integrated after WWII

consider:

What are some ways to protest something without using violence?

essential question:

What were the accomplishments of the Civil Rights Movement?

How did nonviolent protest become aggressive?

Nonviolent resistance in the 1950s1. Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

• NAACP and Thurgood Marshall help end segregation in schools

1. Brown v. Board• NAACP and

Thurgood Marshall help end segregation in schools

Front and center, Linda Brown, the plaintiff in Brown v. Board, the 1954 Supreme Court case that found segregation illegal.

1. Brown v. Board• NAACP and Thurgood Marshall help end

segregation in schoolsChief Justice Earl Warren would lead a Supreme Court that would make many progressive decisions from 1953-1969.

• with “all deliberate speed” was how the Court ordered states to integrate facing fierce resistance

1. Brown v. Board

2. Montgomery bus boycott (1955)• Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. led a

successful bus boycott that led to the Supreme Court outlawing bus segregation

2. Montgomery bus boycott (1955)• Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. led a

successful bus boycott that led to the Supreme Court outlawing bus segregation

3. the Little Rock Nine (1957)

Pictured here with Daisy Bates, a newspaper journalist and active member in the local NAACP, are nine students, Ernest Green, Thelma Mothershed, Elizabeth Eckford, Terrace Roberts, Carlotta

Walls, Gloria Ray, Jefferson Thomas, Melba Pattillo, and Minnijean Brown. Bates would become the advisor for the nine students.

• nine black students integrating Little Rock H.S.

• many whites resist even after the National Guard sent to protect them

3. the Little Rock Nine (1957)

4. Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC, 1957) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, 1960)• nonviolent resistance movement groups

emerge such as SCLC, led by King, and SNCC, led by students

consider:As nonviolent resistance is increasingly successful, what kind of reaction would you expect from whites resistant to change?

essential question:

What were the accomplishments of the Civil Rights Movement? How did nonviolent protest become

aggressive?

Nonviolent protest begins to receive a violent reaction, especially in the Deep South.

• i.e. Emmett Till murder (1955) represented both the violent reaction to Brown and the nonviolent protest of the 1950s

• black and white college students protested segregation by sitting at whites-only lunch counters

1. the sit-in movement

• black and white protesters ride buses through the South to challenge federal government to enforce ban on segregation on interstate buses; federal government enforcing Supreme Court ban on segregation on interstate buses

2. Freedom Riders

• images shocked the nation, many whites sympathize with African Americans and ask for government action

3. Birmingham riot

Turning Point: JFK assassinated (he had promised civil rights; Johnson will

provide in his memory) AND

Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington (site of the “I Have a

Dream” speech) made the movement acceptable to most whites.

A visible violent reaction to civil rights protests led to public sympathy for the cause, which led to civil rights legislation.

• banned segregation in public places and discrimination in employment; the following summer was Freedom Summer, where volunteers helped African Americans register to vote in Mississippi, in the murder of three volunteers

1. Civil Rights Act of 1964

• banned literacy tests2. Voting Rights Act of 1965

• banned poll taxes

3. 24th Amendment

Violent resistance to nonviolent protest leads to new civil rights legislation,

especially after the violence receives national exposure through the media.

The important images: Which term from the front is

pictured?1. A picture will be shown that refers to one of

the terms we have studied so far in the Civil Rights Movement.

2. Someone’s name will be picked from the bucket of equality.

3. That person will give the term associated with the picture (group can help) OR

4. Another name will be picked.

Voting Rights Act of 1965 or 24th Amendment

Birmingham riotThis image of Parker High School student Walter Gadsden being attacked by dogs was published in The New York Times on May 4, 1963

Rosa Parks or Montgomery Bus BoycottRosa Parks being fingerprinted after her arrest for refusing to give up her seat on the bus.

Freedom RidersThis bus was firebombed. The second bus was attacked by a mob.

Emmett Till

Birmingham riot

Brown v. BoardLinda Brown and her mother outside the Supreme Court building

Sit-in movementJackson, Mississippi 1963

The Little Rock NineHazel Massery is the Caucasian girl seen yelling as Elizabeth Eckford attempted to enter the school on her first day.

Montgomery Bus BoycottBlack people take cars together during the bus boycott while a Montgomery, Ala., bus is deserted in the background.

Martin Luther King, Jr. or March on Washington or “I Have a Dream” speech

Freedom Riders

sit-in movement

Birmingham riot

Freedom Summer or Voting Rights Act of 1965

Little Rock Nine

Brown v. Board

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

Birmingham riot

Martin Luther King, Jr. or March on Washington or “I Have a Dream” speech

Birmingham riot (the Children’s Crusade)Organized by Rev. James Bevel, the purpose of the march was to protest the arrest and jailing of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Many kids escaped from their school in order to be arrested, set free then arrested the next day. Malcolm X was opposed to the event because he thought it might expose the children to

violence. He said, "Real men don't put their children on the firing line.”

Sit-in movementIt seems appropriate that the photograph of the NC A&T students who began the sit-in movement was taken when an African American employee of the Woolworth’s is passing by.

consider:

Do you think that you would have been able to still be nonviolent after racist violence against your nonviolent protests?

essential question:

What were the accomplishments of the Civil Rights Movement? How did nonviolent protest become

aggressive?

Because gains towards equality came slowly, some African

Americans rejected nonviolence and called for more radical action.

1. Urban riots and violence (hundreds of race-related riots from 1964-1968; i.e. Watts)

Watts riot in Los Angeles (August 11,

1965)

2. Malcolm X and the Black Muslims (a.k.a. Nation of Islam) whites were the problem

so advocated separation, self-reliance, and armed self-defense

Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam

• Malcolm X assassinated when he splits from the Nation of Islam, preaches cooperation

3. Black Power Movement• preached black pride

Brown’s 1968 album captured the mood of The Black Power Movement.

At the 1968 Summer Olympics, US athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised gloved

fists in protest against discrimination.

• Stokely Carmichael leads a new, radical Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

• the Black Panthers advocated self-reliance against police brutality and for economic independence

Bobby Seale and

Huey Newton

assassinations of MLK Jr. and Robert Kennedy in 1968 marks the end of the

Civil Rights Movement.• MLK assassinated as he

increasingly targets economic conditions and the North

• Robert Kennedy assassinated on his way to becoming a pro-civil rights president

• enforcement of laws for equality such as the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments

• Affirmative Action (programs that make special efforts to hire or enroll groups that have been discriminated against)

The legacy of the Civil Rights Movement:

Consider the path of the Civil Rights Movement. Where would you have fit in? Consider which groups or which leaders you might have joined or agreed with. Consider which events you might have participated in or how you might have reacted to

these. Try to use the terms to describe your position.

Norman Rockwell painted "The Problem We All Live With" documenting Ruby Bridges' first day of school in 1960 at a previously all-white school in New Orleans, LA. For more information, see rubybridges.com/story.htm.