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Social Studies The Civil Rights Movement 1955-1964

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Civil Rights

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Rosa Parks On December 1, 1955, Parks, a department store seamstress, boarded a bus headed for home. When a white man boarded, four black passengers, including Parks, were asked to get up and stand in back. Three complied; Parks refused. She was arrested for breaking Alabamas segregation laws. She proved the perfect litigant in a legal test the movements leaders had been seeking. As the lawyers prepared for trial, teachers at Alabama State announced a boycott by blacks of the Montgomery bus system. The boycott lasted a year, causing crippling economic damage and testing the resolve of local blacks. The legal fight rose through the U.S. judicial system to the Supreme Court, which upheld a federal court ruling that nullified Alabamas and Montgomerys requirements for segregation on buses. (Library of Congress)

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Emmett Till Fourteen-year-old Chicagoan Emmett Till is visiting family in Mississippi when he is kidnapped, brutally beaten, shot, and dumped in the Tallahatchie River for allegedly whistling at a white woman. Two white men, J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant, are arrested for the murder and acquitted by an all-white jury. They later boast about committing the murder in a Look magazine interview. The case becomes a cause clbre of the civil rights movement.

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The Civil rights movement "Imagine being unable to eat or sleep in most restaurants and hotels; being unable to sit where you wanted in a movie theater; having to sit in the back when you boarded a bus, even an empty one; being forced to attend an inferior school; and even being forbidden to drink from certain water fountains. These were the facts of everyday life for all black people in the Southern part of the United States as recently as 1960. They were citizens of a country founded on the principle that all people were created equal. Yet, they were treated unequally, and declared unequal by the law. "in the middle of the 1950s, a movement of ordinary men and women arose to challenge this way of life. Using boycotts, marches, and other forms of protest, they ultimately forced the South to end its peculiar system of legalized segregation. they succeeded because, in a democracy, when the people speak the government must listen. Home

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Little Rock Nine The Little Rock Nine was a group of African-American students who were enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. The ensuing Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering the racially segregated school by Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus, and then attended after the intervention of President Eisenhower, is considered to be one of the most important events in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. On their first day of school, troops from the Arkansas National Guard would not let them enter the school and they were followed by mobs making threats to lynch.

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Ruby Bridges U.S. Deputy Marshals escort 6-year-old Ruby Bridges from William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans in November 1960. The first grader was the only black child enrolled in the school. Years earlier, a landmark legal decision that led to integration of U.S. public schools was triggered by a Kansas welders desire for his daughter to attend a whites-only school closer to home than the school for blacks. Brown v. Board of Education took three years to reach the Supreme Court, where it was argued by Thurgood Marshall, chief counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and future justice of the Supreme Court. The case would affect more than whether students could attend schools close to home. When the court unanimously ruled on May 17, 1954, in favor of Brown, it ended years of school segregation authorized by an 1896 Supreme Court decision that found separate but equal facilities for the races were constitutional. As Southern states and counties resisted integrating schools, enforcement would absorb federal resources. ( AP Images)

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The Birmingham campaign In Birmingham, Dr. King and his friends boycotted segregated businesses, much like in Montgomery. In addition to boycotts, Dr. King also used sit-ins as a form of non-violent protest. Boycotts entailed people refusing to enter buses and other places that had unfair segregation laws. Sit-ins consisted of black and white people calmly entering white-designated businesses, such as libraries and lunch counters, where they would sit for hours and hours to draw attention to their cause. This action was against the law, but it was also non-violent. The police responded by arresting hundreds of protesters, sometimes through violent means. Even when faced with violence, the protesters would go to jail without putting up a fight. Newspapers all over America reported on the overwhelming peaceful and civil tone of these protests. Since the protesters remained nonviolent and did not fight when the police took them away, these sit-ins painted a clear picture of segregation to the whole country. This picture showed the real people whose rights were being denied and showed a city torn apart by segregation. In addition to the sit-ins, Dr. King filled the streets of Birmingham with marches and other protests, and told the government of Birmingham that the protests would continue until the city agreed to desegregate. The government did not want to give in to the protesters demands, so it declared the marches illegal. Dr. King and his organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC) decided to disobey and continued to march and fight the unjust segregation laws. They hoped that the nonviolent protests in Birmingham would draw so much attention to injustice and cost the city so much money that President John F. Kennedy himself would pass a law to end segregation across the country.

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Childrens March The 1963 campaign to desegregate Birmingham, Alabama, generated national publicity and federal action because of the violent response by local authorities and the decision by Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to recruit children for demonstrations. The Childrens Crusade added a new dynamic to the struggle in Birmingham and was a major factor in the success of the campaign.Martin Luther King, Jr. Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) Aware that support for protests in Birmingham was waning during April 1963, King and the SCLC looked for ways to jumpstart the campaign. When the arrest and jailing of King did little to attract more protestors, SCLC staff member James Bevel proposed recruiting local students, arguing that while many adults may be reluctant to participate in demonstrations for fear of losing their jobs, their children had less to lose. King initially had reservations, but after deliberation he agreed, hoping for the action to subpoena the conscience of the nation to the judgment seat of morality. SCLC and the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR) members immediately canvassed colleges and high schools for volunteers and began training them on the tactics of nonviolent direct action.protests in Birminghamnonviolent direct action On 2 May, more than a thousand African American students skipped their classes and gathered at Sixth Street Baptist Church to march to downtown Birmingham. As they approached police lines, hundreds were arrested and carried off to jail in paddy wagons and school buses. When hundreds more young people gathered the following day for another march, commissioner Bull Connor directed the local police and fire departments to use force to halt the demonstration. Images of children being blasted by high-pressure fire hoses, clubbed by police officers, and attacked by police dogs appeared on television and in newspapers and triggered outrage throughout the world.Bull Connor

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Martin Luther King Jr Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a vital figure of the modern era. His lectures and dialogues stirred the concern and sparked the conscience of a generation. The movements and marches he led brought significant changes in the fabric of American life through his courage and selfless devotion. This devotion gave direction to thirteen years of civil rights activities. His charismatic leadership inspired men and women, young and old, in this nation and around the world.

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I Have a Dream Home

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Lesson Activity We Shall Overcome: Historic Places of the Civil Rights Movement Name of Historic Place: Birmingham,AL What important event of the Civil Rights Movement occurred at this place? What year did this event occur? Who were the players at this location? List everyone involved, including demonstrators, opposition, police, etc Outline the goals of the players. Again, include all groups involved, including opposition. What is important about the place where the event occurred? How did Martin Luther King, Jr. and his theory of nonviolence influence the local protestors? Did they practice nonviolent strategies? What was the strategy used at this place? What were the costs, if any, at this location? What was the prize? Which players achieved their goals? What were the short term results? Long-term gains? Finally, how did the people at this place influence the larger Civil Rights Movement? Home

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Citation/Reference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Rock_Nine http://photos.state.gov/galleries/usinfo-photo/39/civil_rights_07/1.html http://www.uen.org/core/socialstudies/civil/index.shtml#lessons http://www.factmonster.com/spot/civilrightstimeline1.html http://edsitement.neh.gov/lesson-plan/ordinary-people-ordinary-places-civil-rights- movement#sect-introductionhttp://edsitement.neh.gov/lesson-plan/ordinary-people-ordinary-places-civil-rights- movement#sect-introduction http://mlk- kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_childrens_crusade/http://mlk- kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_childrens_crusade/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_campaign#Children.27s_Crusade http://www.kidsforking.org/teachers/grades-9th-12th/a-brief-history-of-dr-martin- luther-king-jr/birmingham-campaign-1963-grades-9-12/http://www.kidsforking.org/teachers/grades-9th-12th/a-brief-history-of-dr-martin- luther-king-jr/birmingham-campaign-1963-grades-9-12/ http://www.uen.org/core/socialstudies/civil/index.shtml http://www.uen.org/cc/uen/core/pub/displayCoreCourse.action?ccId=6210#3439

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Standard Students will understand the protections and privileges of individuals and groups in the United States. Objective Analyze how civil rights and liberties have been changed through court decisions.