Chapter 21 Section 1

Taking on SegregationUS History (EOC)

Lesson Objectives:• Explain how legalized segregation deprived

African Americans of their rights as citizens.

• Summarize civil rights legal activity and the response to the Plessy and Brown cases.

• Trace Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s civil rights activities, beginning with the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

• Describe the expansion of the Civil Rights movement.

Essential Question:• In what ways did African Americans fight

discrimination during the civil rights era?

The Segregation System

Plessy v. Ferguson• Civil Rights Act of 1875

outlawed segregation• In 1883, all-white Supreme

Court declared the act unconstitutional.

• 1896: Plessy v. Ferguson ruling was issued: separate but equal would be constitutional.

• Many states passed Jim Crow laws segregating the races.

• Facilities for blacks were almost always inferior to those for whites.

Segregation Continues into the 20th Century

• After the Civil War, African Americans begin moving north to escape racism.

• Does this mean that there was NO racism in the North? NO!

• In areas of housing and jobs, both races competed for jobs.

A Developing Civil Rights Movement• WWII created job

opportunities for African Americans.

• The United States needed fighting men• Armed Forces will be the first

area of American society to end discrimination policies.

• Full integration will be passed under Truman (1948)

• FDR also ends government and war industry discrimination practices.

• Once WWII ended, black veterans began to fight for civil rights at home.

Challenging Segregation in Court

The NAACP Legal Strategy• Professor Charles Hamilton

Houston leads the NAACP in a legal campaign to end segregation.• Arguments focused on inequalities

of segregation in public education.• Law students would help fight

segregation.

• Thurgood Marshall, a famous African American lawyer, would win 29 of 32 cases argued before the Supreme Court.

Brown v. Board of Education

• What was Marshall’s greatest victory?• BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION (TOPEKA)

• This case was fought in 1954

• The Supreme Court unanimously struck down school segregation!

Reaction to the Brown Decision

Resistance To School Desegregation• Does this policy work?• Somewhat…within one year, over 500

school districts in the US desegregated.

• Why not ALL school districts?• Some districts and some states would

actively resist integration…pro-white

• What would change this policy?• BROWN II (1955) Supreme Court ruling

that stressed integration with “all deliberate speed”

• Did Eisenhower force compliance? NO!• Eisenhower considered it “impossible”

to enforce this measure.

Crisis in Little Rock• Arkansas was the 1st state to admit African

Americans to state universities…without Court order.

• By the 1950s, some private groups were also integrating:• Scout troops and labor unions.

• How does this change?• 1957: Gov. Orval Faubus had the Arkansas

National Guard to turn away 9 African students • This group became known as the “Little Rock

Nine”

• Does Eisenhower step in now?• YES! He ordered the National Guard and

paratroopers to supervise the attendance of these students for the ENTIRE school year.• Harassment continued even though troops were

present.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott

Boycotting Segregation• By 1955 the issues of segregation were

increasing across the United States.• Rosa Parks, a seamstress and an NAACP

officer, was arrested in Montgomery, AL for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man.

• Montgomery Improvement Association was formed• African American community leaders, including

ministers, organized a boycott of all buses.• Martin Luther King, Jr. was elected the leader

of this group.

• How long did the boycott last? • 381 days! More than a calendar year!!!