The Civil Rights Movement

1865 - 1965

Dred Scott vs Sanford

Post Civil War Amendments

• 13th Amendment– Made Slavery Illegal

• 14th Amendment– African Americans were granted citizenship

• 15th Amendment– African Americans were given the right to vote

Sharecropping

½ Crop – Keep

½ Crop – Owed

The Right To Vote

• Poll Tax

• Literacy Tests

• Grandfather Clause

• Klu Klux Klan

Segregation

• Jim Crow Laws – laws that enforced racial segregation in the South

Plessy vs Ferguson• On June 7, 1892, Homer

Plessy, a 30-year-old shoemaker, boarded a passenger train of the East Louisiana Railway and took a seat in the "white" railcar. When he refused a conductor's orders to move to the "colored" railcar, Plessy was forcibly removed and jailed.

• Plessy argued that the Louisiana law violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.

“Separate but Equal”

Separate but…

…unequal

http://www.nps.gov/malu/graphics/jimcrow1.gif

W.E.B. Dubois

Booker T. Washington

NAACP

BREAKING THE COLOR BARRIERJackie Robinson

• April 15, 1947The grandson of a slave, Jackie Robinson joins the Brooklyn Dodgers as a rookie and becomes the first African American to play major league baseball. Though he faces bigotry from both baseball fans and players, Robinson wields his phenomenal skills on the field and emerges as a star. He ultimately leads the Dodgers to six National League pennants and one World Series in 1955. His thrilling achievements inspire future black athletes in other sports.

Fighting Segregation in Court Brown Vs. Board of Ed.

• May 17, 1954In its ruling on Oliver Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, the U.S. Supreme Court overthrows the 1896 case Plessy v. Ferguson. This abolishes the principle of "separate but equal" in America's schools and clears the path for desegregation nationwide

• SEPERATE IS NOT EQUAL

MURDER SHOCKS THE NATION

• August 28, 1955The brutal murder of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black boy, shocks the nation. Till was killed in Mississippi for saying "Bye, baby," to a white woman in a country store. Racial tensions flare up when an all-white jury later acquits two white men of Till's murder. The men eventually confess their guilt to a news reporter, saying Till deserved his fate for being disrespectful to white people.

S.C.L.C.Southern Christian Leadership Conference

• Established by the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., and his followers in 1957 to coordinate and assist local organizations working for the full equality of blacks in all aspects of American life. The organization worked primarily in the South and some border states, conducting leadership-training programs, citizen-education projects, and voter-registration drives.

Nation of Islam

ROSA PARKS ARRESTEDMontgomery Bus Boycott

• Rosa Parks intentionally breaks city laws by refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man and is arrested in Montgomery, Alabama. Outraged by the arrest, Jo Ann Robinson of the Women's Political Caucus immediately prints flyers urging fellow black citizens to boycott the buses for a day. The boycott ultimately lasts 382 days.

Don’t Ride the Bus

• December 5, 1955The Montgomery bus boycott begins as thousands of Alabama's black citizens protest Rosa Parks' arrest by boycotting city buses. This helps spark the U.S. civil rights movement. Local black leaders form the Montgomery Improvement Association and name a young pastor, Martin Luther King Jr., as its president to lead the protest.

Non-Violent Peaceful Resistance

Things Start to Get Ugly

• January 30, 1956Racial tensions erupt into violence as groups of angry white citizens try to frighten and harass black protesters into giving up their bus boycott. The home of Martin Luther King Jr. is bombed, but he and his family are not injured. Despite the attacks, King remains faithful to his policy of nonviolence and urges his followers to continue their protests peacefully.

Boycott EndsBuses Desegregated

• November 13, 1956In a dramatic victory, the U.S. Supreme Court outlaws segregation on buses in Montgomery. This triumph inspires other black citizens to launch their own crusades against racist laws and leaders.

SNCC

• Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC On February 1, 1960, four black college students attracted widespread attention when they refused to leave a whites-only lunch counter in an F. W. Woolworth store in Greensboro, North Carolina. The sit-in continued for several weeks and inspired dozens of similar sit-ins across the South.

Sit-Ins

In 1960 four black college students walked into a Woolworth store in Greensboro, North Carolina, and sat down at the lunch counter, which was for white customers only. The students waited to be served until the store closed for the day. For the next six days, a growing number of students joined the sit-ins until Woolworth closed its doors.

Little Rock High Erupts in Violence

• September 25, 1957After Arkansas Governor Orval E. Faubus defies a court order to integrate Little Rock Central High School, President Dwight D. Eisenhower sends federal troops to escort nine black students (known as the Little Rock Nine) to the previously all-white school. Armed troops guard the school's hallways to keep the peace for the next nine months.

Call in the Troops

Bunker Hill

Violence Continues

A New Voice

• Malcom X

Keep it Up

I Have a Dream

• August 28, 1963America's civil rights movement hits full stride with the March on Washington, one of the largest demonstrations in U.S. history. In his greatest triumph, Martin Luther King Jr. peacefully leads 250,000 people in Washington, D.C., and delivers his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. The marchers' ultimate goal is to ensure the passage of the Civil Rights Act.

                                    

LBJ Signs the Civil Rights Act

• July 2, 1964After one of the longest debates in Senate history, President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law at a White House ceremony. It is one of the nation's strongest civil rights laws, banning discrimination based on a person's color, race, national origin, religion or sex.

Silenced• February 21, 1965

Malcolm X, one of the most influential black leaders of the 1950s and 1960s, is assassinated while giving a speech in New York City. Three Black Muslims are later convicted of the crime. As a former leader of the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X had rejected the nonviolent strategies of Martin Luther King Jr. and urged black people to win their freedom "by any means necessary." Many Black Muslims felt betrayed when he quit to form his own less-violent religious organization.

Freedom March• March 7, 1965

Demanding stronger voting rights for black citizens, Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis, chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, organize a march from Selma, Alabama, to Montgomery, the state capital. In what becomes known as "Bloody Sunday," the protesters are stopped and severely beaten by Alabama state troopers. The protesters eventually complete the march on their third attempt beginning March 21. Outraged by the initial attacks, Americans rally behind the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which leads to its passage in August.

MLK Assassinated• April 4, 1968

Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated by a gunman on the balcony of the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. People around the world react in shock, grief and anger. King's death is followed by a week of rioting in more than 100 cities across the nation, including Washington, D.C. In March 1969, the accused white assassin, James Earl Ray, pleads guilty to the murder and is sentenced to 99 years in prison.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day

• November 2, 1983Fifteen years after the death of Dr. King, President Ronald Reagan signs a bill into law that declares Martin Luther King Jr. Day a national holiday. The holiday is observed on the third Monday of January to honor the birth and life of Dr. King. The first national celebration of this new holiday takes place on January 20, 1986.

Civil Rights Quiz

• What were Jim Crow laws?

• How did MLK suggest the African Americans fight segregation in the South?

• How did TV and Newspapers help sway public opinion against segregation?

• List several tactics used by the Civil Rights movement to fight segregation.