The Struggle for Civil Rights

1950s – 1960s

The Great Migration

World War II & the Cold War

WWII led to great increase

in black activism

– “Double V”

– NAACP

– James Farmer founded

CORE (Congress Of Racial

Equality)

– Cold War put pressure on

U.S. gov’t to live up to

stated ideology

Desegregating the Schools

NAACP Legal Division made strategic

decision to devote limited resources to

school desegregation

Took gradual approach to overturn Plessy

– Sweatt v. Painter (1950): separate black law

school couldn’t be equal due to “intangible

factors”

Brown v. Board of Ed. of Topeka

(1954): “separate educational facilities

are inherently unequal”

Charles Houston

Thurgood Marshall

The Reaction

White backlash:– Southern Manifesto

– Revival of Ku Klux Klan

Little Rock (1957):– Orval Faubus called out state

militia to prevent integration of Central High School

– Eisenhower sent troops

Ole Miss (1962):– James Meredith

– Kennedy sent federal marshals & troops

Little Rock, 1957

James Meredith, 1962

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and

the Montgomery Bus Boycott Became pastor of Dexter

Ave. Baptist Church in Montgomery, Sept. 1954

Lead Montgomery Improvement Association’s bus boycott, Dec. 1955 - Dec. 1956

Coretta & Martin King

March 22, 1956

The Southern Christian

Leadership Conference

Based on Christianity & Gandhi’s example

Dramatized evil to shock white consciences

Based on respect for laws & American ideals

Integrationist, not separationist

Deliberately picked virulent racists whom they

knew would provide violent drama

– Bull Connor in Birmingham, 1963

– Jim Clark in Selma, 1965

March on

Washington,

Aug. 28, 1963

Originally to be about jobs

Became rally in support of

Kennedy’s civil rights bill

King’s “I Have a Dream”

speech appealed to

patriotism, using lyrics from

“America”

Photos from David Cone,

Martin & Malcolm & America

Congress Of Racial Equality

and the Freedom Rides

CORE had sponsored

initial Freedom Rides

in 1947, to test

Morgan v. Virginia

decision

1961 Freedom Rides

tested Boynton v.

Virginia ruling

Met with violence in

Alabama

The Greensboro Sit-Ins, 1960

Ezell Blair, Jr., Joseph McNeil, David Richmond & Franklin McClain

– All Southerners, NAACP

– Dressed neatly & acted politely, asked to be served

– 100s joined them by Saturday

Woolworth’s sales declined 20% & profits 50% in 1960

July 25 – integration finally achieved

Led to creation of SNCC

Student Nonviolent

Coordinating Committee

April 15-17, 1960 conference at Shaw University

in Raleigh, N.C. called & funded by SCLC

– More than 200 delegates from 50 schools & 13 states

– Ella Barker was SCLC advisor to SNCC

By Spring 1964, SNCC had over 150 field

workers across the South, concentrating on voter

registration

Major effort = Mississippi Freedom Summer,

1964

Senator Lyndon B. Johnson

and Civil Rights Refused to sign Southern Manifesto

Got Civil Rights Act of 1957 through Congress:

– As a senator from Texas

Civil Rights Act of 1960:

– extended life of CRC

– provided federal court referees to register blacks

– made it a federal crime to interfere with court orders or cross

state lines to commit violence

The Civil Rights Act of 1964

Discrimination in all places of public accommodation outlawed (hotels, restaurants, etc.)

Required literacy tests to be administered in writing, & presumed all 6th grade graduates were literate

Attorney General empowered to bring school desegregation suits

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission created

Pres. Johnson hands pen to

Rev. King after signing the

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Extending African-American

Voting Rights

24th Amendment (1964) ended poll tax

Court ruled Congressional districts must have “substantial

equality”:

– Wesberry v. Sanders (1964) – “one man, one vote” rule est.

– Reynolds v. Sims (1964) applied rule to state legislatures

Voting Rights Act of 1965:

– Authorized Attorney General to send federal registrars of voters

– Suspended literacy tests in counties where less than half of adults

had voted in 1964

– Required any change in voting laws to be pre-cleared with Justice

Dept.

The Impact of the Voting Rights Act

and other legal changes

Copyright 1997, Prentice-Hall, Inc.

Black Power New SNCC leaders Stokely

Carmichael & Rap Brownabandoned nonviolent strategy and goal of integration

Malcolm X & the Nation of Islam espoused radical black separatism

Spawned growing white backlash

– Riots seemed to show ingratitude of blacks

– Northerners couldn’t see ghettoes as products of racism

– Affirmative action seemed to be reverse discrimination

Stokely Carmichael

Malcolm X &

Elijah Mohammed