America: Opportunity and Inequality - Racial tension and development in the Civil Rights campaigns in the 1950s and 1960s

Question 1

what is the civil rights movement?

Answer 1

• the civil rights movement was a campaign that took place from the 1940s to the late 1960s, to achieve civil rights for African-Americans equal to those of white Americans
• civil rights refers to equal opportunity and access to employment, housing and education, as well as the right to vote and be free of racial discrimination

Question 2

what was the “brown v board of education of Topeka 1954”?

Answer 2

• in 1951, in Topeka, Kansas, the father of a black girl named Linda Brown took the local education authority to court. He was unhappy that his daughter had to walk around 2 miles to an all-black school, even though there was a school for white people around half a mile away.
• He lost the case but appealed against the decision and the case went to the Supreme Court, America’s highest court. In May 1954, the Chief Judge declared that every education board had to end segregation in schools
• within weeks, many cities and towns began to “de-segregate” their schools, but some states refused
• in Mississippi, a White Citizens Council was formed to ensure segregation would remain. Indeed, in 1956, not a single African-American child was attending any school where there were white students in six Southern states

Question 3

what was the little rock case?

Answer 3

• in September 1957, nine African-American pupils tried to attend Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas
• despite the supreme court ruling of 1954, Arkansas had refused to desegregate its schools and Central High remained a school for white children
• the governor of Arkansas, Orval Faubus, sent National Guard soldiers to prevent the black children from entering the school.
• the african-americans of little rock took Faubus to court. They won and the soldiers were forced to leave
• the black pupils now had the right to go to the school
• despite this, by 1960, out of Arkansas’ two million black students, only 2500 were going to the same school as white children. And by 1962, there were still no black children attending white schools in Alabama, South Carolina or Mississippi

Question 4

what was the role of Rosa Parks in the civil rights movement?

Answer 4

• on 1st December 1955, a 42-year-old African-American woman named Rosa Parks caught a bus home from work
• Montgomery’s buses were segregated. There were “whites only” sections at the front, where African-Americans could sit if the bus wasn’t full - but as soon as the “whites only” section filled up, any black passenger sitting there had to give up their seat for any white passengers and move to the back
• however, on this day, when the “whites only” section filled up, Parks refused to move
• so the furious bus driver put on his emergency brake, left the bus and returned with a policeman. Parks was arrested and jailed

Question 5

what was the Montgomery Bus Boycott?

Answer 5

• Rosa Parks was the secretary of the local NAACP and news of her arrest spread fast
• a group of black community leaders was held to discuss what to do. They agreed to call a boycott of all city buses - which meant that no African American would travel on any Montgomery buses.
• 26-year-old church preacher Martin Luther King Jr was chosen to lead the boycott

Question 6

what was the effect of the Montgomery Bus Boycott?

Answer 6

• the boycott started on 5 December and continued for days, then weeks, then months
• African-Americans had provided 75% of the bus company’s business, which was soon in financial difficulty
• some of the protesters began to receive threatening phone calls and their homes were vandalised
• a bomb exploded at King’s house and some of the protesters wanted to fight - but King calmly told the black community to remain peaceful
• he believed that non-violent protest was the best way to achieve equal rights. he called this “direct action”

Question 7

what was the impact of the Montgomery Bus Boycott?

Answer 7

• King made passionate speeches and appeared in newspaper articles and on chat shows
• this highlighted the great division in an America that claimed to be “the land of the free”
• after almost a year after Parks refused to give up her seat, the Supreme Court ruled that segregated buses, like schools, were illegal
• the day after the Supreme Court announced its decision, Parks and King boarded a city bus together - and sat at the front

Question 8

who was Martin Luther King Jr?

Answer 8

• born in Atlanta, Georgia, King became a Baptist minister
• he believed passionately in non-violent protest, including sit-ins and boycotts
• he led the Montogomery Bus Boycott of 1955 and helped organise the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech
• he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964
• he was assassinated in 1968 by James Earl Ray

Question 9

what law did Eisenhower pass in 1957?

Answer 9

• in 1957, President Eisenhower passed a Civil Rights Act to ensure that all African Americans could exercise their right to vote
• the Act banned any person from interfering with any other person’s right to vote, made discrimination illegal, and created the Civil Rights Commission to prosecute those who denied people their rights
• in practice, however, little was done to enforce the Act but it showed that the government was no longer willing to accept that the Southern states could ignore the federal government when it came to the rights of African-Americans

Question 10

how did Martin Luther King Jr and his followers protest for civil rights?

Answer 10

• in 1961, both black and white civil rights campaigners organised freedom rides where they travelled around the Southern states sitting next to each other in “whites only” sections in areas where the local authorities had refused to desegregate their buses
• the “freedom riders” faced threats and violence as they travelled, but they attracted huge publicity and many white people, especially in the North, were disgusted by the violence

Question 11

what were sit-ins?

Answer 11

• African-American students, sometimes accompanied by white students, would take a seat in the “whites only” part of a cafe or restaurant and refuse to leave
• first started by four African-American students at a Woolworth’s food counter in 1960, within 18 months over 70,000 had staged “sit-in” protests across the South
• over 3000 protesters were arrested during this time, but this only drew attention to the discrimination

Question 12

who was “Bull” Connor and how did he impact the civil rights movement?

Answer 12

• in May 1963, King organised a non-violent protest march in Birmingham, Alabama, one of the most segregated cities in the USA. In total, around 30,000 people took part in the march and the police, under the orders of the police chief “Bull” Connor, attacked the protesters with dogs, water cannons, tear gas, electric cattle prods and batons
• hundred were arrested, including 900 children. All of this was shown on TV
• after days of protest, President Kennedy sent in troops to restore order and ordered the Birmingham City council to end segregation. Kennedy later said that the Civil Rights Movement should ‘thank God for “Bull” Connor’

Question 13

what was King’s famous speech?

Answer 13

• in the summer of 1963, King organised the largest civil rights demonstration in American history.
• on 28th August, he spoke to over 200,000 people gathered around the Lincoln Memorial in the centre of Washington DC, and gave one of the most famous speeches in history (“i have a dream”)

Question 14

what was the role of President Kennedy in the civil rights movement?

Answer 14

• in 1963, Kennedy began a tour of Southern states as part of his re-election campaign. Indeed he had supported a new Civil Rights Act that aimed to give African-Americans full equality in housing and education
• on 22 November, he was due to give a speech in Dallas saying that “only an America which practices what it preaches about equal rights and social justice will be respected”. However, that speech was never made because he was assassinated that same day
• on 2nd July 1964, the Civil Rights Act outlawed racial discrimination in employment and segregation in public placed
• later that year, Martin Luther King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his non-violent approach to eliminating racism.

Question 15

what is the Nation of Islam?

Answer 15

• also known as the Black Muslims
• the nation of Islam, founded in 1930, argued for separatism (keeping the races apart)
  -it said that white society was racist and corrupt and rejected Christianity as a white man’s religion, urging African-Americans to follow Islam. The best-known member was Malcolm Little, better known as Malcolm X

Question 16

what was the Black Panther party?

Answer 16

• formed in California in 1966, the Black Panthers had around 500 members by 1968
• this extreme militant group rejected King’s non-violent ideas
• it argued that African-Americans needed to protect themselves from white racists (including a racist police force), by using violence if necessary

Question 17

b 1965, why were Martin Luther King’s tactics of non-violent direct action facing criticism?

Answer 17

• many African-Americans remained angry and frustrated. They still faced poverty, low wages, inadequate housing and poor education.
• They argued that the civil rights campaign had done little to deal with these day-to-day issues.
• many angry African-Americans took to looting and arson. Between 1965 and 1968, there were riots in most of America’s major cities
• investigations showed that the key causes of the riots were frustration over living conditions and feeling that the police didn’t protect the rights of African-Americans

Question 18

who was Malcolm X?

Answer 18

• born in 1925 in Nebraska as Malcolm Little, the seventh of 11 children. His family moved several times because of threats by the KKK
• he was a good student but left school aged 15. He moved to New York and became involved in drug dealing burglary. He was sent to prison in 1946, where he adopted the Islamic religion and joined the Nation of Islam.; He changed his name to Malcolm X and was released from prison in 1952
• he became the leader of a mosque in Harlem, New York. A powerful speaker, he encouraged African Americans to take pride in their heritage and culture. He believed that violence was necessary to bring about change
• he became less extreme in his views towards the end of his life and left the Nation of Islam in 1964. He set up the Organization of Afro-Ameerican Unity (OAAU), which promoted closer ties between Africans and African-Americans. While speaking at an OAAU meeting in 1965 he was shot and killed. three members of the Nation of Islam were convicted dof his murder

Question 19

how was Martin Luther King Jr assassinated?

Answer 19

• on 4th April 1968, King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, while standing on a hotel balcony. he was shot by a white racist named James Earl Ray

Question 20

what was the impact of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr?

Answer 20

• Immediately, riots broke out across the country and President Johnson called for a national day of mourning
• King is remembered today across the world for staying true to his principles of non-violent protest and his vision of freedom and equality
• he remains the only African-American with a US national holiday dedicated to him (the third Monday of January)when
• while riots took place in protest at his assassination, the Civil Rights Act of 1968 (known as the Fair Housing Act) became law, banning discrimination in housing and making it a federal crime to “by force or by the threat of force, injure, intimidate, or interfere with anyone…by reason of their race, colour, religion or national origin”

Question 21

when were interracial marriages legalised?

Answer 21

• in 1967

Question 22

when was the Voting Rights Act passed?

Answer 22

• in 1965, gave all Americans the right to vote
• only passed into law by Congress in 1968