Civil Rights Movement 1954-65 Flashcards
Brown vs Board (1952-1954)
- Thurgood Marshall argued before the Supreme Court that segregation was against the 14th amendment
- countered Plessy vs Ferguson 1896: “seperate but equal”
- NAACP and their legal campaign
- Supreme court and governemnt = tentative ally
- HOWEVER, supreme court gave no specific date by which segregation had to be achieved
Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-56)
- Used their economic power to gain bus seating on a first come first served basis
- The Montgomery White Citizens Council organized opposition - membership increased significantly → violence
- MLK house bombed → MEDIA COVERAGE
- importance of churches, unity, planning
- Dec 1956: desegregated buses began operation HOWEVER, Montgomery remained highly
segregated - NAACP and MIA involved
Little Rock, Arkansas (1957)
- Little Rock 9: black students with good grades trying to attend school (supposed to be desegregated)
- NAACP involved
- Students prevented by Governer Faubus who called National Guard. In response, President Eisenhower send troops to protect and escort the students = tentative ally!
- power of media, attention, support for the cause
- However, Faubus was re-elected at next elections, South continued to be segregated (‘White Flight’ = unofficial segregation because of the ambiguity of Brown vs Board)
Sit-ins (1960)
- By August 1960, 70,000 students participated in sit-ins, 3600 had been arrested.
- NEW WAVE OF PROTEST! (previous loss of momentum of CRM)
- formation of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee aka SNCC
- violence met by nonviolence
Sit-ins (1960)
- By August 1960, 70,000 students participated in sit-ins, 3600 had been arrested.
- NEW WAVE OF PROTEST! (previous loss of momentum of CRM)
- formation of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee aka SNCC
- violence met by nonviolence → the contrast between chaotic, violent whites and calm, well dressed blacks
- MEDIA ATTENTION
- Three weeks later, the bus station finally served blacks at the lunch counter in Nashville, and, in May, the city center stores decided to separate their lunch counters. However, it was to be another 4 years before Nashville officially desegregated its hotels, cinemas and fast food outlets.
- At first, the NAACP was critical of the sit-ins, preferring to continue the route of taking legal action + The SCLC also feared that the students were being too confrontational, hoped students would follow elders (which did not happen)
- Nevertheless, both the NAACP and SCLC offered support in legal aid, training, finance - students accepted
- GRASSROOTS!!!
Freedom Riders (1961)
- May 1961: 13 volunteers (7 black, 6 white) set off on a bus journey from Washington DC to New Orleans - planned to ignore any segregational signs. Blacks would go to ‘white’ toilets and vice versa.
- Were not breaking the law as, on interstate buses, state laws did not apply.
- Farmer’s intention was to create crisis at bus terminals in the South by provoking the extremists → publicity → federal government intervention and enforce the law
- LOTS OF VIOLENCE!!! bus firebombed, beatings
- CORE involved
- Riders persisted despite violence + King held a meeting in a church where, outside, a mob gathered → big threat of violence and danger → RESPONSE: Kennedy sends 400 US marshals (first show of federal force since Little Rock)
- Robert and Kennedy now asked for a ‘cooling of period’ which did not happen → more activists joined in, they filled jails
- Eventually, November 1961: Robert Kennedy compelled the Interstate Commerce Commission to enforce desegregation on their buses and in their bus terminals - the freedom riders had forced the federal government to intervene and this led to the desegregation of public transport → AGAIN, we see them being a TENTATIVE ALLIE
Birmingham Campaign (1963)
- SCLC and SNCC involved
- ‘Project C’ - codename as they feared they phones were tapped
- Aimed to desegregate businesses (such as large retail stores), to force them to employ blacks + integrate facilities for customers
- Plan was to do a peaceful march - to disrupt traffic and carry out a public boycott of city centers stores
- The demonstrations were met by police and dogs. Attracted media attention → more marchers → more police violence → more publicity
- Court injunction to forbid further protests was carried out
- Money for bail was running out + black businesses calling for retreat by the demonstrators → pressure on MLK to obey the injunction and call off the campaign
- If he would carry on: lose key allies and the civil rights bill could be further delayed
- However, MLK claimed he got an ‘injunction from heaven’ telling him to disobey immoral, man-made laws and carry on. He marched to City Hall where he was arrested.
Children’s Crusade (1963)
- Not everyone could give up their lives to project C (risk their job, experience violence, etc) → CHILDREN!
- James Bevel: The SCLC member who initiated and organized the Children’s Crusade
consequences for Birmingham and the South: - Federal government brokered a deal between MLK and Birmingham businessmen - stores, cinemas, restaurants, desegregated and later also schools
- Protests inspired by Birmingham led to 50 cities across the South agreeing to desegregate facilities
Consequences for the USA:
- Demonstrations everywhere in the summer of 1963 - 100,000 people across the US in places like Detroit and Philadelphia
Consequences for the cause:
- MLKs warning to JFK
- Black american are at “breaking point”
- 1962 poll - 4% believed race was the most important issue in America
- 1963 poll (post Birmingham) - 42% believe race was the most important issue in America
11th June, 1963: JFK sends a civil rights bill to congress aimed to wipe away all Jim Crow laws
March on Washington (1963)
- everyone involved: NAACP, SNCC, SCLC, CORE
- Aim: to show mass support and put pressure on Congress to pass the civil rights bill
- 250,000 from all over (most were middle class and black, quarter were white) came to peacefully march
Results:
- Lots of publicity → broadcaster nation-wide
- Unity between races
- Lots of attention on MLK, King as the leader of the CRM
- Ella Baker complained ‘The movement made King, he didn’t make the movement’
- Local leaders didn’t need him
- Mocked by some SNCC leaders as ‘De Lawd’
- Black militants were critical
- Malcolm X: ‘(the march was a) Farce in Washington… subsidized by white liberals and stage-managed by President Kennedy’
DID NOT LEAD TO A SWIFT PASSING OF CIVIL RIGHTS BILL!
- Many in Congress were unmoved
- Southern democrats were disappointed that Kennedy had supported the march
- Bill became bogged down in Congress
- Segregationists remained as entrenched as ever
Civil Rights Act (July 1964)
- November 22, 1963: JFK assassinated
- His successor Lyndon Johnson’s response: appealed to Congress to pass the bill as tribute to the memory of Kennedy.
Results of Civil Rights Act:
- wiped out Jim Crow laws at once – the concept of ‘separate but equal’ was dismantled and segregation on the grounds of race, religion or national origin in schools and in all public spaces was banned.
- Outlawed discriminatory employment practices and established an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to act as a permanent watchdog agency
- Higher Education Act - Targeted poor black colleges with extra funding (number of black college students increased by 400% in the 1960s)
Was it working? Alabama and Mississippi – de facto segregation much reduced Ideas and attitudes – 1970 opinion polls suggest general acceptance in the South of integration
Freedom Summer (1964)
- Bob Moses called for hundreds of volunteers to get blacks to register to vote and run summer schools for children
- Most volunteers were white → privileged, from liberal democratic families. Moses realized violence on whites would attract far more publicity!
- 600 headed to the south for the Freedom Summer
- Despite violence, voter registration drive continued
- 3000 black children attended Freedom Schools, only 1600 of their parents succeeded in registering to vote - fear stopped many from trying
Freedom summer and disillusionment
- Freedom summer → divisiveness amongst civil rights workers
- Northern volunteers vs SNCC workers
- Some SNCC workers were losing hope in non-violence
Selma Campaign (1965)
- SCLC, SNCC (NAACP, CORE)
- Alabama = highly segregated society
- In Dallas County only 1% of the black population was registered to vote. Registration was difficult
(fluctuating open hours, long delays, lengthy questionnaires) - 1963: SNCC had organized a voter registration campaign in Selma like they had done in Mississippi
- Selma had a large, well-organized local grassroots campaign
-January 1965: King and SNCC leader John Lewis led a march to the courthouse in Selma
- Violence from sheriff Jim Clark → publicity!!!!
Hundreds arrested, including King - prisoners kept in bad conditions → reported to press
Demonstrations continued, and, by February, 3000 were in jail in Selma
A federal judge now intervened, barring the registrar from using complicated registration tests and ordering him to enroll 100 people per day when the office was open
BLOODY SUNDAY, 7 March 1965
- Murder of black army veteran Jimmi Lee Jackson who was trying to protect his mother → outrage caused by this event led to the decision to organize a march from Selma to Montgomery – 54 miles
- The leaders of both SNCC and SCLC wished to show a united front to strengthen their case for a Voting Rights Act
- 500 people set off, but they were blocked at the bridge leading out of town by state police - VIOLENCE
- VIOLENCE = PUBLICITY: outcry was heard nationwide → thousands of petitions were sent to the president demanding action, demonstration over 80 cities
- To keep pressure on federal government, MLK called on religious leaders to join him in “a minsters’ march” to Montgomery 2 days later → 1000 blacks and 450 whites set off
- They were again met by police, but turned around (MLK had secretly agreed with the government that marchers wouldn’t confront police but would turn back) →SNCC workers were furious about this calling it ‘turnaround tuesday’
- RESPONSE FROM GOVERNMENT: 2 days after his speech, Jonson presented his voting rights bill to Congress + sent out 2000 troops to protect the march from Selma to Montgomery, as well as planes and helicopters to deter bombers and snipers
MARCH FROM SELMA TO MONTGOMERY
- Third attempt! Set off on sunday 21 March, 2 weeks after bloody sunday
- 3000 marchers, led by MLK and many other civil rights leaders
- Violence continued but troops and army vehicles protected them
- On the last night, many celebrities came to show their support, makeshift stage was made where marchers were entertained by celebs, singers actors, etc
- The next day, there were rumors of snipers out to shoot King as he entered Montgomery so a dozen similarly dressed black men, of similar height, were sent to the front of the march to surround King.
- In the center of the state capital, MLK made an uplifting and optimistic speech to 25,000 people - biggest civil rights gathering in southern history
Voting Rights Act (1965)
- Selma put increased pressure on both the main political parties, while opinion polls showed 75% in favor of a Votings Right Act
- August 1965: The presidential signature was finally added
- The act ensured that blacks were not prevented from registering to vote and thus enforced the 15th amendment to the constitution of 1870, suspended the use of literacy and other tests, and (if too few blacks were registered after these tests were suspended) the federal government was empowered to send in federal registrars
- Within a month 60% of Selma’s blacks were registered to vote
- Across the south as a whole, the % of blacks who registered to vote rose from 35% in 1964 to 65% by 1969
- Voting power brought political power → increase in number of blacks elected to public office across US
- Act seemed to be reinforcing the change in public opinion about the participation of blacks in public life throughout America
- HOWEVER; laws cant change attitudes, racism still deeply embedded in american society, huge segment of black population left, balance of power in government has not changed
- Yet, did empower a whole generation, black unity, change can happen if laws enforced, increased and elevated middle class blacks
Watts, 1965
- “Class revolt of underprivileged against privileged… the main issue is economic.” - MLK
- Freedom was before in terms of segregation, now it referred to economic equality
- MLK turned to socialism, calling for a better distribution of wealth
- Far larger riots than those in New York, 1964
- Showed very clearly the little effect the recent civil rights legislations had on urban blacks
- Roughly 4 million moved to cities in the West and North
- Could vote in LA, yet many lived in large ghettos that were far more segregated than any cities in the south
- Unemployment, inadequate public transport → couldn’t go to the outer suburbs where jobs were available, massive overcrowding, poorly educated, poor living conditions, hospital not available
- This pattern of urban poverty was replicated in the North and West, so was segregated housing + all white neighborhoods
