I have a dream

Question 1

Earl Warren

Answer 1

14th chief justice of the united states
liberal
revolutionary in the supreme court and made sure many of the major supreme courts rulings on major civil rights legislation were unanimous to strengthen the case

Question 2

brown v board of education date and case and ruling

Answer 2

1954
case brought by NAACP and Thurgood marshall
Brown’s daughter had to walk six blocks to her school bus stop to ride to Monroe Elementary, her segregated black school one mile away, while Sumner Elementary, a white school, was seven blocks from her house
overturned Plessy precedent of separate but equal
even if facilities were equal, it was psychologically harmful
unanimous 9-0 decision

Question 3

when and why did brown 2 happen

Answer 3

1955
brown 1 set no time frame for integrating schools
brown 2 declared it had to be carried out ‘with all deliberate speed’

Question 4

how significant was the murder of emmett till to the cr movement

Answer 4

Emmett Louis Till was a 14-year-old African American who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955, after being accused of offending a white woman in her family’s grocery store. The brutality of his murder and the fact that his killers were acquitted drew attention to the long history of violent persecution of African Americans in the United States. Till posthumously became an icon of the civil rights movement.
Emmett Till’s murder was a spark in the upsurge of activism and resistance that became known as the Civil Rights movement. The sight of his brutalized body pushed many who had been content to stay on the sidelines directly into the fight

Question 5

little rock

Answer 5

by 1956 not one public school in the south had been integrated
1957 central high school, little rock, Arkansas integrated
9 a/a students carefully selected
faced huge violence and verbal aggression
resulted in direct action by President Eisenhower as he had to deploy 1000 of the 101st airborne division to get the kids inside the school

Question 6

Melba Pattillo

Answer 6

one of the little rock nine
was inspired by the ‘self-assured air’ of Thurgood marshall
was pushed down the stairs + had burning paper and chemicals thrown in her face
when older said she couldn’t believe NAACP had put them in such a position
wrote a book afterwards ‘Warriors Don’t Cry’

Question 7

when was the Montgomery bus boycott and which boycott before it had failed

Answer 7

1956

baton rouge boycott before it had failed so needed this to succeed

Question 8

spark that set of Montgomery bus boycott

Answer 8

Rosa Parks, Montgomery, Alabama - NAACP activist
I white man standing so driver asks four black passengers to stand as they couldn’t sit parallel
Rosa parks refused to move
E.D. Nixon took up her case

Question 9

how boycott worked

Answer 9

blacks boycotted the buses which destroyed businesses as a/a weren’t able to shop where they used to and the bus company’s profits slumped
Martin luther King led the boycott and this helped his rise to fame
MIA = Montgomery improvement association set up to help blacks (eg offered alternative lifts)
381 days bus company had to buckle

Question 10

SCLC what does it stand for, aims and when

Answer 10

southern Christian leadership conference
advance the civil rights movement in a non-violent manner
1957

Question 11

SCLC failure

Answer 11

1961-2 Albany, Georgia

protest against racially discrimination - not enough media coverage and so was quietly dealt with

Question 12

SCLC birmingham

Answer 12

Birmingham, Alabama 1963
non-violent protested over discrimination
Bull Connor sent police in who violently ended the protest
MLK ‘a letter from a Birmingham jail’
businesses offered some desegregation

Question 13

MIA

Answer 13

As a result of this, about 40,000 African Americans joined the boycott, a form of non-violent mass protest. This made up over 90% of the city’s African American population.
The Montgomery Improvement Association, MIA, was formed by black ministers and other community leaders of the city as well. The group’s mission was to coordinate and maintain the boycott. The MIA was led by the, at the time, rising star in the civil rights movement, none other than Martin Luther King Jr. himself. Beyond the boycott, the MIA also sought to improve race relations in general.
As a consequence of this, the MIA decided to continue the boycott until the city of Montgomery would meet its demands. The initial demands by this group included:
To hire black drivers
To enforce courtesy
A first-come, first-seated policy
However, the group eventually helped coordinate a legal challenge to the city’s bus segregation ordinance in partnership with the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People.

Question 14

Why was the Montgomery bus boycotts significant

Answer 14

The Montgomery Bus Boycott was significant on several fronts. First, it is widely regarded as the earliest mass protest on behalf of civil rights in the United States, setting the stage for additional large-scale actions outside the court system to bring about fair treatment for African Americans.
Second, in his leadership of the MIA, Martin Luther King emerged as a prominent national leader of the civil rights movement while also solidifying his commitment to nonviolent resistance. King’s approach remained a hallmark of the civil rights movement throughout the 1960s.
Montgomery put martin at the centre of attention for the spotlights ad the news turned from Roser park to MLK.. Montgomery sarked more civil rights movements and was the major reason

Question 15

Little rock nine

Answer 15

Many schools in the South refused to admit black students, even though the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision decreed school segregation unconstitutional. Despite resistance Civil Rights organizations worked to enrol black students in segregated schools. In Arkansas, the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) recruited young girls and boys to integrate schools. Daisy Bates was the president of the Arkansas NAACP chapter. She was an expert organizer. Under Bates, the NAACP sued the Little Rock school board. Then she and her husband recruited nine students to integrate the all-white Central High School. The reaction from white -parents and students was bad they started kicking over barriers and was upset with the decision of Eisenhower In sending the troops inn

The impact that the little rock nine have on the civil rights is that the little rock nine was nine black students enrolled at formerly all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in September 1957 testing a landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional.

Question 16

Greensboro Sit-In?

Answer 16

What is a sit in -A sit-in or sit-down is a form of direct action that involves one or more people occupying an area for a protest, often to promote political, social, or economic change?

What happened- The Greensboro sit-in was a civil rights protest that started in 1960, when young African American students staged a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and refused to leave after being denied service. By February 5, some 300 students had joined the protest at Woolworth’s, paralyzing the lunch counter and other local businesses. Heavy television coverage of the Greensboro sit-ins sparked a sit-in movement that spread quickly to college towns throughout the South and into the North, as young Blacks and whites joined in various forms of peaceful protest segregation in libraries, beaches, hotels and other establishments. Wasn’t served as shouldn’t be served at the same time as the white people

By the end of March, the movement had spread to 55 cities in 13 states. Though many were arrested for trespassing, disorderly conduct or disturbing the peace, national media coverage of the sit-ins brought increasing attention to the civil rights movement.
In response to the success of the sit-in movement, dining facilities across the South were being integrated by the summer of 1960. At the end of July, when many local college students were on summer vacation, the Greensboro Woolworth’s quietly integrated its lunch counter. Four Black Woolworth’s employees—Geneva Tisdale, Susie Morrison, Anetha Jones and Charles Best—were the first to be served.

Question 17

How successful and why were the sit ins

Answer 17

The sit-in movement produced a new sense of pride and power for African Americans. By rising up on their own and achieving substantial success protesting against segregation in the society in which they lived, Blacks realized that they could change their communities with local coordinated action. For many white Southerners, the sit-in movement demonstrated Blacks’ dissatisfaction with the status quo and showed that economic harm could come to white-owned businesses unless they desegregated peacefully. The sit-in movement proved the inevitability of the end of the Jim Crow system. Most of the success in actual desegregation came in the upper Southern states, such as in cities in Arkansas, Maryland, North Carolina, and Tennessee. On the other hand, no cities in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, or South Carolina desegregated as a result of the sit-in movement.
The sit-in movement marked the first major effort by thousands of local Blacks in civil rights activism. However, the sit-ins failed to create the kind of national attention necessary for any federal intervention. Although SNCC did develop out of the sit-in movement, becoming a permanent organization separate from CORE and the SCLC, the sit-ins faded out by the end of 1960. A new phase of Black protest arose in the form of Freedom Rides, and new coordinated white resistance changed the tactics of civil rights leaders, dramatically raising the level and degree of violence by white civil rights opponents.

Question 18

Freedom rights 1961 What were they

Answer 18

Freedom Riders were groups of white and African American civil rights activists who participated in Freedom Rides, bus trips through the American South in 1961 to protest segregated bus terminals. Freedom Riders tried to use “whites-only” restrooms and lunch counters at bus stations in Alabama, South Carolina and other Southern states. The groups were confronted by arresting police officers—as well as horrific violence from white protestors—along their routes, but also drew international attention to the civil rights movement.

Question 19

How did people react to the Freedom Rides?

Answer 19

On May 14, 1961, the Greyhound bus was the first to arrive in Anniston, Alabama. There, an angry mob of about 200 white people surrounded the bus, causing the driver to continue past the bus station. The mob followed the bus in automobiles, and when the tires on the bus blew out, someone threw a bomb into the bus. The Freedom Riders escaped the bus as it burst into flames, only to be brutally beaten by members of the surrounding mob.

The white people were infuriated by the protests of the Freedom Riders. They hated their guts to stand up to them, and then picket. Typical reactions to the protests was the throwing of rotten eggs and tomatoes, and bottles at the Freedom Riders. the reaction was far stretched when a grazier’s son rammed the Freedom Rides bus off the road when it was leaving Walgett in the middle of the night. Luckily no one was hurt, but this incident showed the reactions the Freedom Rides were receiving, and the incident was also make national as a reporter was on board at that time. The reactions from the Aboriginal people were different. When the Freedom Riders first began their protests, the Aboriginal members of the community were confused as to what their motives were, but after seeing their determination, they also extended a hand, and supported them in their protest.

Question 20

Who was Eugene ‘Bull’ Connor and what role did he play

Answer 20

He was an American politician and member of the Democratic Party who served as Commissioner of Public Safety for the city of Birmingham, Alabama, for more than two decades. He strongly opposed the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s.

After a stop in Anniston, Alabama, the Greyhound bus of the Freedom Riders was attacked. They were offered no police protection. After they left town, they were forced to stop by a violent mob that firebombed and burned the bus, but no activists were fatally hurt. A new Greyhound bus was placed into service and departed for Birmingham. The activists on the earlier Trailways bus had been accosted by KKK members who boarded the bus in Atlanta and beat up the activists, pushing them all to the back of the bus.
The Freedom Riders arrived in Birmingham on May 14, 1961. As the Trailways bus reached the terminal in Birmingham, a large mob of Klansmen and news reporters was waiting for them. The Riders were viciously attacked soon after they disembarked from the bus and attempted to gain service at the whites-only lunch counter. Some were taken to the loading dock area, away from reporters, but some reporters were also beaten with metal bars, pipes, and bats and one’s camera was destroyed. After 15 minutes, the police finally arrived, but by then most Klansmen had left.

Connor intentionally let the Klansmen beat the Riders for 15 minutes with no police intervention. He publicly blamed the violence on many factors, saying that “No policemen were in sight as the buses arrived, because they were visiting their mothers on Mother’s Day”.[14] He insisted that the violence came from out-of-town meddlers and that police had rushed to the scene “as quickly as possible.” The violence was covered by national media.

Question 21

Who was Robert F. Kennedy and what role did he play?

Answer 21

Robert F. Kennedy became Attorney General in January 1961, after his brother John F. Kennedy won election as President of the United States. Robert Kennedy had given a speech expressing the administration’s support of civil rights to a Southern white audience a few days after the start of the Freedom Rides on May 6. However the issue was not yet a major priority for a Kennedy White House preoccupied with Cold War politics.

Caught off guard by the violence that erupted during the May 14 Anniston, AL bus burning and the riot at Birmingham Trailways Bus Station, Robert Kennedy dispatched special assistant John Seigenthaler to Birmingham, AL to aid the embattled CORE Freedom Riders. Seigenthaler helped arrange a plane flight from Birmingham to New Orleans, LA. Robert Kennedy sought protection for the Riders by Alabama state officials like Gov. John Patterson, with limited success, eventually sending in U.S. Marshals to protect the Riders during the May 21 siege and firebombing of the First Baptist Church.

The Freedom Rides campaign was an opportunity for the Kennedy brothers to begin building a rapport with civil rights leaders through phone conversations, meetings, and cautious collaborations. These ties to the Civil Rights Movement would only deepen in the coming years.

In 1964, Robert F. Kennedy was elected as U.S. Senator for New York. He was assassinated on June 5, 1968 while he campaigned for President.

Question 22

James Meredith, October 2, 1962. Who was James Meredith

Answer 22

First black students to get into Mississippi uni, he was an air force pilot, after high school, Meredith spent nine years in the United States Air Force before enrolling in Jackson State College — an all-Black school — in Mississippi.

Question 23

What was ‘Ole Miss’

Answer 23

This is later on. is Mississippi uni but Ole Miss was a centre of activity during the American civil rights movement when a race riot erupted in 1962 following the attempted admission of James Meredith, an African American, to the segregated campus. The Ole Miss riot of 1962, , was an incident of mob violence by proponents of racial segregation beginning the night of September 30, 1962. Federal and U.S. state law enforcement were dispatched to accompany Meredith during his registration to maintain civil order, but a riot erupted on campus. Two civilians, one being a French journalist, were killed during the night, and over 300 people were injured, including one-third of the federal law enforcement personnel deployed.

Question 24

What roles did Robert F Kennedy and Governor Barnett play?

Answer 24

Tried to do everything to not let him In Robert Kennedy got the national guard to let him in. On September 29, 1962, as measures are taken to safely transport James Meredith to the University of Mississippi where he will enrol in accordance with a U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding desegregation of the institution, President John F. Kennedy and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy make a series of phone calls to Gov. Ross Barnett who has openly defied the Court’s ruling. In one secretly recorded call that day, Attorney General Kennedy gets exasperated when the governor shoots down his idea for crowd control.

Question 25

What happened?

Answer 25

In 1961, he applied to the all-white University of Mississippi. He was initially accepted, but his admission was later withdrawn when the registrar discovered his race. Since all public educational institutions had been ordered to desegregate by this time, following 1954’s Brown v. Board of Education ruling, Meredith filed a suit alleging discrimination. Although the state courts ruled against him, the case made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in his favour, Mississippi ruled that he could go to school. People don’t give up, investigation to try and find something not to let him in

Question 26

The Albany Campaign, 1961-2 November 1961

Answer 26

What happened
Two civil rights organisations came together to work together, ran nonviolent workshops and taught people how to protest, staged sit ins In bus terminals, The Albany Movement was a desegregation and voters’ rights coalition formed in Albany, Georgia, in November 1961. This movement was founded by local black leaders and ministers, as well as members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People. This group has been assisted by Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. This was meant to draw attention to the brutally enforced racial segregation practices in Southwest Georgia. However, many leaders in SNCC were fundamentally opposed to King and the SCLC’s involvement. They felt that a more democratic approach aimed at long-term solutions was preferable for the area other than King’s tendency towards short-term, authoritatively run organizing.

Question 27

What happened to King?

Answer 27

Someone in the Albany civil rights movement invited Martin Luther King to join the protest. This angered SNCC who wanted the protest to stay led by locals. King led one protest march and got arrested. The city authorities played a cat and mouse game. They decided no-one would be arrested and jailed; students were arrested and released. In this way there were no ‘martyrs’ to the cause and the nation’s media were less likely to be attracted to what was going on – the opposite of what happened in Birmingham. They also promised the creation of a biracial committee to look at Albany’s problems. King left the Albany movement and returned to Atlanta. The authorities went back on their agreement, but the movement had lost momentum. Protests became less and less well supported. Albany was recognised as a major defeat by the civil rights movement. MLK learnt to go somewhere where the police will not be calm this led to Birmingham. Future of the civil rights movement relied on the next movement.

Question 28

How did the police respond to the protests?

Answer 28

Very little violence meant very little fuel for the media Pitrick, police chief clever person, gave strict orders not to use any violence as the media wanted violence and media attention went down as no violence to report. Pitrick paid MLK bailed, as when king was, I jailed the protest was getting more heat so getting him out jail took the oxygen away from the protestors

Question 29

Why is Albany seen as a major failure for King and the Civil Rights movement?

Answer 29

? Target to broad as they were trying to desegregate Georgia and did chip away. Seen little progress in fall of 1961, civil rights protestors gathered in the city of Albany, Georgia with the ambitious campaign of ending all forms of segregation throughout the city. Known as the Albany Movement, the year-long protest was fraught with suffering, arrests, and sacrifices, before ultimately fizzling out without having achieved its primary goals. So, was the Albany Movement a bust? This was the first major movement for total desegregation, and although it was not immediately successful, it was anything but a failure,

Question 30

Why did King and SCLC choose Birmingham?

Answer 30

• King & SCLC felt they had achieved relatively little … both SNCC & CORE had significant ‘victories’ including the Sit-Ins & Freedom Rides respectively.
• In short; SCLC had to ‘compete’ with other (so far) more successful civil rights organisations after their success in Montgomery had faded.
• The growth of Black nationalism was becoming increasingly prevalent in urban areas and represented a new ‘threat’ to the current non-violent civil rights organisations and their tactics of peaceful protest.
• Both the NAACP and the SNCC were relatively inactive in Birmingham so it was waiting for a group to get involved.
• The local prominent black leader was affiliated to SCLC and King’s brother was a pastor in Birmingham … the stage was set when…

Question 31

What happened during the 1963 Birmingham campaign?

Answer 31

• Most segregated city in the USA
• It became King and SCLC’s first great solo triumph! (Montgomery had involved the MIA too)
• At first though they failed to recruit sufficient protestors as Connor was due to retire.
• They ‘cheated’ by protesting in crowded areas to give the impression of numbers!
• Then Connor began to behave in his predictably aggressive fashion and turned dogs on the protestors – just what King wanted for the extra media attention it brought (Albany?).
• King then defied an injunction against him marching and did so – why?
• His arrest made national! news. He was kept in solitary confinement without private meetings with his lawyer = an unconstitutional infringement of his civil rights.
• He wrote (partly on toilet roll) his letter from Birmingham jail and his wife phoned President Kennedy (as you do) and JFK ordered his release! … but once released the press started to leave Birmingham.
• So, King & SCLC enlisted school children to march (some only 6yrs old) and Connor responded (with exactly what King wanted) by turning high pressure water hoses on youngsters and arresting them … the jails filled as did the newspapers and TV, saturated with the kind of violent imagery King wanted.
• A leading SCLC official thanked Connor for his violent response without which the media would have left!
• An agreement was reached to improve black opportunities in Birmingham, but the Klan sabotaged it and bombed King’s brother’s house and King’s motel. Blacks rioted! The Attorney General (Robert Kennedy) urged “if King loses worse leaders are going to take his place” (and then what?)
• This had led too the March on Washington as he’s drawn the president I with these events

Question 32

March on Washington

Answer 32

The March on Washington was a massive protest march that occurred in August 1963, when some 250,000 people gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Also known as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the event aimed to draw attention to continuing challenges and inequalities faced by African Americans a century after emancipation. It was also the occasion of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s now-iconic “I Have A Dream” speech. The purpose of the march was to advocate for the civil and economic rights of African Americans.

Question 33

Everything on the March of Washington

Answer 33

What were they Marching for: March for jobs for black people
In 1963, in the wake of violent attacks on civil rights demonstrators in Birmingham, Alabama, momentum built for another mass protest on the nation’s capital.
With Randolph planning a march for jobs, and King and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) planning one for freedom, the two groups decided to merge their efforts into one mass protest.
That spring, Randolph and his chief aide, Bayard Rustin, planned a march that would call for fair treatment and equal opportunity for Black Americans, as well as advocate for passage of the Civil Rights Act (then stalled in Congress).

King is disappointed with the lack of civil rights changed that the president has doe so far. President John F. Kennedy met with civil rights leaders before the march, voicing his fears that the event would end in violence. In the meeting on June 22,
JFK ended up reluctantly endorsing the March on Washington, but tasked his brother and attorney general, Robert F. Kennedy, with coordinating with the organizers to ensure all security precautions were taken. In addition, the civil rights leaders decided to end the march at the Lincoln Memorial instead of the Capitol, so as not to make members of Congress feel as if they were under siege.

Who was at the March: Other speakers followed, including Rustin, NAACP president Roy Wilkins, John Lewis of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), civil rights veteran Daisy Lee Bates and actors Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee. The march also featured musical performances from the likes of Marian Anderson, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan and Mahalia Jackson.

The result: The rising tide of civil rights agitation greatly influenced national opinion and resulted in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, guaranteeing equal voting rights, outlawing discrimination in restaurants, theatres, and other public accommodations involved in interstate commerce, and encouraging school desegregation.

Question 34

1957 Civil Rights Act - Eisenhower

Answer 34

• Eisenhower used this to win the black vote.
• Eisenhower expressed shock at “How many bubbles?” and that only 7000 out of the 900,000 blacks present voted in, Mississippi.
• Thurmond filibustered for 24hrs to kill the bill.
• A weakened act was passed.
• The Act established a Civil Rights Division within the Justice Dept and a Federal Rights Commission to investigate race relations.
• Public officials who obstructed black voting would be indicted – but tried by an all white jury.

Question 35

1960 Civil Rights Act - Eisenhower

Answer 35

• In 1958 Eisenhower introduced another bill due to bombings.
• Southern Democrats again diluted its provisions.

• The act made it a federal crime to obstruct court-
ordered school desegregation (after Brown v. Board).

• The act also established penalties for obstructing black voting.
• By the end of 1960 just 3% had been added to the number of black voters registered.
• But at least these acts had acknowledged some federal responsibility – the movement had an incentive!

Question 36

Voting Rights Act

Answer 36

How and why was the Voting Rights bill passed in 1965?
Johnson gave a lot of money to education and improved health care. Continuous amounts of violence In 1964, numerous demonstrations were held, and the considerable violence that erupted brought renewed attention to the issue of voting rights. The murder of voting-rights activists in Mississippi and the attack by state troopers on peaceful marchers in Selma, AL, gained national attention and persuaded President Johnson and Congress to initiate meaningful and effective national voting rights legislation. The combination of public revulsion to the violence and Johnson’s political skills stimulated Congress to pass the voting rights bill on August 5, 1965.

What were its terms?
Outlawed literacy tests. which closely followed the language of the 15th amendment, applied a nationwide prohibition of the denial or abridgment of the right to vote on account of race or colour. The use of poll taxes in national elections had been abolished by the 24th amendment (1964) to the Constitution; the Voting Rights Act directed the Attorney General to challenge the use of poll taxes in state and local elections.
What was its significance?
It allowed federally appointed registrars to combat southern white devices such as literacy tests.
The effect on the south was that by late 1966 only four of the old confederate states had fewer than 50 per cent of their eligible black voters registered.
By 1968 even Mississippi was up to 59 per cent and by 1980 black voters were only 7% less than white voters.
The uber of black Americans elected to office in the south increased six-fold between 1965 ad 1969 then doubled between 1969 and 80.

How did Johnson engineer this legislative revolution?
Secondary education act, health care changes and voting rights acts. He’s got 24 years’ experience in congress and was the leader of the democratic party for most of that, therefore knows a lot of people and probably owned a lot of favours, democrats has a 2 third majority I congress. Black mail people and gave them money in return for there vote
Because he was determined to get the bill across
in 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson addresses a joint session of Congress to urge the passage of legislation guaranteeing voting rights for all.
The speech was delivered eight days after racial violence erupted in Selma, Alabama.

Question 37

Selma:

Answer 37

What was the situation in Selma?
Only 23 people register voters in Selma even though half of the population was, white families earning more than 4-time black family were, everything was segregated. therefore, MLK lead a protest due too him knowing the police chief (Clark) would respond with violence.

Why did King choose Selma?
Police chief that would bring violence therefore media attention, wide racists.

What happened at Selma?
The Selma to Montgomery march was part of a series of civil-rights protests that occurred in 1965 in Alabama, a Southern state with deeply entrenched racist policies. In March of that year, in an effort to register black voters in the South, protesters marching the 54-mile route from Selma to the state capital. In March of that year, in an effort to register Black voters in the South, protesters marching the 54-mile route from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery were confronted with deadly violence from local authorities and white vigilante groups. As the world watched, the protesters—under the protection of federalized National Guard troops—finally achieved their goal, walking around the clock for three days to reach Montgomery, Alabama. The historic march, and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s participation in it, raised awareness of the difficulties faced by Black voters, and the need for a national Voting Rights Act.

How significant was Selma?
Eventually, the march went on unimpeded – and the echoes of its significance reverberated so loudly in Washington, D.C., that Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, which secured the right to vote for millions and ensured that Selma was a turning point in the battle for justice and equality in the United States.

Question 38

How much MORE had the Civil Rights movement achieved by 1968?

Answer 38

The 1964 Civil Rights Act was a powerful statement of equality.

It meant the end for segregation and encouraged a further 50 cities to desegregate on top of the 160 that had already done so.

It provided money for school desegregation. By 1972 only 10% black Americans were in segregated schooling.

A prosperous black middle class grew as the number of families earning over $10,000 doubled!
In the 1960s black incomes in general doubled!

In 1968 the Fair Housing Act outlawed discrimination in renting and selling.

The 1965 Voting Rights Act had real teeth! I trebled the number of black voters from
1m-3million!!!

(By 1980 LA, Detroit, Washington and Atlanta had all elected black mayors at some point)

HOWEVER … black Americans still only earned on average 2/3 of a white income and in
1968…

Question 39

How far did the economic status of black Americans improve after 1968

Answer 39

Pros
By the year 2000 1/3 of black Americans were middle class.
Affirmative action-Affirmative action refers to a set of policies and practices within a government or organization seeking to increase the representation of particular groups based on their gender, race, sexuality, creed or nationality in areas in which they are underrepresented such as education and employment
Supreme Court ruling in the 1971 case Griggs v. Duke Power Company.- The Supreme Court ruled that the company’s employment requirements did not pertain to applicants’ ability to perform the job, and so were unintentionally discriminating against black employees.

Con
1/3 black Americans live below the poverty line.
½ black children live below the poverty line.
1/3 black Americans have low skilled low wage jobs – earning ½ that of whites.
Black unemployment was twice that of whites.

Question 40

How far did the social status changed by the year 1968

Answer 40

Pros
The % black children being educated in integrated schools peaked in the 1970-80s.
The number of black males and females aged 25-29 who completed a college education between 1970-90 doubled!

By 1992 half of black Americans lived in urban areas that were more than 50% white.
The Supreme Court’s 1971 ruling in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg and busing. -Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1, was a landmark United States Supreme Court case dealing with the busing of students to promote integration in public schools. The Court held that busing was an appropriate remedy for the problem of racial imbalance in schools, even when the imbalance resulted from the selection of students based on geographic proximity to the school rather than from deliberate assignment based on race. This was done to ensure the schools would be “properly” integrated and that all students would receive equal educational opportunities regardless of their race.

Con
There continued to be some white opposition to integrated education.
White flight to private schools accelerated and reveals de facto segregation still.
Females (15%) and males (10%) who completed college still seems very low when compared with whites at 20-25%.
1/3 of black Americans continued to live in segregated areas.
Average life expectancy for black Americans is 7 years lower than for whites.

Question 41

How far did the legal and political status changed by the year 1968

Answer 41

PRO
Black Americans became mayors I Detroit, LA, WDC, Chicago and Phily.
Between 1990-92 the number of black Congressman increased by 30% … 45 to 69.
Jesse Jackson made a serious run for the democratic nomination for Pres’ until his anti-semitic remarks came to light.

Cons
1991 Rodney King & resulting LA riots (not only LA).- The 1992 Los Angeles riots, sometimes called the 1992 Los Angeles uprising, were a series of riots and civil disturbances that occurred in Los Angeles County in April and May 1992. Unrest began in South Central Los Angeles on April 29, after a trial jury acquitted four officers of the Los Angeles Police Department for usage of excessive force in the arrest and beating of Rodney King, which had been videotaped and widely viewed in TV broadcasts.

In Florida it was revealed in 1992 that of those drivers stopped by the Sherriff’s Dept 70% of them were black – yet black Americans only made up 5% of drivers on that road.

Black Americans make up 50% prison population but only 12% the total population = victims!?
Black senators were rare since this required a wider (state wide) polling and appeal. Obama was the only black senator when he ran in 2008.