Protest, progress&Radicalism.1960-65

Question 1

What happened in Greensboro, North Carolina?

Answer 1

On 1st February 1960, four black college students sat at a segregated lunch counter at Woolworth’s department store and waited to be served despite being told to leave.

Question 2

Who organised the Greensboro sit-in?

Answer 2

By 4th February there were over 300 students working in shifts – black and white, male and female. Both CORE and the SCLC were asked to send people to train the students in non-violent protest tactics. Ella Baker from the SCLC held a meeting of students on 15th April in Raleigh, North Carolina to plan protests across the South.

Question 3

What organisation was set up on 15th April 1960?

Answer 3

Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee (SNCC – pronounced ‘snick’)

Question 4

Why was Greenboro significant?

Answer 4

The Greensboro sit-in was significant because:
⦁ It helped sit-ins to spread across the country
⦁ Some white southerners joined CORE and SNCC
⦁ Attracted around 50,000 protesters by April 1960
⦁ Sit-ins were easy for the media to cover (publicity!)

Question 5

What Supreme Court judgment desegregated state transport?

Answer 5

Browder v. Gayle (1956)

Question 6

What were the ‘Freedom Rides’?

Answer 6

In 1961, CORE activists decided to ride buses from the North to the Deep South to test if desegregation was happening.

Question 7

What happened on the first Freedom Ride?

Answer 7

On 4th May 1961, seven black and six white ‘Freedom Riders’ left Washington DC. The Governor of Georgia urged calm but Governor John Patterson of Alabama spoke out against the riders. KKK and WCC members aimed to stop them.

Question 8

What was the reaction by white opponents?

Answer 8

⦁ On 15th May 1961, over 100 KKK members surrounded the first bus in Anniston, Alabama, slashing the tires and smashing windows. Someone threw a firebomb through a broken window and held the doors shut. Passengers escaped just before the petrol tank exploded, although some were beaten up.
⦁ On 17th May the SNCC set up their own Freedom Riders from Nashiville, Tennessee. No driver would take them further than Birmingham, Alabama. At the bus station they encountered an angry mob outside. Governor John Patterson was forced to get them safely to Montgomery by the federal government.
⦁ A policeman fired a gun in the air to stop the mob from attacking the Riders at the Montgomery bus station. The mob (over 1,000) then roamed Montgomery, attacking black people and setting one boy on fire.

Question 9

What was the impact of the Freedom Rides?

Answer 9

⦁ More people volunteered. Over the summer there were over 60 Freedom Rides.
⦁ Over 300 Riders went to Jackson, Mississippi’s segregated jail.
⦁ On 1st November 1961 the federal government pledged to enforce desegregation if states did not obey.
⦁ Southern states began to desegregate bus facilities.

Question 10

When did James Meredith re-apply to the University of Mississippi?

Answer 10

1962

Question 11

How had Southern universities responded to desegregation?

Answer 11

Between 1956 and 1962
⦁ 1961 - University of Georgia was urged by the state Governor and university officials called on students to accept the situation.
⦁ May 1961 – Meredith rejected from University of Mississippi with NAACP challenged this in court.
⦁ 1962 – East Carolina University took its first black student with little violence.
⦁ 1962 – The Supreme Court had ordered the University of Mississippi to admit Meredith but university officials and Ross Barnett (state governor and WCC member) physically stopped him from registering.

Question 12

How did the federal government respond to the Meredith case?

Answer 12

Meredith returned to register on 30th September 1962 accompanied by 500 federal officials. President Kennedy called for calm on television. Despite this, a mob of over 3,000 (many armed with little opposition from state police) attacked the federal officials and chanted in favour of Governor Ross Barnet. Many federal marshals were badly injured with 28 shot and hundreds of civilians hurt. Kennedy sent in federal troops who stopped the rioting.

Question 13

When did James Meredith register?

Answer 13

On 1st October – federal troops guarded him for the whole year!

Question 14

How did police respond to civil rights protests in Albany, Georgia?

Answer 14

In October 1961, civil rights groups campaigned in Albany, Georgia. The state police arrested protestors but used little violence. There was little publicity.

Question 15

Who was the chief of police in Birmingham, Alabama?

Answer 15

‘Bull’ Connor – tough chief of police who instructed police not to prevent the KKK from attacking the Freedom Riders.

Question 16

What nickname was given to Birmingham?

Answer 16

‘Bombingham’ due to the regular bombing of black churches, homes and businesses there.

Question 17

What occurred after the campaign in Birmingham?

Answer 17

⦁ Desegregation agreed for Birmingham
⦁ Black homes and businesses bombed
⦁ First significant riots against white violence
⦁ Kennedy ordered federal troops into Alabama
⦁ Over 1,000 black students expelled for missing school

Question 18

What were the longer term effects of the Birmingham campaign?

Answer 18

⦁ Federal government fear of widespread race riots
⦁ Protests in other cities across USA
⦁ A month later, 143 cities had some desegregation
⦁ Many black people felt progress was too slow
⦁ Some black Americans thought it was wrong to put children and students in danger through protests
⦁ Many more Americans saw civil rights as most important issue
⦁ The government produced a tougher civil rights bill

Question 19

What was the March on Washington?

Answer 19

Almost immediately after Birmingham, civil rights leaders led a protest march of people from across the USA: the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on 28th August 1963.

Question 20

Why was Washington DC chosen?

Answer 20

This is the USA’s capital city where the White House and Congress are based.

Question 21

How many people took part in the March on Washington?

Answer 21

Over 250,000, about 40,000 of them white, took part. At the time it was the largest political gathering in US history.

Question 22

What did the ‘Freedom Summer’ in 1964 aim to do?

Answer 22

This was a campaign by SNCC and CORE to increase black voter registration in Mississippi in the run up to the 1964 presidential election.

Question 23

What progress in black voter registration had been made in the early 1960s?

Answer 23

Between 1962 and 1964, about 700,000 black Americans in the South registered. However, in the countryside and Deep South the number hardly rose at all.

Question 24

Was there white opposition?

Answer 24

Yes, and it was often extremely violent. Many white people from Mississippi did not like what they saw as an ‘invasion’ of liberal white students from other states. There were 10,000 KKK members in Mississippi who burned 37 black churches and 30 homes during the Freedom Summer.

Question 25

How successful was the Freedom Summer?

Answer 25

If you measure its success based on its own aims, then not particularly. Many black people lost their jobs for going to meetings and of the 17,000 black people in Mississippi who tried to register to vote, only 1,600 succeeded.

Question 26

Why was black voter registration so important in Selma?

Answer 26

⦁ Selma was in Dallas County where more black people were legally entitled to vote than white people, yet only 1% of them were registered.
⦁ Selma had the largest WCC in Alabama.

Question 27

What did President Lyndon B. Johnson argue was needed in 1965?

Answer 27

A Voting Rights Act to make sure states allowed black people to register to vote.

Question 28

What happened in Selma on 7th March, 1965?

Answer 28

Organised by King, 600 protestors set out to march from Selma to Montgomery. State troopers stopped them just outside Selma, firing tear gas and attacking protestors with clubs and electric cattle prods. This became known as Bloody Sunday. All over the country, people marched in support.

Question 29

How did the Voting Rights Act help?

Answer 29

It certainly helped by allowing the federal government to check that states were not discriminating and to get involved when they were. By the end of 1965, federal registrars had enrolled 79,593 showing some progress. However, change remained slow due to white anger.

Question 30

Why did Kennedy and Johnson not go further in pushing for civil rights?

Answer 30

They both supported civil rights, but they had to balance this against political considerations. If they went too far one way they worried about losing voters in parts of the USA. Also, remember that the Democrats had traditionally been the dominant party in the South throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.