Civil Rights Movement

I. As the cold War threatened the relationship of the US with other nations, it also had internal problems as racial issues continued to grow during the 1950’s and 1960’s.

II. African Americans failed to benefit from the abundance of the 1950s. They remained segregated in housing, schools, and jobs. Occupied the bottom rung on the socioeconomic scale. Few thought they were equal.a. Things labeled black and white. Subject to intimidation and violence. Kept them from

voting. Only 5 percent of eligible voters voted in MS! Neighborhood were segregated and only 6 of the 77 hospitals in the metro area would accept black patients.

b. Eisenhower, like Truman, was not personally committed to the complete desegregation of American Life. But the president was sensitive to the direction in which the country was moving and took major steps along that path. By 1953, segregation was virtually eliminated in the armed forces. The following year all federal contracts contained clauses banning discrimination and segregation by employers. The administration led a successful campaign at eliminate segregation in movie theaters, hotels, restaurants, and busses in the nation’s capital.

III. Plessy v. Fergusona. 1896 Homer Plessy a black man was arrested because he sat in a railroad car that was

designated for “white’s only” a common apartheid in America until the 1960’s in this country. The U.S. Supreme Court heard the case, and when they hand down their decision, the majority opinion written by Justice Henry Billings Brown, an interpretation of the Constitution’s fourteenth amendment was made that become known as the “separate but equal” decision. In essence, Justice Brown and the Court’s majority opinion was that as long as facilities were equal, they could remain separate, or segregated, by race. Two different opinion: Brown vs. Harlan.

b. A young black law-school dean by the name of Charles Houston arose on the national scene. He had an impressive education, including a law degree from Harvard and a Ph.D. He nevertheless could not get a job in a high-profile law firm because of this race. He did choose instead to train up black lawyers to become experts in Constitutional Law so that they could take up the cause of eradicating segregation and the Jim Crow laws created by the Plessy decision. One of his most famous students was Thurgood Marshall, who became the first black U.S. Court Justice.

IV. Civil Rights under Trumana. The racism of the German Nazis, Italian fascists, and Japanese imperialists focused

attention on the need for the US to improve its need for race relations. b. For most of his political career, Truman had shown little concern about the plight of

African Americans. Grown up in western Missouri assuming that both black and white preferred to be segregated. But he began to reassess his conviction as president.

c. Fall of 1946 he hosted a delegation of civil rights activists. The visitors described the incidents of torture and intimidation against black in the South. Truman was aghast. “I had not ideas it was a terrible as that. We’ve got to do something.”

i. Created the Committee on Civil Rights. Pursued fair employment practices and argued that federal aid needed to be denied to those states that mandated segregated schools and public facilities.

ii. July 26, 1948 Truman banned racial discrimination in the hiring of federal employees.

d. Sought to end it in the workplace as well.e. Armed Forces integration

i. 1948 Truman signed an executive order that integrated the military.ii. Air Force and navy quickly complied but the army dragged its feet until the early

1950s. By 1960 the armed forces were the most racially integrated of all American organizations.

iii. Howard “Stretch” Johnson was a Purple Heart veteran and black.iv. Adam Clayton Powell Jr.

1. Son of a very charismatic and successful minster in New York City’s Abyssinian Baptist Church and Powell served his father as an associate pastor of the church. In 1939, he took over his father’s role and provide social assistance to the poor. He held a bachelor’s degree from Colgate University and a master’s degree from Columbia University. In 1944, he was elected for the first time as a U.S. Congressman. He elected eleven more terms and continued his work with the poor and underrepresented groups-Indians. He would eat in the white only dining areas and insisted that his staff eat there as well. Pushed more legislation through for equality. Upon his twelfth re-election into Congress refused to afford him his 22 years seniority as a member of the House. He returned to his church after 24 years in public service in Congress and retired as its pastor in 1971.

V. Truman and the 1948 election and Civil Rightsa. Used his civil rights platform to help him win the next 4 years.b. Thomas Dewey was predicted to win. Truman chalked up the biggest upset in American

history by taking 24 million votes to Dewey’s 22 million. c. State of the Union message repeated the agenda he had had for the last year. “Every

segment of our population and every individual has a right to expect from his government a fair deal.”

d. Extended or enlarged programs of the New Deal. Like higher minimum wage, more Social Security, rent controls, supports for farm prices, public housing programs, TVA electrification, farm housing. But Congress struggled to pass any drastic new departures in domestic policy like civil rights bills, national health insurance, federal aid to education, subsidies for famers.

VI. Jackie Robinson: Challenges and Legacya. Broke the color barrier when he became the first black athlete to play in the MLB since

1884. The first man to play in the majors was Moses Fleetwood walker who played for Toledo of the American Association in 1884. Robinson signed with the Brooklyn Dodger in 1947. Named Rookie of the year that year, National League MVP in 1949 and a World Series champ in 1955.

b. Born January 31, 1919 in Cairo Georgia the youngest of five. Raised in poverty by a single mother. Attended High school and College and played four sports: football, basketball, track, and baseball. Attended University of California, LA and became the

university’s fist student to win varsity letters in four sports. Had to leave the university just shy of graduation due to finances. Moved to Hawaii to play football for semi-professional Honolulu Bears but his time was cut short due to WWII. Served as second lieutenant in the US army but never saw combat. In boot camp he was arrested and court-martialed in 1944 for refusing to give up his seat in a bus. His excellent reputation combined with friend’s support, the NAACP and newspapers all helped to shed light on the injustice and hi was acquitted.

c. After his discharge from the army in 1944 as a lieutenant, he began to play baseball professionally. Black and white played in separate leagues. But he was soon chosen by Branch Rickey president of the Brooklyn Dodgers to help integrate major league baseball. Joined the all-white Montreal Royals in 1946.

d. People jeered and he and his family received threats. Most of the league was formed from people from the south (60%). Despite the abuse he did so well he was promoted to join the dodgers in 1947 at age 28. Harassment continued and many players on opposing side threatened not to play against the dodgers. Even his own teammates threatened to sit out. But the Dodgers manager Leo Durocher informed them that he would sooner trade them than Robinson.

e. He succeeded in putting the prejudice and racial strife aside and showed everyone what a talented player he was. In his first year he hit 12 home runs and helped the Dodgers win the National league pennant and Rookie of the year.

f. Civil Rights Activisti. Testified before the HUAAC and publically called out the Yankees as a racist

organization. ii. Helped his team (and race) win the World Series

iii. Helped establish African American owned and controlled Freedom Bank iv. Served on the board of the NAACP until 1967v. First African American to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962

vi. Wife established the Jackie Robinson Foundation dedicated to honoring his life and work. Helps young people in need by providing scholarships and mentoring programs.

VII. Eisenhower and Civil Rightsa. When he entered office he was committed to civil rights in principle and he pushed the

issue in areas of federal authority. During his first three years, public services in Washington, D.C. were desegregated, as were navy years and veteran’s hospitals. However, he believed that state or local action over federal involvement should trump federal regulation in the area of civil rights. This would inhibit any enforcing of actions and laws. “I don’t believe you can change the hearts of men with laws or decisions”.

b. During his presidency, leadership in civil rights came from the SCOTUS rather than the executive or legislative branches of the government.

VIII. Brown vs. the Board of Educationa. Sweatt v. Painter (1950) the SCOTUS first ruled that a separate black law school in Texas

failed to measure up because of intangible factors. Thurgood Marshall, the chief NAACP lawyer and former student of the law school, represented the case. In two years, five cases would be brought before the court.

b. 1953 , case was brought before the Supreme Court. Brought when Linda Brown of Topeka, Kansa, was refused admission to her local public school because she was black. It also included four other cases: Briggs v. Clarendon County (suing for desks in schools), Davis v County School Board of Prince Edward County (teacher pay, too many kids, building not equal) The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the previous interpretation of the constitution’s 14th amendment (separate but equal) was wrong and unconstitutional with respect to public school facilities. Thurgood Marshall took the case. He had won 13 out of 15 cases previously before the SCOTUS. John Davis took the other side against the kids. The job was to decide the meaning of the law. Does it permit segregation of does segregation break rules laid out in the constitution?

c. Marshall argued that segregating people would never truly make them equal. It makes one inferior to the other. Davis upheld the Plessy decision. Nothing in the constitution prevented separation as long as the conditions were equitable. It should be up to the states. Took a year! The court was split but then the chief justice died. Eisenhower named CA former governor Earl Warren as the new chief justice. He was able to convince all the justices that segregation needed to end. They cited current sociological and psychological findings-demonstrating that even if separate facilities were equal in quality, the mere fact of separating people by race engendered feeling of inferiority.

d. On May 17th, 1954, the Court issued an order that the desegregation of public schools must happen “with all deliberate speed” but since they did not go so far as to place a “do” by date on their order, states found all manner of ways of delaying the process of school integration. I was not until three years later that nine student in Little Rock Arkansas were selected to be the first to integrate Little Rock Central High school in 1957. Regardless, this ruling set legal precedent and its implications stretched far beyond the public schools. The judges interpreted the Supreme Court’s decision also to encompass admission to any other public place, from restaurants to parks.

e. Eisenhower refused to take any part in leading white southerners toward compliance. Privately he maintained that the SCOTUS actually set back progress 15 years!

f. Hostility mounted in the Deep South and Virginia led by newly formed Citizens’ Councils-upper-class version of the KKK. They used economic coercion to discipline blacks who crossed racial boundaries. They would lose their jobs, have their insurance policies canceled, or be denied personal loans or home mortgages.

g. Virginia’s Prince Edward County closed al is public schools for five years! Rather than integrate! The kids went to private schools paid by white AND black taxes. Black children didn’t have any education now at all. It was scary-things were changing for people.

h. Before the end of 1955, moderate sentiment in the South rose against desegregation of the schools. In 1956, 101 members of Congress signed a “Southern Manifesto” which denounced the Court’s decision in the Brown case as “a clear abuse of judicial power.”

i. By the end of 1956, in six southern states, not a single black child attended school with white.

j. Question: what are the advantages of a fully integrated education system and the advantages of having the exposure to the diversity? Are there any disadvantages of integration?

IX. Montgomery Bus Boycott a. Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama on Thursday December 1, 1955 for

refusing to relinquish her seat on a bus to a white patron. She used her one phone call to call her mother, who in turn contacted black union leader E.D. Nixon. Nixon collected two white people who were outspoken and prominent in the desegregation movement in Montgomery, Clifford and Virginia Durr. The Durrs and Nixon arrive at the jail where Parks was being held. All three were greatly concerned about Parks’ safety while she was confined in the jail. In the meantime, a professor at Alabama State College named Jo Ann Robinson began printing leaflets to distribute to Montgomery’s black population since they did not at that time have unrestricted access in a newspaper or on the radio. It was learned that Ms. Parks’ hearing was scheduled for the following Monday morning, so Robinson urged people not to ride the buses in Montgomery AT ALL on that day, even to or from work or school. The boycott was organized. Meanwhile, E.D. Nixon was still working diligently behind the scenes as both he and Mr. Durr realized immediately what a potentially high-profile case this would become. Nixon started contacting Montgomery’s prominent black ministers, starting with Ralph Abernathy and HH Hubbard. Somewhere down Nixon’s list, he phoned the new minister at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, 26 year old Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. asking for his help in getting the word out to Montgomery’s black population. King agreed, and Nixon informed them that it was a good thing, since Nixon had taken the liberty of setting up a citywide meeting at King’s church building. The boycott was even more successful than leaders had hoped it would be. They had expected 60% of Montgomery’s blacks to participate in the bus system boycott instead, they were shocked to 100% participation. In the end, Montgomery’s segregation law for bus use was repealed, but not until 1956 when the U.S. Supreme Court again had to become involved. Between the time of the Court decision and the arrest of Rosa Parks numerous acts of violence, some of which were even omitted by Montgomery policemen, were taking their toll on the black community. Nevertheless, Rev. King urged people still to act nonviolently, despite the bombing of home, churches, and carpool meeting areas for blacks. Dr. King’s admonition to “meet hate with love” became famous as nation media coverage was now on Montgomery’s racial difficulties. Began in December 1, 1955 and boycott ended in November 1956.

b. Question: is there something for which they would be willing to risk being jailed or having their families and themselves endangered? What rights and/or privileges do you take for granted?

X. Civil Rights Act of 1957a. Despite Eisenhower’s reluctance to take the lead in desegregation schools, he supported

the right of blacks to vote. So he proposed legislation that became the civil Rights Act of 1957, the first civil rights law passed since Reconstruction. After a year of delay, Senate Majority Leader LBJ, watered it down a bit and got it passed. It established the Civil Right Commission and a new Civil Rights Division in the Justice Department which could seek injunctions to prevent interference with the right to vote. However this bill and the Act of 1960 lacked any ability to enforce it.

XI. Little Rock Nine

a. A few weeks after the Civil Rights Act of 1957 passed, Arkansas governor Orval Faubus called out the National Guard to prevent nine black students from entering a high school

b. In Sept 4, 1957, a group of young black high school students were sent to break the racial barriers at Little Rock Central High School-under federal court order. They became known as the Little Rock Nine. Little Rock’s school board was the first Southern school board to write a statement of compliance with the Brown decision; so most people believed that this liberal-minded Southern city would provide a relative smooth transition for these students. Then, Arkansas Governor, Orval Faubus, issued a statement saying that he was sending National Guard troops to surround the school, but at the same time, believed that if the actual integration took place on the next September morning, no number of Guardsmen could keep or restore order in the city. Most believe that Faubus made this statement to help his political efforts later in that same year. The Governor stated that he would not permit Negroes to enter white schools in this city, despite the order form the Federal District Court. According to him, hHe wasn’t trying to defy the Courts orders but trying to maintain peace and order. He telegrammed the president and told him to stop interfering with the situation at Little Rock. The mayor of the town denounced the Governor for having sent the militia into the city. He said it created tensions were none existed.

c. This was the first time a state violated a federal order on integration issues. And was the first test of Brown Vs. Board of Education

i. The students tried but were prevented on Sept 4 from entering. 100 guards were on duty. By 8 am 400 people stood by the school to prevent the students from entering. The troops blocked the way for 15 year old Elizabeth Eckford and she had to go to the other exit 100 yards away. The crowd surrounded her jeering and yelling. Other students were also prevented from entering.

ii. They tried again the next day.d. Eisenhower gave televised speech on Sept 24 and called in federal troops. He ordered a

thousand paratroopers to Little Rock to protect the students, and placed the National Guard on federal service (Faubus had controlled the State National Guard). The soldiers would stay through the school year!

e. Sept 25. The nine students entered Central High, but were immediately separated. When they expressed their concern they were told, “You wanted integration you’ll get integration.” And things went out of control both in and out of the school building. Administrators shuttled the students into the principal’s office, but as the crowd grew more an more frenzied, one person commented that perhaps the only way to stop the riot was to let the crowd take one of the students so that they then could get the others out of the building safely. The asinine proposal was squelched, thankfully, by the assistant police chief, Gene Smith. Smith thought logically and quickly and took the students to the garage in the basement of the school building. They were put into two cars there and told to keep their heads down. Smith instructed the drivers to drive quickly and not to stop for anything under any circumstances until the students were safely away from Central High School. It was after this that for the first time since the Reconstruction, a US President was forced send federal troops to the South to provide protection for blacks.

f. The following year Faubus closed the high school of Little Rock rather than allow integration, and court proceedings dragged on into 1959 before the schools could be reopened. In that year, massive resistance to integration in Virginia collapsed when both state and federal courts struck down state laws that had cut off funds from integrated schools. Thereafter, massive resistance was confined, mostly, to the Deep South.

g. Question: what would it have been like to have been one of the Little Rock Nine? What would you have done on either side (white or black)?

XII. Southern Massive Resistancea. Hostility mounted in the Deep South and Virginia led by newly formed Citizens’ Councils-

upper-class version of the KKK. They used economic coercion to discipline blacks who crossed racial boundaries. They would lose their jobs, have their insurance policies canceled, or be denied personal loans or home mortgages.

b. Virginia’s Prince Edward County closed al is public schools for five years! Rather than integrate! The kids went to private schools paid by white AND black taxes. Black children didn’t have any education now at all. It was scary-things were changing for people.

c. Before the end of 1955, moderate sentiment in the South rose against desegregation of the schools. In 1956, 101 members of Congress signed a “Southern Manifesto” which denounced the Court’s decision in the Brown case as “a clear abuse of judicial power.”

d. By the end of 1956, in six southern states, not a single black child attended school with white.

e. The following year after the Little Rock episode, Faubus closed the high school of Little Rock rather than allow integration, and court proceedings dragged on into 1959 before the schools could be reopened. In that year, massive resistance to integration in Virginia collapsed when both state and federal courts struck down state laws that had cut off funds from integrated schools. Thereafter, massive resistance was confined, mostly, to the Deep South.

f. More violence in 1958, when MLK was stabbed while conducting a book signing in Harlem. He obviously survived, but it was horrible act of violence. In 1963, in Jackson Mississippi, the famous NAACP leader, Medgar Evers was killed outside his house. A man named Byron de la Beckwith, who was acquitted twice by juries, killed Evers. It was not until over two decades later that Beckwith was finally convicted of his crime.

XIII. University of Alabamaa. In 1963 Governor George Wallace personally stood in the main doorway at the

University of Alabama, vowing that no black students would enter the school. b. Question: why were the racial issues more intense in the South even though there were

riots and other atrocities occurring all over the U.S.XIV. Sit-ins

a. Four black college students sat down and demanded service at a “whites only” Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina on February 1, 1960. Within a week, the sit-in movement had spread to six more towns in the state, and within two months, demonstrations had occurred in 54 cities in nine states.

b. Both black and white students took part in passive resistance strategies in which they participated in sit-ins at lunch counters. While they were sitting, other customers might pour ketchup or other foods over their heads, yet the protesters sat quietly, responding in a nonviolent way to these indignant assaults. Even President JFK stated that the “way for Americans to stand up for their rights is to sit down.”

c. In 1960, they formed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which worked with King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to spread the movement.

d. The sit-ins at restaurants became “kneel-ins” at churches and “wade-ins” at segregated public pools.

e. They developed freedom songs like “We Shall Overcome.”f. During the year after the Greensboro sit-ins, over 3,600 black and white activists spent

some time in jail. They were struck with clubs, poked with cattle prods, pelted with rocks, burned with cigarettes, and subjected to verbal abuse. In Orangeburg, SC officers used fire hoses against the demonstrators amid subfreezing temperatures. But inspired by MLK’s nonviolent protests, they refused to be violent.

XV. Freedom ridersa. In 1961, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) organized a group to monitor and test

the desegregation of buses. This group, consisting of both black and white members, was known as the Freedom Riders. Several attacks, mostly in Alabama, occurred, and these were violent attacks. In Anniston, Alabama, for example the Freedom Riders’ bus was mobbed by segregation proponents who threw rocks and bricks at the bus and slashed its tires. The bus stopped outside town to repair the flats, and at that time, it was firebombed. The bus was completely destroyed and several of its riders were beaten and/or suffered smoke inhalation injuries. The mob was broken up, luckily, when an undercover police officer fired his weapon into the air and the crowd dispersed. The Freedom Rider’s initial route was from Washington, D.C., to New Orleans, Louisiana. Only three weeks into the trip, it ended in Meridian, Mississippi, after more riotous incidents that required federal intervention. It drew national attention generating support. The heat continued to rise across the nation, but particularly in the South.

XVI. Summer in Birmingham and sit-insa. In summer of 1962, Birmingham Alabama’s public leaders closed all the recreational

facilities because they didn’t want to see them integrated. (68 parks, 38 playgrounds, 6 swimming pols, and 4 golf courses) the city’s moderates kept quiet. They feared mob action or the disapproval of their friends or the violence of the KKK. The Klan helped elect Eugene Bull Connor as commissioner of public safety. He was a big bully. During the protest marches in Birmingham, he arrested any black who was demonstrating in order to gain the right to eat at restaurants, attend schools, and use other public facilities that were racially segregated.

b. In 1963, the cities black citizens were marching, protesting, and demonstrating. They wanted the same rights as everyone else. They wanted to be able to eat in any restaurant and end segregation. They wanted the vote. Some 600 children marched out of church singing and Connor arrested them all. 1,000 children began a peaceful march

and Connor called out his police dogs. Firemen turned don high-pressure hoses which ripped the bark off of trees. TV cameras filmed all of this and the nation was outraged and took the side of the marchers! 3 teenagers were bitten by dogs and taken to the hospital. People were thrown against walls and pushed to the ground by the hoses.

c. Bull Connor began to throw protestors into jail in the summer of 1962 in Montgomery. People were being sent to jail every day and lost their jobs. They started organizing kids. College students sat at lunch counters and others took part in sit-ins.

d. King was arrested in Birmingham Alabama in April 16, 1963 for participating in Civil Right Marches. He wrote on the margins of a newspaper and pieces of toilet paper and from his cell he penned the “Letter from Birmingham Jail” in which he decreed that there were only two kinds of laws: just and unjust. Explained what the marches were all about and that it was about unjust laws. King’s advocacy of civil disobedience in that letter won him and his cause as much support as it did criticism. It was not only King who was jailed however.

e. He also focused more on gaining the federal government to make new legislation and enforce it.

f. J. Edgar Hoover label King as the “most dangerous Negro of the future in this nation.” He ordered agents to follow King and authorized the use of wiretaps on his telephones and in his motel rooms. Highly illegal!

g. Question: Ask the students what they are passionate enough about to endure the kind of scrutiny and humiliation-silently- that these protestors endured.

XVII. March on Washington a. NAACP were working through the courts to change the laws. MLK worked to organize

the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957), church members and parishioners, which appealed to the moderate churchgoing blacks. The impatience with these efforts led young people to form the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1960 and join the older organization of CORE (1947).

b. Black voter registration drives were in full force, and once again, across the South, were met with sometimes-fatal violence. At this same time, the political clout and power of Martin Luther King, Jr., grew, and he became a rising star for the civil rights movement. Leading marches and protests, but always espousing nonviolence as a medium for social and political change, King drew criticism from both white segregationists and militant black leaders, who felt that nonviolence was getting them nowhere. Kennedy sent a civil rights bill to Congress and people weren’t sure it would get passed. People thought that Kennedy might be side-tracked with the things going on in Cuba and Vietnam. Even Kennedy’s speech “I am a Berliner” didn’t inspire some in the U.S. who knew that they would never know freedom.

c. Together, black leaders decide to organize the Freedom March on Washington D.C. 100 years after Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation MLK decided they needed to March. It took place on August 28, 1963 with over a quarter million people converging on Washington for the event. Largest civil rights demonstration in American history.

1. Demanded:a. Passage of civil right billb. End to job discrimination

c. Program of job training2. It was at this event that King gave his very famous “I have a Dream”

speech.3. 2,000 bused and 21 charter trains carried people.4. 250k people marched on Washington.

d. Kennedy decided that enforcement of existing statures was not enough and new legislation was needed to deal with the race question. In 1963 he told the nation that racial discrimination “has no place in American life or law.” He then endorsed an ambitious civil rights bill intended to end discrimination in public facilities, desegregate the public schools, and protect black voters.

XVIII. JFK assassinated in Nov 22 1963XIX. LBJ and the Civil Rights Movement

a. The U.S president during most of this turmoil was LBJ. Texan Lyndon Johnson took the oath of president on board the plane that took Kennedy’ body back to Washington. At age 55 he had spent 26 years on the Washington scene and had served nearly a decade as Senate Democratic leader. Great penchant for compromise. A self-made man he used determination and manipulation to work his way out of rural Texas. But he didn’t have any of the Kennedy elegance or charisma. Regarded as an outsider by Kennedy “insiders”. Admirer of FDR, cared deeply for the poor, and committed to civil rights. He could be compulsive, animated by greed, and overly ambitious for power. But he also was warm, caring, and gracious. To get himself into the Senate in 1948, he bribed bosses to stuff ballot boxes. He then catered to the oil and natural gas interests in Texas, he opposed civil rights legislation. Became the youngest Senate minority leader in the Democratic party in 1950 at age 44

b. Known for his down to earth direct style of leadership he was shocked after the tragic events of the Selma March. He used the death of Kennedy to pass his legislation. The logjam in Congress that had blocked Kennedy’s program broke under Johnson’s forceful leadership and a torrent of legislation poured through.

c. It was then that he spoke to the American public about working to erase bigotry and racism in our country and sent a black voting rights bill to congress. One black leader who was present for President Johnson’s speech, along with MLK said of King later, “We were all sitting together…And martin was very quietly sitting in the chair, and a tear ran down his cheek. It was a victory like none other.”

d. Question: discuss what this leader meant by that remark. Why was this so special a victory for blacks?

e. It was right after this speech that the march from Selma to Montgomery occurred.f. President Johnson was not only concerned with securing voting rights and civil

treatment for blacks. Upon taking office he wanted an anti-poverty package that was “big and bold, that would hit the nation with real impact.” Money for the program would come from the economic growth generated by the tax reduction of more than 10 billion passed in 1964.

g. He had a vision of what he termed the “Great Society” and worked diligently toward achieving it. In 1964, the President said, “This nation, this people, this generation, has man’s first chance to create Great Society a society of success without squalor, beauty

without barrenness, and works of genius without the wretchedness of poverty. We can open the doors of learning. We can open the doors of fruitful labor and rewarding leisure, of open opportunity and close community-not just the privileged few, but, thank god, we can open those doors to everyone.”

i. It would end poverty, renovate the decaying central cities, provide every young America with the Chance to attend college, protect the health of the elderly, enhance cultural life, clean up the air, and water, and make the highways safer and prettier. He pushed through with rapid speed: Medicare, and Medicaid, education aid bill… 435 bills went through congress.

ii. Also signed a new immigration Act of 1965. Stressed that the new law would redress the wrong done to those from southern and eastern Europe. And those from Asia, Africa, and Latin America. It did so by abolishing the quotas based on national origins since the 1920s.

iii. Few Western Europeans sought to emigrate to the US and those living in the Est couldn’t.

iv. The US quickly filled the annual quotas with those from Philippines, Mexico, Korea, and the Dominican Republic. Hispanics and Asians also became the largest contingents of new Americans.

h. Johnson also declared “War on Poverty” developing programs such as Head Start, Medicare, and Medicaid to help provide early childhood education and medical care respectively for America’s poor. It was after this that blacks in our country declared Johnson the greatest President for an amazing feat for a president particularly a white president in the midst of such racial turmoil.

i. Pushed through Congress both the Civil rights Act of 1964 and the Voting rights Act of 1965. After over 300 years on Americn sol blacks were finally recognized as citizens, given equal protection under the law and the right to vote. Johnson provided programs such as food stamps, extra opportunities for education, and better access to health care through his Office of Economic Opportunity. The Fair Housing Act was passed, providing what I now referred to as equal housing opportunity, and prohibiting discrimination in the rental or sale of real-estate based on a person’s race color gender or ethnicity.

j. Successes and Failures of the Great Societyi. Successes

1. Highway Safety Act and Traffic Safety Act established safety standards for automobile manufacturers and highway design

2. Scholarship for college students and health education classes were successful.

3. Efforts to clean up air and water pollutionii. Failures

1. Medicare removed incentive for hospital to control costs2. Bureaucracy kept funds tied up for those in poverty3. Welfare fraud

XX. Selma and the Votea. In 1964, LBJ gave a speech about his new Great Society plan. The Civil Rights Act had

been passed in 1964.

b. The Civil Rights Acts didn’t’ solve voting problems. It did allow black people to check into any hotel they desired, sit on buses wherever they wished, and eat in any restaurant. But when they tried to vote, they were likely to be beaten, or to lose their jobs-even though the 15th amendment says that every citizen has the right to vote. They could also were given impossible questions to answer or asked to pay a poll tax.

c. Selma, Alabama was the government seat of Dallas county Alabama. Old South cotton town. Mule-drawn carts still pulled cotton down the streets. Contained an old pre-Civil War slave auction house and was a Confederate military depot. Streets in the white section were paved and those in the black section were made of red dirt.

d. In March of 1965, Members of the SNCC were working hard to make voting equal in the town. The SNCC had doubled the number of registered black voters but they asked MLK to come join the effort with his organization. MLK was an outsider again and not all of the SNCC wanted him there except for the leadership and the community.

e. MLK spoke and gave speeches urging the community to allow the blacks the right to vote. A group of black citizens marched to the courthouse to try to register. They were banned and not even allowed to eat food brought to them while the stood outside. He marched with 250 potential voters who were all thrown into prison with MLK. 500 school children marched next followed by 300 more. The kids were all arrested. TV covered it all. LBJ supported the marchers.

XXI. Selma to Washington March a. All the violence in Selma was being covered by the TV. The beating of 82 year old Cager

Lee and the death of his grandson (was shot and died 7 days later) after he tried to carry his grandfather to safety was the tipping point. The white moderates got involved now. They were tired of the violence. They now felt responsible. Perhaps they realized what MLK had written about action and tension. They sometime you have to create tension to make things happen.

b. Several days before the march, LBJ went before Congress with a moving pleas for voting right legislation.

c. In March, 1965, 600 people gathered in Selma. They planned to march to the capital Montgomery. Most were black.

d. On March 7 (called Bloody Sunday), as they left the city they saw the police had lined up with gas masks, bullwhips, and Billy clubs. The police released tear-gas bombs. Chaos ensued! But the TV covered it all. MLK sent for more help. Ministers came from many places and different faiths. Some of the white ministers were clubbed to death in Selma. They attempted another march on the 9th and turned back at the sight of police.

e. LBJ was shocked! He announced on March 20, he was sending a voting rights bill to Congress now! He announced it on TV. “It’s not just Negros,” he said, “It’s really all of us who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. We shall overcome.” MLK was there and it was a victory like no other.

i. The bill authorized the attorney-general to dispatch federal examiners to register voters. The act suspended literacy tests in certain states or counties where fewer than half the adults had voted in 1964. By the end of the year, 250l new blacks were registered.

f. Six days later, March 26, 4,000 people (of all races, not just blacks) assembled and marched for five days, covering 54 miles from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, with full protection from the National Guard. When the crowd reach Montgomery they were over 25,000 strong, and their number included Rosa Parks and the now famous MLK.

g. Question: What might have happened at this point had the President not become involved or if the National Guard protection had not been there? Do student think that these people still would have marched? Why or why not?

h. Question: think about the courage it took for people of ether race, to participate in the march from Selma to Montgomery. What do you think about the intervention of Malcolm X during the Selma incidents? Why do you think he did it and what unintended effect did his violence have? What did the march accomplish?

XXII. Watts Riotsa. LBJ knew his plans weren’t excelling as he’d like them too. He was losing the Vietnam

war and now the Civil Rights Movement as well. MLK began to led anti-war protests too. Colleges and other people across the nation were protesting the war.

b. The cities in the North started exploding in violence. They had been neglected. Many schools were terrible transportation was terrible, crime made life frightening, and there weren’t enough jobs for those who wanted to work. It was bad for the president. He was trying to improve the cities but not everyone was willing to wait for his programs to work. Things had been too bad for too long.

c. On August 11, 1965, less than a week after the passage of the Voting Rights Act, riots in the Watts section of LA lasted 6 days ad left 34 dead.

d. 1965, Watts a ghetto neighborhood outside LA CA exploded in a barrage of racial violence that left 31 black and three others dead, over 1000 injured seriously and over 4000 arrested.

e. Marked the beginning of four long hot summer of riots. f. In 1967 in Newark, NJ a horrible riot ensued. Newark had the highest unemployment

figures for blacks in the nation, and when a report of white police officers beating a black cabbie surfaced, a horrendous, violent mob poured in Newark’s streets with violet retaliation on its collective mind. New Jersey’s governor called out the National Guard, and over 13,000 rounds of ammunition were fired. The event left 1200 wounded and 5 blacks dead.

g. Detroit rioted within one week’s time, leaving over forty dead, over 2000 injured, and over 4000 beginning arrested. One World War II veteran after the Detroit riot said that the city looked like Berlin after an allied air raid. The cities were in shambles, many burning and smoldering. Tanks rolled through the street in Detroit.

h. Newark, Chicago, Cleveland and others erupted with riots. They were like volcanoes. Illinois governor Otto Kerner said they could be traced to white racism. His Commission warned that the nation was heading to two separate nations one black and one white. America’s urban areas were turning into racial war zones.

i. New leaders appeared. May were angry young people. They had no patience with nonviolence. The new leaders didn’t talk about brother hood and love; they talked of power, separation, and sometimes hate. MLK said of one group “In advocating violence

it is imitating the worst, the most brutal, and the most uncivilized value of American life.” These riots were also followed by other protest by women and other minorities.

j. 705 of the black population lived in metropolitan areas, most of them in central-city ghettos. The nonviolent tactics that worked in the south would not work in the northern cities. The racial problems in the north resulted from segregated residential patterns not amenable to changes in law. Northern black were originally form the south and lacked northern culture.

k. Question: can you think of any recent riots?XXIII. Black Power

a. Not all black leadership during the civil rights movement advocated nonviolence as the approach to attaining their goals.

b. Black power became the rallying cry of activists. Radical member of the SNCC had become estranged from MLK. When Stokely Carmichael became head of SNCC in 1966, he adopted a separatist philosophy and ousted white from the organization. H. Rap Brown who succeed Carmichael, urged black to get gun and kill the whites.

c. Carmichael would join the Black Panthers. They wore bandoleras and carried rifles.XXIV. Malcom X

a. Malcom X was born into extreme poverty. He grew up on Lansing MI. His father was a preacher and a follower of Marcus Garvey. His father died a violent death. His mother Louise was left to support 8 children and had a mental breakdown. He was separated from his siblings and sent to a series of foster and detention homes. He was treated decently by his white foster care parents and excelled in an all-white school he was never comfortable. At the age of 15 he dropped out of school and moved to Boston. He lived on the street for the next six years. He moved to Harlem where he ran numbers, sold drugs, and was finally caught and sentenced to eight to ten year in prison for armed robbery.

b. While in prison, he encountered the teaching of Elijah Muhammad, a Black Muslim prophet who rejected Christianity as white devil religion” and the Nation of Islam. It appealed to the young angry Malcom. Day and night he read and expanded his mind. He copied the dictionary from cover to cover and disciplined his thinking through the hours of intense debate with other prisoners. When he was paroled in 1952, he was a changed man.

c. He took a Hajj to Mecca and that reconfirmed his faith that Islam was a wonderful religion as it was so culturally diverse.

d. From 1952-63 he was a devout follower of Elijah Muhammad and changed his last name to X to symbolize the African name he could never know. To follow Mr. Muhammad he had to submit to his spiritual ideas and his brand of Black Nationalism. It also demanded a strict lifestyle which calmed his inner turmoil from his childhood.

e. Follower of Elijah Muhammad were also taught that the white race had brainwashed black to be patient while enduring injustice on this earth. Malcom adopted and preached this anti-white rhetoric and was consider racist by many people.

f. In the last ears of his life Malcom began to change. By late 1963, he had broken ties with the Nation of Islam and set out to create his own organization dedicated to achieving a better life for black in America as well as all people of African descent. His

organization was called Organization of Afro-American Unity. He wanted to form alliances between American black and the nonwhite peoples of the world. He also began to abandon his earlier separatist agenda and violent tactics.

g. Found power as a speech –maker. Malcom X for example felt that white churches were hypocritical in that they were segregated, so he became a Muslim, leading Black Muslims in Harlem, New York. He made the statement, “I don’t see any American dream; I see an American nightmare.” He called for what he called the “revolt of the American Negro,” and while he professed to be a nonviolent person within a nonviolent group, he believed that meeting violence with violence rather than turning the other cheek” was the most effective and expedient method to reach goals of equality.

h. While MLK group had peacefully demonstrated, marched and sung “We Shall Overcome,” Malcom X’s militants changed the lyrics to “WE Shall Overrun.”

i. He was gunned down in Harlem by Black Muslim assassins.XXV. More Black Power Violence

a. In the summer of 1966, militant blacks converged on Greenwood, Mississippi. It was here that another militant leader, Stokely Carmichael, pitched his tent on a black high school campus and was arrested by Mississippi state troopers. When they released him, he jumped up into the back of a truck, clenching his fist tightly, and thrust his arm into the air. He yelled at the crowd, “this is the 27th time I have been arrested and I ain’t going to jail no more! The only way we gonna stop them white men from whuppin’s us is to take over. We been saying freedom for six years and we ain’t got nothin’! What we gonna start saying now is Black Power!” And so the phrase “Black Power” was coined, as the crowd began chanting it wildly back to Carmichael. Rev. King’s response to the event was one of sadness and anger. He still felt that nonviolence was the way, and even referred to the fact that he was sick of violence, for the civil rights movement to the war in Vietnam. King felt that the American public both black and white, was being inundated with violence at every turn. King believed that calling of r violence was sonly destructive both to the dignity of the race as well as to the mission of achieving their goals.

b. Other black leaders such as Huey Newton, Bobby Seale and Eldridge Cleaver were also working to form the Black Panthers Party. This group urged blacks, particularly those in larger cities, to arm themselves and provide their own protection form police harassment and other racist acts. They call for a violent revolution against our government, and therefore were labeled suspicious by the government. The FBI targeted the Black Panthers movement under orders from President Richard Nixon in the late sixties. By the end of 1969, 28 members of the group had been killed by the police. Several more were arrested.

c. Never attracted more than 15% of blacks. However it did help African Americans take greater pride in their racial heritage and forced King and other leaders to focus on the plight of poor inner-city blacks. Legal access to restaurants, schools, and other public accommodation, meant little to people mired in poverty. They needed jobs and decent housing as much as legal rights. King began to emphasize the plight of poor inner-city blacks. This would led to his assassination

d. Question: When is it acceptable for a group, any group to resort to arms and violence to achieve their objective? When is it acceptable for the U.S. government to become involved in citizens’ (grassroots) movements?

XXVI. Assassination of MLK and RFKa. In April 1968, Martin Luther King had gone to Memphis TN, in order to provide a show

of support for the mostly black city sanitation workers who were on strike for better working conditions. However the march turned violent. He was in the front when teenagers at the back of the line began smashing windows and looting stores. “I will never lead a violent march,”” he said. “Call it off” A staff member urged the marchers to turn around and return to the church where they had begun. By the time the violence stopped, 155 stores were damaged, 60 people hurt and a 1 year old boy had been killed. First time anyone had been killed in a marched by MLK. He was horrified.

b. He decided to lead a non-violent march in Memphis. J Edgar Hoover hated King. He used illegal methods to tap King’s phone and started rumors about him in articles in newspapers. MLK started to receive death threats in the mail. He went back to Memphis anyway.

c. The night before the trip LBJ announced that he was cutting back on the bombing of North Vietnam and would ty to get a settlement of the war. Surprise and relief for the nation. He also said I shall not seek and I will not accept the nomination of my party for a second term as your president.

d. Kings was quite well known now and in some circles a hated man. He received regular death threats, and on the evening of April 3, 1968 in a speech he said, “Well, I don’t know what will happen now. But it really doesn’t matter with me. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I’ve seen the Promised Land… Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord” On the very next day, King was fatally shot in front of several witnesses while standing on an open walkway at his Memphis motel. James Earl Ray was a convicted murderer and was convicted of the assassination of MLK. He was convicted on his 41st birthday after entering a guilty plea to forgo a jury trial. Had he been found guilty by jury trial, he would have been eligible for the death penalty. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, he later recanted his confession and tried unsuccessfully to gain access to a retrial. In 1998, Ray died in prison of complications due to chronic hepatitis C infection. He had served 29 years in prison at the time of his death.

e. Think about the excerpt from his speech on the night before his death. What do they think King meant by “I have been to the mountaintop”…? Where did he take this analogy? Why do you think King chose these words and why were they so effective with the group with whom he was speaking? What do they think he meant by Promised Land? Why did he choose words from the Battle Hymn of the Republic?

f. At his funeral on April 9, over 100,000 people came to pay their last respects to King. Over 50,000 people walked beside his casket, which was on a cart pulled by two mules, to the graveside. They thought of this as his last freedom march.”

g. As his funeral was being held, 130 cities around the nation were burning. Rioter, looting and shooting were killing people and destroying homes. 65,000 troops called in to put

down the riots. Almost all the victims were black, People said they were reacting to the death of MLK-spreading violence to protest his assassination.

h. Why do students suppose King had such popularity with so many? How do they think his last words-“free at last, free at last? Thank God Almighty, I’m free at last!” might apply even in his death?

XXVII. RFKa. Also assassinated in 1968, was Senator RFK. He was seeking the Democratic nomination

for the presidential election. He understood the poverty in the land was the real problem. He decide d to run for president and it was an enthusiastic campaign. However some hated him as well. Two months after MLK’s funeral he won the Democratic primaries in CA and SD. Won both a rural and urban state. Kennedy had won the support of large groups of Mexican-Americans when he attended a Catholic mass with Cesar Chavez. He also was an outspoken proponent of civil rights for black Americans, and had certainly won their support. After a speech in CA, he decided to take a short cut through a hotel kitchen when Sirhan Sirhan a Jordanian, shot Kennedy. He was upset that Kennedy sent 50 people over to Israel to bomb Palestine.

b. Around 12:15 a.m. PDT on June 5, 1968, Sirhan fired a .22 caliber Iver-Johnson Cadet revolver[9] at Senator Robert Kennedy and the crowd surrounding him in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles shortly after Kennedy had finished addressing supporters in the hotel's main ballroom. Kennedy was shot three times, once in the head and twice in the back, with a fourth bullet passing through his jacket. He died nearly 26 hours later. Five other people at the party were also shot, but all five recovered

c. When his body was returned to NY City, Jackie Kennedy and Coretta Scott King joined his widow on the plane. One black woman made the comment. Seems like anybody speaks up for us, they get killed. In the span of eight short weeks, the nation saw the assassinations of two outspoken and determined civil rights activists. So the wars continued, both the one in Vietnam that permeated television newscasts each evening and the one for continued insurance of civil rights for all Americans regardless of their race.

d. Thin about and discuss the danger of being outspoken as an activist for controversial issues. In this age of violence and terrorism, have them think about what it might be like to be so public a figure as the American president. What do they think gives some people the courage to go out on the front lines? In spite of the possible danger to themselves and their families? What makes some issues so polarized?

XXVIII. Futurea. In 1960 only a few more than 100 black elected officials in the whole United States. By

1993 there were more than 8,000 including 40 members of Congress. Two had been appointed to Supreme Court.

b. Between 1950 and 1990 the number of African Americans in white collar jobs leapt fom 10 percent to 40 percent.

c.