1950s-1960s

THE CIVIL RIGHTS

MOVEMENT

S T E P H A N I E R . K I B E A C H

INTERACTIVE BLACK HISTORY TIMELINE 1600-TODAY

Explore important milestones in African American history, from the Underground Railroad to the Civil Rights Movement.

• PREFACE •

The United States were far from united in the 1860s. The country was divided into northern and southern states over a variety of opposing values. The South maintained an intensely agrarian society, whereas the North became increasingly industrialized. In the South, the growth of cotton and tobacco were the strength in the region’s economy. As a result, plantation owners relied entirely on their African slaves to tend their harvest, among many other household chores. To the contrary, the North was industrializing at a profound rate and relied heavily on entrepreneurship, manufacturing and other skilled-based work. These two regions disagreed overpoweringly with regard to their economies, social cultures, political beliefs, among many other aspects of life. The states in the North began to abolish slavery, slowly and steadily as waves of European immigrants flooded the North in search for low income employment opportunities (“Causes of The Civil War”). Although, slavery was not the only political issue within the states, it was certainly the greatest burning issue of all, after the South felt increasing pressure to change their way of life. “In the spring of 1861, decades of simmering tension between the northern and southern United States over issues surrounding states’ rights versus federal authority, westward expansion and slavery exploded into the American Civil War” (“American Civil War”).

THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

• PREFACE •

With the Union victory, the South laid in ruins as towns were desolate, “plantations burned, fields neglected, bridges and railroads destroyed”, and many white southerners stripped of all personal property – including their slaves (Brinkley, p.371). The years following the Civil War were intended to be dedicated to reuniting America’s shattered, divided and hostile nation. Although the war did not provide African Americans with either legal protection or the material resources they needed to ensure equality or freedom, the war was the “first step in securing their efforts to secure civil rights and economic power for the former slaves” (Brinkley, p. 370).

AFTERMATH & RECONSTRUCTION

During this time, technically, some progress was made with regard to civil rights and reconstruction. However, in less than a decade following the war, opposing forces of the reconstruction of America, such as the Klu Klux Klan, violently restored white supremacy in the South. “Jim Crow” laws at the local and state level expelled African Americans from classrooms and bathrooms, from restaurants and theaters, from hospitals and juries. The 1890s also gave way to a dramatic increase in white violence against blacks, such that there was an average of 187 lynchings each year and more than 90 percent of them occurred in the south (Brinkley, p.397).

•PREFACE •

Some would argue that the most important accomplishment of the reconstruction government was the establishment of black schools in the South (Brinkley, p. 381). By the 1900s, many former African American slaves began to acquire property, establish small businesses or enter other professions. African Americans believed, strongly that education was vital to the future of their people, and in response, they began to expand the network of black colleges and institutes (Brinkley, p. 397). Booker T. Washington was the head speaker of education in the African American community. He was also the founder and president of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Booker T. Washington defied the odds after fighting poverty and enslavement in pursuit of his education. Washington preached his message to fellow African Americans to follow a path of self-improvement by attending school, learning skills and establishing a well-rounded industrial education.

EDUCATION & BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

• CHAPTER 4 •

Nearly a century after the Civil War, African Americans in the south still occupied a starkly unequal world of racial segregation, discrimination and oppression. In the defense of an entire nation’s civil rights and equal opportunities, the Civil Rights Movement began. African American women and men, alongside whites, organized and led a movement barred by none, in search of justice, as they centered their focus on the American south, and their racial inequality in education, social segregation and voting rights.

THE RISE OF A MOVEMENT

The Civil Rights Movement had a profound impact on the American Republic in not only securing the citizenship rights for blacks, but also redefining the nature of these rights and the role of the federal government in protecting these rights for all beings, which will later assist minorities, women, disabled individuals and other victims of discrimination (Carson, 1991). The most significant triumphs in the African-American civil rights efforts were the post-Civil War constitutional amendments that abolished slavery and launched the citizenship status of blacks in addition to the judicial and legislative decisions that followed: the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas decision of1954, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (Carson, 1991).

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• Section 1 •

The Civil Rights Movement

The Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas marked the first movement towards civil rights, such that it outlawed racial segregation in public schools. The Supreme Court unanimously held that racial segregation of children in public schools violated the Equal Protection Clause of the

14th Amendment. Although this judicial decision was not entirely successful in desegregating America’s school systems, it did, however, place the Constitution on the side of racial equality and threw the Civil Rights Movement into full swing (McBride).

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• Section 2 •

Brown Vs. Board of Education 1954

Following the Brown decision, the second phase of the black protest activity began on December 1, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama after an African American woman, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man on the city bus. The “Jim Crow” laws and the southern customs required blacks to give up their seats, closer to the front of the bus, to whites that needed to sit down. In response to her refusal, the white bus driver contacted authorities, which landed her in jail and the black community in Alabama to boycott the city’s buses. The boycott, led by Martin Luther King, Jr., lasted more than a year, inspiring other blacks elsewhere to take a nonviolent, unified and determined stance

against their injustice (Carson, 1991). Soon after the Montgomery Bus Boycott, another subsequent black movement began as four students from the all-back North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College initiated a sit-in, designed to end segregation at the segregated lunch counter. Students from other southern black colleges and universities followed suite, “bringing about the desegregation of several hundred lunch counters” (Davis). What was it like?

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• Section 3 •The Montgomery Bus Boycott

Audio 4.1 The Rosa

Parks-Nikki

Giovanni(A Song in Rhythm)

Martin Luther King, Jr. and his protest strategies achieved profound success in 1963 in Birmingham, Alabama. “The highly publicized confrontations between nonviolent protesters, including schoolchildren, on the one hand, and police with clubs, fire hoses, and police dogs, on the other, gained northern sympathy” (Carson, 1991). The Birmingham protest alongside the

other civil rights efforts finally prompted President John F. Kennedy to push for the passage of a new civil rights legislation. In August of the same year, the March on Washington began, attracting at least 200,000 participants

F r e e d o m R i d e s

1. On May 4, 1961, a group of 13 African American and white civil rights activists launched the Freedom Rides.

2. The Freedom Riders attempted to integrate facilities at bus terminals along the way into the Deep South.

3. African-American Freedom Riders tried to use “whites-only” restrooms and lunch counters, and vice versa.

4. In September 1961, the Interstate Commerce Commission issued regulations prohibiting segregation in bus and train stations nationwide.

Reader’s Theater: pg 11

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• Section 4 •

The Dream Audio 4.2

Martin Luther King, “I Have a Dream”

where King addressed the nation with his gracious “I have a Dream” speech. The black community’s efforts, led by King, helped bring about the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

“On March 7, [1965], the SCLC [Southern Christian Leadership Conference], led by Martin Luther King Jr. planned a march from Selma to the state capitol in Montgomery, where it ended almost before it began at Pettus Bridge on the outskirts of Selma, when mounted police using tear gas and wielding clubs attacked the protesters” (Carson, 1991). This movement will be later known as “Bloody Sunday”. In response, many other demonstrators along with King were determined to mobilize another march despite the court ordered demand forbidding such marches. After two failed attempts, King led the 54-mile march from Selma to Montgomery (Davis). Three activists lost their lives. Soon afterward, Congress passed the Voting Rights act of 1965.

“As late as 1969, 15 years after Brown, only 1 percent of the black students in the Deep South states were attending public schools

with whites. After a series of legal cases in the late 1960s, the federal courts dismantled segregated schools by requiring school districts to implement plans, such as school-district integration, that would bring black and white school children and faculty under one roof” (Davis). After the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1968, the civil rights movement began to lose force. Although the people of a nation might not have been changes, the African-

American Civil Rights Movement transformed the American democracy. Overall, the major legislation renewed American society and opened up new political, social and economic opportunities to blacks. Many decades following this movement were and are still spent defending the rights and equality they had acquired from the government.

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• Section 5 •

Reader’s Theater: Freedom Riders

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American Civil War. (2013). The History Channel website. Retrieved 4:04, September 26, 2013, from http://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war.

Brinkley, A. (2010). The Unfinished Nation: A Concise History of the American People (6th ed., Vol. 2, pp. 370-786). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Carson, C. (1991). Civil Rights Movement . History.com . Retrieved September 27, 2013, from http://www.history.com/topics/civil-rights-movement

“Causes of the civil war”. (n.d.). History Net: Where history comes alive - World & US history online. Retrieved September 22, 2013, from http://www.historynet.com/causes-of-the-civil-war.

Davis, J. (n.d.). Civil rights movement: An overview . Scholastic.com. Retrieved September 27, 2013, from http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/civil-rights-movement-overview

Dictionary and Thesaurus. (n.d.). Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. Retrieved September 21, 2013, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bill%20of%20rights

McBride, A. (n.d.). The Supreme Court: Expanding civil rights. Landmark cases. Brown v. Board of Education (1954) | PBS. PBS: Public Broadcasting Service. Retrieved September 27, 2013, from http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/rights/landmark_brown.html.

(n.d.). Merriam-Webster.com. Retrieved September 22, 2013, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/boycott

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• References •

Bill of Rights

The first 10 amendments to the federal Constitution. (McBride) A declaration of individual rights and freedoms, usually issued by a national government

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Boycott

To refuse to buy, use or participate in (something) as a way of protesting: to stop using the goods or services of (a company, country, etc) to express disapproval or to force acceptance of certain conditions

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Sit-in

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Civil Liberties

Rights such as the freedom to speak, to think, to assemble, to worship, and to ask for redress without government interference. These rights, granted by the First Amendment to the Constitution and by Common Law and legislation, protect the individual from actions by the government but are distinguished from other civil rights because they do not guarantee access to such things as education or economic opportunity, nor do they give the right to participate in government. (McBride)

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Civil Rights

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Civil Rights

Broadly, all the rights that a citizen possesses -- including all the rights granted by the Bill of Rights, by the Thirteenth and Fourteenth amendments to the Constitution, and by Common Law and legislation. Civil rights include civil liberties as well as equal protection under the law, the right to participate in government, and the right to due process. (McBride)

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Civil Rights Act of 1964

A piece of legislation that outlawed segregation in public facilities and racial discrimination in employment and education.

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Discrimination

The practice of unfairly treating a person or group of people differently from other people or groups of people

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Jim Crow Laws, Racial Segregation

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Jim Crow Laws

Law that enforced racial segregation in the U.S. South between 1877 and the 1950s. The term, taken from a minstrel-show routine, became a derogatory epithet for African Americans. After Reconstruction, Southern legislatures passed laws requiring segregation of whites and “persons of colour” on public transportation. These later extended to schools, restaurants, and other public places. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education; later rulings struck down other Jim Crow laws.

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Judicial

Responsible for dealing with all legal cases involving the government

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Justice

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Justice

The process of result of using laws to fairly judge and punish crimes and criminals

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Racial Segregation

The separation or isolation of a race, class, or ethnic group by enforced or voluntary residence in a restricted area, by barriers to social intercourse, by separate educational facilities, or by other discriminatory means

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Discrimination, Jim Crow Laws

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Sit-in

A strike or protest in which people sit or stay in a place and refuse to leave until they are given what they demand

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Slavery

Submission to a dominating influence

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