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I. Background
A. 1896 – U. S. Supreme Court declares racial segregation legal in Plessy v. Ferguson.
So for the next 60 years blacks were supposed to get “separate but equal” schools and all public facilities.
I. Background
B. 1909 – The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People or NAACP was founded.
C. President Harry Truman ended all segregation in the military in 1948.
Benjamin Oliver Davis Sr. was the first African-American General.
He held the rank of private to Brigadier General.
General Benjamin Oliver Davis, Sr. served in the military for fifty years in the Spanish-American War, World War I and World War II.
General Davis’ son, Benjamin Oliver Davis, Jr. was the only African-American at West Point when he graduated in 1936.
He trained with the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II.
Benjamin Oliver Davis, Jr. was the first
African-American Air Force General, and the
second African-American General in
the U.S. Military.
II. Brown vs. Board of Education -
1954
Oliver Brown’s 8 year old daughter, Linda, had to ride 5 miles and cross a dangerous railroad yard to get to her all-black school.
A white school was only a few blocks away.
13 families were involved in the case.
Brown was listed as main plaintiff.
Oliver Brown, minister, A.M.E. church, was named because he was the only adult
male in the 13 families.
II. Brown vs. Board of EducationA. Overturned Plessy v. FergusonB. Schools were ordered by the
Supreme Court to desegregate with all “deliberate speed”.
No states rushed out to desegregate.
The states did all they could to delay following the Court’s decision.
III. Death of Emmett Till - 1955Emmett Till was the only son of a man who died serving in the U.S. military during World War II and Mamie Till. He Lived in Chicago.
In the summer of 1955 he visited relatives in Mississippi.
In the summer of ’55 Emmett was 14 years old, was 5’ 4” tall and
weighed about 160 lbs.
Emmett and several others stopped by Bryant’s Store.
Emmett may have made some remarks to the young white woman who worked in the store (on a dare from his buddies). The story varies.
He did whistle at the woman before they all left the store.
This is the store where Emmett and the others stopped.
This is the woman Emmett
spoke to and whistled at.
The woman’s husband and brother-in-law, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam later went to the home of Emmett’s great uncle, Moses Wright.
They demanded to see “the boy who did the talking”.
They forced Emmett to go with them.
Moses Wright later testified in court that Bryant and Milam had taken Emmett from his home. He and his wife then fled Mississippi in
fear of their own lives.
In a Look magazine article several months after being acquitted of the murder, both Bryant and Milam told how they had murdered Emmett and thrown his body in the Tallahatchie River.
The all-white jury deliberated only about an hour before finding Bryant
and Milam not guilty.
III. Murder of Emmett Till
A.14 years old
B.Murdered by two white men
C.Happened in Mississippi
D.Murderers went free
E.Helped spark the movement for equality
The Emmett Till case was a spark for a new generation to commit their lives to social change, you know. They said, "We're not gonna die like
this. Instead, we're gonna live and transform the South so people won't have to die like this." And if anything, if any event of the 1950s inspired
young people to be committed to that kind of change, it was the lynching of Emmett Till. Robin DG Kelley, Civil Rights Historian
IV. The Montgomery Bus Boycott – 1955
A. Rosa Parks arrested
On Thursday, December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks
boarded a city bus and sat with three other
blacks in the fifth row, the first row that blacks
could occupy. A few stops later, the front four rows were filled with whites, and one white man was left
standing.
According to law, blacks and whites could not occupy the same row, so the bus driver asked all four of the blacks seated in the fifth row to move. Three complied, but Parks refused. She
was arrested.
Though she was working as a seamstress, Mrs. Parks had attended Alabama State.
She was active in the NAACP
IV. The Montgomery Bus Boycott – 1955
B. Jo Ann Robinson and others organized a bus boycott
Jo Ann Robinson was an English teacher at Alabama State College in Montgomery.
Ms. Robinson mimeographed fliers to hand out to people to encourage a one-day bus boycott.
IV. The Montgomery Bus Boycott – 1955
The Monday, one-day boycott was a success.
On that afternoon local ministers and civil rights leaders met to discuss the possibility of continuing the boycott.In 1953 a two week bus boycott had taken place in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
A compromise had been reached in which blacks were allowed to sit in other areas of the bus.
IV. The Montgomery Bus Boycott – 1955
C. The Montgomery Improvement Association was formed.
1. Martin Luther King Jr., minister of the Dexter Ave Church, was chosen as the leader of MIA.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was a young minister at Dexter Ave,
Church in Montgomery.
2. The MIA adopted a plan of action to begin on December 5, 1955.
The resolution basically stated three demands:
a) Blacks would be treated politely by bus drivers.
All bus drivers were white.
Some drivers were rude and unfair to their black riders.
60% of the riders were black.
b) End seating segregation- seating would be first come-first served c) Hire Black bus drivers.
Mr. King copied the free-ride network from the
Baton Rouge Boycott to help protestors get to their jobs and other
places.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott lasted from Dec. 5, 1955
until Dec. 21, 1956.
Mr. King’s home was bombed on Jan. 30th.
The homes of other leaders were bombed as were four Baptist churches, and some local black businesses.
Mr. King was one of 89 people arrested under an old law against boycotting.
He was the first to go to trial.
He was fined $1000.
D. Federal Court helped end the Boycott on Dec. 21, 1956.
E. Importance - the Boycott started the 10 year movement for civil rights.
V. Southern Christian Leadership Conference – 1957
A. Martin Luther King Jr. selected leader
B. SCLC became a major force
C. Based action on nonviolence and civil disobedience
Martin Luther King, Charles Steele , and Fred Shuttlesworth established the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, of which King is made the first president. According to King, it was essential that the civil rights movement not sink to the level of the racists and hatemongers who opposed them: "We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline," he urges.
Famous Alabamian - Fred Shuttlesworth
Born in Alabama 1922
Shuttlesworth's civil rights activities made him a target of white racists and on the evening of 25th December, 1956, he survived a bomb blast that destroyed his house.
The following year a white mob beat him with whips and chains during an attempt to integrate an all-white public school.
His wife was stabbed in the buttocks and later told her doctor that her only regret was that modesty prevented her from showing her wounds at the next civil rights mass meeting.
During this period Martin Luther King described Shuttlesworth as "the most courageous civil rights fighter in the South".
VI. Desegregation-Little Rock, Arkansas – 1957 The schools in Little Rock took three years to come up with a “plan” to desegregate.
Little Rock Central High was to be desegregated first.
17 black students were chosen (mostly on good grades), but by the beginning of school only 9 were left who were willing to go after all of the threats they had received from both whites and blacks.
On Sep. 2nd the governor of Arkansas called out the National Guard to stop the blacks from entering the school.
On Sep. 4th the Nine planned to enter school together.
Elizabeth Eckford did not get the message to meet the others and she tried to enter the school alone and was threatened by the crowd.
She was rescued by two white people.
All Nine were denied entrance to the school by the National Guard under orders from the governor.
On Sep. 20th a Federal judge told the governor the students must be allowed to enter school.
On Sep 23rd all of the Little Rock 9 entered school, they had to be taken out by a rear entrance by 11:30 due to the anger of the mob outside the school.
The 101st patrolled outside the school and escorted the black students into the school. In addition, the
black students were assigned a personal guard from the 101st who followed them around the
school. Still, they were subjects of unspeakable hatred.
Despite the way they were treated, 8 of the 9 finished
the year at Central High School.
Primary Source Reading
VI. Desegregation in Little Rock, Arkansas
A. Nine Black Students enrolled at Central High.
B. The next year the high school was closed.
VII. Sit-ins
On February 1, 1960, Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, David Richmond, and Ezell Blair, Jr., walked into an F.W. Woolworth Company store in Greensboro, North Carolina, purchased some school supplies, then went to the lunch counter and asked to be served. They knew they probably would not be.
The demonstrations in Greensboro, North Carolina, began on Feb. 1, 1960.
On Feb. 3, 63 blacks occupy the 65 seats in Woolworth’s.
On Feb. 4, three white women from a nearby women’s college join the demonstration.
In the next months, hundreds of people, black and white join the demonstrations at Woolworth’s and S.H. Kress across the street
February 10, 1960:Students participate in sit-ins
across the state.
Third week of February, 1960:
Demonstrations move to other states throughout the South. Support of picketing has begun in Northern cities
against Woolworth's and other chain stores.
July 25, 1960:
The first black ate a meal, sitting down, at Woolworth's
in Greensboro.
After one week, 300 blacks have been customers.
Students Matthew Walker, left, Peggy
Alexander, Diane Nash and Stanley Hemphill eat lunch at the previously
segregated counter of the Post House Restaurant in
the Greyhound bus terminal. This marked the first time since the start of the sit-ins that blacks
have been served at previously all-white
counters.Staff photo by Gerald Holly
May 16, 1960
Today there is a statue at North Carolina A&T University to honor the first four young men to conduct the sit-in at Woolworths.
VIII. Freedom Rides - 1961
On May 4, 1961 the Congress on Racial Equality organized Freedom Riders left Washington D.C., on a "Journey of Reconciliation". Their aim was to test the new federal law against segregation by traveling by bus to New Orleans. Unfortunately, the journey never reached it's intended conclusion.
Background - In 1947, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) planned a "Journey of Reconciliation," designed to test the Supreme Court's 1946 decision in the Irene Morgan case, which declared segregated seating of interstate passengers unconstitutional. An interracial group of passengers met with heavy resistance in the upper South. Some members of the group served on a chain gang for six months after their arrest in North Carolina. The Journey of Reconciliation quickly broke down.
The strategy in 1961 was the same as 1947: an interracial group would board buses destined for the South. The whites would sit in the back and
the blacks in the front. At rest stops, the whites would go into blacks-only areas and vice versa.
In Alabama and Mississippi the riders were attacked, beaten, and arrested. Bt the end of the summer there were over 300 arrests in several southern states. The freedom riders were fined and imprisoned.
VIII. Freedom Rides – 1961
A.Forced President Kennedy to address
the problem of segregation
B. September 1961 – segregation in interstate travel was outlawed
Famous Alabamians
Hank Aaron
Born February 5, 1934 in Mobile, Ala.Height, 6-0. Weight, 190. Threw and batted right-handed. Holds major league record for most career home runs (755), home runs with one club (Braves, 733), RBIs (2,297), total bases (6,856), most games played (3,298) and many others.
Hit 20 or more home runs for 20 consecutive seasons (1955-1974). Named to 24 All Star games. Won three Gold Glove awards, 1958, 1959, 1960. Named The Sporting News' National League Player of the Year, 1956, 1963. Named to Baseball Hall of Fame, 1982.
IX. Bombing of the 16th Street Church in
Birmingham, Alabama - 1963
Between 1947 and 1965, over fifty bombings occurred in Birmingham, resulting in the city becoming known as "Bombingham." Perhaps the most famous of these blasts was the one that took the lives of four innocent black youth as they prepared their Sunday School lessons on a Sunday Morning at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.
Firemen inside the bombed church - 1963
On a quiet Sunday morning, September 15, 1963, four young black girls prepared their Sunday School lessons in the basement of the church. In the same basement sat a bomb placed by segregationists, designed to
kill and maim in protest of the forced integration of Birmingham's public schools. Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley, and Addie
Mae Collins were killed in the explosion. Angry blacks rioted and the civil authorities responded with great violence. During the rest of the day,
other black youths were murdered by police and civilians alike, compounding the desperation.
Addie Mae Collins was 14
Years old
Carole Robertson was 14 Years old
Moderate whites condemned the bombing and the FBI took over the investigation from local authorities that had shown no real concern for
solving the crime, though they held strong evidence pointing to the bombers. Because of this local interference, the FBI took over the
investigation. With foot dragging of their own, they failed to convict anyone for the crime by 1968. It was not until 1977 that the state
convicted but one of the bombers.
Cynthia Wesley was 14 Years
old.
Denise McNair was 11 Years old.
The bombing outraged the nation and gave four young faces to the movement. The blast, combined with other
shameful Alabama events, such as the dogs and fire hoses of
1963, and the beatings of demonstrators as they began
the Selma to Montgomery march in 1964, contributed to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights
of 1965, and the death of segregation in the South.
Following the tragic event, white strangers visited the grieving families to express
their sorrow. At the funeral for three of the girls (one family preferred a separate, private funeral), Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke about life being "as hard as crucible steel." More
than 8,000 mourners, including 800 clergymen of both races, attended the
service.
Fourteen years later Robert Chambliss, a KKK member was convicted of the murder of Denise McNair. He died in prison in 1985.
Thomas Blanton, Jr. was convicted in 2001.
Bobby Frank Cherry was convicted in 2002, largely on the testimony of his ex-wife.
Herman Frank Cash died in 1994 – he had never been charged.
X. March on Washington – 1963
A.The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom took place in Washington, D.C., on August 28, 1963.
No one knew for certain how many people would
come..word of the march circulated
through the south by word of mouth and in
churches.
X. The March on Washington - 1963
B. Attended by some 250,000 people, it was the largest demonstration ever seen in the nation's capital.
It is estimated that 60,000 of the
marchers were white.
X. The March on Washington
C. March was organized by five groups including the
NAACP, the SCLC and others.
Some 40 railroad trains and 2,500
buses were chartered to
transport demonstrators to
and from Washington.
Special planes were routed to fly delegations from the West Coast
X. The March on Washington
D. It was opposed by the KKK, Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam.
Malcolm X referred to the March as the “Farce on
Washington” (A “farce” is something that is a mockery –
a play that makes fun of something)
X. The March on Washington
E. Two Purposes of the March (there were others)
1. passage of a Civil Rights Act
2. end of segregation in public schools
It was at this March on Washington that Martin Luther
King, Jr. made his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.
Born (1927) and raised in Marion, Alabama.
Family were land-owning farmers.
Her mother rented a bus so Coretta and other black young people could attend high school.
Famous Alabamians
Coretta Scott King
Attended college in Ohio, majored in music and education.
Married Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1953.
Mrs. King, like her husband, was a
leader in the Civil Rights Movement.
Following her husband’s death in 1968, Mrs. King
continued the fight for racial equality, both here and in
other countries.
She raised money to establish the MLK Center for Non-violent
Social Change, in Atlanta, Georgia.
In 1969 the American Library Association (ALA) created the annual
Coretta Scott King award to honor children's book authors and illustrators
of African descent.
XI. The Selma-Montgomery March – 1965
A.Purpose – Demand voting rights
B.First attempt stopped by Alabama troopers and police
On "Bloody Sunday," March 7, 1965, some
600 civil rights marchers headed east out of Selma on U.S. Route 80. They got only as far as the
Edmund Pettus Bridge six blocks away, where state and local lawmen
attacked them with billy clubs and tear gas and drove them back
into Selma.
Two days later on March 9, Martin Luther King, Jr., led a "symbolic" march to the bridge. Then civil rights leaders sought court protection
for a third, full-scale march from Selma to the state capitol in Montgomery.
On Sunday, March 21, about 3,200 marchers set out for Montgomery, walking 12
miles a day and sleeping in fields.
C. A Federal judge declared the march was legal.
Less than five months after the last of the
three marches, President Lyndon
Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of
1965--the best possible redress of grievances.
D. 1965 -Civil Rights Acts passed by
Congress and signed by
President Lyndon Johnson.
Famous Alabamians – Willie MaysWillie Howard Mays Jr. was best known for his high, boyish voice; his
huge wide-palmed hands, branching out at the wrists like mini baseball gloves; the oversize cap that flew off his head as he
rounded the bases or roamed the outfield; and his trademark basket catch -- maybe, most of all, The Catch, the one that robbed the
Cleveland Indians' Vic Wertz of extra bases in the first game of the 1954 World Series.
Willie Mays, Jr. was born in Westfield, Alabama in 1931.
He played for the Black Barons (Negro League) when he was 16.
Willie’s dad would not let him play when the game interfered with school.
The day he graduated from high school he was signed by the New York Giants.
To a generation of fans, Mays was the greatest ballplayer they had ever seen. He combined power and speed in ways unseen on the diamond before his time.
When he retired he ranked third in career home runs and he was the first man to hit 50 home runs and steal 20 bases in a single season.
Famous Alabamians – Condoleezza Rice
Former U.S. Secretary of StateBorn November 14, 1954 in Birmingham, Alabama, she earned her bachelor's degree in political science, cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Denver in 1974; her master's from the University of Notre Dame in 1975; and her Ph.D. from the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver in 1981.
Secretary Rice’s father was a school guidance counselor and her mother a teacher. She was in Birmingham during the 16th St. bombing.
"I remember being at a church which was a few blocks away from the 16th St. Baptist Church, and just being completely shocked by the sound. It was almost like a train coming -- I don't remember being frightened at that moment although it was a terrifying time. I just felt sad." (2002 interview)
Rice says it didn't take a movement or the government to
open doors for her. "Black Americans of my grandparents' ilk had liberated themselves," she told the Post. The family
strategy was to ignore racism, she said: Racism in Birmingham was so routine, "you ceased to notice its existence." She was conditioned to succeed: "My
family is third-generation college-educated -- I should've
gotten to where I am."
She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has been awarded honorary doctorates from Morehouse College in 1991, the University of Alabama in 1994, the University of Notre Dame in 1995, the National Defense University in 2002, the Mississippi College School of Law in 2003, the University of Louisville and Michigan State University in 2004. She resides in Washington, D.C.
While national Security Advisor to President Bush, Secretary Rice landed on board ship along with President Bush, though not in the same jet.
SourcesWe Shall Overcome, Historic Places of the Civil Rights Movement http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/civilrights/mainmap1.htm
The Montgomery Bus Boycott http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/civilrights-55-65/montbus.html
Sit-Ins http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/civilrights-55-65/sit-ins.html
Freedom Rides http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/civilrights-55-65/freeride.html
Birmingham http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/civilrights-55-65/birming.html
The Little Rock Nine Enter High School http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/school-integration/lilrock/9enter.html
Civil Rights Timeline http://www.infoplease.com/spot/civilrightstimeline1.html
Brown vs. Board of Education http://www.gibbsmagazine.com/BrownvsBoard.htm
National Baseball Hall of Fame – Hank Aaron http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/hofers_and_honorees/hofer_bios/aaron_hank.htm
CThe Murder of Emmett Till http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/till/
Benjamin Oliver Davis, Sr. http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/topics/afam/davis.htm
African-American Pioneers – Benjamin Oliver Davis, Jr. http://afgen.com/bendavis_jr.html
Introduction to the Court Opinion on Plessy vs. Ferguson http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/democrac/33.htm
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http://library.thinkquest.org/J0112391/little_rock_nine.htm
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Montgomery Bus Boycott http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/about_king/encyclopedia/bus_boycott.html
African American Registry – Fred Shuttlesworth http://www.aaregistry.com/african_american_history/2289/Fred_Shuttlesworth_minister_and_leader
African American Odyssey – Sit-ins, Freedom Rides and Demonstrations http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aaohtml/exhibit/aopart9b.html
The King Center, Coretta Scott King, Human Rights Activist and Leader, http://www.thekingcenter.org/csk/bio.html
The Civil Rights Movement, The March on Washington, 1963 http://www.abbeville.com/civilrights/washington.asp
Organizing the March http://www.angelfire.com/pa/marchonwashington/march.html
The March on Washington http://www.angelfire.com/pa/marchonwashington/march.html
We Shall Overcome – The Selma to Montgomery March http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/civilrights/al4.htm
Brilliant Careers – Willie Mays http://www.salon.com/people/bc/1999/07/13/mays/
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The Condi Rice Version of History http://www.alternet.org/story/18363