Civil Rights Movement

Does the election of President Obama mark the end of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, or simply serve at it's greatest victory?

Plessy v. Ferguson and Jim

Crow

Plessy v. Ferguson

• 1896 – Homer Plessy was arrested for riding on a white railroad car

• Court rules that Louisiana’s “separate but equal” laws are constitutional and did not violate the 14th amendment

Jim Crow Laws

• Laws aimed at separating the races

• Some examples:– Forbade marriage between blacks and whites– Restrictions on social contacts in public

places– Separate schools, waiting rooms, railroad

coaches, and drinking fountains

• Facilities for blacks were usually inferior

Jim Crow Laws

Jim Crow Laws

Jim Crow Laws

Lynchings

Unequal schools

CAN YOU TELL WHICH ONE IS FOR BLACKS AND WHICH IS FOR WHITES?

Unequal schools

CAN YOU TELL WHICH ONE IS FOR BLACKS AND WHICH IS FOR WHITES?

NAACPoSince 1909 fought for desegregation

oThurgood Marshall oBrown v Board of Education (1954)

o2nd Brown ruling: “with all deliberate speed”

o Southern Manifesto – 90 Southern

members resist rulings by “all lawful

means”

Brown v. Board of Education

“Separate Education Facilities are inherently unequal”

Problems Desegregating Society

•Little Rock, Arkansas

•Montgomery Bus Boycott

•Civil Rights Act of 1964

The Little Rock Nine

Sit-ins• Challenge right to sit at lunch counter

• Civil Disobedience

• SNCC

Freedom Riders• Montgomery Bus

boycott = right to ride bus/sit

• Freedom Riders challenge the right to ride on interstate buses

• JFK’s response to the buses being attacked?

March on Washington• “I have a dream”

speech

• Goal: Pass Civil rights legislation

Obama’s Inauguration vs. March on Washington

Freedom Summer•Robert Moses: leads

voting registrations in South

•Mississippi called “Closed Society” b/c can’t vote

•Violent Opposition (Mississippi Burning)–By the end of the summer 4 had died, 4 critically wounded and 80 beaten

Selma Campaign•Selma Sheriff brutally

attacked demonstrators•Jimmie Lee Jackson was shot

and killed–MLKJ responded w/ a 50 mile march from Selma to Montgomery

Voting Rights Act of 1965

•Eliminated the literacy test

•Federal examiners could enroll voters denied suffrage by local officials

Let’s see if you could have voted in Alabama:

• http://kpearson.project.tcnj.edu/interactive/imm_files/test.html

Northern Segregation

• De facto segregation: exists by practice

–Rid racist attitudes

–Increased after “white flight”

• De Jure segregation: segregation by law

Urban Violence• NYC July ’64

– White police v black teenagers, ended in death of 15 yr old, sparked race riot in Harlem

• Watts Riot – August 11, 1965– Riot after police was arresting a man for

drunk driving, lasted 6 days, 34 dead, $30 million in damage

• 1967 most violent year: violence in +100 cities

• But didn’t LBJ announce his War on Poverty?

Malcolm X

“If you think we are here to tell you to love

the white man, you have come to the

wrong place.”

Malcolm X stated at the end of his autobiography- I know that societies often have killed the people who have helped to change those societies... if I can die having

brought any light, having exposed any meaningful truth that will help to destroy the racist cancer that is malignant in the body of

America... then all of the credit is due to Allah. Only the mistakes have been mine.

How do you interpret these words?

• Nation of Islam• Released from prison in ’52• Elijah Muhammad• Believed blacks should be armed for self-

defense• Ballots or Bullets?

– If we can’t use the ballot, we turn to bullets so let them vote

• Why he left the Nation of Islam: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNIqAzQDvs0&feature=related

Stokely Carmichael: "Black Power"

• "Racism must die. The economic exploitation by this country of non-white people around the world must also die."

• delivered October 1966, Berkeley, CA

“I knew that I could vote and that that wasn’t a privilege; it was my right. Every time I tried I was shot, killed or jailed, beaten or economically deprived. So somebody had to write a bill for white people to tell them, "When a black man comes to vote, don’t bother him." That bill, again, was for white people, not for black people; so that when you talk about open occupancy, I know I can live anyplace I want to live. It is white people across this country who are incapable of allowing me to live where I want to live. You need a civil rights bill, not me. I know I can live where I want to live.”

Black Panthers

• Goal: fight police brutality in the ghetto

• Offers “a program for the people” – help communities/provide support

• Angry at the large #s of blacks drafted to fight in Vietnam

• Mao Zedong “power flows out of the barrel of the gun”

• FBI investigates – usually illegal searches

Poverty Status: African American1959

Families in Poverty

Families not inPoverty

Slice 3

Slice 4

2004

Dr. King (1929-1968)

• spread ideas of non-violence to Northern cities: planning “Poor Peoples March” to D.C.

• April 4, 1968 – King on balcony of hotel room in Memphis, Tenn.

• James Earl Ray shot a bullet into King’s neck, King died an hour later

Reaction to his death

• Bobby Kennedy (campaigning for Democratic nomination) urged people to keep King’s ideas of nonviolence alive

• His death led to worst urban riots in US history

• June 1968 Bobby Kennedy assassinated by Jordanian immigrant who was angry w/ RFK’s support of Israel

Kerner Commission• LBJ; to study the causes of urban

violence• Conclusion: 1 main cause: white

racism; moving towards 2 separate societies – 1 white, 1 black

• LBJ Admin chose to ignore many of the recommendations b/c of strong white opposition

Civil Rights Act of 1968

• Banned Discrimination in housing

Impacts of the Movement• Huge increase in the #s of African-Americans

graduating high school and college

• Increase in African pride/identity: – Afro– Dashiki– New Black Studies programs in schools– More appearances on TV

• Political Gains: Jesse Jackson ran for Pres. 1988; 2/3 eligible voters were registered; today - OBAMA

Unfinished Work• Much of school

desegregation reversed by 1990s: 50-75% of African Americans attend almost completely black schools

• Poverty rate = 3x’s whites

• Affirmative Action – began 1960s– 1970s criticized as

“reverse discrimination”

http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/raceneutral2/image014.gif

Latinos• 1960s – jobless rate

nearly 50% higher than whites as well as % of families in poverty

• Farm Worker Movement – Cesar Chavez

• 1968 Bilingual Euducation Act

• La Raza Unida – political movement to get Latinos in public office

Native Americans• Have been the poorest of Americans and

have the highest unemployment rate• 1950s (Ike) Termination policy to get them

off reservations into mainstream Amer. – big failure

• American Indian Movement – often militant • Indian Education Act• Gained rights to land through court action

Gay rights

• By 1986 – 26 states had reduced criminal penalties for sexual relationships between consenting adults

• Bush – increased funding for AIDS and called for a study on hate crimes to include homosexuals

• By 1993 – 7 states and 110 communities outlawed discrimination against homosexuals

same-sex marriage

Feminism• Betty Friedan – The

Feminine Mystique• NOW• ERA (opponent –

Phyllis Schlafly)• Geraldine Ferraro• “feminization” of

poverty – how much do women earn compared to men?

• Pay equity• Title IX (1972)

Roe v Wade• NOW and other

feminist groups supported the women’s right to have an abortion

• 1973 Supreme Ct. ruled women have the right to choose an abortion during 1st 3 months of pregnancy

• Norma McCorvey, "Jane Roe" in Roe vs. Wade