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Chapter 21 Section 1
Taking on SegregationUS History (EOC)
Lesson Objectives:• Explain how legalized segregation deprived
African Americans of their rights as citizens.
• Summarize civil rights legal activity and the response to the Plessy and Brown cases.
• Trace Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s civil rights activities, beginning with the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
• Describe the expansion of the Civil Rights movement.
Essential Question:• In what ways did African Americans fight
discrimination during the civil rights era?
The Segregation System
Plessy v. Ferguson• Civil Rights Act of 1875
outlawed segregation• In 1883, all-white Supreme
Court declared the act unconstitutional.
• 1896: Plessy v. Ferguson ruling was issued: separate but equal would be constitutional.
• Many states passed Jim Crow laws segregating the races.
• Facilities for blacks were almost always inferior to those for whites.
Segregation Continues into the 20th Century
• After the Civil War, African Americans begin moving north to escape racism.
• Does this mean that there was NO racism in the North? NO!
• In areas of housing and jobs, both races competed for jobs.
A Developing Civil Rights Movement• WWII created job
opportunities for African Americans.
• The United States needed fighting men• Armed Forces will be the first
area of American society to end discrimination policies.
• Full integration will be passed under Truman (1948)
• FDR also ends government and war industry discrimination practices.
• Once WWII ended, black veterans began to fight for civil rights at home.
Challenging Segregation in Court
The NAACP Legal Strategy• Professor Charles Hamilton
Houston leads the NAACP in a legal campaign to end segregation.• Arguments focused on inequalities
of segregation in public education.• Law students would help fight
segregation.
• Thurgood Marshall, a famous African American lawyer, would win 29 of 32 cases argued before the Supreme Court.
Brown v. Board of Education
• What was Marshall’s greatest victory?• BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION (TOPEKA)
• This case was fought in 1954
• The Supreme Court unanimously struck down school segregation!
Reaction to the Brown Decision
Resistance To School Desegregation• Does this policy work?• Somewhat…within one year, over 500
school districts in the US desegregated.
• Why not ALL school districts?• Some districts and some states would
actively resist integration…pro-white
• What would change this policy?• BROWN II (1955) Supreme Court ruling
that stressed integration with “all deliberate speed”
• Did Eisenhower force compliance? NO!• Eisenhower considered it “impossible”
to enforce this measure.
Crisis in Little Rock• Arkansas was the 1st state to admit African
Americans to state universities…without Court order.
• By the 1950s, some private groups were also integrating:• Scout troops and labor unions.
• How does this change?• 1957: Gov. Orval Faubus had the Arkansas
National Guard to turn away 9 African students • This group became known as the “Little Rock
Nine”
• Does Eisenhower step in now?• YES! He ordered the National Guard and
paratroopers to supervise the attendance of these students for the ENTIRE school year.• Harassment continued even though troops were
present.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott
Boycotting Segregation• By 1955 the issues of segregation were
increasing across the United States.• Rosa Parks, a seamstress and an NAACP
officer, was arrested in Montgomery, AL for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man.
• Montgomery Improvement Association was formed• African American community leaders, including
ministers, organized a boycott of all buses.• Martin Luther King, Jr. was elected the leader
of this group.
• How long did the boycott last? • 381 days! More than a calendar year!!!