The Civil Rights Movement

Brown vs. Board of Education• Brought by 13 Kansas parents on

behalf of 20 children; recruited by NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People)

• Thurgood Marshall: Black lawyer, who would become first Black on Supreme Court

• Topeka High and middle schools already integrated

• Separate elementary schools were of equal quality: argument based on racial segregation alone

• 1954: Landmark 9-0 Supreme Court decision, overturning its earlier ruling, declaring separate public schools for blacks and whites inherently unequal

• Paved the way for integration and the Civil Rights Movement

Arkansas Crisis

• 1957: Arkansas governor Faubus ordered National Guard to exclude “Little Rock Nine” from Central HS

• Eisenhower used federal troops to force high school to accept them

• 1957: national school desegregation placed under federal control

• 1958-9: Faubus closed all high schools in Little Rock to avoid integration

• 1959: School re-opened, integrated

Little Rock Nine sculpture now on steps of Arkansas capitol

Montgomery Bus Boycott

• 1955: Rosa Parks, NAACP officer, refused to give up bus seat when asked

• NAACP organized boycott of Montgomery busses, led by Martin L. King

• Boycott 381 days, supported by UAW, Blacks nationwide, sympathetic Whites

• 1956: Supreme Court outlawed bus segregation

Martin Luther King, Jr• Baptist minister from

Montgomery, educated in Boston

• Used Henry David Thoreau’s civil disobedience, Gandhi’s non-violence: conflicted with Malcolm X et al who at times advocated violent actions

• Through impassioned speeches, often with Christian rhetoric, sought to

– force White majority to see injustice of racial policies

– unite Black community behind struggle for equality

– unify Americans of all races toward progress and peace

• 1963: “I have a Dream” speech – just three months before JFK killed

Malcolm X• Malcolm X rose to oppose

King’s non-violent approach. He believed:

– Blacks should separate from White society

– Blacks should arm themselves for self-defense against Whites

– Blacks should identify with Africa and African culture

• Allied with Nation of Islam, a Muslim organization largely made of Black Americans

• 1965: Assassinated. 3 Nation of Islam members convicted, but all maintain their innocence. (All free after serving sentences.)

Civil Rights Acts under Johnson

• Civil Rights Act of 1964: prohibited discrimination on race, religion, origin, gender

• Voting Rights act of 1965: eliminated voter literacy tests

• Civil Rights Act of 1968: Prohibited discrimination in housing, made it a federal crime to harm civil rights workers

SNCC Organizes for Black Rights

• Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, “Snick”)

• Stokely Carmichael led marches in south for voter registration

• First used a black panther as logo in campaign to increase black vote in Alabama

• “Black Power” – "It is a call for black people in this

country to unite, to recognize their heritage, to build a sense of community. It is a call for black people to define their own goals, to lead their own organizations.“

• In Oakland, CA: Black Panthers party, to advocate black self-reliance and armed resistance to oppression