The Civil Rights Movement · Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Thurgood Marshall, James Farmer, Rosa Parks), including the significance of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham

736 CHAPTER 12 Becoming a World Power736

The Civil RightsMovement

1954–1968

. The Big Ideas ,SECTION 1: The Movement Begins

People react to periods of breathtaking social and cultural change in different ways. After World War II, supporters of civil rights began challenging segregation in the United States.

SECTION 2: Challenging SegregationSocial and economic crises lead to new roles for government. African American citizens and white

supporters created organizations that directed protests, targeted specific inequalities, and attracted theattention of the mass media and the government.

SECTION 3: New IssuesPeople react to periods of breathtaking social and cultural change in different ways. In the mid-

1960s, civil rights leaders began to understand that merely winning political rights for African Americanswould not address the economic problems of African Americans.

The American Vision: Modern Times Video The Chapter 16 video, “The Civil Rights Movement,” chronicles the milestones of the movement to win rights for African Americans.

1954• Brown v. Board of

Education ruling issuedby Supreme Court

1955• West Germany

admitted to NATO

1958• Pasternak’s Dr. Zhivago

awarded Nobel Prize forLiterature 1959

• Mary Leakey discovers 1.7 million-year-oldhominid skull fragment in Tanzania

1960• Sit-in

protestsbegin

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▲ ▲

▼ ▼▼

1957• Eisenhower sends

troops to a Little Rock,Arkansas, high school toensure integration

1960• France successfully tests

nuclear weapons

1953 1957 1961

Kennedy1961–1963

Eisenhower1953–1961

1955• Rosa Parks refuses

to give up bus seat;Montgomery busboycott begins inAlabama

(tl)Carl Iwaski/TimePix/Getty Images, (tr)CORBIS/Bettmann, (bl)White House Historical Association, (br)Art Resource Steve Schapiro/TimePix/Getty Images

737

Americans march from Selma, Alabama, to Montgomeryin support of the civil rights movement.

HISTORY

Chapter OverviewVisit the American Vision:Modern Times Web site at

andclick on Chapter Overviews—Chapter 16 to preview chapterinformation.

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1963• Over 200,000 civil rights

supporters march onWashington, D.C.

1968• Civil Rights Act of

1968 passed

• Martin Luther King,Jr., assassinated

1963• Organization of

African Unity formed

• Kenya becomes anindependent nation

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1965• Malcolm X assassinated

• Race riots erupt in Los Angelesneighborhood of Watts

1965• China’s Cultural

Revolution begins

1967• Arab-Israeli War brings

many Palestiniansunder Israeli rule

1969

▼ ▼

Johnson1963–1969

1965

(tl)New York Public Library, (tr)Collection of Janice L. and David J. Frent, (bl)White House Historical Association, (br)CORBIS

http://tav.mt.glencoe.com

Determining Importance

When you start reading a textbook, the amount of information in it canseem overwhelming. As a reader, you should learn to recognize what

is important in each paragraph, section, and chapter. This allows you tofocus your study on key elements of the text.

The chapter and section introductions alert you to the big ideas in the chap-ter. The headings in the sections can provide clues that point you in the rightdirection for locating important information. They help you form predictionsabout the content and identify more specific concepts related to the big ideas.Finally, as you read individual paragraphs, identify the topic sentences andseparate these from the interesting, but less important, details. Also, the lastsentence in a paragraph can be a summary or list an end result.

Read the following paragraph about the continuing bus boycott in Montgomery,Alabama.

Stirred by King’s powerful words, AfricanAmericans in Montgomery continued theirboycott of the bus system for over a year.Instead of riding the bus, they organized carpools or walked to work. They refused to beintimidated, yet they remained peaceful andavoided violence. Meanwhile Rosa Parks’s legalchallenge to bus segregation worked its waythrough the courts. Finally, in December 1956,the Supreme Court affirmed the decision of aspecial three-judge panel declaring Alabama’slaws requiring segregation on buses to beunconstitutional. (page 745)

The chapter introduction on page 736 andthe headings in Section 1 help you focus on themain idea in the paragraph, the Montgomerybus boycott and one of its leaders, MartinLuther King, Jr. The highlighted sentences inthe paragraph tell you the most importantfacts about the boycott.

Before you read Section 1 of this chapter, note the clues you gather from thechapter and section introductions, the headings, and the highlighted terms.Then, as you read, identify the topic sentences of each paragraph. After youhave read the section, write a summary of the section based on the clues andthe topic sentences.

DETERMININGIMPORTANCE

Notice how the author elab-orates on the topic sentencewith interesting details.These details remind us thathistory is a story well told.

738 CHAPTER 16 The Civil Rights Movement738 CHAPTER 16 The Civil Rights Movement

CHAPTER 16 The Civil Rights Movement 739739

Historical Interpretation You will better understand historical events if you learn toshow the connections, causal and otherwise, between particular historical events andlarger social, economic, and political trends and developments.

Showing Connections

Throughout history, major events have had a lasting effect on the social,economic, and political trends of a nation. Older members of your family

probably remember the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin LutherKing, Jr. You probably remember the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., on September 11, 2001.

When historians study events in history, they consider not only the eventsthemselves, but also the social, economic, and political outcomes of these events.Historians are interested in the connections between such events and the impactthey have on society.

Read the following excerpts and assess the impact of the civil rights movement.

African Americans enjoyed increased political power. Before World War I, mostAfrican Americans lived in the South, where they were largely excluded from voting.During the Great Migration, many moved to Northern cities, where they were allowedto vote. Increasingly, Northern politicians sought their votes and listened to their concerns. (page 742)

The Brown decision marked a dramatic reversal of the ideas expressed in the Plessyv. Ferguson case. Brown v. Board of Education applied only to public schools, but theruling threatened the entire system of segregation. (page 743)

In the wake of Dr. King’s death, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1968. The actcontained a fair housing provision outlawing discrimination in housing sales and rentalsand gave the Justice Department authority to bring suits against such discrimination.(page 763)

You learn in the first excerpt that African Americans were gaining politicalpower and a political voice. The second excerpt describes how one court case began to shake up the social system of segregation in the South. In the finalexcerpt you learn about some economicgains African Americans made.

Create a chart with the headings “Society,”“Economy,” and “Politics.” As you read this chapter, write down information on theimpact of the civil rights movement in eachof the areas below the appropriate heading.This information will help you better under-stand the impact of the civil rights move-ment on the nation.

Analysis Skill Standard H11

740 CHAPTER 16 The Civil Rights Movement

Guide to Reading

ConnectionIn the previous chapter, you learned how the domestic agendas of PresidentsKennedy and Johnson affected theUnited States. In this section, you willlearn about the early years of the civilrights movement.

• African Americans won court victories,increased their voting power, andbegan using sit-ins to desegregate pub-lic places. (p. 741)

• The Brown v. Board of Education rulingignited protest and encouraged AfricanAmericans to challenge other forms ofsegregation. (p. 742)

• African American churches in the Southprovided leadership and meeting placesfor the civil rights movement. (p. 745)

• President Eisenhower sent the U.S.Army to enforce the authority of thefederal government. (p. 746)

Content Vocabularyseparate-but-equal, de facto segregation,sit-in

Academic Vocabularyinherent, specific, register

People and Terms to IdentifyNAACP, Thurgood Marshall, LindaBrown, Martin Luther King, Jr., SouthernChristian Leadership Conference

Reading Objectives• Explain the origin of the Southern

Christian Leadership Conference.• Discuss the changing role of the federal

government in civil rights enforcement.

Reading StrategyOrganizing As you read about the birthof the civil rights movement, complete agraphic organizer similar to the onebelow by filling in the causes of the civilrights movement.

Preview of Events

The Movement Begins

Civil RightsMovement

1954Brown v. Board of Educationof Topeka, Kansas, decision

1955Rosa Parks refuses to give up busseat in Montgomery, Alabama

1956Group of 101 Southern members ofCongress sign Southern Manifesto

1957Southern Christian LeadershipConference formed

✦1954 ✦1955 ✦1956 ✦1957

in Little Rock and Birmingham, and how the advancesinfluenced the agendas, strategies, and effectivenessof the quests of American Indians, Asian Americans,and Hispanic Americans for civil rights and equalopportunities.

11.10.6 Analyze the passage and effects of civil rightsand voting rights legislation (e.g., 1964 Civil RightsAct, Voting Rights Act of 1965) and the Twenty-FourthAmendment, with an emphasis on equality of accessto education and to the political process.

. The Big Idea ,People react to periods of breathtaking social and cultural change indifferent ways. Over the years, the NAACP had won several court victoriesagainst segregation. African Americans also began to gain political power.Realizing their growing political strength, more African Americans began to chal-lenge segregation through court cases and protests. African American churcheswere instrumental in encouraging the civil rights movement, with ministers takingon leadership roles. While President Eisenhower favored gradual desegregation,he did not support the protests or court challenges, and he sent federal troops toArkansas to uphold court rulings. The ensuing violence convinced Eisenhowerand many members of Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

The following are the mainHistory–Social Science Standardscovered in this section.

11.10.2 Examine and analyze thekey events, policies, and court

cases in the evolution of civil rights,including Dred Scott v. Sanford,

Plessy v. Ferguson, Brown v. Board ofEducation, Regents of the University

of California v. Bakke, and CaliforniaProposition 209.

11.10.3 Describe the collaboration onlegal strategy between African American

and white civil rights lawyers to end racialsegregation in higher education.

11.10.4 Examine the roles of civil rightsadvocates (e.g., A. Philip Randolph, Martin

Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, ThurgoodMarshall, James Farmer, Rosa Parks), including

the significance of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s“Letter from Birmingham Jail” and “I Have a

Dream” speech.

11.10.5 Discuss the diffusion of the civil rightsmovement of African Americans from the

churches of the rural South and the urban North,including the resistance to racial desegregation

The Origins of the Movement

African Americans won court victories,increased their voting power, and began using sit-ins to desegregate public places.

Reading Connection Are you registered to vote or doyou plan to register when you are 18? Read on to learn howAfrican Americans increased their voting power and worked todesegregate public places.

In 1896, the Supreme Court declared segregationconstitutional in the Plessy v. Ferguson case when itestablished the “separate-but-equal” doctrine. Lawssegregating African Americans were permitted aslong as equal facilities were provided for them. It wasnot until 1955 that the first major challenge to thisruling occurred.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks left her job as aseamstress in Montgomery, Alabama, and boarded a bus to go home. In 1955 buses in Montgomeryreserved seats in the front for whites and seats in therear for African Americans. Seats in the middle wereopen to African Americans, but only if there were fewwhites on the bus.

Rosa Parks took a seat just behind the white section.Soon all of the seats on the bus were filled. When thebus driver noticed a white man standing at the front of the bus, he told Parks and three other AfricanAmericans in her row to get up and let the white mansit down. Nobody moved. The driver cautioned, “Youbetter make it light on yourselves and let me havethose seats.” The other three African Americans rose,but Rosa Parks did not. The driver then called theMontgomery police, who took Parks into custody.

News of the arrest soon reached E.D. Nixon, a for-mer president of the local chapter of the NationalAssociation for the Advancement of Colored People(NAACP). Nixon wanted to challenge bus segregationin court, and he told Parks, “With your permission wecan break down segregation on the bus with yourcase.” Parks told Nixon, “If you think it will meansomething to Montgomery and do some good, I’ll behappy to go along with it.”

—adapted from Parting the Waters: America in the King Years

When Rosa Parks agreed to challenge segregationin court, she did not know that her decision wouldlaunch the modern civil rights movement. Withindays of her arrest, African Americans in Montgomeryhad organized a boycott of the bus system. Massprotests began across the nation. After decades ofsegregation and inequality, many African Americanshad decided the time had come to demand equalrights. The struggle, however, would not be easy.

In some states, particularly in the South, “JimCrow” laws segregated buses and trains, schools,restaurants, swimming pools, parks, and other publicfacilities. Segregation was not confined to states thathad passed “Jim Crow” laws. In other states, eachcommunity could decide whether to pass segrega-tion laws. Areas without laws requiring segregationoften had de facto segregation—segregation by cus-tom and tradition. Challenging both laws and tradi-tion would not be easy.

Court Challenges Begin The civil rights move-ment had been building for a long time. Since 1909,the National Association for the Advancement ofColored People (NAACP) had supported court casesintended to overturn segregation. Over the years, theNAACP achieved some victories. In 1935, for exam-ple, the Supreme Court ruled in Norris v. Alabama thatAlabama’s exclusion of African Americans fromjuries violated their right to equal protection underthe law. In 1946 the Court ruled in Morgan v. Virginiathat segregation on interstate buses was unconstitu-tional. In 1950 it ruled in Sweatt v. Painter that statelaw schools had to admit qualified African American


Rosa Parks

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United Press International/CORBIS

applicants, even if parallelblack law schools existed. ; (See pages 1006–1007 for moreinformation on these cases.)

New Political Power Inaddition to a string of courtvictories, African Americansenjoyed increased politicalpower. Before World War I,most African Americans livedin the South, where they werelargely excluded from voting.During the Great Migration,many moved to Northern

cities, where they were allowed to vote. Increasingly,Northern politicians sought their votes and listenedto their concerns.

During the 1930s, many African Americans bene-fited from FDR’s New Deal programs. Thus theybegan supporting the Democratic Party, giving itnew strength in the North. This wing of the partywas now able to counter Southern Democrats, whooften supported segregation.

The Push for Desegregation During WorldWar II, African American leaders began to usetheir new political power to demand morerights. Their efforts helped end discriminationin factories that held government contractsand increased opportunities for AfricanAmericans in the military.

In Chicago in 1942, James Farmerand George Houser founded theCongress of Racial Equality (CORE).CORE began using sit-ins, a form ofprotest first used by union workers inthe 1930s. In 1943 CORE attempted todesegregate restaurants that refused toserve African Americans. Using the sit-in strategy, members of CORE went tosegregated restaurants. If they weredenied service, they sat down andrefused to leave. The sit-ins wereintended to shame restaurant man-agers into integrating their restaurants.Using these protests, CORE successfullyintegrated many restaurants, theaters, andother public facilities in Chicago, Detroit,Denver, and Syracuse.

Examining How had theruling in Plessy v. Ferguson contributed to segregation?

Reading Check

The Civil Rights Movement Begins

The Brown v. Board of Education rulingignited protest and encouraged African Americans to challenge other forms of segregation.

Reading Connection Do you think that one person hasthe power to change things for the better? Read on to learn howthe courage and hard work of individuals helped reform society.

When World War II ended, many AfricanAmerican soldiers returned home optimistic thattheir country would appreciate their loyalty and sac-rifice. In the 1950s, when change did not come asquickly as hoped, their determination to change prej-udices led to protests—and to the emergence of thecivil rights movement.

Brown v. Board of Education After World WarII, the NAACP continued to challenge segregationwith the help of Charles Houston, a law professorand mentor to many African American lawyers.

From 1939 to 1961, the NAACP’s chief counsel anddirector of its Legal Defense and Education Fund

was the brilliant African American attorneyThurgood Marshall. After World War II,Marshall turned his attention to public

schools, seeking out cases that might result inoverturning Plessy v. Ferguson. Marshall

worked with local lawyers, both AfricanAmerican and white. He also relied onthe advice of many experts, includinglaw professors, lawyers, sociologists,and psychologists.

In 1954 the Supreme Court decided tocombine several different cases and issue a

general ruling on segregation in schools.One of the cases involved a young AfricanAmerican girl named Linda Brown, whowas denied admission to her neighbor-hood school in Topeka, Kansas, because ofher race. She was told to attend an all-black school across town. With the help ofthe NAACP, her parents then sued the

Topeka school board.On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court

ruled unanimously in the case of Brown v. Boardof Education of Topeka, Kansas, that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional and


Student WebActivity Visit theAmerican Vision:Modern Times Web siteatand click on StudentWeb Activities—Chapter 16 for anactivity on the civilrights movement.

HISTORY

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Separate but Unequal Linda Brown’s court case ended decadesof official segregation in the South.

Carl Iwaski/TimePix/Getty Images


violated the equal protection clause of theFourteenth Amendment. Chief Justice Earl Warrensummed up the Court’s decision when he wrote: “Inthe field of public education, the doctrine of sepa-rate but equal has no place. Separate educationalfacilities are inherently unequal.”

The Southern Manifesto The Brown decisionmarked a dramatic reversal of the ideas expressed inthe Plessy v. Ferguson case. Brown v. Board of Educationapplied only to public schools, but the ruling threat-ened the entire system of segregation. Although itconvinced many African Americans that the time hadcome to challenge other forms of segregation, it alsoangered many white Southerners, who became evenmore determined to defend segregation.

Although some school districts in border statesintegrated their schools in compliance with theCourt’s ruling, anger and opposition were far morecommon reactions. In Washington, D.C., SenatorHarry F. Byrd of Virginia called on Southerners toadopt “massive resistance” against the ruling. Across

the South, hundreds of thousands of whiteAmericans joined citizens’ councils to pressure theirlocal governments and school boards into defyingthe Supreme Court. Many states adopted pupilassignment laws that created requirements otherthan race that schools could use to prevent AfricanAmericans from attending white schools.

The Supreme Court inadvertently encouragedwhite resistance when it followed up its decision inBrown v. Board a year later. The Court ordered schooldistricts to proceed “with all deliberate speed” to endschool segregation. The wording was vague enoughthat many districts were able to keep their schoolssegregated for many more years.

Massive resistance also appeared in the halls ofCongress. In 1956 a group of 101 Southern membersof Congress signed the Southern Manifesto, whichdenounced the Supreme Court’s ruling as “a clearabuse of judicial power” and pledged to use “all law-ful means” to reverse the decision. Although theSouthern Manifesto had no legal standing, it encour-aged white Southerners to defy the Supreme Court.


MOMENTinHISTORYMOMENTinHISTORYAMERICANSEGREGATIONIn an Oklahoma City streetcarstation in 1939, a man takes a drink from a water coolerlabeled “COLORED.” Raciallysegregated facilities—waitingrooms, railroad cars, lavatories,and drinking fountains—wereprevalent all across the South.Under the so-called Jim Crowsystem, African Americanswere legally entitled to “separate-but-equal” educa-tion, housing, and social serv-ices. In practice, however, only asmall percentage of public fundsearmarked for schools, streets,police, and other expensesfound its way to AfricanAmerican neighborhoods.

Library of Congress

The Montgomery Bus Boycott In the midst ofthe uproar over the Brown v. Board of Education case,Rosa Parks made her decision to challenge segrega-tion of public transportation. Outraged by Parks’sarrest, Jo Ann Robinson, head of a local organizationcalled the Women’s Political Council, called onAfrican Americans to boycott Montgomery’s buseson the day Rosa Parks appeared in court.

The boycott was a dramatic success. That after-noon, several African American leaders formed theMontgomery Improvement Association to run theboycott and to negotiate with city leaders for an endto segregation. They elected a 26-year-old pastornamed Martin Luther King, Jr., to lead them.

On the evening of December 5, 1955, a meetingwas held at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, where Dr.King was pastor. In the deep, resonant tones andpowerful phrases that characterized his speakingstyle, King encouraged the people to continue theirprotest. “There comes a time, my friends,” he said,“when people get tired of being thrown into the

abyss of humiliation, where they experience thebleakness of nagging despair.” He explained, how-ever, that the protest had to be peaceful:

“Now let us say that we are not advocating vio-lence. . . . The only weapon we have in our hands thisevening is the weapon of protest. If we were incarcer-ated behind the iron curtains of a communisticnation—we couldn’t do this. If we were trapped in thedungeon of a totalitarian regime—we couldn’t do this.But the great glory of American democracy is theright to protest for right!”

—quoted in Parting the Waters: America in the King Years

King had earned a Ph.D. in theology from BostonUniversity. He believed that the only moral way toend segregation and racism was through nonviolentpassive resistance. He told his followers, “We mustuse the weapon of love. We must realize that so manypeople are taught to hate us that they are not totally


Car Pool Pick-Up Station During the monthsof the Montgomery bus boycott, African Americanswalked or volunteered their own cars as free taxisfor other protesters. Why did African Americanschoose to boycott the city bus system?

History

Dan Weiner/courtesy Sandra Weiner

responsible for their hate.” African Americans, heurged, must say to racists and segregationists: “Wewill soon wear you down by our capacity to suffer,and in winning our freedom we will so appeal toyour heart and conscience that we will win you in theprocess.”

King drew upon the philosophy and techniques ofIndian leader Mohandas Gandhi, who had used non-violent resistance effectively against British rule inIndia. Like Gandhi, King encouraged his followers todisobey unjust laws. Believing in people’s ability totransform themselves, King was certain that publicopinion would eventually force the government toend segregation.

Stirred by King’s powerful words, AfricanAmericans in Montgomery continued their boycottof the bus system for over a year. Instead of ridingthe bus, they organized car pools or walked towork. They refused to be intimidated, yet theyremained peaceful and avoided violence. Mean-while Rosa Parks’s legal challenge to bus segrega-tion worked its way through the courts. Finally, inDecember 1956, the Supreme Court affirmed thedecision of a special three-judge panel declaringAlabama’s laws requiring segregation on buses tobe unconstitutional.

Describing What was the ruling inBrown v. Board of Education?

Reading Check

African American Churches

African American churches in the South pro-vided leadership and meeting places for the civil rightsmovement.

Reading Connection Can you name any organizationsthat help with social issues? Read on to discover the politicalimpact of African American churches and their ministers in thecivil rights movement.

Martin Luther King, Jr., was not the only promi-nent minister involved in the bus boycott. Many ofthe other leaders were African American ministers.The boycott could not have succeeded without thesupport of the African American churches and minis-ters in the city. As the civil rights movement gainedmomentum, African American churches continued toplay a critical role. They served as forums for manyof the protests and planning meetings, and they alsomobilized many of the volunteers for specific civilrights campaigns.

After the Montgomery bus boycott demonstratedthat nonviolent protest could be successful, AfricanAmerican ministers led by King established theSouthern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)in 1957. The SCLC set out to eliminate segregationfrom American society and to encourage African


i n H i s t o r y

Thurgood Marshall1908–1993

Over his long lifetime, ThurgoodMarshall made many contributions to thecivil rights movement. Perhaps his mostfamous accomplishment was represent-ing the NAACP in the Brown v. Board ofEducation case.

Marshall’s speaking style was bothsimple and direct. During the Browncase, Justice Frankfurter asked Marshallfor a definition of equal. “Equal meansgetting the same thing, at the same timeand in the same place,” Marshallanswered.

Born into a middle-class Baltimorefamily in 1908, Marshall earned a lawdegree from Howard University Law

School. The school’s dean, CharlesHamilton Houston, enlisted Marshall towork for the NAACP. Together the twolaid out the legal strategy for challengingdiscrimination in many arenas ofAmerican life.

Marshall became the first AfricanAmerican on the Supreme Court whenPresident Lyndon Johnson appointed himin 1967. On the Court, he remained avoice for civil rights. In his view, theConstitution was not perfect because ithad accepted slavery. Its ideas of liberty,justice, and equality had to be refined.“The true miracle of the Constitution,” heonce wrote, “was not the birth of theConstitution, but its life.”

CORBIS

Americans to register to vote. Dr. King served as theSCLC’s first president. Under his leadership, theorganization challenged segregation at the votingbooths and in public transportation, housing, andpublic accommodations.

Summarizing What role didAfrican American churches play in the civil rights movement?

Eisenhower and Civil Rights

President Eisenhower sent the U.S. Army toenforce the authority of the federal government.

Reading Connection Do you believe the president hasthe responsibility to uphold the rulings of the Supreme Court?Read on to learn what President Eisenhower did when events inLittle Rock, Arkansas, challenged the federal government.

President Eisenhower sympathized with the goalsof the civil rights movement, and he personally dis-agreed with segregation. Following the precedent setby President Truman, he ordered navy shipyards andveterans’ hospitals to be desegregated.

At the same time, however, Eisenhower disagreedwith those who wanted to roll back segregationthrough protests and court rulings. He believed thatpeople had to allow segregation and racism to endgradually as values changed. With the nation in themidst of the Cold War, he worried that challenging

Reading Check

white Southerners on segregation might divide thenation and lead to violence at a time when the coun-try had to pull together. Publicly, he refused toendorse the Brown v. Board of Education decision.Privately, he remarked, “I don’t believe you canchange the hearts of men with laws or decisions.”

Despite his belief that the Brown v. Board ofEducation decision was wrong, Eisenhower felt hehad to uphold the authority of the federal govern-ment, including its court system. As a result, hebecame the first president since Reconstruction tosend federal troops into the South to protect the con-stitutional rights of African Americans.

Crisis in Little Rock In September 1957, the schoolboard in Little Rock, Arkansas, won a court order toadmit nine African American students to CentralHigh, a school with 2,000 white students. Little Rockwas a racially moderate Southern city, as was most ofthe state of Arkansas. A number of Arkansas commu-nities, as well as the state university, had alreadybegun to desegregate their schools.

The governor of Arkansas, Orval Faubus, wasbelieved to be a moderate on racial issues, unlikemany other Southern politicians. Faubus was deter-mined to win reelection, however, and so he beganto campaign as a defender of white supremacy. Heordered troops from the Arkansas National Guard toprevent the nine African American students fromentering the school. The next day, as National Guardtroops surrounded the school, an angry white mob


Crisis in Little Rock Fifteen-year-old Elizabeth Eckford (in sunglasses at right) braves an angrycrowd of Central High School students in Arkansas. How did Governor Orval Faubus react toattempts to integrate the high school?

History

AP/Wide World Photos

joined the troops to protest the integration plan andto intimidate the African American students tryingto register.

Television coverage of this episode placed LittleRock at the center of national attention. Faubus hadused the armed forces of a state to oppose the author-ity of the federal government—the first such chal-lenge to the Constitution since the Civil War.Eisenhower knew that he could not allow Faubus todefy the federal government. After a conferencebetween Eisenhower and Faubus proved fruitless,the district court ordered the governor to remove thetroops. Instead of ending the crisis, however, Faubussimply left the school to the mob. After the AfricanAmerican students entered the school, angry whitesbeat at least two African American reporters andbroke many of the school’s windows. The mob cameso close to capturing the terrified African Americanstudents that the police had to take them to safety.

The mob violence finally pushed PresidentEisenhower’s patience to the breaking point. Federalauthority had to be upheld. He immediately orderedthe U.S. Army to send troops to Little Rock. By night-fall 1,000 soldiers of the elite 101st Airborne Divisionhad arrived. By 5:00 A.M. the troops had encircled theschool, bayonets ready. A few hours later, the nineAfrican American students arrived in an army sta-tion wagon, and they walked into the high school.The law had been upheld, but the troops were forcedto remain in Little Rock for the rest of the school year.

New Civil Rights Legislation The same year thatthe Little Rock crisis began, Congress passed the firstcivil rights law since Reconstruction. The Civil Rights

Act of 1957 was intended to protect the right ofAfrican Americans to vote. Eisenhower believedfirmly in the right to vote, and he viewed it as hisresponsibility to protect voting rights. He also knewthat if he sent a civil rights bill to Congress, conserva-tive Southern Democrats would try to block the legis-lation. In 1956 he did send the bill to Congress,hoping not only to split the Democratic Party but also to convince more African Americans to voteRepublican.

As Eisenhower had expected, several Southernsenators did try to stop the Civil Rights Act of 1957.Despite these difficulties, the Senate majority leader,Democrat Lyndon Johnson, put together a compro-mise that enabled the act to pass. Although its finalform was much weaker than originally intended, theact still brought the power of the federal governmentinto the civil rights debate. The act created a civilrights division within the Department of Justice andgave it the authority to seek court injunctions againstanyone interfering with the right to vote. It also cre-ated the United States Commission on Civil Rights to investigate allegations of denial of voting rights.After the bill passed, the SCLC announced a cam-paign to register 2 million new African Americanvoters.

Explaining Why did PresidentEisenhower intervene in the civil rights controversy?

Reading Check


Checking for Understanding1. Vocabulary Define: separate-but-

equal, de facto segregation, sit-in,inherent, specific, register.

2. People and Terms Identify: NAACP,Thurgood Marshall, Linda Brown,Martin Luther King, Jr., SouthernChristian Leadership Conference.

3. State the outcome of the Brown v.Board of Education case.

Reviewing Big Ideas4. Explaining Why did the role of the fed-

eral government in civil rights enforce-ment change?

Critical Thinking5. Interpreting Do you think the civil

rights movement would have been suc-cessful in gaining civil rights for AfricanAmericans without the help of theNAACP and the SCLC? Explain.

6. Organizing Use a graphic organizersimilar to the one below to list theefforts made to end segregation.

Analyzing Visuals7. Examining Photographs Study the

photograph of Central High School stu-dents on page 746. How would youdescribe Elizabeth Eckford’s demeanorcompared to those around her? Whatmight this tell you about her character?

Writing About History8. Expository Writing Take on the role of

an African American soldier returningto the United States after fighting inWorld War II. Write a letter to the editorof your local newspaper describingyour expectations of civil rights as anAmerican citizen. CA 11WA2.3a

Efforts to EndSegregation

For help with the concepts in this section of AmericanVision: Modern Times go to andclick on Study Central.

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Study CentralHISTORY



Guide to Reading

ConnectionIn the previous section, you learnedabout the beginnings of the civil rightsmovement. In this section, you will dis-cover how African American studentsand white supporters joined the move-ment to protest civil inequalities.

• Students staged sit-ins at restaurants toend segregation. (p. 749)

• Students formed the Student NonviolentCoordinating Committee (SNCC) toorganize efforts for desegregation andvoter registration throughout the South.(p. 750)

• Teams of African Americans and whitesrode buses into the South to protest thecontinued, illegal segregation. (p. 750)

• Reluctant to offend Southern membersof Congress and preoccupied with foreign affairs, President Kennedyresponded slowly to the growing violence in the South. (p. 751)

• President Kennedy used the violentevents in the South as a platform toannounce his civil rights bill. (p. 753)

• President Johnson called for a new voting rights law after hostile crowdsseverely beat civil rights demonstrators.(p. 755)

Content VocabularyFreedom Riders, filibuster, cloture, poll tax

Academic Vocabularylegality, attain, comprehensive

People and Terms to IdentifyJesse Jackson, Ella Baker, Civil Rights Actof 1964

Reading Objectives• Evaluate the Civil Rights Act of 1964.• Summarize the efforts to establish

voting rights for African Americans.

Reading StrategyOrganizing As you read about chal-lenges to segregation in the South, complete a cause-and-effect chart likethe one below.

Preview of Events

Challenging Segregation

Cause Effect

Sit-In Movement

Freedom Riders

African American supportof Kennedy

African American voter registration

May 1961Freedom Riders attempt to desegre-gate interstate buses in the South

✦1962 ✦1966✦1960 ✦1964

Spring 1963Martin Luther King, Jr.,jailed in Birmingham

August 28, 1963March on Washington

July 1964President Johnson signsCivil Rights Act of 1964

1965Voting RightsAct passed

Twenty-Fourth Amendment, with an emphasis on equal-ity of access to education and to the political process.

11.11.2 Discuss the significant domestic policyspeeches of Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson,

Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton (e.g., withregard to education, civil rights, economic policy,environmental policy).

. The Big Idea ,Social and economic crises lead to new roles for government. Studentsstaged sit-ins and joined organizations as a way to peacefully protest segregation.These groups often faced violence from angry mobs. Many Americans wereshocked by the violence they saw on television as peaceful protestors wereattacked. President Kennedy at first was slow to respond to the violence, but he latertook legal action and sent federal troops to enforce desegregation rulings. After vio-lence in Birmingham, Alabama, continued to escalate, Kennedy began to push for acivil rights bill. After Kennedy’s assassination, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of1964. African Americans, however, continued to face violence and struggled to vote.


11.10.4 Examine the roles of civilrights advocates (e.g., A. Philip

Randolph, Martin Luther King, Jr.,Malcolm X, Thurgood Marshall, James

Farmer, Rosa Parks), including the significance of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s

“Letter from Birmingham Jail” and “I Have a Dream” speech.

11.10.5 Discuss the diffusion of the civilrights movement of African Americans

from the churches of the rural South andthe urban North, including the resistance

to racial desegregation in Little Rock andBirmingham, and how the advances influ-

enced the agendas, strategies, and effective-ness of the quests of American Indians, Asian

Americans, and Hispanic Americans for civilrights and equal opportunities.

11.10.6 Analyze the passage and effects of civilrights and voting rights legislation (e.g., 1964 Civil

Rights Act, Voting Rights Act of 1965) and the

The Sit-In Movement

Students staged sit-ins at restaurants to end segregation.

Reading Connection Would you risk your personalsafety to participate in a sit-in? Read on to learn of the responseof young people to the sit-in movement of the early 1960s.

A new mass movement for civil rights began inNorth Carolina with just four students. Disgustedwith segregation and discrimination against AfricanAmericans, the four students decided to take actionin a new way. Called a sit-in, this type of protest soonspread to more than 100 cities.

The sit-in movement began in Greensboro, NorthCarolina. There, in the fall of 1959, four young AfricanAmericans—Joseph McNeil, Ezell Blair, Jr., DavidRichmond, and Franklin McCain—enrolled at NorthCarolina Agricultural and Technical College inGreensboro. The four freshmen became close friendsand spent evenings talking about the civil rights move-ment. In January 1960, McNeil told his friends that he thought the time had come to take action, and hesuggested a sit-in at the whites-only lunch counter inthe nearby Woolworth’s department store.

“All of us were afraid,” Richmond later recalled, “but we went and did it.” On February 1, 1960, thefour friends entered the Woolworth’s. They purchasedschool supplies and then sat at the lunch counter andordered coffee. When they were refused service, Blairsaid, “I beg your pardon, but you just served us at [the checkout] counter. Why can’t we be served at thecounter here?” The students stayed at the counteruntil it closed, then announced that they would sit atthe counter every day until they were given the sameservice as white customers.

As they left the store, the four were excited. McNeilrecalled, “I just felt I had powers within me, a super-human strength that would come forward.” McCainwas also energized, saying, “I probably felt better thatday than I’ve ever felt in my life.”

—adapted from Civilities and Civil Rights

News of the daring sit-in at the Woolworth’s storespread quickly across Greensboro, North Carolina.

The following day, 29 African American studentsarrived at Woolworth’s determined to sit at thecounter until they were served. By the end of theweek, over 300 students were taking part.

The sit-in movement brought large numbers ofidealistic and energized college students into the civilrights struggle. Many African American students hadbecome discouraged by the slow pace of desegrega-tion. Students like Jesse Jackson, a student leader atNorth Carolina Agricultural and Technical College,wanted to see things change. The sit-in offered thema way to take matters into their own hands in apeaceful but powerful way.

At first, the leaders of the NAACP and the SCLCwere nervous about the sit-in movement. Theyfeared that students did not have the discipline toremain nonviolent if they were provoked enough.For the most part, the students proved them wrong.Those conducting sit-ins were heckled by bystanders,punched, kicked, beaten with clubs, and burned withcigarettes, hot coffee, and acid—but most did notfight back. They remained peaceful, and their heroicbehavior, contrasted with the violence and angerthey faced, grabbed the nation’s attention.

Examining What were the effectsof the sit-in movement?

Reading Check


Sit-Ins Fight Segregation African American students challenged Southernsegregation laws by demanding equal service at lunch counters. How did theNAACP initially feel about the sit-in movement?

History

Vic Colley/The Nashville Banner/The Nashville Public Library

SNCC

Students formed the Student NonviolentCoordinating Committee (SNCC) to organize efforts for desegregation and voter registration throughout the South.

Reading Connection What organizations for youngpeople exist in your school or community? Read on to learnabout a unique group of young Americans.

As the sit-ins spread, student leaders in differentstates realized that they needed to coordinate theirefforts. The person who brought them together wasElla Baker, the 55-year-old executive director of theSCLC. In April 1960, Baker invited student leaders toattend a convention at Shaw University in Raleigh,North Carolina. At the convention, Baker urged stu-dents to create their own organization instead of join-ing the NAACP or the SCLC. Students, she said, had“the right to direct their own affairs and even maketheir own mistakes.”

The students agreed with Baker and establishedthe Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee(SNCC). Among SNCC’s early leaders were MarionBarry, who later served as mayor of Washington,D.C., and John Lewis, who later became a member ofCongress. African American college students from allacross the South made up the majority of SNCC’smembers, although many whites also joined.

Between 1960 and 1965, SNCC played a key role indesegregating public facilities in dozens of Southerncommunities. SNCC also began sending volunteersinto rural areas of the Deep South to register AfricanAmericans to vote. The idea for what came to be calledthe Voter Education Project began with Robert Moses,an SNCC volunteer from New York. Moses pointedout that the civil rights movement tended to focus onurban areas. He urged SNCC to fill in the gap by help-ing rural African Americans. Moses himself went torural Mississippi, where African Americans who triedto register to vote frequently met with violence.

Despite the danger, many SNCC volunteersheaded to Mississippi and other parts of the DeepSouth. Several had their lives threatened, and otherswere beaten. In 1964 local officials in Mississippi bru-tally murdered three SNCC workers.

One SNCC organizer, a former sharecroppernamed Fannie Lou Hamer, had been evicted from herfarm after registering to vote. She was then arrestedin Mississippi for urging other African Americans toregister, and she was severely beaten by the policewhile in jail. She then helped organize theMississippi Freedom Democratic Party, and she chal-lenged the legality of the segregated DemocraticParty at the 1964 Democratic National Convention.

Explaining What role did EllaBaker play in forming SNCC?

The Freedom Riders

Teams of African Americans and whitesrode buses into the South to protest the continued,illegal segregation.

Reading Connection Would you become active forsomething you believe is right? Read on to learn how attemptsto integrate bus travel in the South were received.

Despite rulings that outlawed segregation in inter-state bus service, bus travel remained segregated inmuch of the South. In 1961 CORE leader JamesFarmer asked teams of African Americans andwhites to travel into the South to draw attention tothe South’s refusal to integrate bus terminals. Theteams became known as the Freedom Riders.

In early May 1961, the first Freedom Ridersboarded several southbound interstate buses. Whenthe buses carrying them arrived in Anniston,Birmingham, and Montgomery, Alabama, angry whitemobs attacked them. The mobs slit the bus tires and

Reading Check

SNCC and CORE members protest peacefully before theopening of the Democratic Convention.

➤

750 CHAPTER 16 The Civil Rights MovementBettmann/CORBIS

threw rocks at the windows. In Anniston,someone threw a firebomb into one bus,although fortunately no one was killed.

In Birmingham the riders emergedfrom a bus to face a gang of young menarmed with baseball bats, chains, and leadpipes. They beat the riders viciously. Onewitness later reported, “You couldn’t seetheir faces through the blood.” The headof the police in Birmingham, TheophilusEugene (“Bull”) Connor, explained thatthere had been no police at the bus stationbecause it was Mother’s Day, and he hadgiven many of his officers the day off. FBIevidence later showed that Connor hadcontacted the local Ku Klux Klan and toldthem he wanted the Freedom Ridersbeaten until “it looked like a bulldog got ahold of them.”

The violence in Alabama made nationalnews, shocking many Americans. Theattack on the Freedom Riders came less than fourmonths after President John F. Kennedy took office.The new president felt compelled to do something toget the violence under control.

Summarizing What was the goalof the Freedom Riders?

John F. Kennedy and Civil Rights

Reluctant to offend Southern members ofCongress and preoccupied with foreign affairs, PresidentKennedy responded slowly to the growing violence inthe South.

Reading Connection Have you ever witnessed a non-violent protest, either in person or on television? Read on todiscover what happened to nonviolent protesters in Alabama.

While campaigning for the presidency in 1960,John F. Kennedy promised to actively support thecivil rights movement if elected. His brother, RobertF. Kennedy, had used his influence to get Dr. Kingreleased from jail after a demonstration in Georgia.

African Americans responded by voting over-whelmingly for Kennedy. Their votes helped himnarrowly win several key states, including Illinois,which Kennedy won by less than 9,000 votes. Oncein office, however, Kennedy at first seemed as cau-tious as Eisenhower on civil rights, which disap-pointed many African Americans. Kennedy knew

Reading Check


Riding Into Danger On May 14, 1961, Freedom Riders were driven from their busoutside of Anniston, Alabama, when angry townspeople set the bus on fire. Whichcivil rights protest organization coordinated the Freedom Riders?

History

that he needed the support of many Southern sena-tors to get other programs he wanted throughCongress, and that any attempt to push through newcivil rights legislation would anger them.

Kennedy did, however, name approximately40 African Americans to high-level positions in thefederal government. He also appointed ThurgoodMarshall to a judgeship on the Second CircuitAppeals Court in New York—one level below theSupreme Court and the highest judicial position anAfrican American had attained to that point.Kennedy also created the Committee on EqualEmployment Opportunity (CEEO) to stop the federalbureaucracy from discriminating against AfricanAmericans when hiring and promoting people.

The Justice Department Takes Action AlthoughPresident Kennedy was unwilling to challengeSouthern Democrats in Congress, he allowed theJustice Department, run by his brother Robert, toactively support the civil rights movement. RobertKennedy tried to help African Americans register tovote by having the civil rights division of the JusticeDepartment file lawsuits throughout the South.

When violence erupted against the FreedomRiders, the Kennedys came to their aid as well,although not at first. At the time the Freedom Riderstook action, President Kennedy was preparing for ameeting with Nikita Khrushchev, the leader of theSoviet Union. Kennedy did not want violence in theSouth to disrupt the meeting by giving the impres-sion that his country was weak and divided.

CORBIS

After the Freedom Riders were attacked inMontgomery, the Kennedys publicly urged them tostop the rides and give everybody a “cooling off”period. James Farmer replied that African Americans“have been cooling off now for 350 years. If we cooloff anymore, we’ll be in a deep freeze.” Instead heannounced that the Freedom Riders planned to headinto Mississippi on their next trip.

To stop the violence, President Kennedy made adeal with Senator James Eastland of Mississippi, astrong supporter of segregation. If Eastland woulduse his influence in Mississippi to prevent violence,Kennedy would not object if the Mississippi policearrested the Freedom Riders. Eastland kept thedeal. No violence occurred when the buses arrivedin Jackson, Mississippi, but the riders werearrested.

The cost of bailing the Freedom Riders out of jailused up most of CORE’s funds, which meant that therides would have to end unless more money could befound. When Thurgood Marshall learned of the situ-ation, he offered James Farmer the use of theNAACP’s Legal Defense Fund’s huge bail bondaccount to keep the rides going.

When President Kennedy returned from his meet-ing with Khrushchev and found that the FreedomRiders were still active, he changed his position andordered the Interstate Commerce Commission totighten its regulations against segregated bus termi-nals. In the meantime, Robert Kennedy ordered theJustice Department to take legal action againstSouthern cities that were maintaining segregatedbus terminals. The continuing pressure of CORE andthe actions of the ICC and the Justice Departmentfinally produced results. By late 1962, segregation ininterstate travel had come to an end.

James Meredith As the Freedom Riders were try-ing to desegregate bus terminals, efforts continued tointegrate Southern schools. On the very day John F.Kennedy was inaugurated, an African American airforce veteran named James Meredith applied for a transfer to the University of Mississippi. Up to that point, the university had avoided complyingwith the Supreme Court ruling ending segregatededucation.

In September 1962, Meredith tried to register at theuniversity’s admissions office, only to find RossBarnett, the governor of Mississippi, blocking hispath. Although Meredith had a court order directingthe university to register him, Governor Barnettstated emphatically, “Never! We will never surrenderto the evil and illegal forces of tyranny.”

Frustrated, President Kennedy dispatched 500 fed-eral marshals to escort Meredith to the campus.Shortly after Meredith and the marshals arrived, anangry white mob attacked the campus, and a full-scaleriot erupted. The mob hurled rocks, bottles, bricks,and acid at the marshals. Some people fired shotgunsat them. The marshals responded with tear gas, butthey were under orders not to fire.

The fighting continued all night. By morning,160 marshals had been wounded. ReluctantlyKennedy ordered the army to send several thousandtroops to the campus. For the rest of the year, Meredithattended classes at the University of Mississippi underfederal guard. He graduated the following August.

Violence in Birmingham The events in Mississippifrustrated Martin Luther King, Jr., and other civilrights leaders. Although they were pleased thatKennedy had intervened to protect Meredith’s rights,they were disappointed that the president had notseized the moment to push for a new civil rights law.When the Cuban missile crisis began the followingmonth, civil rights issues dropped out of the news,and for the next several months, foreign policy becamethe main priority at the White House.

Reflecting on the problem, Dr. King came to a diffi-cult decision. It seemed to him that only when vio-lence and disorder got out of hand would the federalgovernment intervene. “We’ve got to have a crisis tobargain with,” one of his advisers observed. Kingagreed. In the spring of 1963, he decided to launchdemonstrations in Birmingham, Alabama, knowingthey would probably provoke a violent response. Hebelieved it was the only way to get PresidentKennedy to actively support civil rights.

The situation in Birmingham was volatile. PublicSafety Commissioner Bull Connor, who hadarranged for the attack on the Freedom Riders, wasnow running for mayor. Eight days after the protestsbegan, King was arrested and held for a time in soli-tary confinement. While in prison, King began writ-ing on scraps of paper that had been smuggled intohis cell. The “Letter From a Birmingham Jail” that heproduced is one of the most eloquent defenses ofnonviolent protest ever written.

In his letter, King explained that although the pro-testers were breaking the law, they were following ahigher moral law based on divine justice. To the chargethat the protests created racial tensions, King arguedthat the protests “merely bring to the surface the hid-den tension that is already alive.” Injustice, he insisted,had to be exposed “to the light of human conscienceand the air of national opinion before it can be cured.”


After King was released, the protests began togrow again. Bull Connor responded with force,ordering the police to use clubs, police dogs, andhigh-pressure fire hoses on the demonstrators,including women and children. Millions of peopleacross the nation watched the graphic violence on tel-evision. Outraged by the brutality and worried thatthe government was losing control, Kennedy orderedhis aides to prepare a new civil rights bill.

Evaluating How did PresidentKennedy help the civil rights movement?

The Civil Rights Act of 1964

President Kennedy used the violent events inthe South as a platform to announce his civil rights bill.

Reading Connection What provisions to protect the civilrights of African Americans were added to the Constitutionafter the Civil War? Read on to learn about new legal stepstaken during the 1960s.

Determined to introduce a civil rights bill,Kennedy now waited for a dramatic opportunity toaddress the nation on the issue. Shortly after the vio-lence in Birmingham had shocked the nation,Alabama’s governor, George Wallace, gave the presi-dent his chance. Wallace was committed to segrega-tion. At his inauguration, he had stated, “I draw aline in the dust . . . and I say, Segregation now!Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!” OnJune 11, 1963, Wallace personally stood in front of theUniversity of Alabama’s admissions office to blockthe enrollment of two African Americans. He stayeduntil federal marshals ordered him to stand aside.

President Kennedy seized the moment toannounce his civil rights bill. That evening, he wenton television to speak to the American people about a“moral issue . . . as old as the scriptures and as clearas the American Constitution”:

“The heart of the question is whether . . . we aregoing to treat our fellow Americans as we want to betreated. If an American, because his skin is dark, can-not eat lunch in a restaurant open to the public, if hecannot send his children to the best public schoolavailable, if he cannot vote for the public officials whowill represent him . . . then who among us would becontent to have the color of his skin changed andstand in his place?

Reading Check

One hundred years of delay have passed sincePresident Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs,their grandsons, are not fully free. . . . And this nation,for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully freeuntil all its citizens are free. . . . Now the time hascome for this nation to fulfill its promise.”

—from Kennedy’s White House Address, June 11, 1963

The March on Washington Dr. King realized thatKennedy would have a very difficult time pushinghis civil rights bill through Congress. Therefore, hesearched for a way to lobby Congress and to buildmore public support for the civil rights movement.When A. Philip Randolph suggested a march onWashington, King agreed.

On August 28, 1963, more than 200,000 demon-strators of all races flocked to the nation’s capital.The audience heard speeches and sang hymns andsongs as they gathered peacefully near the LincolnMemorial. Dr. King then delivered a powerfulspeech outlining his dream of freedom and equalityfor all Americans:


Forcing Change Birmingham police used high-pressure hoses to force civil rights protesters to stop their marches. Why did King’s followers offer no resistance?

History

Charles Moore 1963/Black Star

opponents used tactics such as dragging out theircommittee investigations and using procedural rulesto delay votes.

The Civil Rights Bill Becomes Law Althoughthe civil rights bill was likely to pass the House ofRepresentatives, where a majority of Republicansand Northern Democrats supported the measure, itfaced a much more difficult time in the Senate.There, a small group of determined senators wouldtry to block the bill indefinitely. Because of proce-dural rules, it would be possible for senators todelay a vote.

In the U.S. Senate, senators are allowed to speakfor as long as they like when a bill is being debated.The Senate cannot vote on a bill until all senatorshave finished speaking. A filibuster occurs when asmall group of senators take turns speaking andrefuse to stop the debate and allow a bill to come to avote. Today a filibuster can be stopped if at least60 senators vote for cloture, a motion which cuts offdebate and forces a vote. In the 1960s, however,67 senators had to vote for cloture to stop a filibuster.


A Dream Deferred The 1963 March on Washington was the emotional high point of the civil rights movement.Its nonviolent atmosphere and Dr. King’s eloquent speech made it one of the most momentous American eventsof the twentieth century. What significant legislation resulted from the March on Washington?

History

“I have adream”

—Martin Luther King, Jr.

“I have a dream that one day this nation will riseup and live out the true meaning of its creed . . . thatall men are created equal. . . . I have a dream thatone day . . . the sons of former slaves and the sons offormer slave owners will be able to sit together at thetable of brotherhood. . . . I have a dream that my fourlittle children will one day live in a nation where theywill not be judged by the color of their skin but by thecontent of their character. I have a dream . . . when allof God’s children, black men and white men, Jewsand Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be ableto join hands and sing . . . ‘Free at last, Free at last,Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.’”

—quoted in Freedom Bound: A History of America’s Civil Rights Movement

King’s speech and the peacefulness and dignity ofthe March on Washington had built strong momen-tum for the civil rights bill. Despite the growing sup-port, however, opponents in Congress continued todo what they could to slow the bill down. These

Steve Schapiro/Black Star, (inset)Francis Miller/TimePix/ Getty Images

This meant that a minority of senators opposed tocivil rights could easily prevent the majority fromenacting new civil rights laws.

Worried the bill would never pass, many AfricanAmericans became even more disheartened. ThenPresident Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas,on November 22, 1963, and his vice president,Lyndon Johnson, became president. Johnson wasfrom Texas and had been the leader of the SenateDemocrats before becoming vice president. Althoughhe had helped push the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and1960 through the Senate, he had done so by weaken-ing their provisions and by compromising with otherSouthern senators. Many were skeptical that Johnsonwould support the civil rights bill.

To the surprise of the civil rights movement,Johnson committed himself wholeheartedly to get-ting Kennedy’s program, including the civil rightsbill, through Congress. Unlike Kennedy, Johnson wasvery familiar with how Congress operated, havingserved there for many years. He knew how to buildpublic support, how to put pressure on members ofCongress, and how to use the rules and procedures toget what he wanted.

In February 1964, President Johnson’s leadershipbegan to produce results. The civil rights bill passedthe House of Representatives by a majority of 290 to130. The debate then moved to the Senate. In June,after 87 days of filibuster, the Senate finally voted toend debate by a margin of 71 to 29—four votes overthe two-thirds needed for cloture. On July 2, 1964,President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of1964 into law.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the most compre-hensive civil rights law Congress had ever enacted. Itgave the federal government broad power to preventracial discrimination in a number of areas. The lawmade segregation illegal in most places of publicaccommodation, and it gave citizens of all races andnationalities equal access to such facilities as restau-rants, parks, libraries, and theaters. The law gave theattorney general more power to bring lawsuits toforce school desegregation, and it required privateemployers to end discrimination in the workplace. Italso established the Equal Employment OpportunityCommission (EEOC) as a permanent agency in thefederal government. This commission monitors theban on job discrimination by race, religion, gender,and national origin.

Examining How did Dr. King lobbyCongress to expand the right to participate in the democraticprocess?

Reading Check


Voting Rights In the early 1960s, African Americans focusedon increasing their political power.

The Struggle for Voting Rights

President Johnson called for a new votingrights law after hostile crowds severely beat civil rightsdemonstrators.

Reading Connection How had Southern states histori-cally kept African Americans from voting? Read on to learnabout the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Even after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed,voting rights were far from secure. The act hadfocused on segregation and job discrimination butdid little to address voting issues. The Twenty-fourthAmendment, ratified in 1964, helped by eliminatingpoll taxes, or fees paid in order to vote, in federal(but not state) elections. African Americans still facedhurdles, however, when they tried to vote. Despiteviolent attacks, the SCLC and SNCC stepped up theirvoter registration efforts in the South.

Across the South, bombs exploded in AfricanAmerican businesses and churches. Between Juneand October 1964, 24 African American churches inMississippi alone were destroyed. Convinced that anew law was needed, Dr. King decided to stageanother dramatic protest.

The Selma March In January 1965, the SCLC andDr. King selected Selma, Alabama, as the focal pointfor their campaign. Although African Americans

New York Public Library

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 On August 3,1965, the House of Representatives passed the votingrights bill by a wide margin. The following day, theSenate also passed the bill. The Voting Rights Act of1965 authorized the attorney general to send federalexaminers to register qualified voters, bypassinglocal officials who often refused to register AfricanAmericans. The law also suspended discriminatorydevices such as literacy tests in counties where lessthan half of all adults had been allowed to vote.

The results were dramatic. By the end of the year,almost 250,000 African Americans had registered asnew voters. The number of African American electedofficials in the South also increased, from about100 in 1965 to more than 5,000 in 1990.

The passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 markeda turning point in the civil rights movement. Themovement had now achieved its two major legislativegoals. Segregation had been outlawed, and new fed-eral laws were in place to protect voting rights.

After 1965 the movement began to shift its focus. Itbegan to pay more attention to achieving full socialand economic equality for African Americans. Aspart of that effort, the movement turned its attentionto the problems of African Americans trapped inpoverty and living in ghettos.

Summarizing How did theTwenty-fourth Amendment affect African American votingrights?

Reading Check


Checking for Understanding1. Vocabulary Define: legality, Freedom

Riders, attain, filibuster, cloture, comprehensive, poll tax.

2. People and Terms Identify: JesseJackson, Ella Baker, Civil Rights Act of 1964.

3. Describe the provisions of the CivilRights Act of 1964 aimed at ending segregation and racial discrimination.

Reviewing Big Ideas4. Examining How did television help the

civil rights movement?

Critical Thinking5. Evaluating How

did protesting and lobbying lead to thepassage of the Voting Rights Act of1965?

6. Sequencing Use a time line like theone below to show relative chronologyof events in the civil rights movement.

Analyzing Visuals7. Examining Photographs Study the

photographs in this section. What ele-ments of the photographs show thesacrifices African Americans made inthe civil rights movement?

CA HI2

Writing About History8. Descriptive Writing Take on the role of

a journalist for the student newspaper ofa college in 1960. Write an article for thenewspaper describing the sit-in move-ment taking place across the country.

CA 11WA2.1c

Feb. 1960

May 1961 Aug. 1963

Sept. 1962 July 1964

March 1965

made up a majority of Selma’s population, they com-prised only 3 percent of registered voters. To preventAfrican Americans from registering to vote, SheriffJim Clark had deputized and armed dozens of whitecitizens. His posse terrorized African Americans andfrequently attacked demonstrators with clubs andelectric cattle prods.

Just weeks after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize inOslo, Norway, for his work in the civil rights move-ment, Dr. King stated, “We are not asking, we aredemanding the ballot.” King’s demonstrations inSelma led to approximately 2,000 African Americans,including schoolchildren, being arrested by SheriffClark. Clark’s men attacked and beat many of thedemonstrators.

To keep pressure on the president and Congress,Dr. King joined with SNCC activists and organized a“march for freedom” from Selma to the state capitolin Montgomery. On Sunday, March 7, 1965, themarch began with the SCLC’s Hosea Williams andSNCC’s John Lewis leading 500 protesters.

As the protesters approached the Edmund PettusBridge, which led out of Selma, Sheriff Clark orderedthem to disperse. While the marchers kneeled inprayer, more than 200 state troopers and deputizedcitizens rushed the demonstrators. Many were beatenin full view of television cameras. This brutal attack,known later as “Bloody Sunday,” left 70 AfricanAmericans hospitalized and many more injured.

The nation was stunned as it viewed the shockingfootage. Watching the events from the White House,President Johnson became furious and decided totake action. Eight days later, he appeared before anationally televised joint session of the legislature topropose a new voting rights law.


tav.mt.glencoe.com



Guide to Reading

ConnectionIn the previous section, you learned howAfrican Americans worked to gain civilrights and voting rights. In this section,you will discover why civil rights leadersturned their attention to economic prob-lems facing African Americans.

• The civil rights struggle turned violent in the nation’s cities in 1965. (p. 758)

• Martin Luther King, Jr., began to focusmore on economic inequalities in 1965.(p. 759)

• Impatient with the slower gains of thenonviolent movement, young AfricanAmericans called for black power. (p. 760)

• After Dr. King was assassinated inMemphis, Tennessee, Congress passedthe Civil Rights Act of 1968. (p. 762)

Content Vocabularyracism, black power

Academic Vocabularychannel, status, psychological

People and Terms to IdentifyChicago Movement, Richard Daley,Stokely Carmichael, Malcolm X, BlackPanthers

Reading Objectives• Describe the division between Dr.

Martin Luther King, Jr., and the blackpower movement.

• Discuss the direction and progress ofthe civil rights movement after 1968.

Reading StrategyOrganizing As you read about thechanging focus of the civil rights move-ment, complete a chart similar to the onebelow. Fill in five major violent eventsand their results.

Preview of Events

New Issues

CHAPTER 16 The Civil Rights Movement 757CHAPTER 16 The Civil Rights Movement 757

1965Watts riots break out in Los Angeles;Malcolm X assassinated

1966Chicago Movement fails

1967Kerner Commission studiesproblems of inner cities

1968Dr. Martin LutherKing, Jr., assassinated

✦1965 ✦1968✦1966 ✦1967

Event Result

. The Big Idea ,People react to periods of breathtaking social and cultural change in different ways. Violence over the civil rights struggle continued to escalate. Moreactivists, concerned that increasing political rights would not address all the problemsAfrican Americans faced, began to focus on improving economic conditions.Increasing numbers of young African Americans became frustrated with nonviolentprotests and the slow progress. These people began to call for black power andstronger actions to gain equality. Following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.,Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1968.


11.10.4 Examine the roles of civilrights advocates (e.g., A. PhilipRandolph, Martin Luther King, Jr.,Malcolm X, Thurgood Marshall, JamesFarmer, Rosa Parks), including the significance of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s“Letter from Birmingham Jail” and “I Have a Dream” speech.

11.11.7 Explain how the federal, state,and local governments have responded todemographic and social changes such aspopulation shifts to the suburbs, racial con-centrations in the cities, Frostbelt-to-Sunbeltmigration, international migration, decline offamily farms, increases in out-of-wedlockbirths, and drug abuse.

Problems Facing Urban African Americans

The civil rights struggle turned violent in thenation’s cities in 1965.

Reading Connection When did the Great Migration ofAfrican Americans to northern cities occur? Read on to learnmore about the racism that they continued to face in the 1960s.

Despite the passage of several civil rights laws inthe 1950s and 1960s, racism—prejudice or discrimi-nation toward someone because of his or her race—was still common in American society. In 1965,tensions over this discrimination erupted in violence.

Thursday, July 12, 1965, was hot and humid inChicago. That evening Dessie Mae Williams, a 23-year-old African American woman, stood on the cornernear the firehouse at 4000 West Wilcox Street. Afiretruck sped out of the firehouse, and the driver lost control. The truck smashed into a stop sign near Williams, and the sign struck and killed her.

African Americans had already picketed this fire-house because it was not integrated. Hearing ofWilliams’s death, 200 neighborhood young peoplestreamed into the street, surrounding the firehouse.For two nights, rioting and disorder reigned. Angryyouths threw bricks and bottles at the firehouse and nearby windows. Shouting gangs pelted policewith rocks and accosted whites and beat them.Approximately 75 people were injured.

African American detectives, clergy, and NationalGuard members eventually restored order. MayorRichard Daley then summoned both white and blackleaders to discuss the area’s problems. An 18-year-oldman who had been in the riot admitted that he hadlost his head. “We’re sorry about the bricks and bot-tles,” he said, “but when you get pushed, you shoveback. Man, you don’t like to stand on a corner and betold to get off it when you got nowhere else to go.”

—adapted from Anyplace But Here

Changing the law could not change people’s atti-tudes immediately, nor could it help those AfricanAmericans trapped in poverty in the nation’s bigcities. In 1965, nearly 70 percent of African Americans

lived in large cities. Many had moved from the Southto the big cities of the North and West during theGreat Migration of the 1920s and 1940s. There, theyoften found the same prejudice and discriminationthat had plagued them in the South. Many whitesrefused to live with African Americans in the sameneighborhood. When African Americans moved intoa neighborhood, whites often moved out. Real estateagents and landlords in white neighborhoods refusedto rent or sell to African Americans, who often foundit difficult to arrange for mortgages at local banks.

Even if African Americans had been allowed tomove into white neighborhoods, poverty trappedmany of them in inner cities while whites moved tothe suburbs. Many African Americans found them-selves channeled into low-paying jobs. They servedas custodians and maids, porters and dock workers,with little chance of advancement. Those who didbetter typically found employment as blue-collarworkers in factories, but very few advanced beyondthat. In 1965 only 15 percent of African Americansheld professional, managerial, or clerical jobs, com-pared to 44 percent of whites. Almost half of allAfrican American families lived in poverty, and themedian income of an African American family wasonly 55 percent of that of the average white family.African American unemployment was typicallytwice that of whites.

Poor neighborhoods in the nation’s major citieswere overcrowded and dirty, leading to higher ratesof illness and infant mortality. At the same time, thecrime rate increased in the 1960s, particularly in low-income neighborhoods. Incidents of juvenile delin-quency rose, as did the rate of young peopledropping out of school. Complicating matters evenmore was a rise in the number of single-parent


Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., marchingwith protesters in Chicago

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CORBIS


“Perilous Going” This political cartoon highlights the problems thatAmerican cities were experiencing in the mid-1960s. Why did riots breakout in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts?

Analyzing Political Cartoons

racism for the majority of the problems in the inner city.“Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black,one white—separate and unequal,” it concluded.

The commission recommended the creation of2 million new jobs in inner cities, the construction of6 million new units of public housing, and a renewedfederal commitment to fight de facto segregation.President Johnson’s war on poverty, which addressedsome of the same concerns for inner-city jobs andhousing, was already underway. Saddled with mas-sive spending for the Vietnam War, however,President Johnson never endorsed the recommenda-tions of the commission.

Explaining What was the federalgovernment’s response to race riots?

The Shift to Economic Rights

Martin Luther King, Jr., began to focus moreon economic inequalities in 1965.

Reading Connection What do you think causes mobsto form and to act violently? Read on to learn about theChicago mobs that Dr. King faced.

By the mid-1960s, a number of African Americanleaders were becoming increasingly critical of MartinLuther King’s nonviolent strategy. They felt it had

Reading Check

households. All poor neighborhoods suffered fromthese problems, but because more African Americanslived in poverty, their communities were dispropor-tionately affected.

Many African Americans living in urban povertyknew the civil rights movement had made enormousgains, but when they looked at their own circum-stances, nothing seemed to be changing. The move-ment had raised their hopes, but their everydayproblems were economic and social, and thereforeharder to address. As a result, their anger and frustra-tion began to rise—until it finally erupted.

The Watts Riot Just five days after PresidentJohnson signed the Voting Rights Act, a race riotbroke out in Watts, an African American neighbor-hood in Los Angeles. Allegations of police brutalityhad served as the catalyst of this uprising, whichlasted for six days and required over 14,000 membersof the National Guard and 1,500 law officers torestore order. Rioters burned and looted entire neigh-borhoods and destroyed about $45 million in prop-erty. They killed 34 people, and about 900 sufferedinjuries.

More rioting was yet to come. Race riots broke outin dozens of American cities between 1965 and 1968.It seemed that they could explode at any place and atany time. The worst riot took place in Detroit in 1967.Burning, looting, and skirmishes with police andNational Guard members resulted in 43 deaths andover 1,000 wounded. Eventually the U.S. Army sentin tanks and soldiers armed with machine guns to getcontrol of the situation. Nearly 4,000 fires destroyed1,300 buildings, and the damage in property loss wasestimated at $250 million. The governor of Michigan,who viewed the smoldering city from a helicopter,remarked that Detroit looked like “a city that hadbeen bombed.”

The Kerner Commission In 1967 President Johnsonappointed the National Advisory Commission on CivilDisorders, headed by Governor Otto Kerner of Illinois,to study the causes of the urban riots and to make rec-ommendations to prevent them from happening againin the future. The Kerner Commission, as it becameknown, conducted a detailed study of the problem.The commission blamed white society and white

Jon Kennedy/Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

failed to improve the economic position of AfricanAmericans. What good was the right to dine atrestaurants or stay at hotels if most AfricanAmericans could not afford these services anyway?Dr. King became sensitive to this criticism, and in1965 he began to focus on economic issues.

In 1965 Albert Raby, president of a council of com-munity organizations that worked to improve condi-tions for Chicago’s poor, invited Dr. King to visit thecity. Dr. King and his staff had never conducted acivil rights campaign in the North. By focusing on theproblems that African Americans faced in Chicago,Dr. King believed he could call greater attention topoverty and other racial problems that lay beneaththe urban race riots.

To call attention to the deplorable housing condi-tions that many African American families faced, Dr.King and his wife Coretta moved into a slum apart-ment in an African American neighborhood inChicago. Dr. King and the SCLC hoped to work withlocal leaders to improve the economic status ofAfrican Americans in Chicago’s poor neighborhoods.

The Chicago Movement, however, made littleheadway. When Dr. King led a march through the all-white suburb of Marquette Park to demonstrate theneed for open housing, he was met by angry whitemobs similar to those in Birmingham and Selma.Mayor Richard Daley ordered the Chicago police to

protect the marchers, but he wanted to avoid anyrepeat of the violence. He met with Dr. King and pro-posed a new program to clean up the slums.Associations of realtors and bankers also agreed topromote open housing. In theory, mortgages andrental property would be available to everyone,regardless of race. In practice, very little changed.

Describing How did Dr. King andSCLC leaders hope to address economic concerns?

Black Power

Impatient with the slower gains of the non-violent movement, young African Americans called forblack power.

Reading Connection How did Dr. King work to avoidviolence? Read on to find out how some African Americansbroke with Dr. King’s approach.

Dr. King’s failure in Chicago seemed to show that nonviolent protests could do little to changeeconomic problems. After 1965 many AfricanAmericans, especially young people living in cities,began to turn away from King. The ongoing raceriots in Los Angeles, Detroit, and other cities in the

United States added to their frustration.Some leaders called for more aggressiveforms of protest. Their new strategiesranged from armed self-defense to the sug-gestion that the government set aside anumber of states where African Americanscould live free from the presence of whites.

As African Americans became moreassertive, they placed less emphasis oncooperation with sympathetic whites. SomeAfrican American organizations, includingCORE and SNCC, voted to expel all whitesfrom leadership positions within theirorganizations, believing that AfricanAmericans alone should determine thecourse and direction of their struggle.

Many young African Americans calledfor black power, a term that had many dif-ferent meanings. A few interpreted blackpower to mean that physical self-defenseand even violence were acceptable indefense of one’s freedom—a clear rejection ofDr. King’s philosophy. To most, includingStokely Carmichael, the leader of SNCC in 1966, the term meant that African

Reading Check


Anger in Chicago When Dr. King refocused thecivil rights movement on the North, some whiteAmericans protested. What did King do to drawattention to slum conditions in Chicago?

History

AP/Wide World Photos


Americans should control the social, politi-cal, and economic direction of their struggle:

“This is the significance of black power as a slogan. For once, black people are going touse the words they want to use—not just thewords whites want to hear. . . . The need forpsychological equality is the reason whySNCC today believes that blacks must organ-ize in the black community. Only black peoplecan . . . create in the community an arousedand continuing black consciousness. . . . Blackpeople must do things for themselves; theymust get . . .money they will control andspend themselves; they must conduct tutorial programs themselves so that blackchildren can identify with black people.”

—from the New York Review of Books, September 1966

Black power also stressed pride in the AfricanAmerican cultural group. It emphasized racial distinc-tiveness rather than cultural assimilation—the processby which minority groups adapt to the dominant cul-ture in a society. African Americans showed pride intheir racial heritage by adopting new Afro hairstylesand African-style clothing. Many also took on Africannames. In universities, students demanded thatAfrican and African American Studies courses beadopted as part of the standard school curriculum. Dr.King and some other leaders criticized black power asa philosophy of hopelessness and despair. The ideawas very popular, however, in the poor urban neigh-borhoods where many African Americans resided.

Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam By the early1960s, a man named Malcolm X had become a sym-bol of the black power movement that was sweepingthe nation. Born Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska,he experienced a difficult childhood and adoles-cence. He drifted into a life of crime, and in 1946, he was sentenced to six years in prison for burglary.

Prison transformed Malcolm. He began to educatehimself, and he played an active role in the prisondebate society. Eventually he joined the Nation ofIslam, commonly known as the Black Muslims, whowere led by Elijah Muhammad. Despite their name,the Black Muslims do not hold the same beliefs asmainstream Muslims. The Nation of Islam preachedblack nationalism. Like Marcus Garvey in the 1920s,Black Muslims believed that African Americans

should separate themselves from whites and formtheir own self-governing communities.

Shortly after joining the Nation of Islam, MalcolmLittle changed his name to Malcolm X. The “X” stoodas a symbol for the family name of his African ances-tors who had been enslaved. Malcolm argued that histrue family name had been stolen from him by slav-ery, and he did not intend to use the name white soci-ety had given him.

The Black Muslims viewed themselves as theirown nation and attempted to make themselves aseconomically self-sufficient as possible. They ran theirown businesses, organized their own schools, estab-lished their own weekly newspaper (MuhammadSpeaks), and encouraged their members to respecteach other and to strengthen their families. Althoughthe Black Muslims did not advocate violence, theydid advocate self-defense. Malcolm X was a powerfuland charismatic speaker, and his criticisms of whitesociety and the mainstream civil rights movementgained national attention for the Nation of Islam.

By 1964 Malcolm X had broken with the BlackMuslims. Discouraged by scandals involving theNation of Islam’s leader, he went to the Muslim holycity of Makkah (also called Mecca) in Saudi Arabia.After seeing Muslims from many different races wor-shipping together, he concluded that an integratedsociety was possible. In a revealing letter describinghis pilgrimage to Makkah, he stated that manywhites that he met during the pilgrimage displayed a

Malcolm X Makes His PointOnce the most visiblespokesperson for the Nation ofIslam, Malcolm X originally dis-agreed with Dr. King’s passiveprotest tactics. What did the“X” in his name symbolize?

History

CORBIS

spirit of brotherhood that gave him a new, positiveinsight into race relations.

After Malcolm X broke with the Nation of Islam, hecontinued to criticize the organization and its leader,Elijah Muhammad. Because of this, three organiza-tion members shot and killed him in February1965 while he was giving a speech in New York.Although Malcolm X left the Nation of Islam beforehis death, his speeches and ideas from those yearswith the Black Muslims are those for which he is mostremembered. In Malcolm’s view, African Americansmay have been victims in the past, but they did nothave to allow racism to victimize them in the present.His ideas have influenced African Americans to takepride in their own culture and to believe in their abil-ity to make their way in the world.

The Black Panthers Malcolm X’s ideas influenceda new generation of militant African American lead-ers who also preached black power, black national-ism, and economic self-sufficiency. In 1966 in

Oakland, California, Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, andEldridge Cleaver organized the Black Panther Partyfor Self-Defense, or the Black Panthers, as they wereknown. They considered themselves the heirs ofMalcolm X, and they recruited most of their membersfrom poor urban communities across the nation.

The Black Panthers believed that a revolution wasnecessary in the United States, and they urgedAfrican Americans to arm themselves and confrontwhite society in order to force whites to grant themequal rights. Black Panther leaders adopted a “Ten-Point Program,” which called for black empower-ment, an end to racial oppression, and control ofmajor institutions and services in the AfricanAmerican community, such as schools, law enforce-ment, housing, and medical facilities. EldridgeCleaver, who served as the minister of culture, articu-lated many of the organization’s objectives in his1967 best-selling book, Soul on Ice.

Describing What caused a divisionbetween Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the black powermovement?

The Assassination ofMartin Luther King, Jr.

After Dr. King was assassinated in Memphis,Tennessee, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1968.

Reading Connection Do you know someone whoremembers the assassination of Dr. King? Read on to discoverthe events surrounding King’s early death.

By the late 1960s, the civil rights movement hadfragmented into dozens of competing organiza-tions with philosophies for reaching equality. Atthe same time, the emergence of black power andthe call by some African Americans for violentaction angered many white civil rights supporters.This made further legislation to help blacks eco-nomically less likely.

In this atmosphere, Dr. King went to Memphis,Tennessee, to support a strike of African Americansanitation workers in March 1968. At the time, theSCLC had been planning a national “Poor People’sCampaign” to promote economic advancement forall impoverished Americans. The purpose of thiscampaign, the most ambitious one that Dr. Kingwould ever lead, was to lobby the federal govern-ment to commit billions of dollars to end poverty andunemployment in the United States. People of all

Reading Check

Black Power U.S. athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos give the black powersalute during the medal ceremony at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City.How did black power supporters demonstrate their belief in the movement?

History

762 CHAPTER 16 The Civil Rights MovementAP/Wide World Photos

races and nationalities were to converge on thenation’s capital, as they had in 1963 during the Marchon Washington, where they would camp out untilboth Congress and President Johnson agreed to passthe requested legislation to fund the proposal.

On the evening of April 4, 1968, as he stood on hishotel balcony in Memphis, Dr. King was assassinatedby a sniper. Ironically, he had told a gathering at alocal African American church just the previousnight, “I’ve been to the mountaintop. . . .I’ve lookedover and I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not getthere with you, but I want you to know tonight thatwe as a people will get to the Promised Land.”

Dr. King’s assassination touched off both nationalmourning and riots in more than 100 cities, includingWashington, D.C. The Reverend Ralph Abernathy,who had served as a trusted assistant to Dr. King formany years, led the Poor People’s Campaign inKing’s absence. The demonstration, however, did notachieve any of the major objectives that either Kingor the SCLC had hoped it would.

In the wake of Dr. King’s death, Congress passedthe Civil Rights Act of 1968. The act contained a fair

housing provision outlawing discrimination in hous-ing sales and rentals and gave the Justice Departmentauthority to bring suits against such discrimination.

Dr. King’s death marked the end of an era inAmerican history. Although the civil rights move-ment continued, it lacked the unity of purpose andvision that Dr. King had given it. Under his leader-ship, and with the help of tens of thousands of dedi-cated African Americans, many of whom werestudents, the civil rights movement transformedAmerican society. Although many problems remainto be resolved, the achievements of the civil rightsmovement in the 1950s and 1960s dramaticallyimproved life for African Americans, creating newopportunities where none had existed before.

Summarizing What were thegoals of the Poor People’s Campaign?

Reading Check


Checking for Understanding1. Vocabulary Define: racism, channel,

status, black power, psychological.2. People and Terms Identify: Chicago

Movement, Richard Daley, StokelyCarmichael, Malcolm X, Black Panthers.

3. Explain the goals of the Nation of Islamin the 1960s.

4. Summarize the findings of the KernerCommission.

Reviewing Big Ideas5. Justifying How was the Civil Rights

Act of 1968 designed to help enddiscrimination?

Critical Thinking6. Identifying Cause and Effect What

were the effects of the assassination ofDr. Martin Luther King, Jr.?

7. Categorizing Using a graphic organ-izer like the one below, list the mainviews of the three leaders listed.

Analyzing Visuals8. Analyzing Political Cartoons The car-

toon on page 759 suggests that the vio-lence of the mid-1960s was as bad asthe violence of the Vietnam War goingon at the same time. What images doesthe cartoonist use to compare violenceat home with the violence of the war?

Writing About History9. Expository Writing Take on the role

of a reporter in the late 1960s. Imagineyou have interviewed a follower of Dr. King and a Black Panther member.Write out a transcript of each interview.

Atlanta Mourns Martin LutherKing, Jr. The nation joined CorettaScott King (left) in sorrow following theassassination of her husband in 1968.Why was King in Memphis at the timeof his death?

History

Leader Views

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Malcolm X

Eldridge Cleaver


tav.mt.glencoe.com


AP/Wide World Photos, (inset)Flip Schulke/Black Star


SOURCE 1:On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks had just completed along day of work as a seamstress in a department store in downtown Montgomery. In her autobiography, RosaParks: My Story, she described what happened when shegot on a city bus to go home.

I knew they [the National Association for theAdvancement of Colored People] needed a plaintiffwho was beyond reproach. . . . But that is not why Irefused to give up my bus seat to a white man. . . . I did not intend to get arrested. If I had been payingattention, I wouldn’t even have gotten on that bus. . . .

When I got off from work that evening. . . . I didn’tlook to see who was driving. . . . It was the same driverwho had put me off the bus back in 1943, twelve yearsearlier. . . . And he was still mean-looking. . . . Most ofthe time if I saw him on a bus, I wouldn’t get on it.

I saw a vacant seat in the middle of the bus and tookit. . . . The next stop was the Empire Theater, and somewhites got on. They filled up the white seats, and oneman was left standing. The driver . . . looked back at us.He said, “Let me have those front seats.” . . . Didn’t any-body move. We just sat there, the four of us. . . .

The man in the window seat next to me stood up. . . and then I looked across the aisle and saw thatthe two women were also standing. . . .

I thought back to the time when I used to sit upall night and didn’t sleep, and my grandfather wouldhave his gun right by the fireplace, or if he had hisone-horse wagon going anywhere, he always had his gun in the back of the wagon. People always saythat I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired, buthis isn’t true. I was not tired physically. . . . No, theonly tired I was, was tired of giving in. . . . I chose to remain.

SOURCE 2:In response to Parks’s arrest, the Women’s PoliticalCouncil (WPC) called for a boycott of Montgomery citybuses. Jo Ann Gibson Robinson, a professor of English at Alabama State College, chaired this organization ofblack women.

In Montgomery in 1955, no one was brazen1 enoughto announce publicly that black people might boycottcity buses for the specific purpose of integrating thosebuses. Just to say that minorities wanted “better seatingarrangements” was bad enough. That was the term the two sides, white and black, always used later in dis-cussing the boycott. The word “integration” never cameup. Certainly all blacks knew not to use that word whileriding the bus. To admit that black Americans were

Since the Civil War, African Americans had fought for civil rights. They supported court casesthat challenged segregation and formed organizations to better accomplish their goals. Littledid they know that one woman’s challenge of segregation in Montgomery, Alabama, wouldbegin an organized civil rights movement.


Rosa Parks in an interview before a bus boycott court trial onMarch 29, 1956

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➤1brazen: bold

Bettmann/CORBIS

seeking to integrate would have been too much; thereprobably would have been much bloodshed andarrests of those who dared to disclose such an idea!That is why, during the boycott negotiations to come,the Men of Montgomery and other organizationsalways said that blacks would sit from the back towardfront, and whites would sit from the front of the bustoward the back, until all seats were taken.

The WPC, however, knew all the time that blackAmericans were working for integration, pure and sim-ple. No front toward back, or vice versa! We knew wewere human beings; that neither whites nor blackswere responsible for their color; that someday thosebuses, of necessity, had to be integrated; and that afterintegration neither would be worse off. . . . We were,then, bent on integration. There were those afraid toadmit it. But, we knew that deep down in the secretminds of all—teachers, students, and community—blackAmericans wanted integration. That way we wouldachieve equality. The only way.

SOURCE 3:On December 5, 1955, male African American leadersformed the Montgomery Improvement Association. Theyelected Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to head the group.King addressed a mass meeting later that day.

We are here this evening to say to those who havemistreated us so long that we are tired—tired of beingsegregated and humiliated, tired of being kickedaround by the brutal feet of oppression. We have noalternative but protest. For many years, we haveshown amazing patience. We have sometimes givenour white brothers the feeling that we liked the waywe were being treated. But we come here tonight tobe saved from that patience that makes us patientwith anything less than freedom and justice. . . .

One of the greatest glories of democracy is theright to protest for right. . . . These organizations [theKu Klux Klan and the White Citizens Councils] areprotesting for the perpetuation2 of injustice in thecommunity, we are protesting for the birth of justice in the community. Their methods lead to violence andlawlessness. But in our protest there will be no crossburnings. No white person will be taken from hishome by a hooded Negro mob and brutally murdered.. . . We will be guided by the highest principles of lawand order. . . .

Our method will be that of persuasion, not coercion.We will only say to people, “Let your conscience beyour guide. . . . [O]ur actions must be guided by thedeepest principles of our Christian faith. Love must beour regulating ideal. Once again we must hear thewords of Jesus echoing across the centuries, ‘Love yourenemies, bless them that curse you, and pray for themthat despitefully use you’.”. . .


Martin Luther King, Jr., surrounded by followers after hiscourt trial on March 23, 1956

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Source 1: Why did Parks refuse to give up her seatto a white man?

Source 2: According to Robinson, why did peoplein Montgomery not use the word integration?

Source 3: How does King compare the effortsplanned for his organization to those of organiza-tions that opposed African Americans?

Comparing and Contrasting SourcesWhat is the common strand that connects the ideasof Parks, King, and Robinson?

➤2perpetuation: permanence

CA HR4; HI1

20. Why was the decision in Brown v. Board of Education asignificant step toward ending segregation?

Section 221. Why was SNCC formed, and what was its role in the civil

rights movement?

Section 322. What were two changes in the focus of the civil rights move-

ment in the mid-1960s?

Critical Thinking23. Determining Importance After the

Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, what steps did Dr. Kingtake to protect African American voting rights? What werethe results of his actions?

24. Civics Explain the Voting Rights Act of 1965. How did itincrease voter registration?

25. Evaluating Why did the civil rights movement make fewergains after 1968?

1. separate-but-equal2. de facto segregation3. sit-in4. Freedom Riders5. filibuster

6. cloture7. poll tax8. racism9. black power

10. inherent11. specific12. register

13. legality14. attain15. comprehensive

16. channel17. status18. psychological

Reviewing Academic VocabularyOn a sheet of paper, use each of these terms in a sentence thatreflects the term’s meaning in the chapter.

1954• Brown v. Board of

Education attacksschool segregation.

• Separate-but-equaldoctrine in education is ruled

unconstitutional.

1957• SCLC is formed to

fight segregationand encourageAfrican Americansto vote.

• Eisenhower sendsarmy troops toLittle Rock, Arkansas.

1963• Birmingham

demonstrationsand the March onWashington help build support for the civil rights movement.

1965• Voting Rights Act ensures

African Americans of the right to vote.

• Watts riot sparksseveral yearsof urban racial violence.

• Splinter groups within the civil rights movement advocate more aggressive means of gaining racial equality.

1955• Rosa Parks inspires

Montgomery busboycott.

1960• Sit-ins begin

and spread toover 100 cities.

• SNCC is formedand leads fightagainst segregatedpublic facilities.

1964• Twenty-fourth

Amendmentabolishes poll tax.

• Civil Rights Act of1964 outlawsdiscriminationbased on race, gender,religion, or nationalorigin, and givesequal access topublic facilities.

1968• Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

assassinated.

• Civil Rights Act of 1968outlaws discriminationin the sale and rentalof housing.

1961• Freedom Rides

begin.

Major Events in the Civil Rights Movement

1954 1961 19681954

Reviewing the Main IdeasSection 119. What event led to the bus boycott in Montgomery,

Alabama?

Reviewing Content VocabularyOn a sheet of paper, use each of these terms in a sentence.

Standards 11.10.2, 11.10.3, 11.10.4, 11.10.5, 11.10.6, 11.11.2, 11.11.7


Directions: Choose the phrase that bestcompletes the following statement.

One difference between the strategies of Dr. MartinLuther King, Jr., and some later civil rights groups wasthat King was committed to

A ending discrimination in housing and unemployment.

B using only nonviolent forms of protest.

C demanding equal rights for African Americans.

D gaining improvements in living conditions for AfricanAmericans.

31.

26. Organizing Use a graphic organizer similar to the onebelow to compare examples of civil rights legislation.

Writing About History27. Showing Connections Research

the social, economic, and political effects of the Watts Riot in1965 and the Detroit Riot in 1967. Then write a two-page paperoutlining the impact these events had on the nation.

28. Research interviews with Martin Luther King, Jr.,and Malcolm X. Take notes on their different points of view,and then prepare a chart illustrating similarities, differences,and any bias which shaped their beliefs.

29. Interpreting Primary Sources In Birmingham, Alabama inthe spring of 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr., was jailed and heldin solitary confinement. While in prison, he wrote “Letterfrom a Birmingham Jail,” a defense of his nonviolent protests.

“You may well ask: . . . Why sit-ins, marches and soforth? Isn’t negotiation a better path?” . . .Indeed, this isthe very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent directaction seeks to create such a crisis . . .that acommunity . . .is forced to confront the issue. . . .

. . .You express a great deal of anxiety over our willing-ness to break laws. . . . One may . . . ask: “How can youadvocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” Theanswer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws:just and unjust. . . . One has not only a legal but a moralresponsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has amoral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. . . .”a. Why did the author feel direct action was necessary?

b. Can you identify just and unjust laws throughout history?Would you disobey an unjust law?

CA HI1

Self-Check QuizVisit the American Vision: Modern Times Web site at

and click on Self-Check Quizzes—Chapter 16 to access your knowledge of the chapter content.tav.mt.glencoe.com

HISTORY

Civil Rights Legislation Provisions

Civil Rights Act 1957

Twenty-Fourth Amendment

Voting Rights Act

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Civil Rights Act of 1968

Dep. May 4, 1961

Arr. May 14Dep. May 20

Arr. May 20Dep. May 24Arr. May 24

and 25

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Lambert AzimuthalEqual-Area projection

200 kilometers0

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40°N

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S.C.

N.C.

GA.

TENN.

KY.

W.VA. VA.

MISS.

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Washington, D.C.

Selma Montgomery

BirminghamAnniston

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Route of the FreedomRiders, 1961

Standard 11.10.4: Examine the roles of civil rights advocates(e.g., A. Philip Randolph, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X,Thurgood Marshall, James Farmer, Rosa Parks), includingthe significance of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter fromBirmingham Jail” and “I Have a Dream” speech.

Standards Practice

Geography and History30. The map on this page shows routes of Freedom Riders. Study

the map and answer the questions below.a. Interpreting Maps Which states did the Freedom Riders

travel through? What was their final destination?

b. Applying Geography Skills Why do you think theFreedom Riders faced protests during this trip?


Documents

The Civil Rights Movement · Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Thurgood Marshall, James Farmer, Rosa Parks), including the significance of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham