The Civil Rights Movement
The Fight Against Discrimination (1953-1960)
Pres. Eisenhower
Supreme Court to re-hear legal challenge to racially segregated educational systems
NAACP & Thurgood Marshall (Chief Counsel & later 1st African American to serve on the Supreme Court) led the challenge
1954 Brown v. Topeka Board of Education Supreme Court unanimous decision that segregated education systems were unconstitutional; process should move forward ‘with all deliberate speed.’
The battle in the South for equality increasingly affected national politics.
1956 ‘Southern Manifesto’ 100 members of Congress denounced anti-segregation ruling
White vigilantes & Ku Klux Klan (re-organized from the Civil War)
August 1955 Emmett Till – 14-year old from the north visiting Mississippi murdered for being ‘disrespectful’ to a white woman. (He whistled at the woman) He was so badly beaten that his mother demanded his body be displayed publicly ‘for the whole world to see.’
The Montgomery Bus Boycott & Martin Luther King, Jr.
1953 – Baton Rouge, Louisiana A brief boycott of the local bus system ended when white officials agreed to grant more seats to black riders, while still maintaining a segregated system.
1955 – Montgomery, Alabama Rosa Park, a black woman, refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger when the bus was over capacity. Mrs. Parks was arrested for defying a local segregation order.
Montgomery’s black community quickly organized a boycott of the public transportation system, using a network of private carpools as an alternative to the bus system.
The resulting financial losses convinced the city to end its segregationist transit policy
U.S. Supreme Court declared Montgomery’s segregated transit system was unconstitutional.
Events in Montgomery from 1955-56 showed other southern black communities that they could also mobilize against racial discrimination.
Martin Luther King, Jr. – the Montgomery boycott vaulted Dr. King into the national spotlight. Dr. King, along with other black ministers, formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) In addition to demanding an end to racial discrimination, the SCLC launched an effort to register African American voters throughout the South. The SCLC was more activist than the NAACP and embodied King’s vision of passive civil disobedience to dramatize the moral evil of racial discrimination.
Aided by the national media, especially television, MLK’s powerful presence and religious roots carried the message out of the South to the nation and later to the world.
The Domestic and Politics of Civil Rights
The Supreme Court lent its support at crucial times but it lacked the power to mandate the sweeping changes needed.
Congress remained deeply divided and Southern segregationists held key posts
The Civil Rights Act of 1957 (first in over 80 years) new procedures for speeding up lawsuits re: voters rights; created a permanent commission on civil rights (advisory body only)
Pres. Eisenhower forced to use full presidential power to enforce a federal court order to desegregate Central High School in Little Rock, AR.
Gov. Orval Faubus, (supported segregation) put state’s National Guard to block enforcement. Ike put the National Guard under federal control supported w/U.S. Army troops.
The Little Rock confrontation underscored the international dimension of civil-rights politics in the U.S. The Soviet Union ridiculed the ‘façade of so-called American democracy.’ Sec of State Dulles suggested that racial conflict at home was not helpful to the influence of the U.S. abroad.
USSC Cooper v. Aaron (1958) unanimously invalidated Arkansas law to block any further integration.
The Civil Rights Movement 1960-63 Pres. John F. Kennedy
Kennedy tried to placate the segregationist wing of his party. J. Edgar Hoover warned of links between MLK & Communism. The FBI intensified surveillance & illegally wiretapped King’s private conversation.
1960- Students at N. Carolina A & T College (Greensboro) asked to be served at a Woolworth’s lunch counter. Turned into a ‘sit-in.’ New phase in the civil rights movement, young activists challenged local segregation laws. All across the South non-violent sit-ins took place at restaurants, bus & train stations, & other public facilities
Music also strengthened the movement, We Shall Overcome & Oh, Freedom inspired solidarity. Young people pledged their lives to the civil rights struggle.
1961 – Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) interracial activists and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNIC) a student group that emerged from the sit-in movement, risked racial retaliation by conducting ‘freedom rides’ across the South. They were challenging the Kennedy administration to enforce federal court decisions that declared state laws requiring segregation on interstate buses to be unconstitutional.
1962 – Kennedy called on National Guard & federal marshals to prevent segregationist mobs from blocking court-ordered desegregation at several educational institutions in the Deep South. (Univ. of Mississippi & University of Alabama.)
Nov. 1962 – Kennedy issued an executive order banning racial discrimination in federally financed housing.
1963 – Birmingham, Alabama. White police unleashed dogs & high pressure fire hoses on African Americans, including children who were demonstrating to desegregate the city.
Birmingham Sixteenth Street Baptist Church - four young girls were killed and twenty people injured when racists firebombed the church. When thousands of blacks took to the streets to protest, two more children were killed, this time by police officers. This forced Kennedy to take action.
The determination of the protesters to defy racist violence played out on national television. Kennedy pleaded for a national commitment to battle discrimination. The issue of civil rights dominated national politics during the last six months of Kennedy’s presidency.
From Civil Rights to Black Power Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson
Media was becoming a forum for debate in the campaign against racism.
Los Angeles – Watts Riots August, 1965 A confrontation between a white LAPD office and a black motorist escalates into six days of violence underscoring the grievances African Americans
Malcolm X – minister, Nation of Islam aka ‘Black Muslims’ denounced the civil rights movement. Although he never called for violent confrontation, he did endorse ‘self-defense, by any means necessary.’ He called for a renewal of pride in African American culture & economic reconstruction. He was murdered in 1965 by enemies from the Nation of Islam.
The word ‘black’ increasingly replaced the word African-American or colored.
Black Power movement was emerging and believed the gradualist, nonviolent approach to political changes was irrelevant to the social & political problems blacks faced.
1966 Stokely Carmichael became the head of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and criticized King’s approach.
Black Panther Party – also critics of r. King, created a manifesto that called for community ‘self-defense’ the release from jail of all African American prisoners on the assumption that none had received fair trials & guaranteed employment for all citizens.
Civil Rights Act of 1968 - within this context, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act. One provision of this omnibus law*, aka ‘Fair Housing Act,’ sought to eliminate racial discrimination in the real estate market. The act was weakened by enforcement provisions.(Single law w/many provisions)
1968: The Violence At Home
April 4, 1968 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. James Earl Ray pleaded guilty & received a 99 year sentence.
As news of King’s murder spread, violence swept through urban neighborhoods around the country. More than 100 cities & towns witnessed outbreaks of violence. 39 people died; 75,000 National Guard troops were called to duty.
Robert Kennedy, Democratic presidential candidate, was assassinated on June 5, 1968.
The violence of 1968 continued at the Democratic Convention in Chicago in which 4 people died.
African American Activism