Till’s death shows the depth
of racism in the south and
what black people were
Brown v. BOE of Topeka,
1954
Many blacks moved north to get away from segregation, but still found it in the north in different forms
After WWII, the civil rights movement gained strength (what happened in the past??)
Brown v. BOE of Topeka, 1954: said
Plessy v. Ferguson was unconstitutional and public schools were to be integrated
Thurgood Marshall was
the lawyer for the Brown family
Other cases were brought up before
The movement
begins…….
Dec. 1955: Rosa Parks (died
2005) was a secretary for the NAACP in Montgomery
She refused to give up her seat and move to the back of the bus which segregation required her to do (law)
She was arrested and four days later a boycott began
There were others before her like Claudette Colvin (age 15)
BUS BOYCOTT
Black leaders protested the arrest of Parks with the Montgomery Bus Boycott for 381 days
Blacks made up the majority of the bus riders and this hurt the companies
Martin Luther King, Jr
organized and lead the boycott 1956 the Supreme Court
outlawed segregation in city transportation
King followed the idea of passive
resistance: non-violent protest Used by Thoreau (Civil
Little Rock Nine
Many white southerners couldn’t accept desegregation and fought back in many ways: discrimination as businesses, KKK, attacks
In 1957, the Little Rock Crisis occurred The Governor of Arkansas didn’t enforce
integration at Little Rock Central High School (9 black students)
President Eisenhower had to step in eventually and sent in the military to enforce integration
Ike thought this was a state issue so he stayed out of it at first
Organizations form
The civil rights movement
was a grassroots
movement: civil rights
movement started with the
people; not politicians, etc.
In 1957, King helped to
Students get involved
In 1960 at Shaw University in Raleigh,
NC
SNCC (Student Nonviolent
Greensboro, NC
Feb. 1960 in
Greensboro, NC
students sat at an all
white lunch counter
and refused to move
Beginning of the sit-in
Freedom Rides
People began to celebrate the
end of segregation in interstate travel with
Freedom Rides
Pushed for civil rights and
voter membership
They were testing the
Supreme Courts verdict and found that many southern buses were not desegregated
Some faced dangers as some
Concerns
about Martin
Luther King,
Jr
JFK would become
partners with King in the
Civil Rights movement
Some were concerned
with King’s relations to
communist affiliations
(King’s advisors)
Robert Kennedy
1962: James Meredith
won a court case
allowing him to attend the University of
Mississippi; led to integration in colleges
The Governor refused to admit him and JFK had
to send troops to escort him into school
Riots occurred on campus and his parents home
was shot at
At the University of Alabama a similar problem
occurred when Governor George Wallace refused
entrance to Vivian Malone and Jimmy Hood
George
Wallace
Governor George Wallace
refused entrance to
Vivian Malone and Jimmy
Hood (Gump) to the
University of Alabama
Gov. of Alabama who
Birmingham, Alabama
March 1963: Birmingham
Civil rights march led by King
Violence against protesters shown on TV
Seen around the world
More
violence.
..
Attacks against civil
rights leaders continued
Medgar Evers was shot
in front of his home
June 12, 1963
The accused killer, a
white supremacist
named Byron De La
Beckwith, stood trial
twice in the 1960s, but in
both cases the all-white
juries could not reach a
verdict.
Finally, in a third trial in
1994 (and thirty-one
years after Evers’
March on Washington
August 1963: March
on Washington
over 200,000 people
(black and white)
marched for civil rights
MLK, Jr. made his
Civil Rights Legislation
1964: 24th Amendment:
abolished poll
Civil Rights Act, 1964:
prohibited
Voting Rights Act, 1965:
eliminated literacy exams
and allowed federal examiners to register votes; not
states
States may discriminate against voters
Black votership tripled….1964 10% of eligible blacks
1965: Selma
to
Montgomery
It began with 300 and grew to over 25,000
Bloody Sunday was the result of a planned march in Selma, Alabama on
March 7, 1965. Marchers that were crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge were charged by police on horseback.
Other black leaders
New black leaders emerged from the north who challenged King’s beliefs
Malcolm X (real name Malcolm Little) member of the Nation of Islam called for black power Militant leader
Associated with Black Separatism
“X” wanted to strengthen the black community by blacks for blacks This upset King because it would
Break Away from the Nation
Malcolm X, after a
pilgrimage in Mecca, broke away from the Nation of Islam led by Elijah Muhammad
“X” formed his own group “If you don’t use the ballot,
we’ll have to use the bullet. Let’s try the ballot.”
“X” was assassinated Feb.
21, 1965 while giving a
Militant: Black Panthers
Other militant groups formed along with Malcolm X
Black Panthers founded by (1966) by Stokley Carmichael, Huey Newton and others to fight police brutality & protect black rights
They supported the idea of black communities for blacks Preached some of the ideas of
Mao Zedong (who was he?) They dressed in military
uniforms and had several
conflicts with police and the FBI They didn’t want white help and
