Civil Rights Movements

Edit 0 7 …

Guiding Questions

1. How far had civil rights equality been achieved for African Americans by 1968?
2. What factors helped and hindered the civil rights movement in achieving their aims?
3. How significant was the role of Martin Luther King and Malcom X?

Useful links

History Channel Interactive Timeline: Milestones in Black American History
Digital History
Wiki Notes below

Task

History ProQuest: Document Question: How far do you agree that a lack of unified ideology between the leaders of the Black Civil Rights groups hindered the progress of civil rights?

Key facts

Reasons why the Movement came About

  • Mechanisation of agriculture
  • Destabilised the south = Divided the Whites into haves and have-nots
  • Great Migration = Brought issues of race problems and racism to the North
  • 50/50 distribution by movement's end
  • Considering it only a Southern problem allowed issue to fester until it exploded at Watts
  • International role of US, fighting the Nazis hurt American racism, BUT allowed crackdown on Black power
    • USSR constantly attacked their racism in the cold war
    • America's Achilles' Heel - Henry Lodge BUT allowed anti-communists to attack the Blacks as being socialistic

Events

Montgomery Bus boycott

  • Sparked by Rosa Parks, Dec 1 1955
  • Martin Luther King spoke to motivate people in Montgomery during her protest
  • MLK was involved
  • Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) used the churches
  • Gained more than it had intended: elimination of segregation
  • Used the media effectively

Little Rock

  • Sept 1957, students try to enrol in high school
  • Orval Faubus and Southern Manifesto prevent them
  • Ike sends in the national guard
  • Shows that federal government can stop racial inequality
  • Civil Rights Act passes in the same year

Freedom Rides

  • 1961, CORE creates them to promote equality
  • in protest of Kennedy's doddering
  • Burned, beaten, destroyed
  • Kennedy asks delegates for a "cool down period"' they refuse
  • JFK's poor record on civil rights was revealed by this fiasco

Birmingham 1962-63

  • MLK, SCLC protests in the City are a major turning point
  • Nation of Islam, NAACP, SNCC, CORE all participated
  • This reaffirmed MLKís reputation
  • Project C
  • Confrontation at Birmingham
  • Against Eugene Connor
  • MLK, arrested,
  • wrote letter a from a Birmingham Jail which was a profound statement in the name of CR
  • This protest solidified MLKís resolve
  • JFK saw that he had to intervene
  • Proposed new legislation for Civil Rights

The March on Washington

  • August 63
  • 250,000 marched, heard "I have a dream"
  • SNCC makes violent appeals

Freedom Summer

  • 64, mass voting registration in Mississippi by SNCC
  • College graduates used to bring problems to the north
  • Several Delegates murdered
  • Rioting in Harlem and Rochester, NY
  • MFDP delegation rejected from Atlantic City conference
  • Results in Civil Rights Act of 64
  • SNCC and CORE tire of peaceful methods
  • Blacks saw that they depended greatly on the government
  • Hurt by the White violence
  • Liberals back LBJ, not MFDP

Selma Massacre

  • March 65
  • The last nonviolent moment
  • SNCC organised demonstrations
  • A massacre as 600 headed to Montgomery
  • Bloody Sunday
  • Jim Clark attacked brutally
  • MLK turns back second march
  • Malcolm X spoke, thanks to the SNCC
  • LBJ comes to support voting legislation
  • Results in Voting Rights act of 65
  • 10 years after Rosa Parks

Riots

  • Watts
  • 65, showing the end of peaceful protests
  • A direct result of Selma massacre
  • End of an era
  • Chicago, 66
  • From entry of movement into north
  • Newark, then Detroit, 67
  • Worst rioting in history of America
  • Show how much needed to be done in the North

Death of Martin Luther King

  • 68 in Memphis
  • After LBJ would not run again
  • Results in terrible Race riots
  • Leader is gone
  • Government can't help them anymore
  • LBJ forces through the Fair Housing Act in time of Guilt

Chicago Campaign

  • 66, show different situation in North
  • Conniving racists, blame blacks for inciting race riots
  • Northerners were tougher opponents
  • Daley and cops didnít commit atrocities
  • Problems there were more elusive
  • During demonstrations:
  • Cops didn't use brutality
  • Daley a wise opponent
  • Alienated moderate liberals
  • Daley blamed violence for social decay
  • 1968: housing legislation protests

The Poor People's Campaign Resurrection City, 68

  • Organised by Abernathy
  • Caravans of Native Americans, Puerto Ricans, Mexican Americans, and a majority of African Americans that built a shantytown in DC
  • This shocked LBJ
  • He hated to see the ugliness of poverty, and to be reminded of how much remained to be done
  • They were asked to enter government property illegally, and thus end their struggle dramatically
  • Lame Duck Johnson couldn't solve their problem now

Organisations


National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP), 1909

  • Founded by Du Bois
  • Had golden age in early Civil Rights era
  • Thurgood Marshall and Roy Wilkins destroyed the legal base of segregation
  • fought to end segregation aspect by aspect
  • Prepared the way for the modern movement
  • Brown v. Board of Education, 54
  • Baker v. Carr: eliminates racial gerrymandering and reaffirms "one man, one vote", 62
  • Criticised for being too legal, too hierarchical by Baker
  • Supported violent parties legally, financially
  • Under Wilkins's tutelage, was the only group to survive the era

Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), 42

  • To desegregate transportation
  • 47, journey of reconciliation
  • reborn in 60s as the Freedom Riders, 61
  • Numerous nonviolent protests in the early 60s
  • switched to Black Power after Freedom Summer

Southern Manifesto, 56

  • Southern congressmen and senators refuse to desegregate schools,
  • and resist implementing Brown by "any lawful means"
  • South resisted the resolution for 10 years
  • Outright neglected it
  • Created new devious rules around it
  • Obfuscated the verdict

Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), 57

  • Formed to use the power of black churches on behalf of black rights
  • Organised Birmingham
  • Tried to lure students from radical organisations,
  • attacked as conservative in Black Power days

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC): 60

  • Formed after sit-ins
  • Students remain independent
  • Affiliated with Ella Baker: Zinn considers her of fundamental importance
  • A More militant organisation, that went south
  • Prodded other organisations to harsher measures
  • Involved in Birmingham, Selma
  • Violent speeches in march on Washington
  • Attacked King and NAACP
  • Organised Freedom Summer under Moses, in 64
  • Helped to found MFDP
  • With Stokey Carmichael, switched to Black Power in 1966
  • Integration White Ways
  • Black Power Freedom
  • Purged Whites
  • Condemned Vietnam, 66

Nation of Islam, 30s

  • Radical organisation of Malcolm X
  • Back to Muslim roots, emergence of nationalism
  • Anti-White organisation
  • Malcolm X left in 64,
  • Murdered Malcolm X in 65

Black Panther Party (BPP), 66

  • Formed in CA
  • Led by Huey Newton
  • Fiery Rhetoric
  • Pragmatic programs, armed defense
  • Acted as neighbourhood police
  • Free breakfasts
  • FBI spied on the Panthers like the Communists
  • Intentionally divided the movement
  • Inserted agents provocateurs
  • In 70s, divided between militancy and pragmatism (Newtons side)
  • By the time COINTELPRO was killed, it had eliminated the Panthers and other militant groups

Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), 64

  • MS party born out of freedom summer
  • Affiliated with Ella Baker, a great leader
  • Challenged MS democratic party at Atlantic City conference