28.1: Origins of the Movement After WWII Great Migration Move to democratic party.

28.1: Origins of the Movement

After WWIIGreat Migration

Move to democratic party

Truman Acts1. Presidential

Committee on Civil Rights

2. Report: To Secure these Rights

a. Permanent CR div. in J.D.

b. Voting rights protection

c. Antilynching legd. Address housing

segregation

3. Ended segregation in the armed forces

4. Used CR as Democratic platform

A. Origins of the Movement Challenging Segregation in Court

1. NAACPa. Goal: To fight and end

segregation through the Supreme Court

b. Lead Attorney: Thurgood Marshall

c. First AA Supreme Court Justice; retired 1991; died 1993

2. Rosa Parks defended by E.D. Nixon;

boycott led by MLK

First AA to become part of the MLB

Participated in the CRM

7. Brown v. B.O.E. (5/1954)

a. Four case re: segregation in education

b. Linda Brown c. Supreme Court ruled

segregation was unconstitutionali. Overturned “separate

but equal” doctrineii. “separate is inherently

unequal”iii. “with all deliberate

speed?”

4. Crisis in Little Rocka. Governor Faubus refused the

“Little Rock Nine” to enter school; used segregation/white supremacy as election platform

b. Orders Ark Nat’l Guard to stop students from entering

c. Eisenhower placed Guard under federal control; students allowed in

d. Not protected within the school?

e. Televised…f. The following year, before

start of the school year, Faubus closed the three HS is Little Rock

Dr. MLK, Jr.

Commonality?

Helps develop the SCLC

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

1. Members usually young college students; nonviolence

2. Wanted only Blacks to fight “for the cause” (Kling)

3. Emphasized Black pride

4. Caused some discord amongst the AA community

Election of 1960 & the CRMEach flip-flop during electionJFK

Put CR division of JD to use; Eisenhower did notAppts. AA to federal positionsCommittee on Equal Employment Opportunity

Kennedy and Civil Rights1. Supporter of the CRM

2. AG RFK help get MLK out of jail after demonstration

3. AA help JFK get elected

4. Slow to respond once in office – need Southern Democrats to help pass bills

5. ICC to desegregated interstate buses and terminals

James Meredith & Ole Miss

Freedom Rides

1. Began with CORE organization

a. Congress of Racial Equality

b. Led by James Farmer

c. one of the earliest org. geared at nonviolent protest

2. Goal of freedom rides?

a. Test desegregation ruling on interstate bus routes and terminals

b. Violence = attention of federal gov’t.

c. Not effective; eventually break up

Bus #2

KKK at terminal

Violence in Birmingham, Ala.1. Need to get JFK to

respond2. MLK – “most seg. city

in the U.S.”3. Bull Connor, Safety

commissioner/mayor candidate

a. Responds with harsh force

b. Televised

Birmingham, AlabamaLetter from MLK

“I guess it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, “Wait.” But when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick, brutalize and even kill your black brothers and sisters;…when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in the air-tight cage of poverty;…when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son asking:…”Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”…then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.”

1. “I say, segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!”

- George Wallace, Gov. of Alabama, 1963

2. Pres. Kennedy orders Wallace to desegregate U of Ala

1963 Birmingham Bombing

Medgar Evers

1. NAACP official, veteran, assassinated by Byron de la Beckwith

March on WashingtonAugust 28, 1963

goal: to persuade congress to pass Kennedy’s civil rights bill

Criticized by Mr. X

Civil Rights Act of 1964

1. Passed while Pres. LB Johnson in office

2. Illegal to discriminate based on race, religion, national origin, and gender in employment and public facilities.

3. EEOC – bans employment discrimination based on race, religion, gender, and national origin

SNCC and CORE

Freedom Summer: Mississippi Burning

Malcolm “X” Little

1. member of the Nation of Islam

2. advocated armed self-defense & black nationalism

3. received a lot of press/controversial

4. Hajj/returns w/“Ballots or Bullets” theory

5. Assassinated during speaking engagement

The Struggle for Voting Rights

1. Selma Campaign (Alabama 1965)

a. 50% of population were AA - Only 3% registered voters

b. Voter-registration drive organized in hopes of violent response by whites so that Johnson’s admin. would pass voting act.

Bloody Sunday: Alabama state troopers attack civil-rights demonstrators outside Selma, Alabama, on Bloody

Sunday, March 7, 1965.

Voting Rights Act 1965

1. Got rid of literacy test

2. Agents of the Federal gov’t could register voters

3. Registered African American voters tripled in the South;

in Selma = 10-60%/4 yrs.