Origins of the Movement
- Nearly 1 million black men and women served in the armed forces in WWII
- After the war ended, these people began to push for political and social equality
Civil Rights after World War II
- WWII boom brings many blacks north
- 1940s - 43 northern and western cities double their black population
- Less discrimination in the northern cities
- Gained significant political influence
- Biracial unity helped press for better wages and working conditions
- Black voters continue the switch to Democrats that started during the New Deal
- Truman’s Committee on Civil Rights:
- Wanted to end racial inequality
- Created a permanent civil rights division in the Justice dept
- Voting rights protection
- Anti lynching & anti-housing segregation
- Although he publicly endorsed these suggestions, he never made them into law
- Truman ends segregation in the armed forces before 1948 election - wins on black votes
- National Assoc. for the Advancement of Coloured People gains 450,000 members
- Morgan v Virginia (1946) - bus segregation = undue burden on interstate commerce
- “Freedom Ride” through the Upper South to celebrate
- Some riders arrested in North Carolina for refusing to leave
- Two major black accomplishments:
- Jackie Robinson wins the MLB rookie of the year (1947)
- Black UN diplomat wins Nobel Peace Prize
- Black musicians move away from traditional big-band jazz into new “bebop”
- Hard for whites to copy
- “Boppers” not the typical black entertainers (rebels) - did not fit white stereotypes
The Segregated South
- Segregation in the South still was very bad
- Schools, restaurants, libraries, hotels, hospitals, cemeteries etc still apart
- Black facilities not as good as white ones
- 1940s - Only about 10% of blacks voted
- Various legal & extra-legal ways to keep most disenfranchised
- Poll taxes & discriminatory registration, etc
Brown v. Board of Education
- NAACP did not try to outlaw segregation, but rather, to make it so expensive that the government could not afford continue it
- Began pushing for everything to be separate and fully equal
- The war on schools:
- Missouri v. ex.rel. Gaines (1939):
- U. of Missouri must admit black law students or build another school for them
- McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents (1950):
- Black students cannot be forced to study & eat in different places than whites
- Brown v. Board of Education (1952)
- Separate facilities deny blacks of basic American rights
- Segregation reduces children’s self-esteem
- Chief Justice Earl Warren convinces Court to approve of desegregation
- Plessy v. Ferguson ruling overturned
Crisis in Little Rock
- 1956 - 101 congressmen sign Southern Manifesto
- Wanted to refuse to comply with desegregation laws
- Eisenhower wouldn’t publicly endorse the Brown decision
- Was actually against it
- Little Rock, Arkansas - Fed. court orders school board to begin desegregation
- Gov. Orval Faubus decided to make his reelection campaign based on defying the order
- Faubus sends National Guard to prevent blacks into Central High School
- Eventually pulls out NG & leaves the 9 black students at the mob’s mercy
- Eisenhower puts the NG under fed. control & send troops in to escort the students
- Proves that the federal government can enforce civil rights
No Easy Road to Freedom, 1957-1962
- Brown demonstrated the ability to use courts as a weapon against descrimination
- Black communities would still have to help themselves before anyone else would
Martin Luther King and the SCLC
- Montgomery bus boycott makes MLK a national figure
- Admired Mohandas Ghandi - wanted a peaceful fight
- King called this passive resistance “A new & powerful weapon”
- The Southern Christian Leadership Conference
- 100 black ministers gathered to preach non-violent protesting
- Next wave of protest came from an unlikely source: college students
Sit Ins: Greensboro, Nashville, Atlanta
- Feb 1, 1960: 4 black freshmen sat down at a whites-only table in Woolworths
- Stayed all day & returned in the following days with more people
- Apr. 21 - 45 students arrested for trespassing
- Blacks boycott store; Greensboro finally gives in
- Spring 1960: 150 black students arrested during a sit in
- Morehouse, Spelman & other all-black colleges in Atlanta University organize 200 people to sit in at city hall
- 76 arrested
- Sit ins continue & Atlanta desegregates in Sept. 1961
SNCC & the “Beloved Community”
- Well-established blacks frown on sit ins
- Ruins their status quo
- Southern University forces all 5,000 black students to reapply to screen out agitators
- SNCC - Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee
- 120 black students in N.C.
- Established to fight through mass confrontation & civil disobedience
Election of 1960 & Civil Rights
- Nixon v. Kennedy
- Nixon - originally pro-Civil Rights, but stopped promoting it to gain Southern votes
- Kennedy praises sit ins as “American tradition of standing up for one’s rights”
- After MLK was jailed, the Kennedys told the judge not to violate MLK’s civil rights
- Kennedy wins on strength of black votes
- Kennedy promoted “minimum legislation, maximum executive action”
- 40 African Americans appointed to high federal positions
- Created the Committee of Equal Employment Opportunity to fight discrimination
- Invigorated the Civil Rights Division of Justice Dept
Freedom Rides
- 1961 - James Farmer starts plans for an interracial Freedom Ride through the South
- 7 blacks & 6 whites split up & go from Washington
- Freedom riders were harrassed and nearly beated to death
- Police & FBI do nothing
- Freedom Rides continue until Fed. Govt petitions the Interstate Commerce Commission to issue clear rules prohibiting segregation on interstate carriers
The Albany Movement: The Limits of Protest
- Coalition of SNCC & NAACP activists
- Oct. 1961 - Albany Movt - Starts sit ins, boycotts & protests
- MLK joins the movt & turns it into a national problem
- Police meet non-violence with non-violence
- No national pity for demonstrators
- Fails in summer of 1962 - Albany remains as segregated as ever - couldn’t fill up jails
- U. of Mississippi integrated when James Meredith registered as a full time student
- Gov. Ross Barnett blocks his entrance; Kennedy sends 500 fed. marshals to protect him
- Mob injures 160 marshals & kills 2 rioters
- 5,000 army troops sent in until JM graduates
The Movement at High Tide, 1963-65
- 1960-62 told people that civil rights could not be established because of court rules
Birmingham
- 1962 - MLK targets Birmingham for next protest (US’s largest segregated city)
- Wanted to fill jails, boycott downtown stores & anger Public Safety Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor
- MLK writes “Letter From Birmingham Jail”
- “freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor”
- “justice too long delayed is justice denied”
- Children’s Crusade organized to fill jails with students
- Police use water cannons, billy clubs & attack dogs to break up protests
- SCLC negotiates treaty & Birmingham is desegregated
- Racial harmony was still a long way off
JFK & the March on Washington
- June 1963 - Alabama Governor George Wallace threatens to block 2 black students from entering the state university
- National Guard Troops escort them into & around the University
- June 11, 1963: JFK endorses civil rights activism
- JFK proposes in Congress a law to ensure voting rights and outlaw segregation
- Uses federal funds to support the CR cause
- Civil Rights activists plan a non-violent march on Washington
- August 28, 1963 - 250,000+ people gather at the Lincoln Memorial
- “Jobs & Freedom” rally
LBJ & the Civil Rights Act of 1964
- Nov. 22, 1963 - JFK assassinated in Dallas - many Southerners are glad of his death
- Succeeded by Lyndon Baines Johnson
- Never a strong Civil Rights supporter
- Promised to continue JFK’s work; threw his support behind the Civil Rights Bill
- Passed in the House by 290-130 vote
- Passed in the Senate after a Southern filibuster collapses
- July 2, 1964: Civil Rights bill passed
- Prohibited discrimination in work & in public
- Equal Employment Opportunity Commission established
Mississippi Freedom Summer
- SNCC campaign to register black voters & directly challenge segregation
- Recruited white volunteers because “the death of a white student would have more effect than the death of a black student”
- 6 die violently, 1000 arrests, 35 shootings, and 30 bombings
- Freedom Schools & Freedom party to be established
- 60,000 black voters sign up as the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP)
- Sent reps to Democratic national convention
- LBJ was against MFDP because he didn’t want a divisive floor fight
Malcolm X & Black Consciousness
- Many young activists drawn to the militant vision of Malcolm X
- “X” to symbolize the loss of his original African name
- Converted to Islam while in prison
- Main speaker for the Nation of Islam (Black Muslims) & black freedom “fighter”
- Followed Elijah Muhammad
- Created all black communities to show black self reliance
- Was very Anti-White - the “blue-eyed devils” are the cause of this world’s evil
- Encouraged ending white domination by “any means necessary”
- “Black Muslims don’t want to integrate the society, we want to be separate from it.”
- Separates from Elijah Muhammad & the NOI after scandals involving Muhammad
- Makes his pilgrimage to Mecca & returns as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz
- Abandons his seperationist views & creates the Organisation of Afro-American Unity
- Feb 21, 1965 - assassinated in Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom
Selma & the Voting Rights Act of 1965
- LBJ gets re-elected in 1964, capturing 94% of the 6 million black votes
- Wants to pass a strong voting rights act: MLK & SCLC support him
- MLK wants to create another national crisis, and chooses Selma, Alabama
- Prevents blacks from voting (only a couple hundred out of 15,000 voted)
- Despite attacks, not nearly enough attention given to the demonstrations
- Selma march organised
- 600 marchers beaten after crossing the Pettus Bridge to Montgomery
- “Bloody Sunday” gets attention of the media & fed. Intevention demanded
- MLK agrees for a shortened march
- White racist violence calls LBJ to propose a voters rights bill
- Lets MLK lead a full march to Montgomery
- Mar 21: MLK leads 3000 black & white marchers from Selma to Montgomery
- 30,000 join in the next 4 days
- Aug 1965 - LBJ signs Voting Rights Act
- Federal supervision in states & counties where fewer than ½ of the voting-aged residents were registered
- 1964-1968: southern black voters triple
Forgotten Minorities
- Although the Civil Rights movement revolved around blacks, other minorities had been denied their rights for some time
- Black successes inspired these groups to push for their rights
Mexican Americans
- 1928 - League of United Latin American Citizens founded in Texas
- Pushed two cases through to set a precedent for Brown v. Board of Education
- Mendez v. Westminster & Delgado case: (1947/48)
- Supreme Court upheld rulings making Mex. Amer. segregation unconstitutional
- Hernandez case: ends exclusion of Mexican Americans from Texas jury lists
- Bracero program brings 300,000 Mexicans to the US during WWII
- Cheap farm labour to stimulate the agriculture industries
- “Operation Wetback” started to stop the flow of illegal immigrants to the US
- 3.7 illegal immigrants sent back to Mexico, but many legal citizens as well
Puerto Ricans
- Jones Act of 1917 makes Puerto Rico part of the US
- US citizenship to all Puerto Ricans
- US takes control of most arable land in PR & its sugar industry
- Many Puerto Rican communities in NYC by 1920s
- El barrio in East Harlem was the largest
- “Great Migration” - 1945-1964 - due to direct air travel
- 1970 - about 800,000 Puerto Ricans in NYC
- 1970s - urban PR families poorer on average than other Latino groups
- Steep decline in garment industry in NYC
Indian Peoples
- “Termination” to cancel all Native treaties
- 1953 - Govt can terminate a tribe as a political entity
- Bureau of Indian Affairs encouraged relocation from reservations to urban areas
- Many return to reservations or go to the margins of city life - poverty & alcoholism
- National Congress of American Indians calls for a review of federal policies
- Termination ends in 1960
- US v. Wheeler reasserts the principle of “unique & limited” sovereignty
Asian Americans
- Japanese American Citizens League pushes contributions of the Nisei (2nd generation)
- Supreme Court declares segregation of Japnse Amrcans “outright racial discrimination”
- 1954 - Immigration and Nationality Act
- Removes ban against Japanese immigration
- Allows immigration from the “Asian Pacific Triangle”
- 1965 - New Immigration & Nationality act
- Abolishes national quotas & allows for the immigration of 170,000 from the Eastern Hemisphere & 120,000 from the Western Hemisphere
- In the next 20 years, the Asian American population goes from 1 to 5 million
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