C i v I l R i g h t s

1. 1892-Present CivIl Rights Mo v eme n t

2. Plessey v. Ferguson • Legal Challenges to Segregation • 1. The Supreme Court case which found that the 1896 Louisiana law allowing separate accommodations in public facilities was constitutional (legal) if these facilities were legal. This case upholding segregation was called Plessey v. Ferguson • 2. Plessey charged that the Louisiana law was unconstitutional because it violated the 14thAmendment which said that “no state may make laws that prevent citizens from enjoying all rights and freedoms protected by the Constitution.” These rights are • a. life • b. liberty • c. pursuit of happiness (property)

3. NAACP • 3. The NAACP was started by WEB DuBois to fight segregation or the legal separation of races in the Supreme Court by forming the Legal Defense Counsel. This counsel was headed by a young black lawyer named Thurgood Marshall.

4. The 1954 Supreme Court case that struck down segregation was called Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, KS. This decision said it was illegal to deny 8 year old Linda Brown access to the white school located just 4 blocks from her house based on her race.

5. Unanimously, the court ruled that separate schools could not be equal. The case required that all public school be integrated, or allow children from all races to attend. The problem was, they only required school districts to desegregate with “all deliberate speed,” which in some locations took years. • President Eisenhower disapproved of segregation, but also disliked rapid change, so he did little to enforce the ruling.

6. Reaction to the Brown Decision • . States in the South, such as Virginia refused to integrate. Most public schools were shut down rather than allow African- American children to attend. In cities, white flight occurred when white families fled to the suburbs, creating school districts where no black family lived. Others created many private schools where they could legally choose their pupils

7. . The NAACP created Legal Defense Counsels in southern states what refused to integrate. The defense team in Virginia was led by a lawyer named Oliver Hill.

8. In 1957, the Governor of Arkansas used National Guard troops to deny 9 African American teenagers access to Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas when they volunteered to integrate it. Finally the courts ordered President Eisenhower to enforce the law and end the misuse of federal troops, nationalizing the Guard who protected the teenagers and forced the integration of the high school. Arkansas closed all public schools for 2 years in response.

9. Montgomery Bus Boycott • In Montgomery, Alabama (and elsewhere), African Americans were required by law to give up their seats to white passengers when seats on the busses were filled. In 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat (as required by Jim Crow laws) to a white man and was arrested.

10. The result was a 381day boycott of the bus system by all African Americans. This boycott was organized by the NAACP and led by 27 year old Martin Luther King, Jr. This thrust him into the national spotlight.

11. In late 1956 the Supreme Court declared that the bus segregation was a violation of the 14th Amendment and was illegal. • When the successful peaceful protest worked, 100 ministers and civil rights leaders, including King, started the Southern Christian Leadership Committee or SCLC to lead the resistance against segregation and inequality

12. King’s philosophy of non-violence was borrowed from the Civil Disobedience ideas in the writings of Henry David Thoreau and Mohandas Ghandi. This idea stated that a person is morally obligated to refuse to obey an unjust law.

13. The Movement Grows • In 1960 the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee or SNCC was founded by student protesters who thought that change was occurring too slowly. Most agreed with the non-violent strategy of Martin Luther King, JR., but also wanted to be more confrontational. Students from North Carolina A & T led a sit-in at a local Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina designated as “whites only.” They refused to move until they were served. Store managers called the police, raised prices and removed counter seats while other students picketed outside. This inspired a sit-in movement nation wide.

14. SNCC also sponsored Freedom Riders who were students who rode busses throughout the South in an attempt to desegregate them. They were organized by CORE: Congress of Racial Equality, a new civil rights group. When they arrived in Montgomery, AL, they were attacked by people with pipes and baseball bats despite a promise by President Kennedy that they would be protected by police. Attorney General Robert Kennedy outlawed segregation in all inter-state travel facilities.

15. . Late in his presidency, President Kennedy decided to get involved in the Civil Rights Movement and enforced desegregation at the University of Mississippi in 1962.

16. . In 1963, King and SCLC decided to desegregate Birmingham, Alabama– a city known for violence and strict segregation laws. Police Commissioner Bull Connor arrested all protesters, including King who wrote his “Letters from Birmingham Jail” to white religious leaders who complained he was asking for too much, too fast.

17. In August of 1963, 250,000 people marched on Washington, DC to support passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. For 3 hours peaceful supporters stood on the lawn of the Lincoln Memorial listening as King gave his “I have a Dream” Speech. The march helped influence public opinion to support civil rights legislation. • The march demonstrated the power of nonviolent, mass protest.

18. . At the end of 1963, NAACP director Medger Evers was assassinated by an anti-integrationist. This horrified many who pushed Congress to enact legislation.

19. Civil Rights Act of 1964 • . The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination based on: • a. race • b. religion • c. national origin • d. gender • And gave all citizens the right to use all public accommodations. It was pushed through Congress by President Lyndon B. Johnson who used national sorrow for Kennedy’s assassination to pass his domestic agenda.

20. Freedom Summer • In 1964 college students poured into Mississippi in order to register more African Americans to vote. This voter-registration drive was called the Freedom Summer. The goal of registration was to dilute gerrymandering: the practice of voter districts being divided up in favor of one political party and to keep the black majority in Mississippi from influencing elections.

21. When the Freedom Summer was unsuccessful drive was unsuccessful due to outbreaks of violence, in 1965 SCLC decided to focus their energies on Montgomery, Alabama. To protest efforts by whites to keep blacks from the polls, King led a march from Selma to Montgomery. Police were shown on TV gassing marchers, spraying them with fire hoses and unleashing dogs on them. Public horror at these events led to Congress passing the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which sent in federal registrars.

22. This act led to an increase from 10% of African Americans being registered to vote to 60% in 1968. Specifically it called for: • a. end to literacy tests • b. 24th Amendment: end to grandfather clauses and poll taxes • c. Federalization of voter registrars

23. Regardless, violence continued to increase. The Ku Klux Klan bombed black churches and homes of civil rights leaders with impunity. In Mississippi 3 civil rights workers were murdered by a group that included members of the local police.

24. By the mid-1960s the movement won a number of victories in the Supreme Court, especially because it was headed by liberal Chief Justice Earl Warren. His court worked to enforce voting rights for blacks and in the case Wesberry v. Saunders he forced states to redraw Congressional districting lines to be more fair, saying gerrymandered district lines allowed one person’s vote to count more than another’s.

25. . In the case Gideon v. Wainwright, the Warren Court ruled that a person accused of a felony must be provided with a lawyer, even if they can’t afford one. In the Miranda v. Arizona case, the court ruled that upon arrest, a person must be advised of his or her rights and be allowed to remain silent and consult a lawyer. In other cases the court also prohibited school prayer and protected a person’s right to privacy.

26. Discontent • In the North, segregation was de facto, meaning it occurred by custom, not by law “de jure” as it did in the South. This made segregation in the North harder for civil rights activists to fight. • 2. In August 1965, anger towards white authority erupted in the Watts Riots in Los Angeles when spurred by the Black Panther Party blacks burned and looted their own ghettos because they were seen as symbols of white oppression.

27. 3. Some of the younger leaders preached that African Americans should take control of their: • a. communities • b. livelihoods • c. culture • They suggested that blacks abandon King’s non-violent strategy.

28. One of these young leaders who advocated violence as a solution to oppression was Malcolm X who was a minister in the Nation of Islam. He urged blacks to claim their rights by “any means necessary.” He preached that whites were keeping African Americans in a subordinate position , and that blacks should separate from society. He appealed to a growing black identity and advocated self-defense, many times leading to violence. • 5. However, he quit supporting violence upon returning from a pilgrimage to Mecca where he learned orthodox Islam preached equality of all races. He was assassinated soon after.

29. By 1966 both SNCC and CORE who had preached integration expelled their white members, advocating separation of the races and Black Power. • 7. The phrase coined by SNCC leader Stokley Carmichael which encouraged pride and leadership, energizing crowds of black youth was Black Power.

30. The political party started in 1966 in Oakland, California to protest police violence and preached armed revolt was called the Black Panthers. This grassroots organization raised money by selling Mao Zedong’s “Little Red Book,” and was a positive force in ghettos by providing daycare, free lunches and other services.

31. In April 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated. His death resulted in riots in Northern cities. Afterward the movement fragmented.

32. The policy meant to correct the effects of discrimination in the employment and education of minority groups and women is called affirmative action. It was created by President Johnson’s executive order. It set quotas and timetables for hiring minorities.

33. The Supreme Court case Bakke v. UC California Board of Regents charged reverse discrimination in college admissions. The Court ruled that any quota did violate the Constitution, but did not declare affirmative action to be unconstitutional

34. . The Equal Rights Amendment is a proposed amendment to the Constitution that would prohibit any discrimination on the basis of gender. It never received a 2/3 vote to become law.

35. Role of the Supreme Court • The decisions of the United States Supreme Court have protected individual rights in the years since Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954). • The membership of the United States Supreme Court has since included women and minorities, such as Sandra Day- O’Conner (first woman in the court, appointed by Ronald Reagan), and Ruth Bader Ginsberg (appointed by Bill Clinton).

36. African American men such as Thurgood Marshall (first black man appointed by Lyndon Johnson), and Clarence Thomas(appointed by George HW Bush).

37. Also Latino men and women such as Samuel Alito (appointed by George W. Bush) and Sonia Sotomayor (appointed by Barack Obama).

38. The civil rights movement of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s provided a model that other groups have used to extend civil rights and promote equal justice. The United States Supreme Court protects the individual rightsenumerated in the Constitution of the United States. The United States Supreme Court identifies a constitutional basis for a right to privacy in the court case Roe v. Wade that is protected from government interference.

39. The United States Supreme Court invalidates legislative acts and executive actionsthat the justices agree exceed the authority granted to government officialsby the Constitution of the United States. This concept of judicial review that was create by the case Marbury v. Madison in 1801.