Civil Rights and The Great Society 1945-1966

1. Civil Rights and The Great Society 1945-1966

2. Between 1939 and 1945 nearly two million African Americans gained employment in defense plants and another 200,000 entered the federal civil service. The wartime stress on national unity and consensus largely muted political protests. By the end of the war, African Americans and their white allies were determined to push ahead for full political and social equality. Over half of the 15 million African Americans living in the United States after the war lived in the south and the1896 supreme court ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson had sanctioned the principle of “separate but equal” in southern life- in reality, segregation meant separate and unequal. A tight web of state and local ordinances enforced strict separation of the races in schools, restaurants, movie theaters, libraries, and even cemeteries. Fifty years of segregation meant inferior public schools, health care, and public lodging for the region’s black residents. There were no black policemen in the deep south, and only a few black lawyers. In the late 1940s, only about ten percent of the southern eligible black people actually voted Legal and extralegal measures kept everyone but the most determined blacks from voting. (ex. Poll Taxes, All-white Primaries, Discriminatory registration) Beatings, shootings, and lynchings usually met the African Americans who insisted on voting The irony of the Jim Crow laws was often noted by outsiders. Most of the southern blacks worked on white-owned plantations or in white households. The Segregated South

3. Brown v. Board of Education Little Rock Missouri v. ex.rel. Gaines- University of Missouri law school must either admit African Americans or build another, fully equal law school for them McLauren v. Oklahoma State Regents- supreme court agreed that equality could not be measured simply by money or physical plant Brown’s eight year old daughter was required to travel by bus to an all black school when she lived only three blocks from an all white school. This was the case of Oliver Brown from Topeka, Kansas. All of the suits came together to be called Brown v. Board of Education. In his argument before the court, Thurgood Marshall tried to establish that separate facilities, by definition, denied black people their full rights as American citizens. He used evidence from psychologists and sociologists demonstrating that black children educated in segregated schools developed a negative self-image and low self-esteem. Court decision read aloud ,May 17, 1954-segregation deprived the plaintiffs of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the fourteenth amendment. An agreement was made to let the court delay for one year its ruling on how to implement desegregation Second ruling in 1955 assigned responsibility for desegregation plans to local school boards. In 1956 101 congressmen from the Former Confederate states signed the Southern Manifesto- urged their states to refuse compliance with desegregation President Eisenhower Privately opposed the Brown decision and later called his appointment of Earl Warren as Chief justice “the biggest damn fool mistake I ever made” Governor Orval Faubus dispatched Arkansas National Guard troops to Central High School to prevent nine black students from entering. Eisenhower placed the Arkansas National Guard under federal control and ordered a thousand paratroopers to Little Rock on September 24, 1957. Faubus kept Little Rock high schools closed during the 1958-1959 academic year to prevent “violence and disorder”

4. Rosa Parks- seamstress and activist in Montgomery's African American community (member of the NAACP)- was taken from a bus, arrested, and was put in jail for refusing to give up her seat to a white person on December 1, 1955 A boycott was organized against the city busses of Montgomery. Martin Luther King Junior was the leader of the bus boycott and later laid out six key lessons from the struggle. An elaborate system of car pools was used so that everyone could still get to jobs. The boycott reduced the bus company’s revenues by two-thirds The boycott lasted 381 days before the boycotters finally won. MLK brought together 100 black ministers to form the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) Monday, February 1, 1960- four black college students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College in Greensboro sat down at a whites-only lunch counter in Woolworth's- they ordered coffee and doughnuts and sat there all day because they were never served what they had ordered. They came back the next day and the next with more and more supporters each time. July 25, 1960 was when the first African American was served a meal at Woolworth’s. Over the next 18 months, over 70,000 people participated in sit-ins in dozens of communities. The sit in movement empowered participants psychologically as well as emotionally. Montgomery Bus Boycott Sit-Ins SNCC Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee Established an organizational structure, a set of principles and a new style of civil rights protest in the fall of 1960 SNCC field workers initiated and supported local, community based activity.

5. James Farmer – national director of CORE On May 4, seven blacks and six whites left Washington on two interracial buses bound for Alabama and Mississippi. Incidents of harassment and violence were isolated until one bus entered Anniston, Alabama- a mob surrounded the bus, smashing windows and slashing tires. A firebomb was thrown through a window and the riders had to get out, getting beaten with blackjacks, iron bars, and clubs by the mob. The violence escalated in Birmingham where the other bus was attacked. The Freedom Ride disbanded on May 17th Starting in October 1961 and continuing for over a year, thousands of Albany, Georgia’s black citizens marched, sat-in, and boycotted as part of a citywide campaign to integrate public facilities and win voting rights. The gains here proved minimal- the movement collapsed by late 1962 In the fall of 1962, James Meredith tried to register as the first black student at the University of Mississippi- Governor Ross Barnett defied a federal court order and personally blocked Meredith's path at the admissions office. 500 federal marshals were dispatched to the campus when Barnett refused to assure Robert Kennedy that Meredith would be protected. An angry mob laid siege on the campus on September 30, leaving two people dead and 160 marshals wounded. Freedom Rides The Albany Movement

6. Most segregated, big city in America- had deep history of racial violence Total segregation in schools, restaurants, city parks, and department store dressing rooms. Birmingham activist Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, his groups, and the SCLC campaign plan- fill the city jails with protesters, boycott downtown department stores, and enrage Public Safety Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor It was here that king was held in solitary confinement for several days- wrote Letter from Birmingham Jail which was reprinted and circulated as a pamphlet Medgar Evers- leader of the Mississippi NAACP- murdered a few hours after Kennedy went on national television and offered his personal endorsement of the civil rights activism A broad coalition of civil rights groups planned a massive, nonviolent March on Washington to pressure Congress and demonstrate the urgency of their cause. Kennedy reluctantly gave his approval for the march. On August 28, 1963, over a quarter million people gathered at the Lincoln Memorial to rally for “jobs and freedom” (included 50,000 whites) This was the largest political assembly in the nation’s history. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous I have a dream speech Birmingham March on Washington

7. Kennedy’s successor Had built a career as one of the shrewdest and most powerful Democrats in Congress Obstructed civil rights legislation and helped water down enforcement provisions June 2, 1964- signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964- prohibited discrimination in most places of public accommodation; outlawed discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, outlawed bias in federally assisted programs; authorized the Justice Department to institute suits to desegregate public schools and other facilities; created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; and provided technical and financial aid to communities desegregating their schools. An ambitious effort to register black voters and directly challenge the iron rule of segregation- launched in the spring of 1964 Mississippi was the toughest test for the civil rights movement, both racially and economically- it was the poorest, most backward state in the nation, and had remained largely untouched by the freedom struggle. The Freedom Summer project recruited over 900 volunteers to aid in voter registration, teach in “freedom schools” and help build a “freedom party” as an alternative to the all-white party of Mississippi Democrats Three activists went missing and their bodies were later found buried in an earthen dam- they had all been shot. At least three other civil rights workers died violently Over forty freedom schools were set up, teaching classes in reading, arithmetic, politics, and African American History About 60,000 black voters signed up for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party Lyndon Baines Johnson Mississippi Freedom Summer

8. Target of King and his supporters for their crises to arouse national indignation Had a notorious record of preventing black voting King arrived in Selma in January 1965, just after accepting the Nobel Peace Prize Daily marches were led on the Dallas County Courthouse, where hundreds of black citizens tried to get their names added to voter lists The SCLC did not receive the national indignation it wanted even after Rev. James Bevel was vrutally beaten and Jimmie Lee Jackson was killed Black activists were marching from Selma to Montgomery to deliver a list of grievances to Governor Wallace They were stopped and told to turn back after crossing the Pettus Bridge on the Alabama river After refusing, the activists were attacked with Billy clubs tear gas The protestors were driven back over the bridge in a bloody rout “Bloody Sunday” received extensive coverage on network television, prompting a national uproar Four white Unitarian ministers were attacked by white toughs just as it seemed like the Selma movement would die down President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law in August 1965 Voting Rights Act- authorized federal supervision of registration in states and counties where fewer than half of voting-age residents were registered and it outlawed literacy and other discriminatory tests “Bloody Sunday” Selma, Alabama

9. Forgotten Minorities Mexican Americans Puerto Ricans Indians Political organizations such as the League of United Latin American Citizens and the GI Forum began to stress their own sense of American identity in the belief that this would help guarantee the Mexican American community equal rights and equal opportunity Mexican migration to the United States increased dramatically during and after World War II. “Bracero” program was created during the war- about 300,000 Mexicans entered the U.S. as temporary agricultural and railroad laborers The policies under the new deal had been reversed “termination” was adopted- designed to cancel Indian Treaties and terminate sovereignty rights House Concurrent Resolution NO. 108- allowed congress to terminate a tribe as a political entity Many Indians became dependent on state social services and slipped into poverty and alcoholism Jones Act of 1917- made the island an unincorporated territory of the United States and granted U.S. citizenship to all Puerto Ricans Small communities of Puerto Rican migrants formed in NYC- the largest being el barrio in East Harlem The “Great Migration” took place from 1945 to 1964 By the early 1970s, Puerto Rican families were substantially poorer than the total population of the country and had the lowest median income of the Latino groups Asian Americans 1952 McCarran-Walter Act- removed the old ban against Japanese immigration, made Issei (first-generation Japanese Americans) eligible for naturalized citizenship and now allowed immigration from the “Asian-Pacific” Triangle Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965- abolished the national-origins quotas and provided for the admission each year of 170,000 immigrants from the Eastern Hemisphere and 120,000 from the western Hemisphere- opened the way for a new wave of immigration

10. The Great Society • White Appalachian Mountain communities were among the poorest in the nation even though it was the African Americans who suffered a disproportionate level of poverty • Johnson called for “an unconditional war on poverty” in his State of the Union message in 1964- over the next two years he used the political momentum of the civil rights movement and the overwhelming Democratic majorities in the House and Senate to push through the most ambiguous reform program since the New Deal • Economic Opportunity Act- established an Office of Economic Opportunity which coordinated a network of federal programs designed to increase opportunities in employment and education • Community Action Program- most innovative and controversial element of the OEO- invited local communities to establish community action agencies to be funded through the OEO