Civil Rights in the USA

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Civil Rights in the USA
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Civil Rights

• The modern struggle for civil and political
  equality for African Americans in the 20th Century

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Key Words

• Civil rights movement a campaign by Black
  Americans for equality with White people.
• Segregation Keeping black and white people
  apart.
• Desegregation the opposite of segregation

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Civil Rights Organisations

• NAACP National association for the advancement
  of coloured people. First major black civil
  rights organisation founded in 1910.
• CORE Congress for Racial Equality. The first
  mass civil rights movement which included whites.

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Civil Rights Organisations

• SCLC - Southern Christian Leadership Conference
  which organised non violent action to defy
  segregation laws.
• SNCC Students Non-Violent Coordinating
  committee which organised the sit ins and freedom
  rides. Changed name to Students National
  Coordinating Committee in 1960s.

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• Black Power a slogan in the 1960s supported by
  Black Americans who fought back.
• Black Separatism an idea that Black Americans
  should live separate lives in communities
  completely separate from whites.

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Effect of WW2

• More blacks were employed in the government and
  the armed forces.
• In Europe there was no segregation of the races
  and fighting Hitlers racist regime made them
  question racism in America.
• The first aim of the Civil Rights movement was to
  get rid of segregation and Jim Crow laws.

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Brown V Topeka School Board

• A previous Supreme court ruling of Separate but
  Equal facilities had made segregation legal.
• This applied to, among other things, schools.
• Linda Browns father wanted her to go to the
  white school which was nearer her home and better
  than the black school.
• With the help of the NAACP, Linda Browns father
  took the school board in Topeka, Kansas to court.

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The Supreme Court Decision

• May 1954 - The Court declared that separate
  education facilities are inherently unequal and
  ordered that education was to be desegregated
  with all deliberate speed this applied to the
  whole country.
• This decision was very important for the civil
  rights movement it was their first victory.
• But the difficulty was to make it happen.
• By 1956 not one black child attended a white
  school in the South.

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Little Rock, Arkansas

• In September 1957 in Little Rock, Arkansas the
  governor tried to stop nine black children
  attending Central High School. Faubus, the
  governor, even sent state troopers to surround
  the school to prevent the children getting in.

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Central High

• Elizabeth Eckford was the first black student to
  try to get into Central High school.
• She was surrounded by a baying mob yelling Drag
  her over to this tree! Lets take care of that
  nigger
• Eventually the President had to send 1,000
  soldiers to escort the pupils to school and
  patrol the corridors to protect them. They
  stayed for a year!

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James Meredith

• In September 1962 James Meredith tried to attend
  the University of Mississippi law school.
• A mob of 2,000 people tried to stop him, in the
  violence that broke out 2 journalists were
  killed.
• President Kennedy had to send 16,000 troops to
  protect Meredith for a year!