The Civil Rights Movement

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The Civil Rights Movement

• There were two phases to the Civil Rights
  movement one phase between 1945-1965 and the
  other after 1965.

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I. Why Did the Civil Rights Movement Take Off
After 1945?

• Black equality became a significant political
  issue for the Democratic Party
• WWII had been fought against racism abroadhard
  to keep harboring it at home
• Black veterans came home dedicated to change
• Increasing number of White Americans condemned
  segregation
• Discrimination in the United States hurt our
  propaganda battle against the Communists

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II. The Truman Years

• Trumans 1948 election year agenda
• No significant Civil Rights congressional
  legislation
• Truman moves on his own to do what he can for
  Civil Rights
• --Desegregation of the military (1948)
• Jackie Robinsons breakthrough (1947)

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II. The Truman Years (cont.)

• Split at the 1948 Democratic convention
• Energized Truman hits the campaign trail hard
• Republican Dewey runs a boring, conservative
  campaign
• Trumans stunning election
• Trumans Fair Deal (1949)

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III. The Battle in the Courts

• Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
• -- separate but equal facilities legal
• Smith v. Allwright (1944)
• First attack separate is not equal
• Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas
  (1954)
• -- Chief Justice Earl Warren

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III. Battle in the Courts (cont.)

• Eisenhower disapproves of Brown decision
• Desegregation with all deliberate speed
• Other Warren Court Civil Rights decisions
• Popular opposition to the Brown decision
• No real progress on desegregation at first

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IV. The Eisenhower Years

• Eisenhowers philosophy related to Civil Rights
  laws
• First Civil Rights Acts passed since the Civil
  War (1957 and 1960)
• Opposition to the integration of Little Rock
  Central High School (1957)
• --Governor Orville Faubus

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V. Out of the Schools and Into the Buses

• The arrest of Rosa Parks (December, 1955)
• The Montgomery, Ala. Bus Boycott
• The leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr.
• The Montgomery model for Civil Rights activism
  boycott, publicity, courts
• SCLC formed (1957)

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VI. A Mass Movement Takes Shape

• Lunch counter sit-ins begin Greensboro, NC
  (February, 1960)
• SNCC created (April, 1960)
• CORE Freedom Ride (May, 1961)

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VI. A Mass Movement Takes Shape (cont.)

• Demonstrations in Birmingham, Alabama (April,
  1963)
• --Eugene Bull Connor
• Letter from Birmingham City Jail
• Governor George Wallace tries to block
  integration of the University of Alabama (Fall,
  1963)

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VI. A Mass Movement Takes Shape (cont.)

• JFK finally begins to campaign for Civil Rights
  legislation
• Continued violence even in the face of some
  progress
• Martin Luther King, Jr. and the March on
  Washington (August, 1963)
• -- I Have a Dream

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VI. A Mass Movement Takes Shape (cont.)

• Mississippi Freedom Summer Project (1964)
• MFDP Protests at the 1964 Democratic convention
• Voter registration in Selma, Alabama (1965)
• --Sheriff Jim Clark
• By the mid-1960s, substantial success in the
  South had been achieved

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VII. The Kennedy and Johnson Years

• JFKs initial reluctance to push for Civil Rights
  laws
• The integration of Ole Miss (1962)
• --James Meredith
• JFK finally decides to push past better
  enforcement to new congressional Civil Rights
  legislation

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VII. The Johnson Years (cont.)

• The role of Kennedys assassination in the Civil
  Rights movement
• Civil Rights Act of 1964
• Anti-poll tax Amendment (24th1964)
• Voting Rights Act (1965)
• Impact of the Voting Rights Act

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VII. The Johnson Years (cont.)

• The tone of public political discourse changed
  after 1965
• Johnson appoints first Black cabinet secretary
  Robert Weaver of HUD (1966)
• Much more needed to be done for Civil Rights
  outside of the South, so 2nd phase began

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VIII. The Era of Disillusionment 1965 On

• Early to mid-1960s were a hopeful time for Civil
  Rights advocates
• Goal of Assimilation
• A Spoiled Utopia after 1965things would not be
  that simple

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A. New Problems

• Residential Discrimination
• -- Red Lining
• The Challenges of School integration in the North
• The historical, traditional segregation of
  northern cities
• The resurrection of the KKK once again
• More effective White opponents in the North

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B. Race Riots

• Watts Riots in Los Angeles (Summer, 1965)
• Riots each summer from 1965-1969
• --Chicago and Cleveland (1966)
• --Newark and Detroit (1967)
• --Washington, D.C. (1968)

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B. Race Riots (cont.)

• Riots as an expression of grievance against the
  White American consumer society
• Riots shocked the White American public
• Frustration and self-destruction expressed in
  these riots
• Unlike earlier race riots, these riots were not
  started by White mobs

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C. Black Power

• Growing tension between SNCC and Martin Luther
  King, Jr.
• --Stokely Carmichael
• Black Power
• Carmichael succeeded by H. Rap Brown as head of
  SNCC (1967)

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C. Black Power (cont.)

• The formation of the Black Panther Party in
  Oakland, CA (1966)
• --Huey Newton
• --Eldridge Cleaver
• Resurrection of the philosophy of Marcus Garvey

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C. Black Power (cont.)

• The leadership of Malcolm X
• --Black Muslims
• --Assassinated in 1965
• Cultural expressions of Black Power
• --Afro Hairstyles
• --Black-studies programs
• -- Negro no longer used
• --1968 Olympics

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D. Decline of the Civil Rights Movement

• Economic contraction works against Civil Rights
  concessions
• Northern phase not as successful
• Resistance from White Unions
• Vietnam replaces Civil Rights as the liberal
  crusade
• Martin Luther King, Jr. loses influence with LBJ