Civil Rights Pioneers

1
Civil Rights Pioneers

• Comparisons of contemporaries in the Civil Rights
  Movement

2
Reconstruction America

• Former slaves promised rights and protection
  under the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments
• Federal government in charge of enforcement in
  former Confederate states
• With other concerns and political interests, by
  1877, little has changed for blacks

3
Booker T. Washington

• Born into slavery on a tobacco farm in Virginia
• Father was white
• Freed after the Civil War
• Worked in coal mines of West Virginia

1856-1915
4
Washingtons Reputation

• 1881-Founded Tuskegee Institute in Alabama for
  blacks
• Promoted industrial education
• Appealed to southern white governorskeep blacks
  on the farm
• Appealed to northern rich donorspromote the
  Protestant work ethic
• For poor blacks, escape from sharecropping and
  debt

5
Washingtons Reputation

• Addresses Cotton States Expo in 1895 Atlanta
  Compromise
• "In all things purely social we can be as
  separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in
  all things essential to mutual progress
• Willing to accept no voting rights segregation
  if blacks could have economic and education
  opportunities

6
Washingtons Reputation

• Founded Negro Business League
• Autobiography Up From Slavery
• White House Dinner in 1901
• Chief black advisor to presidents Roosevelt and
  Taft
• Not very popular with liberal whites and blacks,
  particularly the NAACP

7
W.E.B. DuBois

• Born in Great Barrington, MA
• Attended Fisk College in Nashville, University of
  Berlin and Harvard
• Studied black social systems at Penn in
  Philadelphia

1868-1963
8
DuBoiss Legacy

• Attacked Washingtons stance in his book The
  Souls of Black Folks
• Part of the 1906 Niagara Movement to advocate
  civil justice and fight caste discrimination
• 1909- Niagara Movement merges with white liberal
  group, form the National Association for the
  Advancement of Colored People

9
DuBoiss Legacy

• Editor-in-Chief of Crisis, the NAACP newsletter
• Felt that blacks should lead, whites should
  follow in the movement
• Criticized the role blacks were forced to play
  during WWI
• Demanded better treatment of black war veterans

10
DuBoiss Legacy

• Felt that racial equality should be immediate,
  not gradual
• Did not strongly object to his protests becoming
  violent
• Eventually rejects the United States, becomes a
  communist
• Becomes a citizen of Ghana

11
Comparison
We know they didn't like each other, but...

• Who do you think had the stronger argument?
• Why would certain groups support or oppose the
  views of either man?

12
20th Century America

• Segregation accepted way of life, particularly in
  the South
• Schools, buses, restaurants, restrooms, drinking
  fountains, stores, real estate purchases, bank
  loans, even in the military until the Korean War
• Blacks denied civil and voting rights in many
  areas

13
Martin Luther King, Jr.

• Born in Atlanta, GA, son of a Baptist preacher
• Received a Doctorate in 1955 from Boston Univ.
• Became a Pastor in Montgomery, AL

1929-1968
14
Martin Luther King, Jr.

• Elected to lead the 1955-56 Montgomery bus
  boycott
• A founder of the Southern Christian Leadership
  Conference (SCLC)
• Emphasized goal of voting rights
• Went to India in 1959, studied Gandhian
  non-violent protest methods

15
Martin Luther King, Jr.

• Often at odds with the Student Nonviolent
  Coordinating Committee
• They wanted to be seen as independent of King
• In 1963, gained international recognition with
  protests against racist police in Birmingham, AL

16
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Birmingham 1963
17
Martin Luther King, Jr.

• Protests convince JFK to submit Civil Rights
  legislation.
• Eventually leads to Civil Rights Act of 1964
• Organizes March on Washington, D.C. on August 28,
  1963
• Over 250,000 attend
• Delivers famous I Have A Dream Speech

18
I Have A Dream
Promised Land Speech
RFK on MLK
19
Malcolm X

• Born in Omaha, NE as Malcolm Little
• Later changes his name to El-Hajj Malik
  El-Shabazz
• Grew up in Michigan
• House burned down by Ku Klux Klan

1925-1965
20
Malcolm X

• Father murdered, mother institutionalized
• Placed in detention homes, as a teen lives with
  sister in Boston
• Joins Nation of Islam at age 21
• Why is his last name X?
• Customary for Nation of Islam members who believe
  their surname came from ancestors owners

21
Malcolm X

• Platform of racial pride Black Nationalism
• Spoke with bitter eloquence against white
  exploitation of blacks
• Preached evilness of whites
• Wanted Black self-determination
• Disagreed with Kings methods

22
Malcolm X

• Appeals to the international community to see the
  Civil Rights issue as a human rights issue

23
Malcolm X

• Described the assassination of John F. Kennedy as
  a case of chickens coming home to roost
• An instance of the kind of violence that whites
  had long used against blacks
• Comments get him suspended from nation of Islam

24
Malcolm X

• His popularity became a threat to Nation of Islam
  leader Elijah Muhammad
• Leaves in 1964, becomes orthodox Muslim
• Views on whites change
• Begins to speak in true brotherhood of man

25
Malcolm X

• Began to express that whites were not innately
  evil
• Some could help in the struggle for civil rights
• Violence began to erupt between Malcolm Xs
  followers and now-rival Black Muslims
• Shot to death, February 1965 in Harlem

26
Comparison

• How did Malcolm Xs views differ from Kings?
• Do you think they both ultimately wanted the same
  thing?
• How did different groups perceive the two men?
• Why might many historians argue that both became
  more revered in death than they were in life?

27
Sources

• http//www.nps.gov/bowa/btwbio.html
• http//docsouth.unc.edu/washington/about.html
• http//www.duboislc.org/html/DuBoisBio.html
• http//library.thinkquest.org/10320/DuBois.htm
• http//www.stanford.edu/group/king/biography/
• http//blackhistory.eb.com/micro/370/6.html
• http//www.triadntr.net/rdavis/malcolm1.htm
• http//www.africana.com/Utilities/Content.html?..
  /cgi- bin/banner.pl?bannerBlackworld../Articles/
  tt_327.htm