Introduction to American Studies II

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Introduction to American Studies II

• The Civil Rights Movement
• The 1950s and 1960s

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Brown decision

• Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka
• 1954
• Overturned Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
• Separate but equal facilities are
  constitutional
• Unanimous decision written by Chief Justice Earl
  Warren
• Separate educational facilities are inherently
  unequal
• Violate equal protection clause of the
  Fourteenth Amendment

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Black Civil Rights Movement

• NAACP
• National Association for the Advancement of
  Colored People
• Established 1909
• Had many Black and white members, most funding
  came from rich white sympathizers
• W. E. B. DuBois (1868-1963) was the leading Black
  member in the first half of the 20th Century
• Led legal challenges to segregation and attempted
  to have a Federal anti-lynching law passed
  (unsuccessfully)
• SCLC
• Southern Christian Leadership Conference
• Established 1957
• Made up of ministers from predominately Black
  churches
• First leader was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Best known for organizing non-violent
  resistance to segregation across the South

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Important Events

• Montgomery Bus Boycott
• 1955/56
• Rosa Parks, a Black woman refused to give up her
  seat to a white passenger and was arrested
• Black citizens of Montgomery, AL organized a
  381-day boycott
• Lunch-counter sit-ins
• Organized by students to protest segregation in
  eating facilities
• First held in Greensboro, NC in 1960
• Led to the development of student-led civil
  rights movement
• Freedom Rides (1963)
• Protested segregation in interstate bus
  transportation
• March on Washington (August 28, 1963)
• Massive civil rights protest in Washington, D. C.
• MLK delivers his famous speech I have a dream

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End to legal segregation

• Civil Rights Act of 1964
• Based on 14th Amendment
• Banned segregation in public facilities
• Voting Rights Act of 1965
• Banned discriminatory practices in denying Blacks
  (and others) the right to vote
• Literacy tests
• The 24th Amendment
• Banned poll taxes that had been used to deny
  poor Blacks the right to vote
• Affirmative Action
• 1965, President Johnson issues executive order
• "take affirmative action to ensure that
  applicants are employed, and that employees are
  treated during employment, without regard to
  their race, creed, color, or national origin."

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Other groups

• Successes of the Black civil rights movements
  inspired other groups to action
• Women
• Hispanics
• American Indians
• Gays and lesbians

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Womens Rights

• Both the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Affirmative
  Action benefited women as much as any other group
• Equal Rights Amendment
• Proposed in 1971
• Equality of rights under the law shall not be
  denied or abridged by the United States or by any
  State on account of sex.
• Adopted by only 35 states and therefore did not
  become a part of the Constitution
• Sixties
• More and more women in higher education and the
  workplace
• Sexual revolution

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• Gloria Steinem
• After Black Power, WomensLiberation
• Ms. Magazine
• National Womens Political Caucus
• Affirmative action benefited women perhaps more
  than any other group
• Reproductive rights
• Roe v. Wade (1972)
• Decisions made in first trimester of pregnancy
  are private

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Hispanics

• In the sixties most worked as poorly-paid farm
  labor
• United Farm Workers
• Established in 1962
• Led by Cesar Chavez
• Agitated for better conditions and pay
• Organized successful boycotts of produce and
  supermarkets that bought sold it
• Table grapes
• Led to improved condition and pay for farm workers

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American Indians

• American Indian Movement
• Established in 1968
• Brought the plight of Native Americans to public
  attention through protests
• Alcatraz Island
• 1969
• 19-month occupation
• Trail of Broken Treaties
• 1972
• March on Washington and occupation of Bureau of
  Indian Affairs (BIA) headquarters
• Wounded Knee (SD)
• 1973
• Standoff between AIM members and Federal and
  Reservation officials
• Lasted 71 days
• Pine Ridge (SD)
• 1975
• Two FBI agents killed
• Leonard Peltier sentenced to life imprisonment
  for the murder

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Gays and lesbians

• Prior to the mid-1960s sexual contact between
  members of the same sex was illegal in most
  states
• Illinois and California led the way in
  decriminalizing
• Police harassment in cities, in particular New
  York
• Stonewall
• June 27, 1969
• Police raid lower Manhattan bar the Stonewall Inn
• Arrested 4 patrons and 2 bartenders
• Crowd gathers and begins to attack the police,
  who retaliate
• Next day large protest with more than 4000
  participants protest against police harassment
• Marks beginning of GLB movement in the Western
  world
• Prior to AIDS crisis of early-mid eighties,
  limited political power
• Inaction by Federal government led to creation of
  political movements
• Act-up

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• Further legal changes
• Lawrence et al. v. Texas (2003)
• State laws banning sodomy are illegal
• Goodridge et al. v. Department of Public Health
  et al. (2003)
• Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision
• Declared that state could not ban same-sex
  couples from obtaining a marriage license under
  the state constitutions equal protection
  clause
• Mayor of San Francisco (2004) defies state law
  and grants marriage licenses to more than 3,000
  same-sex couples
• Marriages declared invalid
• March 2005 court declares state ban
  unconstitutional

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