Demands for Civil Rights

1
Demands for Civil Rights

• Angela Brown
• Chapter 27 Section 4

2
The Struggle for Equality

• Truman privately held racial prejudice from
  growing up in South but realized as President
  must push for equality opportunity.

3
Trumans Actions

• 1946 Truman met with group of African American
  leaders.
• They ask for support for a federal anti-lynching
  law, abolish the poll tax, establish a board to
  prevent discriminatory practices in Congress.
• Congress refused to address

4

• Dec 1946 Truman appointed a biracial committee
  on Civil Rights group produced a report
  demanding actions on above concerns
• Recommended permanent Civil Rights commission be
  established
• Congress again failed to act.

5

• 1948 Truman banned discriminatory hiring of fed.
  Employees ended segregation and discrimination
  in armed forces
• Only with onset of Korean War in 1950 did armed
  forces make significant progress at ending
  segregation.

6
Jackie Robinson

• Major league baseball had refused to allow
  African Americans to participate played in
  Negro leagues.
• Mid 1940s Branch Rickey, gen. manager of Brooklyn
  Dodgers selected Jackie Robinson to be first
  African American to break the color line.

http//www.veaweteach.org/images/photos/people/Jac
kie_Robinson.jpg
7
Robinson

• Robinson earned college letters in football,
  basketball, baseball, and track at UCLA.
• Robinson was the only player in UCLA history to
  letter in four sports.

8

• Had a record for standing up against racial
  injustice undergone court martial in Army
  during WWII for refusing to set in back of
  non-segregated post bus was cleared
• Rickey role played with Robinson what he might
  endure I want a player with guts to fight
  back.

9

• 1947 joined Dodgers as first African American
  player in major leagues.
• Despite instances of prejudice he behaved with
  dignity and was named Rookie of the Year.
• 1949 voted league most valuable player.

10
Racism on Gridiron

• 1946 Penn State vs. University of Miami
  canceled due to two African American players on
  Penn State team.
• President of Miami U stated hoped to avoid any
  unfortunate incidents.
• Penn State Dean stated they were part of the team
  and no conditions would be put on them.
• Other schools made arrangements such as African
  Americans would play them at home but not away.

11
Brown vs Board of Education

• NAACP tried to overturn 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson
  decision Separate but Equal.
• 1951 Oliver Brown sued the Topeka Kansas Board of
  Education to allow daughter attend white school
  she walked to on way to bus.
• Lawyer Thurgood Marshall argued on behalf of
  Brown against segregation.

12
Thurgood Marshall
http//www.law.harvard.edu/library/collections/spe
cial/exhibitions/portrait_exhibit/Thurgood_Marshal
l.jpg
13

• May 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka
  declared unanimously that separate facilities
  are inherently unequal.
• Separate but equal no longer permissible in
  public schools Eisenhower disagreed.
• 1967 President Johnson appointed Marshall Supreme
  Courts first African American associate Justice.
• Liberal presence on court until retirement in
  1991.

14
The Montgomery Bus Boycott

• 1955 Rosa Parks refused bus drivers order to give
  up seat in mixed, middle section of the bus to a
  white man.
• Sec of Montgomery NAACP for 12 years arrested
  and ordered to stand trial for violating
  segregation laws.
• Civil rights leaders met and organized the
  Montgomery Bus Boycott.

15
Rosa Parks
http//www.blogography.com/photos10/RosaParks.jpg
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Boycott
http//www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/ USAmontgomer
yB.jpg
http//home.att.net/reniqua/bus12.jpg
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• African Americans refused to use the bus system
  until the company agreed to change segregation
  policy.
• Martin Luther King Jr. became spokesperson for
  protest movement (26 year old minister where
  protest meeting took place).
• 50,000 African Americans in Montgomery walked,
  biked, car pooled for a year bus company lost
  money but would not change its policies.

18

• Supreme Court finally ruled bus segregation
  unconstitutional.
• Produced new generation of African American
  leaders and nonviolent protest as a means of
  achieving equality for minority groups.

19
Resistance in Little Rock

• 1957 Central High School in Little Rock,
  Arkansas.
• Governor Orval Faubus declared he could not keep
  order if forced to integrate bring races
  together.

20
Central High School
http//www.loc.gov/exhibits/brown/images/br0130bs.
jpg
21

• Posted Arkansas National Guard troops at school
  nine African American students had tried to
  enroll.
• Eisenhower placed National Guard under federal
  command paratroopers and soldiers on guard to
  protect the nine students.

22
http//www.ark-ives.com/photo/gallery/central.asp
23
Other Voices of Protest

• Mexican American worked for rights.
• Texas funeral home refused to bury Felix
  Longoria, Mexican American War Hero protest led
  to soldiers burial in Arlington National Cemetery
  in Washington D.C.

http//www.arlingtoncemetery.net/longoria.htm
24

• Native Americans 1953 governor sought to
  eliminate reservations termination
• Goal to assimilate Native Americans into
  mainstream.
• Resistance government discarded termination
  policy
• Poverty, discrimination, and little political
  representation remained a problem.