Civil Rights Movement

1
Is the Negro Inferior?
Two White Supremacists in 1956 - 335
2
Civil Rights Movement

• African Americans Seek Equality

3
WWII Veterans Return

• Returning veterans focused on right to vote
• Still had literacy tests, poll taxes, and threats
  of violence in the south
• Protested outside of Trumans White House
• Truman creates a Committee on Civil Rights to
  study issues

4
Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896)

• Allowed separate but equal facilities
• Okay as long as both blacks and white have a
  water fountain, school, etc.

5
School Segregation
549
6
Brown vs. Board of Education

• Linda Brown (age 7) bussed across town to go to
  black school when she lived next door to
  white school
• Ruled segregation in public schools is illegal
• Overturned Plessy vs. Ferguson
• Schools to desegregate with all deliberate speed

7
Little Rock Nine

• Schools slow to desegregrate
• 9 blacks sign up for white school in Little Rock,
  AR
• Governor calls in National Guard to stop the
  Little Rock Nine from going to school

8
Tough but Successful

• One of the nine, Elizabeth Eckford, went to
  school by herself, and was met by a mob. She was
  blocked by the National Guard, and was chased to
  a bus.

9
  "I went in not through the side doors, but up
the front stairs, and there was a feeling of
pride and hope that yes, this is the United
States yes, there is a reason I salute the flag
and it's going to be okay." Melba Pattillo
Beals, quoted in Voices of Freedom
In May 1958 Ernest Green became the first African
American student to graduate from Central High
School. "When they called my name. . . . Nobody
clapped," Green remembered. "But I figured they
didn't have to . . . because after I got that
diploma, that was it. I had accomplished what I
had come there for."
10
The Little Rock Nine
Graduation - 1958
Reunion - 1998
11
Montgomery Bus Boycott

• Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on a bus
  in Montgomery, AL
• She was arrested
• Montgomery Bus Boycott - blacks refuse to use the
  bus (70 of its business)
• Organized by 26 year old Martin Luther King, Jr.

12
Montgomery Bus Boycott

• Boycott was peaceful, very effective
• Whites bombed Kings house
• Supreme Court rules in 1956 the segregated bus
  system is illegal
• Puts Rev. Dr. MLK in front of Civil Rights
  Movement

13
Rosa Parks Bus before a 205,000 restoration in
Arizona. Why is it important that historical
items such as this are restored?
14
(No Transcript)
15
(No Transcript)
16
(No Transcript)
17
(No Transcript)
18
Peaceful Protests

• Sit-in - protesters sit down and refuse to move
  (used in segregated diners)
• Boycott - refuse to use a product or service
  (Montgomery bus boycott)
• Marches (March on Washington)

19
Peaceful Protests

• Banners, Pins, Slogans
• Non-Violent protest - tactic used by Dr. King -
  wins sympathetic support

20
Freedom Rides

• White and black protesters ride buses around
  south.
• Whites used black only facilities, blacks used
  white only facilities
• Protesters often beat up, but continued
• 1961 - segregation on busses and RR segregation
  became illegal

21
March on Washington, D.C. - 1963

• 250, 000 people gather at Lincoln Memorial
• Martin Luther King delivers I Have a Dream
  speech

22
(No Transcript)
23
Malcolm X

• Said Blacks should focus on independence, not
  integration
• Would use violence if necessary
• Killed by Members of Nation of Islam in 1963, a
  group he quit

24
"You can't separate peace from freedom because no
one can be at peace unless he has his freedom. -
Malcolm X
25
Black Panthers

• Used violence to shock people into action
• Led by Eldridge Cleaver

26
"We have dedicated our lives, our blood, to the
freedom and liberation of our people, and
nothing, no force can stop us from achieving our
goal. If it is necessary to destroy the United
States of America, then let us destroy it with a
smile on our faces. - Eldridge Cleaver