Civil Rights

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Civil Rights

• Introduction Background

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Introduction

• What are civil rights?
• Where are they guaranteed?
• Rights to full legal, economic, political
  social equality by virtue of citizenship
• Guaranteed in U.S. Constitution (including 13th
  14th Amendments) acts of Congress (civil
  liberties, due process, equal protection, freedom
  from discrimination)

• Does treating people equally mean treating them
  the same?
• A man woman apply for job as shoe sales person
• 2 patients come to the doc with a headache. 1 has
  a brain tumor the other a headache..
• 2 students enter school with stairs to entrance.
  1 is in a wheelchair
• 2 students live in the same school district. They
  are the same age but different races

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History of Civil Rights

• Colonial America
• Early slavery
• 1800s
• Abolition movement End slavery (Frederick
  Douglass)
• Civil War 1860-65

• Reconstruction
• 13th -
• 14th -
• 15th -
• Late 1800s
• Legalized racism in the South (Jim Crow laws)

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Early Figures

• Booker T. Washington
• Blacks should work within the systems
• Economic value
• Ex. Tuskegee School
• WEB DuBois
• Founded NAACP
• End racism, violence segregation
• Improve legal rights
• Used the courts to achieve change

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Atlanta Compromise

• No race can prosper till it learns that there
  is as much dignity in tilling a field as in
  writing a poem. It is not at the bottom of life
  we must begin, not at the top. Nor should we
  permit our grievances to overshadow our
  opportunities In all things that are purely
  social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet
  as one hand in all things essential to mutual
  progress.
• - Booker T. Washington

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Important Events

• Plessy v. Ferguson 1896
• Upheld constitutionality of racial segregation
• Railroads
• separate but equal is OK
• Great Depression
• 1930s Blacks suffered as a group gt voted for New
  Deal
• Shift from voting for Republicans to Democrats
• FDR fails civil rights because he fears lack of
  support from whites

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Early Civil Rights Victories
1940 NAACP Legal Defense Fund founded by Thurgood Marshall
1941 Ban against discrimination in defense industry (A. Phillip Randolph)
1942 Funding of CORE
1947 Integration of MLB with Jackie Robinson
1948 Truman desegregates military
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Integrating Schools

• Brown v. Board of Education
• Separate schools for blacks whites violates the
  Constitutions guarantee of equal protection
• Clear ruling but lack of enforcement or deadline

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School Integration continued

• Little Rock Nine
• 1957 Gov. Orval Faubus violated court order to
  integrate Arkansas
• 9 Black students harassed on 1st day of school
• Eisenhower tried to talk to Gov. but Sept. 24th
  he announced on TV sending in federal troops

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Little Rock Nine
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Montgomery Bus Boycott

• Bus segregation in Montgomery, Alabama
• Blacks made up 2/3 of all riders
• Couldnt sit in front rows, couldnt share row
  with whites
• In 1955, Rosa Parks sat in the black section but
  when the white section filled, she refused to
  move gt arrested

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Boycott continued

• Boycott
• NAACP called for 1-day boycott (90 of riders
  obliged)
• Boycott led by Martin Luther King Jr.
• Churches set up carpools (rolling churches) but
  whites denied insurance
• 1956 Supreme Court ruled segregation on buses
  unconstitutional

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Non-Violent Resistance

• SCLC emerges
• Southern Christian Leadership Conference led by
  MLK Jr.
• Inspired by success of bus boycott
• Committed to non-violence

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Non-Violent Influence

• Based on influence from Gandhi
• CORE SCLC used non-violence
• Organizations set up training on how to resist
  passive behavior
• Led to the sit-in movement