The Dixiecrats, Ruby Bridges
SNCC
(Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee)-a group established in 1960 to promote and use non-violent means to protest racial discrimination; they were the ones primarily responsible for creating the sit-in movement
In the 1950s the Dixiecrats didnt continue as a party but continued to oppose
1957- Senator Thurmond held the longest filibuster(24 hours and 18 minutes) in an attempt to prevent the Civil Rights Bill
Hospital Workers Protest-spring of 1969
450 women employed by the Medical College of South Carolina and the Charleston County Hospitals' held a strike that lasted three and a half months. They were protesting low wages and racism in the workplaces.
Briggs v. Elliot
Court case over the equality of Clarendon County Schools. Led to the Brown v Board decision
Strom Thurmond
Democratic governor of South Carolina who headed the State's Rights Party (Dixiecrats); he ran for president in 1948 against Truman and his mild civil rights proposals and eventually joined the Republican Party.
1954-The Supreme Court issues its ruling in Brown v. Board of Education
Governor James Byrnes avoids desegregation by pouring money into black schools.
Truman was aware of racial tension within USA
Had to tread carefully because Dixiecrats would oppose reforms
In 1960s election, John Kennedy had to be careful to not upset Dixiecrats
Kept civil rights low on his agenda and focused on discussing foreign affairs
Jim Crow Laws
Limited rights of blacks. Literacy tests, grandfather clauses and poll taxes limited black voting rights
The Black Power Movement
Not about giving black people the power "over" whites; it was about making black people feel like they had any power at all.
Strom Thurmond and the Dixiecrats
SC governor; southerners did not like Truman's proposed civil rights bill and they went and formed a "Dixiecrat" party and ran Thurmond for president.
Many dixiecrats joined the White Citizens Councils
Some even left the Democrats and joined the Republicans
1948 Presidential election
Split the Democrats
Essie Mae Washington-Williams
Strom Thurmond's and Carrie Butler's daughter.
Carrie Butler
The Thurmond family's African-American maid-she was 16 and Strom was 22 when they had Essie Mae. He supported the child, but did not claim that the child was his. After his death, Essie Mae came forward that Strom was in fact her biological father.
Ruby Bridges
The first African-American child to attend an all-white elementary school in the South (New Orleans)
Dixiecrat
The term to describe white southern Democrats opposed to civil rights legislation
Dixiecrats formed their own political party
Won more than one million votes in the 1948 election