Civil Rights

Diane Nash

African-American civil rights leader Diane Nash was prominently involved in some of the most consequential campaigns of the movement. Her efforts included the first successful civil rights campaign to integrate lunch counters (Nashville); the Freedom Riders, who desegregated interstate travel; co-founding the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC); and co-initiating the Alabama Voting Rights Project and working on the Selma Voting Rights Movement. This helped gain Congressional passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which authorized the federal government to oversee and enforce state practices to ensure that African Americans and other minorities were not prevented from registering and voting.

Ella Baker

Born in 1903 in Norfolk, Virginia, Ella Baker became one of the leading figures of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and '60s. Following her early work for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, she was among the founders of Dr. Martin Luther King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957. Three years later, she helped launch the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. Ella Baker was a powerful behind-the-scenes force that ensured the success of some of the movement's most important organizations and events and proved how big of a role women truly played in the Civil Rights Movement. She was part of some of the most major organizations, even involved in creating two of them. Some could credit her with bringing young people into the movement, which shifted it as a whole and made it stronger.

Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party

Founded 1964, as part of voter registration project for register disenfranchised blacks.Previously, blacks denied from Democratic Party meetings and conventions. MFDP formed, welcomed both blacks and whites to run for Senate and Congressional elections. Regular democrats wanted to seat an all white delegation at National Democratic Convention 1964, MFDP members protested. Finally promised two-non voting seats next to regular Mississippi delegates, MFDP denied saying it gave them no voting power. Fannie Lou Hamer spoke at National Democratic Convention gave dramatic speech explaining why they should be given vote, she was cut off in televised broadcast. This creation emphasized the massive divide in the democratic party that occured because of this movement and proved that the democratic party was not fully on the Civil Rights Movement's side.

Nation of Islam

Founded by Wallace D. Muhammad in 1930 to promote black nationalism in Detroit's black community during the Great Depression. Under the early leadership of Elijah Muhammad (1934-1975), the organization appealed to the poorest urban blacks and black prisoners and quickly spread to the major cities in the East. Malcolm X emerged as the organization's chief spokesman in the early 1950's and continued to push for black independence from whites and self-reliance in daily life. Operated many stores in urban black neighborhoods throughout America to promote black economic independence which was their main goal.

Project C (Birmingham 1963)

In attempt to confront the harsh segregation occurring in Birmingham, Project C was developed in 1963 to desegregate establishments, gain fair hiring practices, and appoint a biracial committee to desegregate schools. Consisting of 3 stages: phase one (economic boycotts and sit ins), phase two (mass marches on city hall), phase three (mobilization of young children). Phase three was controversial because children were attacked by dogs and hoses as well as arrested. The campaign was successful due to eternal unity and organized planning, which would go on to inspire future campaigns.

Birmingham Movement

In the spring of 1963, activists in Birmingham, Alabama launched one of the most influential campaigns of the Civil Rights Movement: Project C, better known as The Birmingham Campaign. It would be the beginning of a series of lunch counter sit-ins, marches on City Hall and boycotts on downtown merchants to protest segregation laws in the city. Over the next couple months, the peaceful demonstrations would be met with violent attacks using high-pressure fire hoses and police dogs on men, women and children alike -- producing some of the most iconic and troubling images of the Civil Rights Movement It is considered one of the major turning points in the Civil Rights Movement and the "beginning of the end" of a centuries-long struggle for freedom.

John Lewis

Lewis was a key player in the sit in lunch counter movement and was one of the leaders in Nashville in 1960. Lewis partook in the Freedom Rides of 1961 which resulted in severe beatings and multiple arrests, the crisis that had been created by the Riders eventually led to the Interstate Commerce Commission to prohibit racial discrimination in interstate facilities. He played a key role in the historic March on Washington where he gave a speech criticizing the government and the proposed civil rights bill as being"too little too late". In 1963, Lewis became the chairman of SNCC. He embraced non-violence and was the last leader of SNCC to do so. Lewis left SNCC shortly after Carmichael assumed control of the organization. The passage concludes with Lewis's reaction to SNCC's adoption of "black power" as its primary stance as something that ultimately limited to the organization's effectiveness.

Literacy tests

Literacy test were imposed to keep blacks and sometimes poor whites from voting. The questions asked were at the discretion of the official giving the test, meaning that tests given to blacks were significantly more challenging and had ridiculously high standards. Additionally, poll taxes were used to prevent blacks from voting as well as the Grandfather Clause which was meant to target and prevent those who's ancestors were slaves from voting.

Bob Moses

Moses played a role in both SCLC, SNCC, and the NAACP, however he maintained views of grassroots, community based leadership. In 1960, Moses became involved with SNCC as their first field secretary. Moses then became the director of Mississippi Summer Project of 1964 which led to the formation of the MFDP for local blacks who had been excluded from all white regular Democratic Party. His leaving from SNCC shows the divide between older Civil Rights Activists and young as well as the dramatic shift in SNCC.

Coretta Scott King

She worked side by side with MLK as he became a leader of the civil rights movement, establishing her own distinguished career as an activist. Though best known for working alongside her husband, Coretta established a distinguished career in activism in her own right. Among many roles, she worked as a public mediator and as a liaison to peace and justice organizations. Throughout her marriage, King appeared side by side with her husband fighting against injustice. She also openly criticized the movement's exclusion of women. After her husband's death, King continued to support several issues, marching in a labor strike only days after his funeral. She openly expressed disdain for the Vietnam War, an action that placed her under FBI surveillance for several years. King also supported several women's right causes. She travelled internationally, lecturing about racism and economic issues in the United States and abroad.

Freedom Rides

The 1961 Freedom Rides sought to test a 1960 decision by the Supreme Court in Boynton v. Virginia that segregation of interstate transportation facilities, including bus terminals, was unconstitutional as well. in early 1960, an interracial group of activists, led by CORE, Executive Director James Farmer, decided to continue to challenge Jim Crow segregation in the South by organizing "freedom rides" through the region. CORE organized a dozen activists who were paired into two interracial sets of Freedom Riders who would travel on Greyhound and Trailways buses, respectively, from Washington, D.C. to New Orleans, Louisiana. Violence broke in in various southern states, resulting in brutal attack on many of the riders. Infuriated by the news of the vicious assaults, Diane Nash, a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), organized a new contingent of Freedom Riders in Nashville.The Freedom Riders failed to reach New Orleans, Louisiana. However the international attention their efforts received forced Attorney General Robert Kennedy to petition the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) to outlaw segregation in interstate travel. This event displays the harsh violence that the entire movement had to face.

Albany Movement

The Albany Movement was a desegregation campaign formed on November 17, 1961, in Albany, Georgia. Local activists from SNCC, NAACP, SCLC, the Ministerial Alliance, the Federation of Women's Clubs, and the Negro Voters League joined together to create the movement. The Albany Movement challenged all forms of racial segregation and discrimination in the city. This movement was not successful due to many factors like a tactful police and intergroup conflict but the most important was that they did not have a specific goal. Almost all of Albany's public facilities remained segregated after King's departure in 1962, making the Albany Movement one of the few failures among the 1960s civil rights campaigns. Although this movement was successful, its mistakes helped all Civil Rights Leaders learn what they had to do to make a movement successful.

1966 Chicago Freedom Movement (SCLC campaign in Chicago)

The Chicago Campaign began in July 1965 when local civil rights groups invited Dr. King to lead demonstrations against segregation in education and housing as well as employment discrimination. On January 7, 1966, King and the SCLC announced plans for a Chicago Freedom Movement, a campaign that marked the expansion of their civil rights activities from the South to northern cites. King and his family moved to a Chicago slum at the end of January to bring attention to housing conditions of tens of thousands of black Chicago residents while CCCO organized mass nonviolent protests in the city. After negotiating with King and various housing boards, an agreement was announced on August 26, 1966, in which the Chicago Housing Authority promised to build public housing in predominantly white areas, and the Mortgage Bankers Association agreed to make mortgages available, regardless of race or neighborhood. In 1968 the U.S. Congress passed the 1968 Fair Housing Act, as the most direct result of the Chicago Freedom Movement.

1964 Civil Rights Act

The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, is considered one of the crowning legislative achievements of the civil rights movement. First proposed by President John F. Kennedy, it survived strong opposition from southern members of Congress and was then signed into law by Kennedy's successor, Lyndon B. Johnson. The establishment of the word, "gender" as a legitimate, legal term helped the feminist movement gain momentum in the late 1960's. It also paved the way for two major follow-up laws: the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968.

CORE (Congress of Racial Equality)

The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), founded in 1942 by James Farmer, became one of the leading activist organizations in the early years of the American civil rights movement. In the early 1960s, CORE, working with other civil rights groups, launched a series of initiatives: the Freedom Rides, aimed at desegregating public facilities, the Freedom Summer voter registration project and the historic 1963 March on Washington. CORE initially embraced a pacifist, non-violent approach to fighting racial segregation, but by the late 1960s the group's leadership had shifted its focus towards the political ideology of black nationalism and separatism. Their most memorable impact were the Freedom Rides because international attention was drawn to the cause.

NAACP

The NAACP was founded in 1909 by a group of multi-racial activists. It was originally called the National Negro Committee. The NAACP was interested in fighting legal battles to advance the Civil Rights Movement and focused on cases. It was also involved in social movements like the Montgomery Bus Boycott and Mississippi Freedom summer. However, it's legal landmark case was won in 1954 - Brown V. Board of education. This win, which deemed segregated schools unconstitutional, was a major starting point for the Civil Rights Movement and a major motivator for many of the other organizations.

Stokely Carmichael

While attending Howard University, Carmichael became involved with the Freedom Rides of 1961. After his college graduation he became a full time SNCC worker beginning with his work in the 1964 Summer Project where he began a field worker in Lowndes County, where he helped to significantly increase the number of registered black workers. Carmichael was actively skeptical of the role of whites in the summer project and was a supported of black nationalism. Unsatisfied with the response of the major political parties to his registration efforts, Carmichael founded his own party, the Lowndes County Freedom organization, choosing the black panther as their emblem which would later inspire the rise of the BPP. While an original supporter of nonviolence, Carmichael became frustrated with the lack of progress as well as the humiliation of repeated acts of violence towards himself and other black members. By the time he was elected chairman of SNCC in 1966, his views had shifted to sharply radical and made the decision to expel all whites from the org as he was now a supporter of black power. Showed the radical divide between SCLC and SNCC and the radical change of SNCC as a group.

Kerner Commission Report

Written after mass riots of the second half of the 60's, LBJ appointed committee (led by otto kerner) to figure out why the race riots were occurring. Report concluded trigger for the riots were due to relations between white police and black community members, thought police were trying to protect privilege white communities rather than minorities. Underlying reasons for participating in riots were unemployment, poverty, slum housing segregated education. This document was an early sign that the nation was facing a racial divide. The report stated the need for integration and funding towards poor black communities however LBJ rejected the recommendations. This proved the division of the government and the movement.

1967 Detroit Rebellion

he 1967 Detroit Riots were among the most violent and destructive riots in U.S. history. By the time the bloodshed, burning and looting ended after five days, 43 people were dead, 342 injured, nearly 1,400 buildings had been burned and some 7,000 National Guard and U.S. Army troops had been called into service. The entire city was in a state of economic and social strife: As the Motor City's famed automobile industry shed jobs and moved out of the city center, freeways and suburban amenities beckoned middle-class residents away, which further gutted Detroit's vitality and left behind vacant storefronts, widespread unemployment and impoverished despair. This marked a major shift in the movement, people failed to see the reason for the riots. The wave of calls for law-and-order politics that followed the summer of 1967 was predicated on the notion that the people who took the streets had done so because of amorality or lawlessness.

Malcolm X

Prior to his involvement in the civil rights movement, Malcolm X spent ten years in jail. It was here that he converted to The Nation of Islam which embraced the ideology of black nationalism. Working with the leader, Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X attempted to spread the teachings nationwide to black citizens. Malcolm was a naturally gifted speaker who was able to captivate his audience with his radial ideas. Eventually, after some disagreements with Muhammad, Malcolm X was asked to leave the Nation of Islam in 1964. He went on a pilgrimage to Mecca and came back a more rational leader. He began preaching his new values. Malcolm X was soon assassinated but his early views and opinions greatly influenced the "black power" movement that began in the late 1960's, he presented the ideology of empowering african americans on their own.

COINTELPRO

Program launched in the 1950's by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover to detect Communist activity, however shifted to monitor radical political civil rights groups and leaders into the 60's. Using an assortment of illegal spying methods such as wiretapping, COINTELPRO harassed and tried to exploit many civil rights leaders like MLK, in their attempt to expose his adultery and discredit him as a leader. This showed the FBI's blatantly racist attitude as they attempted to sabotage any progress that had been made.

Students for a Democratic Society

SDS, founded in 1959, had its origins in the student branch of the League for Industrial Democracy, a social democratic educational organization. Initially, SDS chapters throughout the nation were involved in the civil rights movement. The organization grew slowly until the escalation of U.S. involvement in Vietnam (1965). SDS organized a national march on Washington, D.C., in April 1965, and, from about that period, SDS grew increasingly militant, especially about issues relating to the war, such as the drafting of students. Tactics included the occupation of university and college administration buildings on campuses across the country. The SDS was one of the main representations of the new left.

Black Power

"Black Power", as a term, is most associated with Stokeley Carmichael, the 1960's civil rights leader. In fact, "Black Power" had been used as a civil rights rallying phrase by Willie Ricks, an SNCC man, before Carmichael used it on the "March Against Fear". Some African Americans saw it as a cry against the whites who held all the resources in a white-dominated society. All forms of power, but especially political power, lay with whites. Carmichael felt that blacks needed to feel a sense of racial pride and self-respect before any meaningful gains could be achieved. Black power motivated the creation of the BPP. Many African-American youth and their counterparts in the Latino/a, Native American, Asian and other communities formed organizations similar to SNCC and the Black Panther Party (BPP). Backed by their parents, university and high school students demanded reforms in educational curriculums as well as community control of the police.

Black nationalism

- Black nationalism, political and social movement prominent in the 1960s and early '70s in the United States among some African Americans. The movement, which can be traced back to Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association of the 1920s, sought to acquire economic power and to infuse among blacks a sense of community and group feeling. Many adherents to black nationalism assumed the eventual creation of a separate black nation by African Americans. As an alternative to being assimilated by the American nation, which is predominantly white, black nationalists sought to maintain and promote their separate identity as a people of black ancestry. With such slogans as "black power" and "black is beautiful," they also sought to inculcate a sense of pride among blacks.

Huey P. Newton

- Huey P. Newton was the co-founder of the Black Panther Party. Unlike many of the other social and political organizers of the time, they took a more militant stance to the plight of black communities in America. The group set forth its political goals in a document entitled the Ten-Point Program, which called for better housing, jobs and education for African Americans. It also called for an end to economic exploitation of black communities, along with military exemption. Though often portrayed as violent, this organization had a main goal of bettering the lives of African Americans. The BPP was a perfect example in the shift of how the media covered the civil rights movement, portraying them as violent and dangerous.

Meredith March Against Fear (June 1966)

Activist James Meredith, the first African American to enroll at the University of Mississippi began a solitary civil rights walk on June 6, 1966 with the intention to walk from Memphis, Tennessee to Jackson, Mississippi. Shortly after beginning the march he was shot by James Norvell, a white gunman. After the shooting, several major civil rights activists and organizations responded in the form of continuing the walk in honor of Meredith. By the end of the march on June 22, 1966 the number of marchers had risen to approximately 15,000 in Jackson, Mississippi making it one of the largest marches in history for that area. On June 26th, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Stokely Carmichael, and Floyd McKissick were among the thousands of marchers who completed the trip to Jackson, Mississippi, having weathered harassment and physical abuse from angry mobs and law enforcement alike. Mr. Meredith rejoined the march shortly before its completion in Jackson and led a rally at the state capitol. Stokely Carmichael, electrified crowds with speeches that renounced integration, castigated white liberals, and demanded "Black Power!" King himself called the Meredith March "a terrible mistake," and he deplored Carmichael's riffs on Black Power for alienating whites by seeming to condone violence.

"Bloody Sunday"

After murder of Jimmie Lee Jackson who had been peacefully protesting, SCLC and SNCC organized march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965. Led by John Lewis and Hosea Williams, marchers did not get very far, met with strong opposition from state troopers and Sheriff Jim Clark's posse of guards at Pettus Bridge. They pushed back Lewis and Williams. They knocked the marchers to the ground and struck them with sticks. Clouds of tear gas mixed with the screams of terrified marchers and the cheers of bystanders. Deputies on horseback charged ahead and chased the gasping men, women and children back over the bridge as they swung clubs, whips and rubber tubing wrapped in barbed wire. Although forced back, the protesters did not fight back. Marchers were peaceful but met with heavy violence which was then broadcasted nationwide, even internationally. The brutality depicted caught the attention of people around nation and brought many to Selma to join in the movement which would eventually lead to the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Council of Federated Organizations (COFO)

As a coalition, COFO was designed to be a kind of coordinating body meant to avoid inter-organizational political wrangling and to facilitate the flow of funds into Mississippi for voter education and registration, particularly from the Voter Education Project (VEP). Equally as important, the COFO umbrella was also meant to protect and nurture grassroots activism in the state. NAACP state president Aaron Henry was COFO's president, SNCC's Bob Moses was program director, and CORE's Dave Dennis was assistant program director. COFO was especially important in creating and sustaining "a sort of culture, which...provides a space where local people can grow and emerge" as political actors willing to fight for their rights.

Eugene ("Bull") Connor

Eugene "Bull" Connor was the Birmingham public safety commissioner whose ideologies and orders were in direct opposition to the Civil Rights Movement. He refused to provide police protection for the Freedom Riders in 1961 upon word that they would be besieged upon their arrival in Birmingham. Connor eventually ordered authorities to besiege peaceful protesters, many of whom were quite young, with water hoses and attack dogs. Images of this were broadcast around the world and became history, thus accelerating integration in the city and galvanizing the likes of President John F. Kennedy, helping to set into motion the creation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Fannie Lou Hamer

Hamer was born to a family of sharecroppers, growing up in Sunflower County she was unaware that black people had the right to register and vote. Hamer dedicated her life towards working in the pursuit of the civil rights movement such as her efforts in voting rights campaigns. She worked with SNCC in organizing the Mississippi Summer Project and helped found the MFDP. She attended the Democratic National Convention and made clear that blacks were not being treated as equal citizens. Her speeches were emotional and captivating, she brought the struggle in Mississippi to the attention of the nation during her televised speech. Hamer was threatened, arrested, beaten and shot at. In 1963, after she and other activists were arrested, she was beaten so badly in a Winona, Mississippi, jail that she suffered permanent kidney damage. Fannie was a prime example of the struggle activists were forced to face when fighting for their rights.

1965 Watts uprising

Ignited from the faulty arrest of a three blacks, sparking 5 days of violent riots in Watts Los Angeles (1966) rallying some 30,000 people, serving as a stark testimony to the poverty and inequality facing residents of Watts. The riot resulted in mass damage to local businesses, as well as deaths, injuries, and thousands of people arrested. This rebellion would inspire hundreds in years to come as blacks demanded their rights.

1968 Memphis sanitation workers' strike

Longstanding tensions between disgruntled African American sanitation workers and Memphis city officials erupted on February 12, 1968 when nearly one thousand workers refused to report to work demanding higher wages, safer working conditions, and recognition of their union. Despite organizing city-wide boycotts, sit-ins, and daily marches, the city's sanitation workers were initially unable to secure concessions from municipal officials. At the urging of Reverend James T. Lawson, Martin Luther King, Jr. agreed to come to Memphis and lead a nonviolent demonstration in support of the sanitation workers. On March 29 over five thousand demonstrators participated in King's march. However, the peaceful demonstration took a turn for the worse when an estimated two hundred participants began breaking storefront windows and looting. The ensuing violence resulted in the death of Larry Payne, a sixteen year old African American who was killed by Memphis police officers, the imposition of a city-wide curfew, and the mobilization of nearly four thousand National Guard troops. Deeply troubled by the violent outbreak, King vowed to return to Memphis to lead a peaceful demonstration. On April 3, 1968, nearly two months after the initial start of the strike, King returned to Memphis and delivered what would be his last public speech. The following evening King was assassinated.

SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee)

The SNCC, or Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, was a civil-rights group formed by Ella Baker in 1960 to give younger blacks more of a voice in the civil rights movement. She was concerned that SCLC, led by Martin Luther King Jr., was out of touch with younger blacks who wanted the movement to make faster progress. Baker encouraged those who formed SNCC to look beyond integration to broader social change and to view King's principle of nonviolence more as a political tactic than a way of life. SNCC became one of the movement's more radical branches. SNCC migrated from a philosophy of nonviolence to one of greater militancy after the mid-1960s, as an advocate of the burgeoning "black power" movement, a facet of late 20th-century black nationalism. The shift was personified by Stokely Carmichael, who replaced John Lewis as SNCC chairman in 1966-67. While many early SNCC members were white, the newfound emphasis on African American identity led to greater racial separatism, which unnerved portions of the white community. SNCC is a perfect example of how the Civil Rights campaign shifted in the late sixties. It also proved that young people have a lot of power in social movements.

SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference)

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference was formed in 1957 just after the Montgomery Bus Boycott had ended. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) main aim was to advance the cause of civil rights in America but in a non-violent manner. From its inception in 1957, its president was Martin Luther King - a post he held until his murder in 1968. They were rooted deeply with the church, Its greatest impact was the idea of leadership in social movements. From the beginning, the SCLC focused its efforts on citizenship schools and efforts to desegregate individual cities such as Albany, Georgia, Birmingham, Alabama, and St. Augustine, Florida. It played key roles in the March on Washington in 1963 and the Selma Voting Rights Campaign and March to Montgomery in 1965. The SCLC also broadened its focus to include issues of economic inequality, starting the Poor People's Campaign in 1967. They focused on having one figurehead, MLK, who would be the public face and gather support in that way which contradicted organizations like SNCC.

1965 Voting Rights Act

The Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote as guaranteed under the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. he Voting Rights Act, suspended literacy tests, provided for federal approval of proposed changes to voting laws or procedures in jurisdictions that had previously used tests to determine voter eligibility , and directed the attorney general of the United States to challenge the use of poll taxes for state and local elections. Allowed voter registration to increase massively which changed the dynamic of politics and who became elected officials.