Chapter 28 and 29 - Civil Rights Movement
Assassination of MLK
-MLK was getting a lot of harassment from the Federal Bureau and there were many rumors being spread about him along with threats from the FBI -when he started being more militant in opposing the Vietnam war, he lost a lot of support from liberal democrats who remained loyal to Johnson - 1968 King chose Memphis Tennessee - there he delivered his final speech and message of hope - "I Have a Dream" -the next evening he stepped out of his balcony of his motel and he was shot by a lone assassin -His death created an immense amount of rioting and his vision of his community faded
Malcolm X
-One of the most significant figures in the civil rights movement, he began as a member of the Black Muslims, although later separated from the group. He criticized Martin Luther King as "an Uncle Tom" and advocated self-defense against white violence. -many younger activists in the SNCC became frustrated with the limits of the nonviolent ways and turned to Malcolm X -after his death he became a martyr for the idea that soon became known as black power
Martin Luther King Jr.
-U.S. Baptist minister and civil rights leader. A noted orator, he opposed discrimination against blacks by organizing nonviolent resistance and peaceful mass demonstrations. He was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. Nobel Peace Prize -Leader of SLCC and one of the most famous figures of the civil rights movement. He promoted the idea of non-violent protest for civil rights and took his inspiration from Mohandas Gandhi In August 1963, he led 200,000 people in a peaceful March on Washington.
Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) (roots of it and Montgomery boycott)
-first was the Montgomery boycott and then the MIA was created and lead by MLK jr -It was one of history's most dramatic and massive nonviolent protests, stunning the nation and the world.The boycott was also a signal to Black America to begin a new phase of the long struggle, a phase that came to be known as the modern civil rights movement. -They issued a document declaring that civil rights are essential to democracy, that segregation must end, and that all Black people should reject segregation absolutely and nonviolently. -Further planning and negotiations in new Orleans with the Southern Leadership Conference - later known as Southern Christian Leadership Conference - where MLK Jr. rounded 100 black ministers -Basic decisions made by the founders at these early meeting included the adoption of nonviolent mass action as the cornerstone of strategy, the affiliation of local community organizations with SCLC across the South, and a determination to make the SCLC movement open to all, regardless of race, religion, or background.
Stokely Carmichael
-he had helped to turn SNCC into an only black organization and had shifted the view to black power - for African Americans to take control of their own communities
March on Washington, "I have a dream"
-in August 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King led one of the largest and most the successful demonstrations in U.S. history when about 200,000 blacks and whites took part in this peaceful march. The highlight was Dr. King's famous "I Have a Dream Speech" at the Lincoln Memorial. -
Black Power
-many people and especially younger activists were tired of the strategies that were not rally working for Civil rights and change wanted to instead use more violence Key things: -self-determination self - sufficiency -promoted self - esteem by affirming the unique history and heritage of African peoples
Civil Rights Act of 1964
-outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin -This act made segregation illegal in all public facilities and gave the federal government additional powers to enforce school desegregation. -this was a landmark law which represented the most significant civil rights legislation since Reconstruction
Segregation/Jim Crow Laws
-still lynching, beating and shooting if black voters tried to vote - "the white man's business" -"in the south they don't care how close you get, as long as you don't get too big; in the north they don't care how big you get as long as you don't get too close" - close meaning that the blacks would still work on white plantations and in white households. in the north they had their own communities, many of them in the city -black people had to learn to endure humiliation and keep their feelings hidden from white people -
Black Panther Party for Self Defense
-was the boldest expression of black power - Black Panther, Party for Self-Defense = founded in Oakland California -armed self defense was their strategy -adopted a paramilitary style of clothing - which infuriated the police -they were seen as heroes for a time -black power grew though and became a multifaceted movement in response many black college students called for more scholarships and for more classes on African American history and culture -
"long, hot summers" - Race Riots (Watts Riot, etc.)
-with the urban pressures and horrible conditions, the nation was filled with many urban uprisings / race riots - it was the opposite though because instead of angry whites it was blacks who now took revenge for white domination of the communities - especially for police brutality -first major uprising was the Watts section of LA - male unemployment rate was at 30 % - the mayor blamed it on Communists
George Wallace
1968 campaign was all about antiliberal sentiment -George Wallace was sort of successful with this with his third party bid for presidency - promised white Alabamans that segregation would be instated -campaigned around a conservative hate list that included school busing, antiwar demonstrations and urban uprisings
Redlining
A discriminatory real estate practice in North America in which members of minority groups are prevented from getting building loans. The practice derived its name from the red lines depicted on cadastral maps used by real estate agents and developers. Today, redlining is officially illegal. -highways and other real estate chopped up poor neighborhoods and were sometimes replaced with office complexes and new developments for the middle class instead of the poor -urban employment opportunities also declined
Letter from Birmingham Jail
A letter written by Martin Luther King Jr. after he had been arrested when he took part in a nonviolent march against segregation. He was disappointed more Christians didn't speak out against racism. The letter defends the strategy of nonviolent resistance to racism. It says that people have a moral responsibility to break unjust laws and to take direct action rather than waiting potentially forever for justice to come through the courts. Responding to being referred to as an "outsider," King writes, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere". was widely published, and became an important text for the American Civil Rights Movement. -After the Birmingham movement - many protesters - both white and black came, from all kinds of social and economic backgrounds and didn't really care about the philosophy of nonviolence and more about immediate action and change
Freedom Rides
Freedom Riders were groups of white and African American civil rights activists who participated in Freedom Rides, bus trips through the American South in 1961 to protest segregated bus terminals. Freedom Riders tried to use "whites-only" restrooms and lunch counters at bus stations in Alabama, South Carolina and other Southern states. The groups were confronted by arresting police officers—as well as horrific violence from white protestors—along their routes, but also drew international attention to their cause. -goal was to test the compliance with court orders banning segregation in interstate travel and terminal accommodations - wanted to get arrested and then test the laws -first two buses met with a dangerous mob -but eventually by creating a crisis CORE had forced the Kennedy administration to act
Southern Manifesto
In a campaign known as "Massive Resistance," Southern white legislators and school boards enacted laws and policies to evade or defy the U.S. Supreme Court's 1954 Brown ruling. In 1956, nearly every congressman in the Deep South, 101 in total, signed the "Southern Manifesto." It said the Brown decision represented "a clear abuse of judicial power." Otherwise law-abiding Southerners, who once justified Jim Crow by citing the Court's Plessy decision, now disregarded the Court's authority. Opponents of the Brown decision argued that the federal government had no power to force states to integrate schools
Election of 1960
In this election, Democrat John F. Kennedy ran against Republican Richard M. Nixon. Television was perhaps the most decisive factor in this very close race which Kennedy won. -Nixon had been leading Republican voice for stronger civil rights legislation and Kennedy had been virtually uninvolved in it before -when the election and campaigns began their roles shifted and Kennedy praised the sit-in movement -Kennedy helped get MLK out of jail -didn't need the support of the democratic white southerners because he got the black voters 70%
Freedom Summer
Mississippi was the toughest state to test for the civil rights movement Freedom Summer, also known as the the Mississippi Summer Project, an effort to register black voters and directly challenge segregation in Mississippi - organizations including the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Aimed at increasing black voter registration in Mississippi -many white volunteers in the Freedom summer project -The Ku Klux Klan, police and state and local authorities carried out a series of violent attacks against the activists, including arson, beatings, false arrest and the murder of at least three people.
Election of 1968
Nixon barely won -took nearly all of the West's electoral votes -extremely divided through this campaign, Democrats would remain out of presidential contention for over two decades - except when republicans suffered scandal and disgrace - Republicans paved the war for the conservatives
Strom Thurmond, States' Rights Party
South Carolina senator -ran for president -Thurmond represented South Carolina in the United States Senate from 1954 until 2003, at first as a Southern Democrat and, after 1964, as a Republican.
Little Rock Nine
The Little Rock Nine were a group of nine black students who enrolled at formerly all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in September 1957. Their attendance at the school was a test of Brown v. Board of Education, a landmark 1954 Supreme Court ruling that declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional. On September 4, 1957, the first day of classes at Central High, Governor Orval Faubus called in the Arkansas National Guard to block the black students' entry into the high school. Later that month, President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent in federal troops to escort the Little Rock Nine into the school.
Montgomery Bus Boycott/Rosa Parks
The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a civil-rights protest during which African Americans refused to ride city buses in Montgomery, Alabama, to protest segregated seating. -The boycott lasted for 381 days - is regarded as the first large-scale U.S. demonstration against segregation. Four days before the boycott began, Rosa Parks, an African-American woman, was arrested and fined for refusing to yield her bus seat to a white man. -The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately ordered Montgomery to integrate its bus system, and one of the leaders of the boycott, a young pastor named Martin Luther King, Jr., emerged as a prominent leader of the American civil rights movement. Initially, the demands did not include changing the segregation laws; rather, the group demanded courtesy, the hiring of black drivers, and a first-come, first-seated policy, with whites entering and filling seats from the front and African Americans from the rear. -but eventually the five Montgomery women went to court to sue the supreme court to have the busing segregation eliminated
NAACP and Thurgood Marshall
This Civil Rights organization, formed in 1909 and led by Thurgood Marhsall, has the purpose of equality using the legal system. -Rosa parks and her husband were was the secretary of the local chapter of the NAACP -housing and employment segregation -several important legal battles in supreme court -showed legal strategy with using supreme court to fight segregation
Selma and Edmund Pettus Bridge
When Lyndon Johnson won election and there were many/ majority of democrats in the house and senate the cicivl rights activists thought this would be a huge advantage -MLK meanwhile targeted Selma, Alabama -notorious for preventing black voting -MLK went to Selma just after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize -to spur more attention a group of 600 marchers walked across the Pettus Bridge on the Alabama River - to head to Montgomery to give grievances to Governor Wallace - while MLK was preaching in his church -a group of heavily armed country southerners block the path of the bridge and when they refused to turn back it ended up being a bloody and violent event
Voting Rights Act of 1965
authorized federal supervision of registration in states and counties where fewer than half of voting-age residents were registered -outlawed literacy and other discriminatory tests -for the first time in their lives, black southerners in small towns could join in politics
Plessy v. Ferguson
little had changed since the Supreme court had sanctioned, "separate but equal" segregation in the Plessy v Ferguson court case -but the segregation in practice actually mean separate and unequal -no black police in deep south and only a handful of lawyers -
Sit-ins
protests by black college students, 1960-1961, who took seats at "whites only" lunch counters and refused to leave until served; in 1960 over 50,000 participated in sit-ins across the South. Their success prompted the formation of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. -it started with just a couple but in days they had gathered a lot of support from black and white students and not just from their own school either -when they did nothing they planned a boycott that would greatly effect the merchant's profits so Greensboro College gave in the sit - ins became more popular and often in the south as the word spread
Lyndon B. Johnson
signed the civil rights act of 1964 into law and the voting rights act of 1965. he had a war on poverty in his agenda. in an attempt to win, he set a few goals, including the great society, the economic opportunity act, and other programs that provided food stamps and welfare to needy famillies. he also created a department of housing and urban development. his most important legislation was probably medicare and medicaid. On November 22, 1963, just two hours after John Kennedy's assassination he took presidential oath of office aboard an airplane at the Dallas airport. In the 1964 presidential election he easily defeated Senator Barry Goldwater. In 1968, he decided to not run for president again. (p. 604)
Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, Fannie Lou Hamer
the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), also referred to as the Freedom Democratic Party, was an American political party created in 1964 as a branch of the populist Freedom Democratic organization in the state of Mississippi during the Civil Rights Movement. It was organized by African Americans and whites from Mississippi to challenge the established power of the Mississippi Democratic Party, which at the time allowed participation only by whites, when African-Americans made up 40% of the state population. -Fannie Lou Hamer was an American voting and women's rights activist, community organizer, and a leader in the civil rights movement. -co-founder of the Freedom Democratic Party and presented it -also organized Mississippi's Freedom Summer along with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
Albany Movement
was a desegregation coalition formed in Albany, Georgia, quickly became a broad-front nonviolent attack on every aspect of segregation within the city. Bus stations, libraries, and lunch counters reserved for White Americans were occupied by African Americans, boycotts were launched, and hundreds of protesters marched on City Hall. - formed by the Student Nonviolent Coordinate Committee and the NAACP -more than a thousand people spent time in jail -Albany showed that mass protest without violent white reaction and direct federal intervention could not end Jim Crow -
Richard Nixon, Southern Strategy
Republican Presidential contender = Richard Nixon - declared he was the one candidate who could restore law and oder to the nation - against youthful protesters -After the signing of the Civil Rights Act - President Johnson even noted privately that this sort of meant that the Republicans now had the south's support In American politics, the Southern Strategy refers to a Republican Party electoral strategy to increase political support among white voters in the South by appealing to racism against African Americans -Nixon was perfect for this because he promised his voters that he would be appointing federal court judges that would undercut liberal interpretations of civil rights -got the silent section of people by attacking all critics of the war
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
(CORE) Civil rights organization started in 1944 and best known for its "freedom rides," bus journeys challenging racial segregation in the South in 1961. 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.
nonviolent resistance
-MLK Jr. got the idea from Mohandas Gandhi -followers would have to sacrifice themselves and even their lives at times -MLK thought it was a political strategy to actually "muzzle the guns of the British empire" -it was a symbol that transforms weakness into strength and courage
Brown v. Board of Education
1954 - The Supreme Court overruled Plessy v. Ferguson, declared that racially segregated facilities are inherently unequal and ordered all public schools desegregated. -NAACP had been taking small legal steps in suits to seek full elimination of segregated facilities instead of just directly attacking the Plessy v. Ferguson -Thurgood Marshall convinced the Supreme Court -the brown v. board of education was a a grouping of cases -Marshall focused on the phycological impacts of segregation on children instead of just legal evidence.
Nation of Islam
African American religious organization founded in 1930 that advocated separation of the races -Malcom X was a major spokesperson -said things like "blue-eyed Devils" = whites - The Nation of Islam, abbreviated NOI, is an African American political and religious movement, founded in Detroit, Michigan, United States, by Wallace D. Fard Muhammad - Its stated goals are to improve the spiritual, mental, social, and economic condition of African Americans in the United States and all of humanity. -critics deem it as black supremacist and antisemitic
bull connor, george wallace
Connor enforced legal racial segregation and denied civil rights to black citizens, especially during the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's Birmingham campaign of 1963. He became an international symbol of institutional racism. Bull Connor directed the use of fire hoses and police attack dogs against civil rights activists; child protestors were also subject to these attacks -media showed these brutal tactics on national television and it horrified the nation -the outrages served as catalysts for major social and legal change in the Southern United States and contributed to passage by the United States Congress of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 He sought the United States presidency as a Democrat three times, and once as an American Independent Party candidate, unsuccessfully each time. He is best remembered for his staunch segregationist and populist views. Wallace was known as "the most dangerous racist in America" and notoriously opposed desegregation and supported the policies of "Jim Crow" during the Civil Rights Movement, declaring in his 1963 inaugural address that he stood for "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever".
James Meredith
He was a civil rights advocate who spurred a riot at the University of Mississippi. The riot was caused by angry whites who did not want Meredith to register at the university. The result was forced government action, -showed federal power of making sure desegregation laws and protection of all people under law was upheld
Kerner Commission
Headed by governor of Illinois, to study riots and they found that the participants in the uprisings were not the poorest or the least educated members of their communities. -suffered from heightened expectations that were started by the civil rights movement -the commission warned congress but they ignored the warning of the two separate societies forming - black and white
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
Organized in the fall of 1960 by Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. as a student civil rights movement inspired by sit-ins, it challenged the status quo and walked the back roads of Mississippi and Georgia to encourage Blacks to resist segregation and to register to vote. -goal is to focus on nonviolence the the religious or philosophical aspect of it
