Minority Movements: The Civil Rights Movement

Civil War: Results  13 th Amendment: 1865 – President Andrew Johnson  Abolished Slavery  14 th Amendment : 1868 – President Andrew Johnson  Defined Citizenship – anyone born in the USA  15 th Amendment: 1870 – Ulysses S. Grant  African Americans males got the right to vote

What if…  What if someone told you that you had to wait in a separate waiting room than everyone else to wait for the bus?

What if…  What if you wanted to go to Applebees for dinner and someone told you that you had to eat in a separate building from everyone else in order to be served?

What if…  What if you like riding your bike in the park down the street, but you are not allowed to go there. Instead, you had to go to a park 2 miles away from your house that is much dirtier and not as safe?

What if…  What if wanted to go see a movie and someone told you had to go to a separate movie theater from your friends that was in worse condition?

What if…  What if someone told you that you could not attend Waters Middle School and that you had to go to a separate school that was in worse condition and farther away from your house?

Plessy vs. Ferguson: 1896  Homer Plessy, a man of mixed race, refused to give up his seat in the “White” car on a train and was arrested!  The U.S. Supreme Court decided Louisiana law which stated, “separate but equal accommodations in rail cars” was constitutional  This then applied to schools, restaurants, movie theaters, buses, and more

Does this look separate, but equal?

See the Difference?

Confused?  If you said that you thought all the above rules were unfair, wait until you hear about how this was allowed to happen!

Jim Crow Laws: 1880’s – 1960’s  Majority of US states enforced segregation laws, known as the Jim Crow Laws, between blacks and whites  Segregation: Legal separation of people based on their race or ethnicity

Jim Crow Laws  These Laws:  Separated blacks from whites in public places and housing  Banned any intermarriage and adoption between the two races  Made it difficult for African Americans to get the same type of education and jobs as white Americans  No blacks and whites could serve together in the military  They could ride the same buses and trains, but had to sit in different sections

Putting an end to it all…  African Americans refused to let this continue.  After years of segregation…something had to be done.  Now let’s look at Brown vs. the Board of Education, another Supreme Court case that occurred almost 70 years after Plessy vs. Ferguson…

What do you think?

Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka (Kansas): 1954  A class action lawsuit was filed against the Topeka School Board by 13 parents calling for the district to reverse its policy of racial segregation  The students often had to travel much further to get to their segregated schools and sometimes the travel was dangerous  The Kansas court system ruled in favor of the Board of Education so the case was sent to the U.S. Supreme Court

Brown vs. Board cont.  The Supreme Court declared that state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students were unconstitutional  Overturned Plessy vs. Ferguson decision which allowed “separate, but equal” schools  Thurgood Marshall was the lawyer for the plaintiffs and later became a U.S. Supreme Court justice

But there were others…

Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott: 1955  Rosa Parks refused to move from her seat on a bus for a white passenger and was arrested and fined  As a result, black passengers refused to ride buses for 13 months as a form of boycott  It was seen as the first large-scale demonstration against segregation in the U.S.  The U. S Supreme Court decided that bus segregation was unconstitutional  Many additional civil rights protests followed

Freedom Rides:1961  Black and white volunteers rode buses through the south to see if bus travel was still segregated  View: Freedom Riders united streaming clip

Results  Many “Freedom Riders” were arrested  Many are beaten, nearly to death  They catch the attention of Americans across the country and the government then takes legal action!

Jim Peck  Participated in 1 st Freedom Ride in 1961  Was arrested for sitting in “wrong” section of bus  Was beaten up for “not minding his own business” and participating in Freedom Rides  Was denied treatment from a segregated hospital after the attacks

President John F. Kennedy

Civil Rights Act: 1964  Signed into law by President Johnson (after Kennedy)  This act bans any form of discrimination based on color, race, religion, or national origin in public places  Encouraged the desegregation of all public schools  The federal government is also allowed to enforce desegregation  Desegregation: An end to separation based on race

24 th Amendment: 1964  Abolished “poll tax”  Poll tax – A fee you had to pay in order to vote  This made it difficult for poor African Americans to vote

Voting Rights Act: 1965  Congress passes this act, making it easier for African Americans to register to vote  It enforces the “no poll tax” rule and takes away literacy tests

What do they want?

Civil Rights Act: 1968  President Johnson  Bans any discrimination in housing  Allows all people a fair chance to rent, own, or sell their property