The US Civil Rights Movement The United States in the 1950s – 1960s

Social Movements In North America, during the 1930s and the WWII, workers organized into a labour movement that successfully won union workers a stable, secure, and profitable relationship with business owners This was a significant shift from how labour relations had been in the past

Social Movements The success was partially a result of the war effort needing a reliable work force It was also successful because of the techniques it used to get its message across It was the labour movement that used such techniques as boycotts, sit-ins, and marches

Social Movements These techniques were embraced by movements in North America that followed it: Civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s Student movement and women’s rights movement in the 1960s Gay rights movement and the American Indian Movement (AIM) of the 1970s WTO Seattle protests 1999 and OWS 2011 - present

US Civil Rights Movement After slavery was abolished in the United States, African Americans were still denied equal status despite the promises held within: The Declaration of Independence (1776) The Emancipation Proclamation (1863) (Amended 1865 to include all states)

The Emancipation Proclamation (1863/1865) “All persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State…shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.”

The Emancipation Proclamation (1863) “…and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.”

The Declaration of Independence (1776) “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Promises, promises… Together the The Declaration of Independence (1776) and The Emancipation Proclamation (1863/1865): Documents about freedom that speak to all human beings (people are “created equal” and “free) Let the government know what the people expect of it (e.g. maintain the freedom of all persons) Set out the democratic rights of the people – including the right to change the government when it fails!

Thirteenth Amendment to the Bill of Rights

Fourteenth Amendment to the Bill of Rights

Second Class Citizens How did such clear language manage to be twisted into such a shape that segregation became the social norm in the southern states of the U.S. and in parts of the north?

Plessy vs. Ferguson

“separate but equal” This phrase became the justification (and the green light) for segregration of many public and private across the southern United States.

Living with Jim Crow 19th Century: Jim Crow Laws of racial segregation Required blacks and whites to be segregated in all venues of daily life Examples: schools, drinking fountains, restaurants, taxis, telephone booths, movie theatres, hotels, ambulances, and cemeteries “Separate but equal”

US Civil Rights Movement: Strategies and Tactics Personal challenges/defiance (e.g. Rosa Parks) Boycotts (e.g. bus boycotts) Mass meetings, committees, speeches Legal challenges (e.g. Brown v. The Board of Education) Mass protest Media (e.g. national press) Non-violent, passive resistance (sit-ins) Music (e.g. “Eyes on the Prize”, “We Shall Overcome”) Leadership (Martin Luther King)

Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years 1954–1964. Part One: Awakenings (1954 – 1956)

Keep Your Eyes on the Prize (Hold On) (1956) Lyrics by Alice Wine