Day II: Gaining Equality by Any Means Civil Rights Day II Day II: Gaining Equality by Any Means

Motivation: The Doll Test Motivation: The Doll Test. In the “doll test,” psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark used four plastic, diaper-clad dolls, identical except for color. They showed the dolls to black children between the ages of three and seven and asked them questions to determine racial perception and preference. Almost all of the children readily identified the race of the dolls. However, when asked which they preferred, the majority selected the white doll and attributed positive characteristics to it. The Clarks also gave the children outline drawings of a boy and girl and asked them to color the figures the same color as themselves. Many of the children with dark complexions colored the figures with a white or yellow crayon. The Clarks concluded that “prejudice, discrimination, and segregation” caused black children to develop a sense of inferiority and self-hatred.

This photograph was taken by Gordon Parks for a 1947 issue of Ebony magazine – the doll test being conducted How is racism institutionalized? (Other ways besides the doll test?) What inequalities existed outside of legal ones during the 1950s and 60s?

Aim: Are the ideas of the Black Power movement more effective than the civil disobedience movement? Key Terms: Doll Test Black Panthers Malcolm X Black Power Ghetto Housing Projects Kerner Commission Essential Questions: What inequalities existed outside of legal ones during the 1950s and 60s? How is racism institutionalized? Should equality be won by any means necessary?

Malcolm X

Kerner Commission

    Photograph of a sign posted opposite the Sojourner Truth homes, a new U.S. federal housing project, during a riot caused by white neighbors’ attempts to prevent African-American tenants from moving in. (*S. Truth = abolitionist from 1820s) Detroit, Michigan, February 1942  

   Photograph of demonstrations to end housing discrimination in New York City, at the site of the St. Nicholas Houses in Harlem.  New York City, July 28, 1950

Ralph Matthew, “Alabama Bus Strike Recalls Hectic Days of Cleveland Boycott Fight,” Illustration, c. 1956  

Songs “Change is Gonna Come” – Same Cooke “The Promised Land” – Chuck Berry “What’s Going On?” – Marvin Gaye “What’s Going On? Mother, mother There’s far too many of you dying You know we’ve got to find a way To bring some lovin’ here today – Ya Father, father We don’t need to escalate You see, war is not the answer For only love can conquer hate…”

Black Power Salute at the 1968 Olympics Kneeling for National Anthem: 2017

Can government action change people’s attitudes and bring about social change? “I do not believe you can change the hearts of men with laws and decisions.”—President Eisenhower (1957) “We must continue to struggle through the courts, through legislation. I’m aware of the fact that there are those who sincerely believe that this isn’t the way. They would argue that you cannot legislate morals. Their argument is that integration must come into being through education. I’m sympathetic toward that view. I will agree that you can’t legislate morals. I will agree that through the law you can’t change one’s internal feeling. But that isn’t what we seek to do through the law. We are not seeking so much to change attitudes through law, but to control behavior. We are not so much seeking to change one’s internal feelings, but to control the external effects of those internal feelings. I realize that the law cannot make an employer love me or have compassion for me. Education and religion will have to do that. But it can at least keep him from refusing to hire me because of the color of my skin. This is what we seek to do through the law. We seek to control the external effects of internal feelings that are prejudiced.” --Martin Luther King, Jr.

Congress of Racial Equality Black Power is not hatred. It is a means to bring the Black Americans into the covenant of Brotherhood. Black Power is not a supremacy; it is a unified Black Voice reflecting racial pride in the tradition of our heterogeneous nation.