The Civil Rights Movement January 8, 2014

The Beginnings… While we think of the modern civil rights movement as taking place during the 1960s, in reality, it started much earlier In Georgia, and other places in the United States, African-Americans had been making strides towards equality since right after World War II

Benjamin Mays Dr. Benjamin Mays was born in 1895 to parents who were former slaves He became a teacher, working in South Carolina and Georgia He taught at Morehouse College, becoming president of the college in 1940 He served as the Atlanta School Board’s first African-American president He became an advisor to Martin Luther King, Jr. during King’s freshman year at Morehouse He retired in 1981 A street and a high school in Atlanta are named after him

The End of the White Primary Primary elections determine who is nominated to be on the ballot for the general election Although the 15th Amendment gave African-American men the right to vote, legislators in Georgia twisted it to mean only in the general election So, only whites voted in the primaries, guaranteeing that their candidates would be nominated In 1946, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that white primaries were unconstitutional and from then on, African-American voters could take part in all elections

1946 Governor’s Race Democrats Eugene Talmadge, Eurith Rivers, and James Carmichael were running Talmadge became the party candidate due to the county unit system He ran unopposed, and was elected, but was in very poor health His advisors didn’t think he would live long enough to finish his term, so they came up with a plan They had a few hundred supporters write in Talmadge’s son Herman on the ballot as their second choice

Government in Chaos Before being sworn in, Eugene Talmadge died The legislature chose Herman Talmadge as governor based on the number of write-in votes he had received Technically, the lieutenant governor, Melvin Thompson should have taken Eugene Talmadge’s place However, a group of Talmadge’s supporters broke in to the governor’s office, changed the locks, and prepared to run the state

Finally…a governor! Ellis Arnall, the outgoing governor, was locked out of his own office, so he set up a new one and officially resigned the governorship 3 days later Lieutenant Governor Thompson also set up an office and began proceedings to become governor Since no one was officially governor, there was no one running the state Finally in March, the state Supreme Court ruled that Thompson was the rightful governor until a special election could be held in 1948 In that election, Herman Talmadge was legally elected governor of the state

Herman Talmadge Talmadge, who was re-elected in 1950, was a strict segregationist and refused to integrate Georgia’s schools He tried to bring back the white primary, but failed He did improve education, even while keeping it segregated He expanded schools to include grades 1-12 and lengthened the school year to 9 months He raised standards for school buildings, transportation, and curriculum

Integration of schools… In 1950, a black student, Linda Brown tried to enroll at a white school in Kansas She was denied, so her dad sued the school board The case, Brown v. the Board of Education, reached the U.S. Supreme Court In 1954, the court ruled that “separate-but-equal” schools were unconstitutional It ordered integration of schools This ruling overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson ruling that had allowed “separate-but-equal”

Sibley Commission In Georgia, most schools refused to integrate In 1955, the Georgia legislature voted to cut off funding to any system that integrated A commission, headed by John Sibley, was appointed to study the problem They found that most Georgians would rather close the schools than integrate them The commission recommended that school systems be allowed to decide on their own what they should do

Integration of Colleges On January 6, 1961, the University of Georgia, backed by the Governor Vandiver, allowed its first two black students, Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter, into the school Holmes later graduated with honors and went on to become an orthopedic surgeon Hunter would become a nationally known newspaper and public television reporter Governor Vandiver would go on to ask the legislature to repeal segregation laws in Georgia, paving the way for smoother integration than in other states

The 1956 Georgia state flag In 1956, the state flag was changed to incorporate the Confederate battle emblem African-Americans were offended as they felt this referenced slavery in the state’s past Georgia lost millions as the reference to “old-fashioned southern” traditions damaged the tourist industry It wasn’t changed until 2001, then again in 2003

Martin Luther King, Jr. MLK, Jr. was born in Atlanta in 1929 He attended Morehouse College and obtained a Ph.D. He believed in a 4-pronged approach to gaining civil rights: direct, nonviolent action; legal remedies; ballots; economic boycotts He helped organize huge protests in Birmingham, AL that led to the writing of the civil rights laws by President John F. Kennedy He also spoke at the 1963 March on Washington He was assassinated in Memphis, TN in 1968

Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee Following Dr. King’s lead in non-violence, a new era of protest was started by black college students with a sit-in at a lunch counter in North Carolina in 1960 A sit-in occurs when people enter a public building and refuse to leave until they are served or their demands are met Even though they were refused service, the idea spread around the South Later that year, the SNCC (pronounced “snick”) was created Their first president was Georgian John Lewis They helped register African-Americans to vote, led protests, organized sit-ins, and boycotted businesses that wouldn’t serve African-Americans

Albany Movement Following the example of SNCC, a sit-in was organized in Albany, GA in the “whites-only” waiting room at the bus station The protestors were arrested, which led the African-American community to form the Albany Movement More protestors arrived, and were arrested, including high school students Dr. King, who had traveled to Albany, was arrested for protesting All of this led to a biracial committee being formed to study the concerns of African-Americans in Albany

March on Washington - 1963 President Kennedy sent the strongest civil rights bill in history to Congress in June 1963 Congress took their time with it, leading to over 250,000 people representing all races and nationalities to gather at the Washington Monument to demonstrate for its passage Dr. King gave the most famous speech of his career, the “I Have a Dream” speech here on August 28, 1963

The 1964 Civil Rights Act The bravery of civil rights demonstrators and the March on Washington caught the nation by storm Even though President Kennedy was assassinated in Nov. 1963, the new president, Lyndon Johnson, continued to urge Congress to pass the civil rights laws It was eventually passed into law, and became the most far-reaching civil rights legislation in American history It made segregation of public places illegal It prohibited discrimination in businesses It withheld funds from public school systems that refused to integrate

Changes in Georgia’s government In the 1960s, two rulings by the federal court brought dramatic change to the political structure in Georgia The end of the county unit system reapportionment The 1970s saw the election of African-Americans as Atlanta’s mayor and to the U.S. House of Representatives

The End of the County Unit System This system had been in place since 1917 to give power to Georgia’s rural areas In 1962, the Georgia federal court ruled the county unit system violated the 14th Amendment This caused a shift in political power to the urban areas, and gave predominantly black populations an equal opportunity to elect representatives As a result, Leroy Johnson was elected in 1962 as the first African-American state senator since Reconstruction

Reapportionment When the county unit system decision was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, they handed down the “one person, one vote” decision This is the concept that every citizen’s vote should be equal to every other citizen’s vote no matter where they live In 1964, the federal court ruled that Georgia violated the one-person, one-vote concept by distributing one legislative seat to each county The court said that legislative seats should be based on population rather than county boundary lines Georgia had to reapportion (redraw) its voting districts so they were of equal population size This also shifted political power to urban areas

Lester Maddox Lester Maddox was elected governor in 1967 Although Maddox was a famous segregationist, he surprised Georgians by appointing more African-Americans to state boards and commissions He integrated the Georgia State Patrol He also reformed state prisons and increased spending on teacher salaries and higher education

Maynard Jackson Jackson became Atlanta’s first African-American mayor in 1974 He helped the city progress by reorganizing the police and fire departments, as well as city government He led the development of MARTA and expanded the airport into one of the busiest in the world He helped lead the efforts to bring the 1996 Olympics to Atlanta When he died in 2003, the airport was renamed Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in his honor

Andrew Young Young, who is from Thomasville, GA, was a trusted aide to Dr. King and was in Memphis when he was assassinated He was elected to the U.S House of Representatives in 1972 He was twice re-elected to the House He was appointed as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations in 1977 He returned to Georgia in 1981, where he was elected mayor of Atlanta twice He helped bring the 1996 Olympics to Atlanta and is currently a professor at Georgia State University

Questions… 1) How is Benjamin Mays connected to Dr. King? 2) When did the white primary end? 3) Who was elected governor in the 1946 election? 4) Why did the legislature choose Herman Talmadge as governor after Eugene Talmadge’s death? 5) Who was eventually appointed governor by the Supreme Court? 6) What did Herman Talmadge refuse to do while Georgia’s governor? 7) How did Talmadge improve education? 8) What did the Brown v. Board of Education decision say? 9) What ruling did Brown overturn? 10) What did the Sibley Commission recommend? 11) Who were the first African-Americans to integrate UGA? 12) Why did the 1956 state flag offend many African-Americans?

More Questions… 13) What famous civil rights leader was born in Atlanta in 1929? 14) What was Dr. King’s approach to gaining civil rights? 15) What did the SNCC do? 16) What was the Albany Movement protesting? 17) Why was the March on Washington organized? 18) What famous speech was delivered at the March on Washington in 1963? 19) What did the Civil Rights Act of 1964 do? 20) What amendment did the county unit system violate? 21) How did the end of the county unit system affect elections? 22) What is the “one-person, one-vote” concept? 23) How did Georgia have to reapportion its voting districts? 24) How did Lester Maddox surprise Georgians? 25) What political positions did Andrew Young hold? 26) Who was Atlanta’s first African-American mayor? 27) What were Jackson’s accomplishments as mayor?