1. Chapter 28 The Civil Rights Movement

2. The Montgomery Bus Boycott
An African-American Community Challenges Segregation
1955: Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat
Martin Luther King, Jr., led a boycott of buses
Won court ruling —segregation ordinance was unconstitutional

3. The Segregated South
Signs designating “White” and “Colored” were a common sight in the segregated South
Served as a constant reminder that legal separation of the races in public spaces was the law of the land
The 1955 murder of Emmett Till galvanized the black community in the north, but received less attention in the white press, while Till’s murderers were acquitted.

5. Brown v. Board of Education
The NAACP initiated a series of court cases challenging the constitutionality of segregation.
Brown v. Board of Education
Newly appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren led the court to declare that separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.

6. Brown v. Board of Education
The court postponed ordering a clear timetable to implement the decision until 1955, and then only ordering desegregation “with all deliberate speed.”
Many towns and cities slow to comply
Black communities realized they would have to help themselves
Southern whites declared their intention to nullify the Brown decision and issued a defiant “Southern Manifesto.”

7. Crisis in Little Rock 1957 - Little Rock, Arkansas:
School integration is ordered
Governor Faubus ordered the National Guard to keep African-American children out of Little Rock Central High School
When riots erupted endangering the students, President Eisenhower used the Arkansas national Guard to integrate the school
The following year the Little Rock schools were closed completely to prevent what Faubus called “violence and disorder.”

9. MLK & the SCLC Martin Luther King:
Founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Promote nonviolent direct action to challenge segregation
Believed in creating tension & playing southern racists off against moderates as successful strategies to promote change

10. Sit-Ins: Greensboro, Nashville, Atlanta
Nonviolent sit-ins:
African-American college students, starting in Greensboro, North Carolina, began sitting in at segregated lunch counters
Widely supported by the African-American community
Accompanied by community-wide boycotts of businesses that would not integrate
By 1961, Atlanta had been largely desegregated

11. SNCC (“SNICK”) 1960 - Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
Inspired by long-time activist Ella Baker
Created by 120 young African American activists now at the forefront of nearly every major civil rights battle
Promoted nonviolent confrontation, mass action, & civil disobedience to challenge segregation

12. The Election of 1960 & Civil Rights
1960: Race issue center-stage
As vice president, Nixon had strongly supported civil rights
African-American voters provided Kennedy’s margin of victory, though an unfriendly Congress ensured that little legislation would be passed
Attorney General Robert Kennedy used the Justice Department to force compliance with desegregation orders

13. MAP 28.1 The Civil Rights Movement
Key battlegrounds in the struggle for racial justice in communities across the South.

14. Freedom Rides 1961 - The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE):
Sponsored a freedom ride of biracial teams to ride interstate buses in the South
Mobs firebombed a bus & severely beat Freedom Riders
Plenty of violence and no police protection at other stops (JFK intervenes)
Publicity in the media helped compel the Justice Department to enforce court rulings banning segregation on interstate bus lines

15. Birmingham, Alabama
Working with the SCLC, local activists planned a massive desegregation campaign
In acts of civil disobedience, demonstrators, including Martin Luther King, Jr., filled the city’s jails to the breaking point
Here MLK drafts his “Letter From a Birmingham Jail”

16. Birmingham, Alabama
TV audiences across America witness water hoses & snarling dogs attack protestors, including children
While a settlement was negotiated that desegregated businesses, violence continued
16th Street Baptist Church bombing kills four young black girls

17. JFK & the March on Washington
A. Philip Randolph
Revives old idea of a march on Washington was for August 1963
Called for universal freedom, jobs, and brotherhood
MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech electrified the audience of 250,000 and those watching at home
Shifting public consensus leads President Kennedy to appeal for civil rights legislation

18. Civil Rights Act of 1964
The assassination of JFK threw a cloud over the movement
The new president, Lyndon Baines Johnson, had never been a good friend to civil rights
LBJ rises to the occasion and uses his influence to push through the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that put a virtual end to Jim Crow

19. Mississippi Freedom Summer
1964: Mississippi targeted for a “freedom summer”
900 volunteers come to open up this closed society
Two white activists and a local black activist were quickly killed.
Tensions between white volunteers and black movement veterans.

20. Malcolm X
Many younger civil rights activists were drawn to the vision of Malcolm X:
Ridiculed integrationist goals
Urged black audiences to take pride in their African heritage
Break free from white domination

21. Malcolm X
He broke with the Nation of Islam, made a pilgrimage to Mecca, and returned to America with changed views
He sought common ground with the civil rights movement, but was murdered in 1965
Supported “Black Power” and a new black consciousness

22. Selma
Selma, Alabama:
Whites had kept blacks off the voting lists
Brutally attacked protesters
Protesters planned a march to Montgomery that ended when police beat marchers
Selma campaign reignited when a white gang attacked a group of Northern whites, killing one

23. Wall of Shame

24. Voting Rights Act of 1965
President Johnson addressed the nation identifying himself with the civil rights cause, declaring “we shall overcome”
The march went forward
In August 1965, LBJ signed the Voting Rights Act that authorized federal supervision of voter registration in the South

25. The Civil Rights Movement, 1945–1966
Using the Constitution, the courts, and federal law, the legal equality of blacks was assured, but by 1967 continuing poverty and lack of opportunities in the black community led many, including Dr. King, to begin shifting focus to economic equality, a problem that would prove far more difficult to solve than legal segregation.