1. The Civil Rights Movement

2. Signs of Change 1947 MLB desegregated 1948 Armed forces integrated
But still segregated in southern facilities (Plessey)
and by de facto in northern cities
Blacks had become political force in northern dem party

3. Background Blacks historically denied rights
Prosperity of the 1950’s passed them by
Between brings dramatic change
Cold War ideological battle fuels debate
Truman’s initiatives blocked

6. Brown v Board of Education
Preceded by decision affecting higher ed
1954 S.C. decision - segregation in schools is unconstitutional (14th Amendment)
Reversed Plessey v Ferguson (1896)
Thurgood Marshall – Attorney for NAACP
Warren: “separate schools are inherently unequal” & schools must desegregate with “all deliberate speed”

7. Implementing Desegregation
Southern states close schools,
“Little Rock Nine”
Orville Faubus
Arkansas Nat Guard
Confrontation (1957) – Ike sends fed soldiers to escort black students into white high school in Arkansas

9. Federal Troops Enforcing Desegregation

10. Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955)
Rosa Parks violates Alabama segregation law by sitting in white section of bus & is arrested
African Americans boycott buses citywide in protest
Baptist minister Martin Luther King becomes spokesman for boycott
’56 – SC rules segregation of transportation unconstitutional

12. Martin Luther King nonviolent protest civil disobedience Oratory
Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
nonviolent protest
civil disobedience
Oratory

14. March on Washington ‘63 MLK leads march “I Have a Dream”
Turning point in civil rights movement
Civil Right Act passed next year

16. Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee
SNCC
National Organization of Black College Students who Organized lunch-counters, pools, libraries, hotels
Greensboro, NC Woolworths ‘60

18. Freedom Rides
1961
Black and White members of CORE organized a integrated bus ride through the south to test the Supreme Court ruling outlawing segregation on public transportation.
Met with violence in Alabama

20. Malcolm X Petty Criminal Converts to Islam in prison
Militant Civil Rights Leader
Nation of Islam
Elijah Muhammad
>> Org of Afro-American Unity
Black Nationalism
Assassinated in ‘65

22. Kennedy on Civil Rights
Call to King’s Wife
The New Frontier – Included rebuilding blighted inner-cities (failed in Congress)
Consolidates support of African American electorate
Civil Rights Bill

23. Lyndon Johnson on Civil Rights
Civil Rights Act of Outlawed Discrimination
Voting Rights Act of 1965 – outlawed literacy tests

24. James Meredith 1962

25. Resistance to Change
KKK
King & X both assassinated
Birmingham Church Bombing
4 girls killed

28. Medgar Evers 1963

29. Stokely Carmichael

30. Selma March 1965

32. Pro-Segregation Platform
George Wallace
Independence Party
Pro-Segregation Platform