1. The Civil Rights Movement: The 1950s

2. CRM Activists: The NAACP
Founded in 1909 initially to protest lynching & discrimination
Middle-class organization
Works mainly to combat legal discrimination

3. The NAACP & School Desegregation
NAACP attacks grad schools first—why?
Less dangerous b/c less overall impact & won’t worry whites over mixing white & black school kids
McLaurin v. Oklahoma Regents (1950)
Ends discrimination in higher education
Effectively kills Plessy v. Ferguson’s “separate but equal”
Sweatt v. Painter (1950)
Same as above

4. George McLaurin at University of Oklahoma

5. Brown v. Topeka Board of Education (May 17, 1954)
Earl Warren
Governor of CA during WWII,
realizes racial discrimination is bad
following Japanese internment
Mendez v. Westminster (1946): CA
school deseg. case under Warren
Warren becomes the Supreme Court Chief Justice that will rule on Brown

6. Brown v. Topeka Board of Education (May 17, 1954)
Unanimous decision ruling that “separate but equal” in public schools is inherently unequal
Case argued by NAACP lawyer Thurgood Marshall
Orders school desegregation (very vague)
Brown II (1955): Gives a few more details
Timeline to be “with all deliberate speed”

7. Effects of Brown v. Board
First major test was Central High in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957
Gov. Orval Faubus orders troops to block the entrance to the first 9 black students
Eisenhower had seen enough
Uses the army to escort the students to class
Families of black students become targets of violence
Imagine going to high school under those conditions

8. Effects of Brown v. Board
Federal troops protecting the first black students at Central High School in
Little Rock, Arkansas, September 1957.

9. White Backlash to Brown
The Southern Manifesto
Agreement signed by 82 of 106 southern congressmen & all but 3 senators denouncing Brown & calling for forceful, but legal resistance to desegregation
White Citizens’ Councils created
Local organizations for racist whites to chat
Birth of private schools
Not subject to Brown ruling, racists welcome
Public schools closed

10. Effects of Brown v. Board on Colleges
Autherine Lucy & the University of Alabama
Enrolls February 3, 1956 following court order
Riots break out, she’s suspended & eventually quits
Bama stays all white until 1963
James Meredith & Ole Miss
Enrolls October 1, 1962
Leads immediately to riots on campus
JFK must use National Guard to restore order

11. Effects of Brown v. Board
Governor George Wallace standing in the doorway of Foster Auditorium
preventing the desegregation of the University of Alabama. June 11, 1963.

12. Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-56)
Claudette Colvin arrested for riding up front on March 2, 1955
9 months before Rosa Parks
Problem w/Colvin was that she’s 15, dark-skinned, pregnant & unmarried
Led by Jo Ann Robinson, E.D. Nixon, & a young MLK
King brought in to add “church” respectability to boycott
Claudette Colvin
Rosa Parks

13. Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-56)
Incorporates working class
The entire black community works together here…very powerful
Montgomery public transit crippled by lack of business
Victory after 381 days
Browder v. Gayle (Nov. 13, 1956): Supreme Court strikes down Alabama’s law requiring segregation on busses

14. CRM Activists: King & the SCLC
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Formed by King on the heels of Montgomery bus boycott in 1957
First real competition with NAACP

15. For Next Time… We’ll look at the civil rights movement in the 1960s
Activist groups and tactics changed throughout this decade
Things get a bit more complicated