2. Ch 18 sec 5

3.  The Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act both expanded and protected the rights of African Americans. Martin Luther King wanted to shift focus to economic inequality for all races.  The Poor People’s Campaign began with the hope of alerting the nation to how bad the lives of the poor were.

4.  When King was assassinated, the leadership of the movement fell to Ralph Abernathy. He organized the Poor People’s Campaign that went to Washington D.C.  The weather was very bad, some protestors were rude to reporters, and some were gang members who were eventually sent away.

5.  The protestors lived in tents for six weeks, until police used tear gas to empty their tent city and tore everything down.  Without King’s leadership the movement failed. They did not express their needs or demands clearly and some people viewed their ideas as Communist.

6.  The FBI was concerned about the threats to American society from many different groups, including civil rights groups, and Hoover thought Communists were at the heart of those groups.  Spies for the FBI infiltrated the groups and reported back what they were doing.

7.  Hoover’s first target was Martin Luther King, but as the Black Power movement grew, he shifted focus onto destroying that movement.  The spies pitted the groups against each other, spreading rumors that the Black Panthers wanted to kill SNCC leaders, and producing false advertisements that made the Panthers seem more violent than they were.

8.  Hoover also encouraged police to stop the Panthers by any means, and since the Panthers were usually armed, the conflicts turned violent.  The leaders would eventually either be killed or would flee the country, which severely weakened the group’s ability to resist.

9.  The Fair Housing Act prevented discrimination in the sale or renting of homes, but it would still take years to reverse the segregation that unfair housing practices had created.  To combat this, and the continued non-integration of schools, busing programs were ordered to help speed integration. Many of these programs were resisted, some with violence.

10.  These programs also caused many whites to leave the urban areas and move to the suburbs, which increased the power of African Americans in the urban areas. Many cities would elect black mayors as a result.  Affirmative action programs gave preference to minorities when they applied for jobs or colleges. These programs have caused divisions and resentments, and some of them are being repealed today.

11.  The idea of Black Power changed in the 1970s from one of violent resistance to exercising political power through the vote.  Since many areas of the South are predominantly black, blacks win political offices and become a part of the political landscape.

12.  Leaders of the civil rights movements in the 60’s became political leaders in the 70’s and 80’s.  Thurgood Marshall, the lawyer who argued the Brown v. Board of Ed. case before the Supreme Court, became the first minority Supreme Court Justice.

13.  John Lewis and Andrew Young became U.S. Representatives for Georgia.  Jesse Jackson will start his own civil rights group and will campaign for the poor throughout the world, and will run for president during the 1980s.

14.  Write 3 things you learned  2 things you want to learn more about  1 thing you did not understand  1 thing someone else learned that you did not write down