The Civil Rights Movement The Watsons Go to Birmingham Unit Term 6

Historical Context Although the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution ended slavery and guaranteed the rights of blacks, these changes did little to change the attitudes and behaviors of white Americans, especially those living in the South. From the end of the Civil War in 1865 through the early 1960s, segregation severely limited where black people could go and what they could do.

What is Segregation? Separating people based on the color of their skin is called segregation. Segregation existed in the United States for decades after slavery ended. Racist laws and policies treated African Americans as second-class citizens and separated African Americans and whites.

Life During Segregation Segregation affected people’s daily lives. For example, African Americans and whites used different water fountains and bathrooms. They had separate waiting rooms and seating sections on public transportation, such as buses. Baseball leagues were either all African American or all white. The effect of segregation was to create the idea that African Americans were inferior to white people.

Jim Crow Laws These types of segregation laws became known as Jim Crow laws. Jim Crow laws existed in states south of and including Virginia. The term Jim Crow was a rude, disrespectful thing to call a black person.

Separate but Equal? Jim Crow laws started because of the Plessy v. Ferguson court ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1896 It said that dividing citizens by race was constitutional if the separate places were considered equal. The ruling legalized segregation.. In the South in the 1950s, African American and white children attended different schools. According to the “separate but equal” ruling, schools for African American students and schools for white students were supposed to be equal. In most segregated states, however, white schools received a lot more funding than African American schools, which meant that white schools had newer materials, larger and nicer classrooms, and higher-paid teachers than the schools for African Americans, which were often crowded and in run down schools

The Fight for Equal Rights The civil rights movement was a mass protest movement across the United States that tried to stop racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement of African Americans. The movement reached its peak in the 1950s and 1960s and was marked by civil disobedience and nonviolent protests, such as boycotts, sit-ins, and marches. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, and other leaders and activists — as well as thousands of ordinary people — blacks and whites took part in the protests.

Brown v. Topeka Board of Education In 1954, the Supreme Court said, in the case of Brown v. Topeka Board of Education, that separating students by race was unequal so “separate but equal was not possible. Therefore, segregation laws and policies violated the 14th Amendment, which prohibits states from denying citizens their civil liberties and equal protection under the law. The ruling caused public schools to have to desegregating.

Events of the Civil Rights Movement School Integration – The Little Rock 9 Bombing of Burmingham Church Bus Boycotts Lunch Counter Sit-ins Freedom Riders March on Washington Emmett Till KKK attacks College Admittance NAACP Bloody Sunday Fire hoses, police dogs, arrests, race riots, beatings 3 Civil Rights Workers murder Black Panthers – Black Power Loving vs Virginia (Interactional marriage) The Civil Rights Act – 1965 Equal Voting Rights Fair housing Equal Employment Opportunity Outlawed discrimination in public places and the workplace. …and many, many more!

Martin Luther King Jr. Desegregation continued in the South, and the civil rights movement carried on in the early 1960s. Martin Luther King Jr., the most famous civil rights leader, advocated civil disobedience and nonviolent protest to fight racism and discrimination. His most famous speech about racial equality, “I Have a Dream,” was delivered in Washington, D.C., in 1963. 

The Watsons Go to Birmingham-1963 The Watsons Go to Birmingham-1963 begins in January 1963, nine years after the Supreme Court ruled that “segregation is inherently unequal.” Unfortunately, life for many black people was still very different from life for white people. Because of the long history of segregation in the South, many Southern black people moved in the early 20th century to industrial areas of the North where there were more manufacturing jobs, like the automobile industry, and somewhat better treatment. Flint, Michigan, the setting of the book, was a very important automobile-manufacturing center in 1963. As a result of this movement toward the North, there were many Michigan families, like the Watsons, who had close relatives in the South.