1. Civil Rights Movement
USHC 8.1

2. USHC 8.1
Analyze the African American Civil Rights Movement, including initial strategies, landmark court cases and legislation, the roles of key civil rights advocates and the media, and the influence of the Civil Rights Movement on other groups seeking equality.

3. The Civil Rights Movement
The Civil Rights Movement was a liberal movement that challenged the conservative status quo of race relations in the United States to secure for African Americans the full rights of citizenship including the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
The movements goals were equal treatment and the right to vote.

4. Civil Rights The failings:
failed promises of the Declaration of Independence
Reconstruction and the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments
the Jim Crow era

5. Not so Civil…
During the war, African Americans demanded more equitable treatment in war industries.
As a result, President Roosevelt established the Fair Employment Practices Commission .
However when the war ended, African Americans lost jobs to returning white soldiers.

6. Not so Civil…
African Americans also served in the military but were in segregated units.
African American soldiers from the North experienced Jim Crow as they trained on military bases in the South.
Some returning African American veterans were lynched.

7. Not so Civil …
This motivated President Truman to establish a civil rights commission, to support an anti-lynching law and to desegregate the military by executive order.
Revelations of concentration camps and the ‘Final Solution’ shocked Americans and called into question race relations in the United States.

8. ‘Cold’ effects
Cold War competition required that the United States gain the support of emerging nations in Asia and Africa.
Strategies used by the African American Civil Rights Movement forced the United States to live up to its constitutional promises or face embarrassment on the international stage.

9. Brown v. Board of Education
Overturned Plessy v. Ferguson
 Challenged the bussing of school children to ‘colored’ schools.
Challenged the effects psychologically on African-Americans
Important LEGAL action that set the tone for the Civil Rights movement that followed.

10. Brown v. Board of Education
The key holding of the Court was that, even if segregated black and white schools were of equal quality in facilities and teachers, segregation by itself was harmful to black students and unconstitutional.
They found that a significant psychological and social disadvantage was given to black children from the nature of segregation

11. Nonviolence the direct action nature of the movement
sites were specifically selected to show to the nation and the world the face of racism in order to get the support of the electorate for government assistance in securing civil rights.

12. Nonviolence
Nonviolent strategies were used in the Montgomery bus boycott, sit-ins, freedom rides, the Birmingham campaign, the March on Washington, Freedom Summer, and the Selma March.
A focus on the role of the media, especially television, will link the Civil Rights Movement to the popular culture of the post-World War II era and help explain its strategy and success.

13. Leadership
The Civil Rights Movement is an example of the importance of leadership.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was an important part of the nonviolent strategy.
The non-violent direct action campaign of the Civil Rights Movement was successful in getting presidential support and the support of the majority of the voting public in the early 1960s

14. Presidential Reactions
Truman- Desegregates the Military
Eisenhower- Enforced the Brown decision by calling in military
Kennedy- very supportive in his ‘short time’...military support of desegregation
Johnson-Very supportive, gets Civil Rights and Voting Act….1st Black justice appointed
Nixon- Supportive and pushes ERA

15. Major Legislation Civil Rights Act of 1964 Voting Rights Act of 1965
outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin
Voting Rights Act of 1965
Ended the unfair practices of literacy tests and poll taxes.
Fair Housing Act of 1968
Stopped discrimination in selling and renting housing to minorities.

16. Black Power (De Facto)
The goals, actions, and leadership of the black power movement [Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, and the Black Panthers] among northern, urban African Americans were significantly different from those of southern African Americans.

17. Black Power
While Southern African Americans could confront segregation by law (de jure) with direct action, de facto segregation as practiced in other parts of the country was more insidious.
Televised reports of urban riots and the radical rhetoric of the black power movement alienated the general public and undermined support for further government action.

18. Black Power
Many oversimplify the movement because of its violent rhetoric, but the Black Power movement was active in promoting ethnic pride and empowering the African American community.

19. Other Movements
The movement for African American civil rights had an impact on the movements for women’s rights, the rights of Latinos, and the rights of Native Americans.
National Organization for Women (NOW) was organized to promote their own rights and in securing the support of government and the public in promoting women’s rights.

20. Feminist Timeline The Feminine Mystique- Civil Rights Act of 1964
Book that brought attention to the fact that male driven media was ‘informing’ women on their role as homemakers.
Got women thinking about fulfillment outside of the traditional home.
Civil Rights Act of 1964
Sex was added to this to stop discrimination by gender

21. Feminist Timeline Roe v Wade Equal Rights Amendment
Gave women the right to have abortions, making them ‘master’s of their own body’.
Equal Rights Amendment
Not passed, but hotly debated in the 60s, 70s, and 80s

22. Brown and Red Power
The goals, strategies and government response to movements for the rights of Latinos and Native Americans were similar to the early African American civil rights movement.
These movements also lost support when they turned more militant.