2. Imagine… if you were not allowed to live where you want.
if you were not allowed to go where you want.
if you were afraid of being killed by people in your own town.
if people made fun of you and thought you were a fool.
if people attacked you when you said what you thought.
if people would not let you vote.
if you were considered less of a person.

3. Segregation Divides America
Plessy v. Ferguson was a Louisiana court case that went all the way to the Supreme Court in 1896.
The Court said that segregation by race was legal.
It said that blacks and whites could be separate as long as the facilities were the same. It started the idea of “Separate but Equal.”
It made blacks and other minorities second class citizens.

4. Separate but Equal
This picture shows how blacks were forced to sit in different places in movie theaters and restaurants.
Blacks hated this, but they were forced to do it by state and city governments.

5. "The Rex theater for Negro People." Leland, Mississippi, November Marion Post Wolcott, photographer.

6. Jim Crow Laws

12. Separate but Equal
Blacks were forced to sit in different parts of bus and train stations.
They were forced to get on last and ride in the back of the bus.
They were forced to ride in different train cars.

13. " People waiting for a bus at the Greyhound bus terminal
" People waiting for a bus at the Greyhound bus terminal." Memphis, Tennessee. September Esther Bubley, photographer.

14. Separate but NOT Equal
Separate but Equal was the law, but many cities and states did not listen.
This is an example of a restaurant that blacks had to eat in.
Whites had a cleaner, newer restaurant in another part of town.

15. Texas sign

16. "A cafe near the tobacco market." Durham, North Carolina. May 1940.

17. Jim Crow Laws

18. Blacks and whites were kept separate in…
Buses and trains.
Courts: Blacks could not serve on juries.
Movie theaters.
Restaurants, Schools, Hospitals, Jobs, Graveyards
Homes: Blacks could not buy houses in white neighborhoods.
Marriages: Blacks and whites could not marry.
In one city blacks and whites couldn’t even play CHECKERS together

19. That does not make any sense!!!
What about civil rights? Civil rights means everyone who is a citizen deserves the same rights. Don’t blacks and whites have the same rights?
The 14th Amendment says “Equal protection.”
Separate but Equal would give blacks equality, right?
Blacks might be separate, but doesn’t the equal part mean they have the same rights and opportunities as whites?

20. Wrong. Separate was fine with segregationists
Wrong! Separate was fine with segregationists. Segregationists were not interested in letting blacks have the Equal part.

21. Separate but NOT Equal was the reality in the lives of blacks.

22. Segregationists fought against equal rights for blacks.
The Ku Klux Klan was established in 1867 to scare blacks into not voting or running for public office.
They used violence and intimidation to stop blacks from voting and gaining equality.

23. Jim Crow Laws
White leaders in state and city government made laws that separated whites and blacks.
These laws, called Jim Crow Laws, were made to keep blacks as second class citizens.
“Jim Crow” was a character in theater who was foolish and stupid. Calling someone “Jim Crow” was an insult.

24. · With help from the NAACP, the case of Brown v
· With help from the NAACP, the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka reached the Supreme Court, challenging the constitutionality of Plessy v. Ferguson.

25. · In the case, Oliver Brown challenged that his daughter, Linda, should be allowed to attend an all-white school near her home instead of the distant all-black school she had been assigned to.
Oliver Brown was a welder for the Santa Fe Railroad and a part-time assistant pastor at St. John African Methodist Episcopal Church.
Linda Brown was in the third grade when her father began his class action lawsuit.

26. · Brown’s lawyer, Thurgood Marshall, argued that “separate” could never be “equal” and that segregated schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee to provide “equal protection” to all citizens.

27. Standing outside a Topeka classroom in 1953 are the students represented in Oliver Brown et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka, From left: Vicki Henderson, Donald Henderson, Linda Brown (Oliver's daughter), James Emanuel, Nancy Todd, and Katherine Carper.

28. * In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Brown family, and schools nationwide were ordered to be desegregated.
George E.C. Hayes, Thurgood Marshall, and James M. Nabrit, following Supreme Court decision ending segregation.

29. Linda Brown and her new class mates after Court decision.

31. Thurgood Marshall (1908-1993) Associate Justice, U.S. Supreme Court.

32. Integrated schools:
Although some states desegregated quickly many southern states refuse
“Desegregation would mark the beginning of the end of civilization in the South as we know it” Governor Byrnes of SC
In Little Rock, Arkansas, Gov. Orval Faubus opposed integration.

33. Little Rock Nine
Sept little rock school board announces desegregation
Governor Faubus (before reelection campaign) speaks out against desegregation
He orders Arkansas National Guard to surround building and not let the 9 black students in
Goes on for nearly 3 weeks

34. Bottom Row, Left to Right: Thelma Mothershed, Minnijean Brown, Elizabeth Eckford, Gloria Ray; Top Row, Left to Right: Jefferson Thomas, Melba Pattillo, Terrence Roberts, Carlotta Walls, Daisy Bates(NAACP President), Ernest Green

35. Little Rock Nine
Elizabeth Eckford does not receive message not to go to school
“When I got in front of the school… I didn’t know what to do… Just then the guards let some white students go through… I walked up to the guard who had let (them) in… When I tried to squeeze past him, he raised his bayonet, and then the other guard moved in… Somebody (in the crowd) started yelling ‘lynch her! Lynch her!

38. Little Rock Nine
Eisenhower is angered by the occurrences in little Rock
Sends 1000 troops to make sure students enter
On September 25, 1957 the Little Rock Nine finally enter Central High

39. African American students arriving at Central High School, Little Rock, Arkansas, in U.S. Army car, 1957.

40. Members of the 101st US-Airborne Division escorting the Little Rock Nine to school

42. Life at Little Rock Endured a difficult year
Minniejean Brown suspended for dumping food on a white boy who had made a racist comment
In February another white student made a nasty remark to Brown and when she responded with an insult she was expelled for good
White students passed out cards “One Down…Eight to Go”
Despite such pressure the others stayed
In May 1958 Ernest Green became the first A.A. to graduate from Central High
“When they called my name…nobody clapped, but I figured they didn’t have to because after I got that diploma, that was it. I had accomplished what I came there for”
Faubus continued his battle, closing the school district in
Court ordered it to reopen in 1959

43. The Fight
Many African Americans and whites risked their lives and lost their lives to remedy this situation.
Rosa Parks was not the first, but she was the beginning of something special.

45. Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955
Rosa Parks was arrested for violating the segregation laws of Montgomery, Alabama.

47. In Response. . . For over a year, Blacks boycotted the buses.
They carpooled and walked through all weather conditions

50. Police started harassing the car pool, threatening to arrest drivers, revoke their licenses, and cancel their insurance policies.  On January 26, King was arrested for speeding and taken to jail (for driving 30 in a 25 mph zone).  A few days later his house was bombed.  Soon King was receiving dozens of hate letters and threatening phone calls every day.  In February an all-white grand jury indicted 89 people, including twenty-four ministers and all drivers in the car pool, for violating an obscure state anti-labor law that prohibited boycotts.  King was the first to be tried.  The judge found him guilty and sentenced him a year of hard labor or a fine of $500 plus court costs. 

51. Many were arrested for an “illegal boycott” including their leader. . .

52. MLK

53. Martin Luther King Jr.

54. King’s sacrifice King was arrested thirty times in his 38 year life.
His house was bombed or nearly bombed several times
Death threats constantly

55.
While the NAACP fought in the courts, MLK’s organization led the boycott.

56. Success!

57. A hard-won battle:
· In 1956, the Supreme Court ruled that segregation on buses was unconstitutional.
· Therefore, the Montgomery bus company agreed to integrate their buses and hire black bus drivers.
Dr. King and his wife, Coretta, at the conclusion of the boycott.

58. Beyond Black and White
Segregation and discrimination affected others besides AA in the 1950s
Nonwhite Americans continued to face prejudice
After fighting for democratic ideals overseas in WW2 motivated many to stand up and defend those ideals at home

59. The Hispanic Experience
Felix Longoria a Mexican American soldier who died in WW2
In 1948 when his body was returned to his hometown, Three Rivers, TX the towns only funeral home refused to handle his burial because he was Mexican
Senator LBJ steps in and arranged for him to be buried with full military honors at Arlington

60. League for United Latin American Citizens
LULAC: formed 1929
Followed many of NAACPs tactics
Focused on ending segregation

61. Asian Immigration 1952 Congress repeals the Chinese Exclusion Act
Sing Sheng a WW2 war hero attempted to buy a house in San Fran suburb Southwood
When the white neighbors found out they began a petition to stop it