1. A Movement of Movements
Unit Overview

2. Organizing Principle
The experience of World War II began to challenge conventional wisdom regarding race relations in the United States. Following the global conflict, African-Americans created a national conflict by challenging the racial hierarchy that ran directly against the basic principles that this country was founded on. Black Americans, followed by other minority groups that were excluded from the American dream, fundamentally changed the American narrative by standing up for their rights during the 1950s through the 1970s.

3. Black Status Quo South under Plessy v. Ferguson North Global politics
1950—15 million African Americans
2/3 live in the South
Jim Crow South
De facto segregation—by law
Disfranchisement
North
Secure access to some public accommodations
Tokenism
Jackie Robinson—integrated baseball (1947)
Global politics
America defined?
Exposes the disparity in American Credo
Decolonization

4. The Seeds of Revolt WWII The American Dilemma (1944) Truman Era NAACP
Military service
Labor activism—A. Phillip Randolph
Protests during the war
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
Sit-ins
Second Great Migration
The American Dilemma (1944)
Gunnar Myrdal
Truman Era
“To Secure These Rights”—gov’t. commission
Desegregates the military (1948)
NAACP
Legal attack
Smith v. Allwright (1944)
White primary declared unconstitutional
Sweatt v. Painter (1950)
Equality in Law Schools
Baton Rouge, LA
Bus boycott 1953

5. Brown V. Board of Education
Courts take lead
Chief Justice Earl Warren
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954)
Desegregates public schools
“all deliberate speed”
Cracks Plessy v. Ferguson legal precedent
Brown II
Local solutions
Southern reaction—resistance
Move to impeach Warren
Southern Manifesto—1956
99 politicians to resist Brown
White Citizens’ Council
Shift to “private” schools
Stalls integration
Deep South—2% of blacks integrated in 10 years

7. Awareness Emmett Till 14 year old Chicagoan
Spends summer in Mississippi
Does not adhere to racial etiquette
Whistles at a white women
Brutally murdered by vigilantes
Murderers acquitted by an all white jury
National media picks up the story

8. Mobilization in Montgomery
Rosa Parks
Seamstress
NAACP Secretary
Refuses to give up her seat 12/1/1955
Arrested
Calls for a boycott (12/55-01/56)
Montgomery Improvement Association
E.D. Nixon—labor leader
Organized through the church
Martin Luther King Jr.
Spokesman for boycott
White community/businesses resist
Supreme Court
Rules segregation of buses unconstitutional in AL

9. Civil Rights in 1957 Central High School Civil Rights Act of 1957
Little Rock, Arkansas(1957)
School integration
“Little Rock Nine”
Governor Orval Faubus
Sends in national guard to prevent integration
Violates court order
Ike sends in troops to protect black students
Faubus challenged federal authority
Civil Rights Act of 1957
Establishes permanent government commission
Investigates violations of civil rights
“Protects” voting rights
Southern Christian Leadership Conference (1957)
Political agency of black churches who supported Civil Rights
MLK—face of the movement
Eisenhower refuses to back Brown
LBJ waters down the Civil Rights Act of 1957 to prevent Southern filibuster
SCLC was formed to keep the interest of activists after the Montgomery campaign

10. Direct Action Phase “Sit-in” movement begins
01 February 1960
Greensboro, NC
Movement spreads across the South
“Ghandian” Non-Violence
Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)—1960
Ella Baker
North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College
White protestors waved Confederate Flags at the protestors
Highlander Folk School

11. Kennedy and Civil Rights
Election of 1960
Kennedy calls Coretta Scott King
Black voters
Kennedy moves slowly
“With a stroke of a pen”
Discrimination in housing
Does not follow through
Wary about Dr. King’s associates
Communist ties
Voter Education Project
Funding encouraged by the Kennedy’s

12. Freedom Rides Freedom Riders (1961)
CORE tests supreme court ruling on interstate busing
Desegregate bus stations
Met with violence
Alabama—KKK and local law enforcement
Federal Marshals dispatched
John Seigenthaler, Kennedy’s emissary, was beaten unconscious in MS
Parchman Prison Farm

13. Stand Off at “Ole Miss” University of Mississippi
September 1962
James Meredith granted admission by SCOTUS
Gov. Ross Barnett blocks Meredith
Kennedy calls in Federal Marshals
October 1962
Protect Meredith
Mob congregates in protest
Violence ensues
Kennedy calls in MS National Guard
Two dead, 160 marshals injured

14. The Student Movement Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)
Al Haber and Tom Hayden
“Port Huron Statement”
Participatory democracy
Anti-imperialism
The Free Speech Movement (FSM)
University of California—Berkeley
Political participation on campus
The “New” Left
White, middle-class and from the North
Assisted in protest movements
Civil Rights and Anti-War Movement

15. Birmingham Campaign Antecedents SCLC & Project C Media Frenzy!
Albany, GA
SCLC & Project C
April 1963—attempt to end segregation
Stated sit-downs and marches
Encourage student involvement
Police get violent
Eugene “Bull” Connor
Fire hoses, dogs and nightsticks used on students
Kennedy sends in mediators
Klan launches bombing campaign
16th Street Baptist Church
Media Frenzy!
Letter from a Birmingham Jail
Laurie Pritchett of Albany stifled media attention by not resorting to violence.
C=Confrontation

16. U.S. Government and Civil Rights
Congress
The 23rd Amendment (1960)
Electoral votes for D.C.
The 24th Amendment (1962)
Abolished poll tax
Implemented in 1964
Supreme Court
Baker v. Carr (1962)
Equalized representation of voters in TN
JFK (1963)
Civil Rights Commission
Proposes Civil Rights Act
Resistance still ripe
Medgar Evers assassinated in MS

17. March on Washington (for Jobs and Freedom)
28 August 1963
Planned by A. Philip Randolph
Economic concern
Unemployment
Income inequality
Living standards
Hope to rally congress to pass Kennedy’s Bill
“I Have a Dream”
Critics
Malcolm X
March demographics (2/3 black, 1/3 white)

18. Gender Equality Social Feminism Equal Rights Feminism
Labor and radicals
Equal Rights Feminism
Middle class
The Feminine Mystique
Betty Freidan (1963)
“The problem that has no name”
Kennedy
Equal Economic Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
Workplace discrimination

19. The Death of JFK 22 November 1963 US mourning Warren Commission
Open aired motorcade
Downtown Dallas, TX
JFK shot
Lee Harvey Oswald arrested
Jack Ruby?
US mourning
Warren Commission
Conspiracy?
LBJ sworn in—takes up civil rights