1. Opening Assignment
If you faced the threat of violent retaliation by the government or other citizens would you peacefully protest for a cause?

2. Section One: Taking on Segregation: Objectives:
ESSENTIAL LEARNING GOAL:
The Civil Rights Movement began in the 1950’s with the NAACP’s courtroom efforts to end legal segregation, then became a peaceful protest movement involving the SCLC, and finally splintered into several movements during the late 1960’s including the Nation of Islam and the Black Panthers.
LEARNING TARGETS:
I can explain how legalized segregation deprived African Americans of their rights as citizens.
I can summarize civil rights legal action and the response to the Plessy and Brown cases.
I can trace Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s civil rights activities, beginning with the Montgomery Bus Boycott and ending with his assassination.
I can describe the expansion of the civil rights movement through; SNCC, SCLC

3. The Segregation System:
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
1896 Plessy v. Ferguson ruling: separate but equal is constitutional
Many states pass Jim Crow laws separating the races
Facilities for blacks always inferior to those for whites

4. Challenging Segregation in Court: The NAACP Legal Strategy
First African-American Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall
The NAACP legal defense fund worked to legally challenge segregation thru court decisions
Focuses on most glaring inequalities of segregated public education
Places team of law students under Thurgood Marshall
- win 29 out of 32 cases argued before Supreme Court

5. Brown v. Board of Education
Marshall’s greatest victory is Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954)
In the 1954 case, the Supreme Court unanimously strikes down public school segregation

6. Reaction to the Brown Decision Resistance to School Desegregation
Within 1 year, over 500 school districts desegregate
Some districts, state officials, pro-white groups actively resist
Court hands down a second decision in the case called Brown II, orders desegregation at “all deliberate speed”
Eisenhower refuses to enforce compliance; considers it impossible to forcefully integrate schools.

7. Crisis in Little Rock
Gov. Orval Faubus has National Guard turn away black students
Elizabeth Eckford faces abusive crowd when she tries to enter school
Eisenhower has Nat. Guard, paratroopers supervise school attendance
African-American students harassed by whites at school all year

8. The Montgomery Bus Boycott Boycotting Segregation
1955 NAACP officer Rosa Parks arrested for not giving up seat on bus
Montgomery Improvement Association formed, organizes bus boycott
Elect 26-year-old Baptist pastor Martin Luther King, Jr. leader

9. Walking for Justice
African Americans file lawsuit, boycott buses, use carpools, and walk
Participate in Sit-ins
Get support from black community, outside groups, sympathetic whites
1956, Supreme Court outlaws bus segregation

10. From the Grassroots Up
King, and others found Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) – Nonviolent protest organization
By 1960, African-American students think pace of change too slow
Join Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) – national protest group