 • Objectives • Gives a broad overview of the Civil Rights Movement. • Stimulates discussion of an important part of American history. • Gives an eyewitness account of the historical events that led up to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. • Provides primary source material and encourages students to study this subject in greater depth. • Introduction In the early 1950’s life for blacks living in the South hadn’t changed much from the days thirty years earlier when the Ku Klux Klan could openly parade down Pennsylvania Avenue. Throughout the South, segregation was the legal, accepted way of life. But times were changing. In 1954 in the case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, the Supreme Court ruled that segregation in schools was unconstitutional. No longer would the doctrine of “separate” but “equal” be tolerated. Schools were ordered to desegregate with “all deliberate speed.” Encouraged by this ruling, young blacks in the South redoubled their efforts to end segregation in other areas. In Montgomery, Alabama in 1955 the black community, under the leadership of a young minister, Martin Luther King, Jr., launched a boycott of the city’s segregated bus system. After a year, the company gave in and Montgomery’s buses were integrated. Inspired by this victory, King and others founded the Southern Christian Leadership conference to fight discrimination by peaceful means. The organization pledged to follow the philosophy of India’s Gandhi, who believed in non-violent civil disobedience as the best way of effecting change. If blacks were intent on non-violence, white community was not. Federal troops were needed to maintain order in Little Rock, Arkansas when nine black students tried to enroll in a high school there. Riots broke out in towns and cities across the South when students staged peaceful “sit-ins” at segregated lunch counters or took “freedom rides” on segregated buses. In 1962 when James Meredith, an air force veteran, tried to register at the University of Mississippi, Governor Ross Barnett personally came to plead the opposition. President John Kennedy sent 5,000 regular army troops to Mississippi to maintain order, but despite the presence of the Army, two people were killed. Federal deputies and the National Guard were needed at the University of Alabama when Governor George Wallace refused to unblock the school’s doorway and let black students in. Day after day the situation grew more explosive. In June, 1963 President Kennedy went on television and spoke to the nation: President John F. Kennedy: “Now the time has come for this nation to fulfill its promise. The events in Birmingham and elsewhere have so increased the cries for equality that no city or state or legislative body can prudently choose to ignore them. It is not enough to pin the blame on others, to say this is a problem of one section of the country or another, or deplore the facts that we face. A great change is at hand, and our task, our obligation, is to make that revolution, that change, peaceful and constructive for all. Those who do nothing are inviting shame as well as violence. Those who act boldly are recognizing right as well as reality. Next week I shall ask the Congress of the United States to act, to make a commitment it has not fully made in this century to the proposition that race has no place in American life or law…” Soon after the President sent Congress the first significant civil rights legislation in nearly 100 years. To show support for the bill, civil rights leaders planned a rally in Washington that August. It turned out to be one of the most important and memorable demonstrations in American history. • The March on Washington—August 28, 1963 Word went out from black churches and local civil rights organizations around the country that there would be a rally in Washington on August 28, 1963. The aim was to protest segregation; promote racial harmony and unity; and show support for the civil rights bill pending in Congress. The organizers hoped that as many as one hundred thousand people would come to Washington; in their hearts many feared that only a few thousand would show up. But as news of the demonstration spread, interest grew. Early on the morning of August 28th, people began arriving in the Capitol. Thirty special trains and 2,000 chartered buses came from all across the country. By 9:30 more than 40,000 people had gathered on the Mall stretching from the Capitol to the Washington Monument. The rally started with songs—Josh White; Odetta; Mahalia Jackson; Joan Baez; Bob Dylan; Peter, Paul and Mary. Throughout the early part of the day, more and more people streamed into the Mall. By noon the number reached over a quarter of a million. From there, they marched to the foot of the Lincoln Memorial. Labor leaders joined civil rights leaders; white clergy joined black clergy; ordinary people of every color and persuasion joined hands in support of the cause. There were many speeches that day. The last to speak was the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr.: “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up, live out the true meanings of its creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream for them…” “…We will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the old Negro spiritual: ‘Free at last, free at last. Thank God all mighty we are free at last’…” Later in the day the organizers met with the President. At first Kennedy had tried to discourage the March. He was afraid that a large-scale demonstration would lead to violence and would weaken support for the civil rights bill. But in the end he gave his support. A historian wrote later, “the march brought joy and a sense of possibility to people throughout the nation…To many outside observes, the March on Washington became almost synonymous with the civil rights movement itself…” • Congress Takes Action Southerners in Congress did what they could to hold up the Civil Rights bill even though the President urged its passage. Then in November 1963 Kennedy was assassinated and Lyndon Johnson became President. Johnson was a Texan, but he had a strong commitment to civil rights. Seven months after he took office, Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law. The Act outlawed discrimination in employment and public accommodations. Blacks could not be discriminated against in restaurants, movie theaters and hotels; on trains and buses or any place the general public was served. But the law had one flaw. It did not outlaw discrimination in voting practices. Without the power of the ballot, there could never be equality. Early in 1965 civil rights leaders turned their attention to voter registration. They picked as their target the city of Selma, Alabama. Week after week, black demonstrators marched to the courthouse to register to vote. Each time they were met by Selma’s Sheriff Jim Clark and arrested. More often than not Clark’s men used violence. Soon hundreds and hundreds of people were in jail. In February a young black man was killed during a demonstration in a nearby town. To gain support for voter registration, civil rights leaders planned a march from Selma to the state capitol in Montgomery, 54 miles away. On Sunday March 7, 525 people began to march. A battalion of state troopers armed with guns and tear gas met them. The troopers ordered the marchers to turn back. When they refused, the troopers attacked the crowd. Sixteen people were hospitalized and as many as 50 others injured. But the demonstrators would not be stopped. Martin Luther King organized another march two days later. Again troopers met them. Instead of continuing and incurring more violence and injury. King knelt and led the demonstrators in prayer. Then they turned back. Later that night, a young white minister who had come to Selma to join the protest was killed. Now there were two deaths. Something had to be done. On March 15, President Johnson addressed a joint session of Congress as millions watched on television. President Lyndon Johnson: “…Many of the issues of civil rights are very complex and most difficult. But about this there can and should be no argument: every American citizen must have an equal right to vote.” The President said that he would send a bill to Congress, which would outlaw all voting restrictions in all elections. The bill would also provide for federal officials to oversee elections and register voters if state officials refused to. President Johnson’s speech continued: “…But even if we pass this bill the battle will not be over. What happened in Selma is part of a larger movement, which reaches into every section, and state of America. It is the effort of American Negroes to secure for themselves the blessings of American life. Their cause must be our cause too. Because it’s not just Negroes, but really it’s all of us who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome…” With those words—“we shall overcome”—the President joined hand in spirit with the marchers in Alabama. The force of the federal government was behind them. Six days later the march from Selma to Montgomery got underway. 4,000 people—black and white—made the trip. When Governor George Wallace refused to provide state troopers for protection, President Johnson federalized 1,800 Alabama National Guardsmen. He also sent 2,000 regular Army troops, 100 FBI agents and 100 federal marshals. By the time the marchers reached the capitol in Montgomery, their numbers reached 25,000. In August, Congress overwhelmingly passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. President Johnson called it “one of the most monumental laws in the entire history of American freedom.” One white southerner remarked, “Well now the Civil War is finally over.” • Achievements In 1955, a black woman in Alabama was arrested because she wouldn’t give up her seat on a bus so a white man could sit down. Ten years later segregation was outlawed in public life, employment and education and blacks could no longer be denied their right to participate in the political process. The turnaround in one decade was dazzling. With few exceptions all that could be accomplished through legislation had been done. The victory was spectacular—but it was not complete. Unemployment, poverty, and lack of opportunity continued to plague the black community at alarmingly high rates. Dissatisfaction by some blacks in major cities across the country turned to violence. Riots broke out in Newark, Detroit, Chicago and the Watts section of Los Angeles. Nonviolence was a thing of the past. Martin Luther King turned his efforts towards the poor and disadvantaged of all races. In April, 1968 King went to Memphis, Tennessee to lend his support to striking sanitation workers there. On April 4th, he was killed. But he left behind legacy—a decade of extraordinary achievements—achievements that he came to symbolize but were really won by millions of unnamed people whose courage and commitment changed life for all Americans—white and black. • Questions for Review and Discussion 1. What was the impact of the Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas? Contrast that decision of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). 2. Identify the following people: a. Gandhi b. James Meredith c. George Wallace d. Rosa Parks e. A. Philip Randolph f. Andrew Young g. W.E.B. DuBoise h. Thurgood Marshall 3. What did the Civil Rights Act of 1965 accomplish? 4. What were the major provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965? Has that act been changed by any legislation since its passage? 5. Why was President Johnson’s speech to Congress on March 15, 1965 so significant? 6. The ten years from 1955 to 1965 brought a revolution in civil rights. What did the next ten years (1965-1975) bring? What do you foresee for the next decade? |
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