1. The Civil
Rights
Movement
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1963_march_on_washington.jpg
2. Segregation and the Court
Cases that Defined It
It was not until the Supreme Court’s 1896 decision in Plessy v.Ferguson that
the separate but equal doctrine was officially written into law. The case was
based upon the refusal of Homer Adolf Plessy to use the segregated train car
assigned to African Americans, and as a result, was imprisoned for the
violation of a Louisiana statute. His case thereafter went to the nation’s
highest court, the Supreme Court, and the judges considered the issue of
“separate but equal” in relation to the 14th Amendment. In the Plessy
case, the Supreme Court ruled that separate facilities for blacks and whites
were constitutional as long as they were equal. Plessy v. Ferguson stood as
the case by which separation of the races was legalized in the United States
and denied African Americans access to many of the white facilities that had
been racially integrated after the Civil War.
http://www
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3. During the first half of the 20th century educational facilities
for African Americans remained in need of repair. Although
facilities were separate, they were oftentimes not equal.
Schools attended by African-American children generally were
over-crowded, under-funded, with materials and facilities
being old and in disrepair. The injustices suffered by African-
American schoolchildren eventually led the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
to fight against unequal school facilities. Five separate cases
contesting inequalities in public education were considered
under Oliver Brown et. al. v. the Board of Education of Topeka
(Brown v. Board) in 1954.
4. Brown v. Board ultimately overturned the decision made in Plessy v.
Ferguson. The “separate but equal” doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson
made the practice of placing children in schools according to race
legal. In the early 1950s, the following 17 states required racial
segregation in public schools:
Alabama Arkansas Delaware Florida
Georgia Kentucky Louisiana Maryland Mississippi
Missouri Tennessee Oklahoma South Carolina
North Carolina Texas Virginia West Virginia.
Four others--Arizona, Kansas, New Mexico, and Wyoming--permitted
segregation in public schools if local communities wanted it.
5. By the fall of 1952, the Supreme Court had agreed to hear
arguments in five separate cases that focused on the
constitutionality of maintaining segregated public schools. The
Court decided to group the cases together under the title Brown
v. Board of Education and hear arguments collectively. Supreme
Court Justice Tom Clark remarked: “We consolidated them and
made Brown the first so that the whole question would not
smack of being a purely Southern one.”
http://umfmarcy.wikispaces.com/file/view
/pic.jpg/32747735/pic.jpg
6. Auditorium at Farmville High School,
Farmville, Virginia
Was this “Separate But Equal”?
Auditorium at Robert Russa Moton
High School, Farmville , Virginia
7. The five school desegregation cases that the Supreme Court
agreed to hear in the fall of 1952 included:
Brown v. Board of Education (Kansas)
Briggs v. Elliot (South Carolina)
Davis v. Prince Edward County School Board (Virginia)
Belton v. Gebhart (Delaware)
Bolling v. Sharpe (District of Columbia)
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m44t6cdVgs1r65o3qo1_1280.png
The Court heard the cases under Oliver Brown et al. v. the
Board of Education of Topeka and convened to hear arguments
on December 9, 1952. The defendants in the cases claimed
that operating segregated schools was consistent with custom
and law and should be maintained. While the plaintiffs insisted
on immediate integration, the defendants held that ensuring
that black and white schools were equal was an acceptable
compromise.
8. Civil Rights Act of 1964
This act, signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson on July
2, 1964, prohibited discrimination in public places, provided for
the integration of schools and other public facilities, and made
employment discrimination illegal. This document was the most
sweeping civil rights legislation since Reconstruction.
President Johnson signing the bill into law
http://www.hud.gov/offices/fheo/images/LBJ-CivilRightsAct.jpg www.ourdocuments.com
9. Voting Rights Act of 1965
This act was signed into law on August 6, 1965, by President
Lyndon Johnson. It outlawed the discriminatory voting
practices adopted in many southern states after the Civil
War, including literacy tests as a prerequisite to voting.
http://www.usm.edu/crdp/html/cd/images/M319-150b.jpg
10. Time for an activity…..
#1
Use your recording sheet to complete the activity at this stop.
12. December 1, 1955, was the day on which Rosa Parks took her
famous bus ride. Below you will read some of the rules bus
riders followed at that time:
•White people boarded the bus through the front door. They dropped
their coins into the fare box next to the driver. Then they sat in one of the
long seats at the front of the bus or in one of the first three rows of seats.
•Black people boarded the bus through the front door. They dropped
their coins into the fare box. Then they had to get off the bus and get
back on through the door in the back of the bus. They took a seat in one
of the last five rows or they stood in a "standing only” area at the back
of the bus.
•If a white person got on the bus and there were no more seats in the
white section, a black person who was sitting in the front rows of seats
set aside for black people had to give up his or her seat
13. Time for an activity…..
#2
Use your recording sheet and follow the directions to complete the
activity at this stop.
14. Rosa Parks has finally had enough of being treated as a
second-class citizen. As an African American, she has put up
with terrible treatment on city buses, as well as in
stores, restaurants, movie theaters, and other places for
years. She is tired of it. In fact, she remembers that twelve
years earlier this very same bus driver made her get off the
bus and enter through the rear door. When the driver
continues shouting at her to move, Rosa Parks decides that
she is not going to take it anymore. She simply says no, and
refuses to get up from her seat.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_kvMusHIGFII/TVHk3k
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15. The angry bus driver puts on the emergency brake, gets out of
his seat and marches over to Mrs. Parks. He demands that she
move to the back of the bus. When she doesn't, he leaves the
bus and returns with a policeman. Mrs. Parks is promptly
arrested for violating segregation laws.
Upon hearing of Rosa Parks's arrest, Mr. E.D. Nixon, a friend and
longtime civil rights leader, posts her bail. Nixon believes that
the Montgomery African-American community must respond.
Although Rosa Parks is not the first African American to be
treated unfairly, he is determined to try and make her the last.
http://teacher.scholastic.com/rosa/arrested.htm
16. Time for an activity…..
#3
Create a wordle using adjectives that you would use to
describe Rosa Parks and how she was feeling on the
day she took a stand and refused to give up her seat on
the bus.
Click on the bus above to go to the wordle site. Type in
the words you have chosen and then hit go and then
Print.
17. The next day, Friday, December 2, E.D. Nixon calls a meeting of
black leaders to discuss how to fight bus segregation.
Knowing that the city bus system depends heavily on the African-
American community, the black leaders agree to call a boycott of
all city buses on Monday, December 5. A new and popular
minister in Montgomery by the name of Martin Luther King, Jr. is
chosen to lead the boycott. By Friday evening the news of the
upcoming boycott has spread throughout the city.
http://teacher.scholastic.com/rosa/arrested.htm
18. On Monday morning, December 5, King and the other leaders
wait nervously at a bus stop to see whether their plan will work.
To their relief and surprise, bus after bus rolls by with no African
Americans aboard. United in protest, boycotters choose instead
to walk, take carpools, pedal bicycles, and even ride mules to get
to work instead of board the buses.
That same day Rosa Parks goes to court with her lawyer. The
judge finds her guilty of breaking a city segregation law and fines
her $14. Declaring that the law is unjust, Rosa Parks's lawyer says
he will appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court
21. Harassment grows worse as the boycott continues. Protesters
receive threatening phone calls and tickets for trivial violations;
their homes are vandalized.
The violence reaches new heights when one day, while Dr. King is
at a church meeting, a bomb explodes at his home. His
wife, Coretta Scott King, their two-month-old baby, Yolanda, and a
friend are inside. Dr. King rushes home as soon as he hears the
news. Upon arriving he learns that no one has been hurt. But
supporters are crowding around his house. They are furious and
ready to fight. King tells them not to fight. "We cannot solve this
problem with retaliatory violence," King tells the crowd calmly.
"We must meet violence with nonviolence."
23. Sit -Ins
In sit-ins, protesters usually seat themselves at some strategic location (inside a
restaurant, in a street to block it, in a government or corporate office, and so on). They
remain until they are evicted, usually by force, or arrested, or until their requests have
been met. Sit-ins have historically been a highly successful form of protest because
they cause disruption that draws attention to the protest and by proxy the protesters'
cause. They are a non violent way to effectually shut down an area or business. The
forced removal of protesters, and sometimes the use of violence against them, often
arouses sympathy from the public, increasing the chances of the demonstrators
reaching their audience.
Sit-ins were an integral part of the nonviolent strategy of civil disobedience and mass
protests that eventually led to passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which ended
legally-sanctioned racial segregation in the United States and also passage of the Voting
Rights Act of 1965 that struck down many racially-motivated barriers used to deny
voting rights to non-whites.
25. Marches
The Selma to Montgomery marches, also known as Bloody Sunday
and the two marches that followed, were marches and protests held
in 1965, that marked the political and emotional peak of the
American civil rights movement. All three marches were attempts to
march from Selma to Montgomery where the Alabama capitol is
located. They grew out of the voting rights movement in
Selma, launched by local African-Americans who formed the Dallas
County Voters League (DCVL). In 1963, the DCVL and organizers from
the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) began
voter-registration work. When white resistance to black voter
registration proved intractable, the DCVL requested the assistance of
Martin Luther King Jr and the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference, who brought many prominent civil rights and civic
leaders to support voting rights.
27. Marches
President Kennedy proposed a new civil rights bill. To show that the
bill had widespread support, civil rights groups united to organize a
March on Washington. Organizers hoped to draw a crowd of
100,000, but instead over 250,000 people from around the
nation, arriving in more than thirty special trains and 2,000
chartered buses, descended on Washington, DC on August
28, 1963. There, they heard speeches and songs from numerous
activists, artists, and civil rights leaders. Martin Luther
King, Jr., delivered the closing address, his famous "I Have a Dream"
speech.
The day was an overwhelming success. There was no violence and
the event received extensive media coverage. Although it did not
have an immediate impact on Congress -- Kennedy's civil rights bill
was not passed for nearly a year -- it affected in some way just
about everyone who participated or watched.
29. Time for an activity…..
#4
Use your recording sheet for questions and activities at this bus stop.
30. Freedom Riders
In 1961, the Freedom Riders, a dedicated group of men and
women, black and white, young and old (many from university
and college campuses) across the country boarded buses, trains
and planes bound for the deep South to challenge that region‘s
outdated Jim Crow laws and the non-compliance with a US
Supreme Court decision already three years old that prohibited
segregation in all interstate public transportation facilities.
http://kwanzaaguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Freedom-Riders-11.jpg
31. Freedom Riders
The next morning the Freedom Rides boarded the buses and
took their places, blacks and whites seated together on the
bus, an act already considered a crime in most segregated
states. At stops along the way, the Freedom Riders entered
“whites” and “colored” areas contrary to where they were
supposed to go and ate together at segregated lunch counters.
They met little resistance along the way until Rockville, S.C.
where an angry mob beat the Freedom Riders as they pulled
into the station. This was the first of many such beatings the
Freedom Riders were to receive at the hands of angry mobs.
33. Freedom Riders
Undaunted by the beatings. the Freedom Riders continued on
their journey until Mother’s Day, May, 14th, 1961 when they
were met by an angry mob (dressed in their Sunday finest as if
they’d just come from church) in Anniston, Alabama. Due to the
ferocity of the mob, the bus decided not to stop at the station
and it quickly left, already wounded by the mob who had
slashed the bus’s tires at the station.
34. Freedom Riders
A few miles outside of Anniston the tires began to deflate
and the bus was forced to pull over. As the bus driver fled in
glee, a mob of men who had been following the bus got out
of their cars and surrounded the stricken bus. From
somewhere in the crowd a firebomb was thrown inside the
bus and exploded.
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/history/a-centennial-history/image/freedom-rides.jpg
35. Freedom Riders
As the Freedom Riders tried to escape the smoke and flames
they found they could not as the exit doors were blocked by the
surging mob. Just then one of the gas tanks exploded on the
bus and the mob rushed back allowing the Freedom Riders to
push the doors open and escape. As they exited the burning
bus, the Freedom Riders rushed outside still choking from the
thick smoke and were beaten by the waiting vigilantes. As lead
pipes and baseball bats were swung, only an onboard
undercover agent prevented the Freedom Riders from being
lynched that day as he fired his gun into the air. Later that same
day the Freedom Riders were beaten a second time as they
arrived in Birmingham, Alabama.
36. Alarmed by the violence, President
Kennedy dispatched his brother, then
Attorney General Robert Kennedy to
strike a deal with the state officials
from Mississippi to ensure that the
Freedom Riders would have safe
passage to Jackson. In exchange for
their safe passage (the National
Guard would escort the Freedom
Riders into the state), the Freedom
Riders would be arrested on their
arrival in Jackson.
Mass Arrests
Soon, the local jails in Jackson were
filled to capacity. Over 350 of the
Freedom Riders were placed behind
bars and given a six-month sentence
for “breach of peace” violations.
Rather than posting bail immediately
however, the Freedom Riders chose
to remain in jail for forty days, the
maximum amount of time one could
remain in jail before losing their right
of appeal.
37. Five months after the first Freedom Rides left on their historic ride the Interstate
Commerce Commission (ICC) in conjunction with the US Attorney General Robert
Kennedy issued a tough new Federal order banning segregation at all interstate
public facilities based on “race, color or creed.” The law became effective on
November 1st, 1961.
Click on the picture above to trace the route of the Freedom Riders.
38. Time for an activity…..
#5
Click on the bus above to read about some of the riders on the original
Freedom Ride. Use your recording sheet to take notes on one of person
of your choice. Then click on the picture below to proceed to another
site where you will create a bio-cube on one of the Freedom Riders. Be
sure to print out and construct your bio-cube.
