Chapter 31 the modern civil rights movement, social critics, and nonconformists
1. The Modern Civil Rights
Movement, Social Critics, and
Nonconformists
1
2. Address to First Montgomery
Improvement Association
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
emerged as a leader in
the Civil Rights
movement.
He gained prominence in
the 1950s after the
Montgomery bus boycott
began.
He gave this speech the
day Rosa Parks was
arrested.
He discusses the civil
rights of all people.
2
3. The Birth of a New Nation
Dr. King delivered this sermon
at Dexter Avenue Baptist
Church in Montgomery
Alabama on April 7, 1957.
He speaks about Africa and
the many struggles African
countries went through to get
their independence from other
countries like Great Britain.
He then compares this to the
struggle of African-Americans
to gain freedom in the United
States.
Dr. King discusses his
dedication to the principles of
non-violence.
3
4. Give Us the Ballot
Dr. King gave this address at
the Prayer Pilgrimage for
Freedom in Washington, D.C.
on May 17, 1957.
It is about African-Americans
gaining the right to vote that
was supposed to be
guaranteed to them with the
passage of the 13th
Amendment after the Civil
War.
Dr. King says that if the African
Americans are given the right
to vote, they will no longer
have to bother the federal
government with their civil
rights.
4
5. Supreme Court Rejects Plea Of
City
In June a federal court ruled
segregated seating
unconstitutional, and the case
went on appeal to the U.S.
Supreme Court.
The United States Supreme
Court later decided that the
Alabama and Montgomery
laws requiring segregated
buses unconstitutional.
The boycott of the buses had
lasted for 381 days.
5
6. Statement on Ending the Bus
Boycott
This speech was given by
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
after the court ruled that
segregation laws were
unconstitutional.
His statement officially
ended the Montgomery Bus
Boycott in Alabama.
African-Americans could
now sit where they wanted
to on the bus.
There was no longer a
“black” and “white” section.
6
7. Brown v. Board of Education
This landmark decision of
the United States
Supreme Court
overturned Plessy v.
Ferguson
It declared once and for
all the separate is not
equal.
Te decision was handed
down on May 17, 1954.
This victory paved the
way for integration and
the Civil Rights
Movement.
7
8. Integration of Central High
School
LRCHS was the focal point of the
Little Rock Integration Crisis of
1957.
Nine black students, known as
the Little Rock Nine, were denied
entrance to the school in defiance
of the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court
ruling ordering integration of
public schools.
This provoked a showdown
between the Governor and
President Dwight D. Eisenhower
that gained international
attention.
It was the first fundamental test of A National Guard Member sits outside
the national resolve to enforce of Central High School during the
black civil rights in the years integration.
following the Brown decision.
8
9. House Un-American Activities
Committee
HUAC was an investigative
committee of the US Senate.
In 1947 HUAC investigated
alleged communist infiltration
of the motion picture industry.
Hearsay, innuendo, and rumor
were perfectly acceptable
forms of evidence.
HUAC decided the Fifth
Amendment did not apply in its
hearings so those refusing to
testify, branded the “Hollywood
Ten”, were imprisoned for
contempt.
Ronald Reagan testifies to HUAC.
Through pressing witnesses to
“name names,” HUAC claimed
to have identified 324
communists working in the 9
10. Senator Joseph McCarthy
Elected to the Senate from
Wisconsin in 1946.
Rabid anti-communist and
alleged communist infiltration
into the American government.
On 20 February 1950,
McCarthy made a six hour
Senate speech claiming that
the Democratic Party had been
engaged in twenty years of
treason.
In 1952, the Republicans
gained control of the Senate.
The Republicans named
McCarthy as Chairman of the
Senate Sub-Committee on
Investigations.
10
11. McCarthy Hearings
In the Senate Sub-
Committee for
Investigations, Senator
McCarthy applied the
methods of HUAC to the
American government,
military, and defense
industry.
According to McCarthy’s
own numbers, his
investigations drove 400
suspected communists
from the American
government, though, in
reality, few were guilty of 11
12. Opposition to McCarthyism
Senator Margaret Chase Smith, a
Republican from Maine, criticized
his tactics as being detrimental to
individual freedom.
In March 1954, McCarthy began to
investigate Annie Lee Moss, a
middle aged African American
woman who worked for the Army
Signal Corps.
For this, Moss lost her job with the
Army, was dragged before
McCarthy’s hearings, and publicly
interrogated on national television.
Senator Symington pointed out that
there were four Annie Lee Mosses
listed in the Washington D.C.
phonebook and that there was no
indication that this was the proper Margaret Chase Smith
one.
12
13. The Feminine Mystique
Throughout the 1950’s and
60’s, women’s rights activists
continued to blow the whistle
on the problems and inequities
in society.
In her book The Feminine
Mystique, Betty Friedan
showed the hidden side of a
housewife, one that is;
Bored
Uninspired
screaming for change
This was a very different
image of what advertisements,
television, and society in
general portrayed.
13
14. Equal Pay Act of 1963
The issue of equal pay became one
of the main focal points for the
second stage of the women’s
movement.
Arguments were made to the Senate
regarding unfair wages for retail
clerks.
In passing the bill, Congress
denounced sex discrimination for the
following reason:
It depresses wages and living
standards for employees necessary
for their health and efficiency;
prevents the maximum utilization of
the available labor resources
tends to cause labor disputes, thereby
burdening, affecting, and obstructing
commerce;
burdens commerce and the free flow
of goods in commerce;
constitutes an unfair method of
competition. 14
15. Shirley Chisholm
Shirley Chisholm was the first
African-American women
elected to Congress.
Chisholm acknowledged the
strides being made in regards
to discrimination based on
race,
But she called attention to the
fact that gender discrimination
is so ingrained in society few
leaders fail to realize the full
weight of the issue.
Chisholm also argues for the
passage of the Equal Rights
Amendment that Congress
had failed to pass for years.
15
16. Counter Culture
During the 1950s a counterculture
emerged.
They were called the Beat
Generation when the term beatnik
was coined.
Some time during the 1960s, the
"Beat Generation" gave way to
"The Sixties Counterculture."
With this came a change in the
terminology referring the
members of the counterculture
from "Beatnik" to "hippie".
This group questioned American
society and was seen in the
literature, art and songs written by
the Beatniks.
Jack Kerouac was the most
famous beat writers.
His 1957 On the Road helped to
define the generation. 16
