Prompt

Everyone wrote on their essays that African Americans had no power in 1877-1945. In 1963, *based on King's Letter from A Birmingham Jail," had anything changed? What power did King and co. have, or old power did they figure out how to use?

Rosa Parks, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and what was the Civil Rights movement anyway?

A bus memorial

"Rosa Parks was tired, so she refused to move to the back of the bus; her bravery sparked a social movement among African Americans who had had enough; she and other Montgomerians led a bus boycott that eventually forced the bus company to let blacks and whites ride together."

Rosa Parks

Claudette Colvin

King, 1955

Accomplishments of the Civil Rights Movement:

  1. Overthrew the entirety of the Jim Crow system in the South
  2. Made most forms of discrimination in the North illegal
  3. Created a template for mass social movements that continues to be followed.

Four major goals of the Civil Rights Movements

  1. Change Explicitly Segregationist Laws (1954-1960)
  2. Challenge Segregationist private establishments (1960-1963)
  3. Regain the right to vote (1963-1965)
  4. Dismantle Residential Segregation and Job inequality (1963-)

Thurgood Marshall

Louisiana

Arkansas National Guard at Little Rock

Little Rock

Little Rock

The Little Rock Template:

  1. Unimpeachable African-American citizens
  2. Horrifying behavior by local law enforcement
  3. Created need for federal action.

Strategy of Non-Violent Direct Action is well suited to create more situations like this.

Percentage of Black Students in White schools in the South 

Map of slow school integration 

Goal: Integrated Facilities / Tactic: sit-ins and NVDA

Woolworth's Lunch Counter

Greensboro Sit-in

Mississippi sit-in

George Wallace Inauguration: "Segregation Forever"

Bull Connor

Birmingham protests

Violence Against Protestors

Birmingham

Birmingham Church Bombing

March on Washington, 1963

1964 Civil Rights Act

  • Outlaws discrimination based on race.
  • Allows Federal Courts to enforce provisions on the states
  • Outlaws discrimination on sex
  • Prohibition on discrimination in hiring
  • Weak Voting Rights provisions

Jackie Robinson and Richard Nixon, 1960

1964 election

Goal: The Vote // Tactic : Registration and marches

Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman

.

1965 Voting Rights Act

  • Bans Literacy Tests (Poll taxes unconstitutional by the 24th amendment, 1964)
  • Provides Federal oversight of voting registration in select regions
  • Power to Federal government to pre-emptively review all changes in voting procedures in those states.