The Civil Rights Movement Notes
Background to the Civil Rights Movement in the USA
Why the Civil Rights Movement Began
Little Rock
Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society
Race Riots and Violent Protest
Malcolm X
The Black Panther Party
- Blacks had been freed from slavery since the 1860s
- By the 1950s social, economic and political circumstances were still different:
- Segregated schools, transportation and restaurants
- Ghettos sprung up in the northern cities
- Ku Klux Klan harassed and murdered blacks
Why the Civil Rights Movement Began
- 1954 the Supreme Court ruled to desegregate schools
- Shortly thereafter parks, public housing, buses and air terminals etc.
- John F. Kennedy gave many blacks hope
- The 1960s were a time of rebellion against the government (counterculture)
- Rosa Parks
- Professional sports personalities gave hope eg. Jackie Robinson and Mohammed Ali
Little Rock
- 1957 Black children tried to go to school at Little Rock High School (Integrated schooling)
- The Governor of Arkansas (Orval Faubus) used the National Guard to stop this from happening
- The Mayor of the City (Woodrow Mann) called on President Eisenhower to bring in Federal troops
- Eventually troops from the 101st airborne were used to protect black children from going to school
- The white populations of the area were mad
- He first becomes prominent in 1955 organizing a boycott of the transit system over the jailing of Rosa Parks (The company went bankrupt)
- Becomes unofficial leader of the black protest movement
- Advocated peaceful demonstrations
- Blacks saw their cause gaining sympathy when they were shown to be beaten by police on T.V.
- Made famous, “I have a dream” speech in Washington in 1963
- Awarded Nobel Peace Prize in 1967
- Assassinated in 196
Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society
- Johnson convinces congress to pass Kennedy’s Civil Rights Bill
- It allowed the gov’t to cut off funding to any program that practiced discrimination
- Created VISTA to battle poverty
- The Voting Rights Act: Outlawed the literacy tests needed in order to register to vote
Race Riots and Violent Protest
- Many blacks were not patient and peaceful when it came to protest
- In the late 1960s many poor ghettos erupted into rioting and burning property
- Slogan was “Burn baby burn”
- The Afro hair style and raised clenched fist became the symbol for resistance
- “Black Power”
Malcolm X
- Became the leader of the black Muslims in the USA
- Blacks rejected Christianity as a ‘white’ religion
- He had contempt for those who followed Martin Luther King’s pacifist methods
- He believed blacks needed to protest with force
- Assassinated in 1965, possibly because of his disputes with the black Muslim Movement
The Black Panther Party
- Founded by Stokely Carmichael
- Militant group which openly called for the use of violence
- “Minister of War” was Bobby Seale and “Minister of Propaganda” was Eldridge Cleaver
- The group fizzled out in the 1970s as more equality legislation was brought in