Aidan - Civil rights movement - general notes

From KstructIB

Persons

• Martin Luther King
  • Received Nobel Peace Prize
• Thurgood Marshall
  • Justice in 67
• Mithcell
• Huey Newton
• Stokey Carmichael
• Roy Wilkins
• Senator Russell
• Earl Warren

• Chief Justice of the Supreme court, 1953, appointed by Ike
• Appointed as a Civil Rights action
• Did Ikes Dirty work

Presidents

Truman

• Forms committee on civil rights, 46
• Issues To Secure these Rights, 47
• Desegregated the military, 48

Lyndon Johnson

• By 1960s, federal government had grown into a massive organisation
• Took an extremely active approach
• Led a majority government
• Manoeuvred budgeting so that states were under the federal govs wing
• Government had the power to punish the states against CR, thanks to LBJs manoeuvring
• Government enforced equality:
• Housing projects, industrialisation

John F. Kennedy

• JFK for human rights
• Took a cautious approach "with one stroke of the pen"
• During freedom rides, called for a "cool down" period

Dwight Eisenhower

• Ike wanted gradual desegregation induced by culture, not government
• Ike proved that the army and federal government could kill mob violence

Events Montgomery Bus boycott

• Sparked by Rosa Parks, Dec 1 1955
• Martin Luther King spoke to motivate people in Montgomery during her protest
• MLK was involved in the
• Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) used the churches
• Gained more than it had intended: elimination of segregation
• Used the media effectively

Little Rock

• Sept 1957, students try to enrol in high school
• Orval Faubus and Southern Manifesto prevent them
• Ike sends in the national guard
• Shows that federal government can stop racial inequality
• Civil Rights Act passes in the same year

Freedom Rides

• 1961, CORE creates them to promote equality
• in protest of Kennedys doddering
• Burned, beaten, destroyed
• Kennedy asks delegates for a "cool down period", they refuse
• JFKs poor record on civil rights was revealed by this fiasco

Birmingham1962,63 - MLK, SCLC protests in the City are a major turning point

• Nation of Islam, NAACP, SNCC, CORE all participated
• This reaffirmed MLKs reputation
• Project C:
• Confrontation at Birmingham
• Against Eugene Connor
• MLK, arrested, wrote "letter from a Birmingham Jail"
• A profound statement in the name of CR
• This protest solidified MLKs resolve
• JFK saw that he had to intervene
• Proposed new legislation for Civil Rights

The March on Washington

• August 63
• 250,000 marched, heard
• "I have a dream"
• SNCC makes violent appeals

Freedom Summer

• 64, mass voting registration in Mississippi by SNCC
• College graduates used to bring problems to the north
• Several Delegates murdered
• Rioting in Harlem and Rochester, NY
• MFDP delegation rejected from Atlantic City conference
• Results in Civil Rights Act of 64
• SNCC and CORE tire of peaceful methods
• Blacks saw that they depended greatly on the government
• Hurt by the Whites violence
• Liberals back LBJ, not MFDP

Selma Massacre

• March 65
• The last nonviolent moment
• SNCC organised demonstrations
• A massacre as 600 headed to Montgomery
• Bloody Sunday
• Jim Clark attacked brutally
• MLK turns back second march
• Malcolm X spoke, thanks to the SNCC
• LBJ comes to support voting legislation
• Results in Voting Rights act of 65
• 10 years after Rosa Parks

Riots

• Watts
• 65, showing the end of peaceful protests
• A direct result of Selma massacre
• End of an era
• Chicago, 66
• From entry of movement into north
• Newark, then Detroit, 67
• Worst rioting in history of America
• Show how much needed to be done in the North

Death of Martin Luther King

• 68 in Memphis
• After LBJ wont run again
• Results in terrible Race riots
• Leader is gone
• Government cant help them anymore
• LBJ forces through the Fair Housing Act in time of Guilt

Chicago Campaign

• 66, show different situation in North
• Conniving racists, blame blacks for inciting race riots
• Northerners were tougher opponents
• Daley and cops didnt commit atrocities
• Problems there were more elusive
• During demonstrations:
• Cops didnt use brutality
• Daley a wise opponent
• Alienated moderate liberals
• Daley blamed violence for social decay
• 1968: housing legislation protests

The Poor Peoples Campaign & Resurrection City, 68

• Organised by Abernathy
• Caravans of Native Americans, Puerto Ricans, Mexican Americans, and a majority of African Americans that built a shantytown in DC
• This shocked LBJ
• He hated to see the ugliness of poverty, and to be reminded of how much remained to be done
• They were asked to enter government property illegally, and thus end their struggle dramatically
• Lame Duck Johnson couldnt solve their problem now

Organisations National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP), 1909

• Founded by Du Bois
• Had golden age in early Civil Rights era
• Thurgood Marshall and Roy Wilkins destroyed the legal base of segregation
• fought to end segregation aspect by aspect
• Prepared the way for the modern movement
• Brown v. Board of Education, 54
• Baker v. Carr: eliminates racial gerrymandering and reaffirms "one man, one vote", 62
• Criticised for being too legal, too hierarchical by Baker
• Supported violent parties legally, financially
• Under Wilkinss tutelage, was the only group to survive the era

Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), 42:

• To desegregate transportation
• 47, journey of reconciliation
• reborn in 60s as the Freedom Riders, 61
• Numerous nonviolent protests in the early 60s
• switched to Black Power after Freedom Summer

Southern Manifesto, 56

• Southern congressmen and senators refuse to desegregate schools,
• and resist implementing Brown by "any lawful means"
• South resisted the resolution for 10 years
• Outright neglected it
• Created new devious rules around it
• Obfuscated the verdict

Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), 57: 

• Formed to use the power of black churches on behalf of black rights
• Organised Birmingham
• Tried to lure students from radical organisations,
• attacked as conservative in Black Power days

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC): 60,

• Formed after sit-ins
• Students remain independent
• Affiliated with Ella Baker: Zinn considers her of fundamental importance
• A More militant organisation, that went south
• Prodded other organisations to harsher measures
• Involved in Birmingham, Selma
• Violent speeches in march on Washington
• Attacked King and NAACP
• Organised Freedom Summer under Moses, in 64
• Helped to found MFDP
• With Stokey Carmichael, switched to Black Power in 1966
• Integration = White Ways
• Black Power = Freedom
• Purged Whites
• Condemned Vietnam, 66

Nation of Islam, 30s

• Radical organisation of Malcolm X
• Back to Muslim roots, emergence of nationalism
• Anti-White organisation
• Malcolm X left in 64,
• Murdered Malcolm X in 65

Black Panther Party (BPP), 66

• Formed in CA
• Led by Huey Newton
• Fiery Rhetoric
• Pragmatic programs, armed defense
• Acted as neighbourhood police
• Free breakfasts
• FBI spied on the Panthers like the Communists
• Intentionally divided the movement
• Inserted agents provocateurs
• In 70s, divided between militancy and pragmatism (Newtons side)
• By the time COINTELPRO was killed, it had eliminated the Panthers and other militant groups

Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), 64

• MS party born out of freedom summer
• Affiliated with Ella Baker, a great leader
• Challenged MS democratic party at Atlantic City conference

Legislation Truman - desegregated the military

Ike (Dwight Eisenhower)

• Appointed Earl Warren, the liberal, to do his dirty work
• CR Act of 57:
• Create a federal CR commission,
• supreme court CR division
• CR act of 60:
• Ban interference with federal declarations on school desegregation,
• judges can hear complaints against officals
• Ike helped CR through appointing liberal justices to the Supreme Court
• Both watered down to appease southerners

LBJ

• Civil rights act of 1964 (LBJ):
• drastic legislation
• Prohibits discrimination in public accommodations on sex, race
• Gov has more power to compel locals to desegregate institutions
• Established penalties for transgressors
• But it
• does not protect voting rights
• May not be followed in the South
• Voting rights act comes after Selma
• Voting Rights act, 65
• Federal registrars to go to the deep south
• No poll tax, educational requirements
• Redrawing of county lines so as to help minorities
• Housing Act, 1968
• no discrimination in federal housing projects
• War on Poverty

• FDRs New Deal
• had been designed to help those who had at one time been rich, but
• who were made poor by the depression
• LBJs War on Poverty
• was targeted at those who had always been poor,
• or never held a job before
• The "hard core poor"
• He wanted a big economy to provide
• jobs for blacks,
• help lift up the poor,
• and amass more federal funds
• without raising taxes
• Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO)
• An organisation with branches to assist the poor
• The original plan was toned down to appease conservatives
• Community Action Program (CAP)
• Organised the poor, and undermined the mayors of big cities
• VISTA
• College students sent out into the slums and backcountry to help the poor
• To raise public awareness of the plight of poverty

Kerner Committee Report

• Report of Advisory Commission on Civil Disobedience, Kerner Commission, 68
• Riots come from
• White racism
• Social polarisation
• From ghetto created and endorsed by Whites
• Need massive federal spending to save the ghetto
• LBJ was shocked
• White backlash from violent riots lowered support for helping
• MLK and Bobby wanted to attack poverty based on the commission,
• Both were dead by summer 68

Affirmative Action: 71, UC Regents v. Bakke in 74, proposition 209, 96

Brown v. Board of Education

• Part of Roy Wilkinss campaign against the laws
• Thurgood Marshall proved segregation was unlawful
• From unequal funding, and bad conditions of black schools
• Showed a union of the black lower and upper classes
• Lawyers examined the psychological effects of separate but equal
• Kenneth Clark showed that separation had detrimental effects on black schoolchildren
• Overturns Plessy v. Ferguson
• South resisted dramatically: Southern Manifesto

  Black Power

• Carmichaels moniker after Meredith was shot
• Shortcomings of previous CR movement
• Over-focus on South, disregard of North
• Peace in the face of unrestrained violence
• Movement went to the North after Watts riot
• New leaders arose, movement lost support
• By late 60s, Malcolm Xs philosophy led the movement, not MLKs
• 1966: SNCC switches to Nationalism, Black Power
• Integration = White Ways
• Black Power = Freedom

Reasons why the Movement came About

• Mechanisation of agriculture
• Destabilised the south
• Divided the Whites into haves and have-nots
• Great Migration
• Brought issues of race problems and racism to the North
• 50/50 distribution by movements end
• Considering it only a Southern problem allowed issue to fester until it exploded at Watts
• International role of US
• Fighting the Nazis hurt American racism
• BUT allowed crackdown on Black power
• USSR constantly attacked their racism in the cold war
• Americas Achilles HeelHenry Lodge
• BUT allowed anti-communists to attack the Blacks as being socialistic