CIVIL RIGHTS
1954-Today Abby Banks Hour 5
Brown V. Board of Education was the first legal step towards gaining black civil rights and removing segregation in public places
Timel (Hinges)
Following Rosa Parks’ arrest, people’s anger about the issue led to the first mass protest in the Montgomery Bus Boycott
The bombing of the Birmingmham Church gained widespread, interna-
Rosa Parks was one of the first to stand up to public discimination to attract national attention
The Little Rock Nine paved the way for later school integration but showed need for federal aid
The horrible brutality of the Emmett Till case drew national attention to the obvious racial injustices
The Freedom Rides continued the Montgomery Bus Boycotts and drew national attention to the problems with discrimination in public (governmental) places
The March on Wasington showed a never before seen solidarity with the civil rights movement, and allowed for televised inspiration to MLK was arrested and detained in Birmingham jail, join via MLK’s “I Have a Dream.” during which time he wrote dozens of letters to draw The Greensboro sit-ins helped demonstrate speech attention to his nonviolent protests black determination and emerging support
The asassination of MLK led to massive riots as people voiced discontent on the continual racism seen even after all their progress
The Civil Rights Act of 1968 (Fair Housing Act) prevented more discrimination in real estate, which aided housing desegregation
Watts Riots broke out in Los Angeles due to ppolice brutality in black areas, showing extreme anger surroundign issues
The Vietnam policies of LBJ began to overshadow Civil Rights, but the movement had provided the framework for the later peace protests
George Wallace represented the true lack of change, given his platform of racism, truly representing how minimally minds had changed
line
To excercise their existing rights, activists led voting campaigns and marches (Selma). This led to the introduction of a 1965 Voting Rights Act
The coining of “Black Power� helped in community engagement and empowerment
tional sympathy
The rise of radicalism with the death of Malcolm X, Black Panthers, and Black Power emergence voiced larger majority’s anger Freedom Summer gained nationwide attention for being a multiracial movement, utilizing white activists to gain more credibility
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 finally ended public segregation, and began the steps towards legal integration enforcement The murder of multiple civil rights workers, including some of the first white people killed in the crossfire, sparked anger across the country and showed seriousness
Mini Bios Bull Connor
Commissioner of Public Safety in Brimigham who actively enforced legal segregation as well as police brutality, drawing national anger and shock
Stokey Carmichael
Coined the phrase ‘black power,’ aiding empowerment of the community, as well as furthering the mission of previous militants like Black Panthers and Malcolm X
George Wallace
A governor of Alabam who was actually horrifying, advocated for Jim Crow and segregation, as well as active prevention of the implementation of Brown v. Board
Thurgood Marshall
Prominent lawyeer for the NAACP, who eventually became the first African-American Supreme Court Justice, keeping contiuous national attention on the movement
Organizations Congress of Racial Equality
One of the coordinating civil rights groups, CORE practiced pacifict tactics.. Later in the movement, it represented the larger shift to a more militant approach
Nation of Islam
Technically classified as a terrorist organization, the NOI promoted a more miliant approach to the overall movement, representing popular anger and spreading Islam
Southern Christian Leadership Conference Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
Malcolm X
A militant activist who wanted to keep segregation, but with black superiority. He brought the anger of black America to the forefront and expressed a popular opinion
Martin Luther King, Jr.
A christian Minister and active pacifist, he led most of the largest nonviolent protests during the Civil Rights movement, and is largely credited with its success
Black Panther Party
Advocating against police brutality and moving past self defense into active watch of policemen to prevent said brutality, they acted as a large voice for anger and action
National Association for the Advance-
Emerging after the Montgomery Bus Boycott, A group of black and white college students who ment of Colored People MLK led this organization in some of the largest helped to organize the Freedom Rides (many were The most prominent organization which promoted scale protests of the Civil Rights movement. It pro- Freedom Riders themselves) and gained nationblack rights, helped to generate large scale and moted the highly effective pacifist methods used wide solidarity for the movement nationwide attention to the movement
Peace & War Martin Luther King Jr. • Relied on peaceful protests to extend message - nonviolence and civil disobedience • Christian (Baptist) background influenced his policy choices - commonly quoted the Bible, specifically “loving your neighbor” and “turning the other cheek” • Won Nobel Peace Prize • Led March on Washington, boycotts, and other anti-segregation protests • Led the Southern Christian Leadership Conference • Inspired by Christian Pacifist tradi-
Similarities • Died at 29, assassinated • Civil rights leader.- believed in righting the current state of black Americans
Malcolm X More militant approach to civil rights movement Believed in black superiority and a Lex
• Ministers
Talionis approach - white slavery for 200
tion, Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience
• Both supported self-defense’s usage in movement
years
and Ghandi’s nonviolent tactics
• Eventually joined forces in the middle to work
• Stayed uninvolved in politics outside of advocacy for civil rights, because he critiqued everyone’s approach
Pan-African state formation located
together for a slightly more tempered version of
in south/southwest America, until they
each of their views
could return to Africa
• Both geniuses - eloquent and highly effective
Led the Nation of Islam Rejected integration
Thought of by many to better articulate the anger of black Americans and the desire for change Led to the reconnection of American blacks with their original cultures Disavowed christianity as a whie religion forced on slaves by their masters Didn’t want to call it civil rights, preferred human rights to increase global interest
Bibliography Books, M. H. (2011). AP* U.S. History Review And Study Guide For American Pageant 13th Edition. Place of publication not identified: Retrieved from Lulu.com. Kennedy, David M., Lizabeth Cohen, and Thomas A. Bailey. The American Pageant: A History of the Republic. 12th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2001 Carson, C. (2018, April 26). American civil rights movement. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/event/American-civil-rights-movement History.com Staff. (2009). Civil Rights Movement. Retrieved from https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/civil-rights-movement Murder in Mississippi. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/freedomsummer-murder/ Simon Wendt, The Spirit and the Shotgun: Armed Resistance and the Struggle for Civil Rights (University of Florida Press, 2007), 121–122; Mike Marqusee, “By Any Means Necessary” The Nation, September 24, 2004 – http://www.thenation.com/article/any-means-necessary#
State of Race Relations Mira LaNasa Korean
that saying ‘I don’t see color,’ or ‘race doesn’t matter to me,’ is very counterproductive and pretty offensive actually because somebody skin color is a part of who they are. You can’t just say nothing matters anymore, or like your wealth doesn’t matter anymore, your family doesn’t matter anymore, because that those things shape you. You can’t just say that one of those aspects of your life, that you have centered so much around, doesn’t matter. And it also goes hand in hand with culture, and obviously I’m like an exception to this, but usually your race has a specific culture, like ethnicity, and stuff that goes along with it. Ignoring that is saying like you are the same as me. And while that seems like it might be helpful and equality and everything, it’s really just saying like you don’t matter. Your culture doesn’t matter. And I only see you for like your intelligence or something. It takes away part of who you are.
With that and the culture aspect, I was talking to some kids in my class and one is Columbian, one is half Mexican, half white, and they were talking about having people who are biracial or multi racial, depending on the like components, should be its own race, and culturally, how that is different. And I was just wondering what your perspective on it is, because you were raised by white parents?
In your mind what defines racism and how does that definition apply to you and your own race? In my mind, racism is discrimination based on the color of somebody’s skin. I don’t know it doesn’t really change my own view of myself because I’m kind of egotistical already, but if I were insecure, I’d probably feel shitty that I’m an Asian person in a white school. Oh, I probably shouldn’t swear. I’d feel bad that I was an Asian person that was in a majority-white school. So how do you view white privilege - in general and specifically at Stillwater?
I understand what they mean, because they are two different experiences to different cultures completely, but they technically aren’t a different race, you know, if you speak Spanish, and you speak English, it’s not a completely different component there. It’s like you’re both of them and so you take elements from both parts of it, but it doesn’t create its own in a whole nother entity. I mean like biracial people are separate from people who are like 100% one thing, like I’m 100% Korean. However, it’s not like anyone came home and wrote half black, half white, half Mexican, half black. It’s not two different little tiny bubbles. They kind of get grouped in. However that’s only speaking on like the color of their skin, you know, their cultures are completely different, their backgrounds are completely different. Everybody has a different experience and those can’t be lumped into one thing.
White privilege is tricky because I don’t really know how to feel about it. Clear- Do you feel like your experience is different than someone in America who has ly white people have an advantage over any colored person in both situations. those cultural roots, versus your white American culture, and your connection Specifically in Stillwater, you can see a lot of white kids can feel very entitled, like to your culture and your heritage? How that has changed? very entitled especially just in grades. I mean, that’s also very similar in wealth as opposed to skin color but then there is that correlation between skin color So I was adopted when I was three months old. So I really don’t have that much and wealth or if you are white and you make more money and then you feel more connection to Korea. I don’t know who my birth parents are. I have done a DNA entitled when it comes to school and you think that everything should be handed test to find out like what my genetics are and I’m like 98% Korean, but that to you instead of working hard for it. doesn’t mean that I am culturally Korean. Somebody who has parents who are Korean, they have that culture with them. They have all the Korean aspects, like So you see white privilege as a cycle? food. They know how to cook all their foods, they have traditional wear like garments which sounds weird, but they have all those different aspects and if I were Yes, definitely. I see it as a cycle. white, there would be nothing different from me and you. We’d have the same culture. It’s just I have a different perspective because of my skin color, and that’s How has [race] affected your ability to access community services, such as prorace and culture, which are totally intertwined. They can be separate, different tection, education, all that kind of thing? cases, especially [people] like with me. I have a unique situation because I was adopted by a white family, so I don’t How do you feel that has impacted your experience growing up with a predomnecessarily have that disadvantage of having a colored family where I come from, inantly white cultural background? with a less privileged side of things like wealth and everything. I can definitely see it in some of my classmates, especially where there’s two twins who grew up I feel like I see a lot of different aspects, like different points of view, than most in Mexico and they moved here and they definitely do not reach the same level as other people do. One, because I have experienced like discrimination, because some of the white kids that we have here and they, socially, they don’t have like of my skin color. But growing up in a white family, I still have the on-paper adfriends. They only have each other, like it’s bad. They don’t have resources. They vantages, you know. My last name is Italian, (I mean my first name doesn’t really don’t know who to talk to. They don’t have teachers to go to for letters of recommake sense with my last name) but people don’t typically imagine me to be like mendation - like Mr. Ryan, I had him in mind because I’ve known him from ninth colored. If you see a photo of my parents, you’d think that I was white. So if you grade up until I went back to student assist for him in 12th grade but these girls don’t know me, then I have that advantage. If I set up an interview or something didn’t have anybody else to go to because they haven’t connected with any other over email and then I show up, they’ll be like, “Oh, you’re not white, like I was teachers, so they went to him. They had him in ninth grade and haven’t talked to not expecting…” Because already that standard is that everybody here is white. him since so they really don’t have that advantage. And I don’t know my dad is really conservative. Like very, very conservative. And so I see his point of view of things. Some race things too, and as somebody What do you feel is the best way to address race going forward- Kind of going who has a different skin color, I see it completely differently. So it’s just given along the options of acknowledging it as something that like diversifies us and me a completely different point of view. And I think it’s made me more secure in acknowledging it as a concept or rejecting the concept entirely of race and prewhat my beliefs are because I can see it so differently from both perspectives. I tending it doesn’t exist? mean, I grew up thinking the same things that he did. But now, now I like to have my own mindset. I have completely different views and I’m so much more secure Yeah, so I did an editorial about this, about what racial colorblindness is and in them because of it. Like, I’m not just falling on what my parents believe.