CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
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Segregation: The act of setting someone apart from other people. 1950s, there were many acts of segregation. It may have apply to activities such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a public
R
acial segregation is separation of humans into racial groups in daily life. Jim Crow Laws were the biggest part of segregation. They put signs on almost every part of society that would separate what blacks and whites used. African Americans were expected to accept their low class label. They had different behaviors in front of whites than they did in front of blacks. Poll taxes, literacy tests and white primary helped deny African Americans to voting rights.
toilet, attending school, going to the movies, riding on a bus, or in the rental or purchase of a home.
In the
Many people went on strike to not allow blacks to go to school with them.
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People like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. tried to end the inequality. However there were groups like the KKK and regulations, such as the Jim Crow Laws, that went against them. By 1968 all forms of segregation had been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, and by 1970 support
for formal legal segregation had dissolved. Formal racial discrimination was illegal in school systems, businesses, the American military, other civil services and the government. Separate bathrooms, water fountains and schools all disappeared and the civil rights movement had the public's support.
Ruby Briges is one of many, who was threatened by whites if she attended there school.
Jim Crow Laws 1876- 1965. They included segregation in public schools, public places, and public transportation. They also segregated public restrooms, restaurants, and drinking fountains. The U.S. Military
J
im Crow Laws were racial segregation laws put into place. They intended to keep blacks and whites separated between the years 4
and federal work places were also segregated. Jim Crow Laws were any of the laws legalizing racial segregation of blacks and whites that were enacted in primarily southern and border states. African Americans were forced into the status of
ways includingintelligence, civilized behavior, and morality. An example of how they were divided is a barber couldn’t cut black and white peoples hair. Generally, the remaining Jim Crow laws were overruled by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.The laws ended in the mid 1960s.
second class citizens. It followed the theory that whites were superior to African Americans in importance
I HAVE A DREAM Martin Luther King Jr.
Rosa Parks & Martin Luther King Montgomery Bus Boycott
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M
artin Luther king Jr. was a leader in the African American Civil Rights Movement. He was most known for his “I have a dream speech”. This
speaking, he was rewarded the Nobel Peace Prize on October 14, 1964. Years later he began planning a poor people’s campaign. This project gave lower class citizens an
On Aug. 28, 1963, in front of a crowd of 250,000, King departed from his prepared words to share a dream that would mesmerize the nation.
motivating presentation opened eyes and made aware that African Americans are just as equal to whites. It had a great impact on the racial side of the community. Due to his involvement and motivational
opportunity to have a better life. They were given education and middle class jobs. This shows that Martin was not only helping African Americans, but he was trying to help others in need as well. Martin Luther King received many awards, for he was a great role model to the society. He 6
was well looked up to and a great person overall. King was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was established as a holiday in numerous cities and states beginning in 1971,
and as a U.S. federal holiday in 1986. Hundreds of streets in the U.S. have been renamed in his honor. In addition, a county was rededicated in his honor. A memorial statue on the National Mall was opened to the public in 2011.
Rosa Parks Inspired Generation
The Stone of Hope Statue at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington, D.C.
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osa Louise McCauley Parks was an AfricanAmerican civil rights activist, whom the United States Congress called "the first lady of civil rights" and "the mother of the freedom
movement�. Her birthday, February 4, and the day she was arrested, December 1, have both become Rosa Parks Day, commemorated in the U.S. states of California and Ohio. On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks refused to obey bus drivers order that she give up her seat in the
7 Police report on Parks, December 1, 1955. Page 3
Rosa Parks
colored section to a white passenger, after the white section was filled. Parks was not the first person to resist bus segregation. Others had taken similar steps, including Irene Morgan in 1946, Sarah Louise Keys in 1955. Parks' act of defiance and the Montgomery Bus Boycott became important symbols of the modern Civil Rights Movement. She became an international icon of resistance to racial segregation. She organized and collaborated with civil rights leaders. At the time, Parks was secretary of the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP. She had recently attended the Highlander Folk School, a Tennessee center for training activists for workers' rights and racial equality. She acted as a private citizen "tired of giving in". Although widely honored in later years, she also suffered for her act; she was fired from her job as a seamstress in a local department store. Eventually, she moved to Detroit, where she briefly found similar work. From 1965 to 1988 she served as secretary and receptionist to John
Conyers, an AfricanAmerican U.S. Representative. After retirement, Parks wrote her autobiography and lived a largely private life in Detroit. In her final years of 2005, she suffered from dementia. Being a very important person in our community, Rosa Parks will forever be remembered.
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Professional Sports: Main Highlight- Jackie Robinson
J
ack Roosevelt "Jackie" Robinson was an American baseball player who became the first African-American to play in Major League Baseball (MLB). Robinson broke the baseball color line when the Brooklyn Dodgers started him at first base on April 15, 1947. As the first major league team to play a black man since the 1880s, the Dodgers Jesse Owens at the ended racial 1936 Olympics. segregation that had relegated black players to the Negro leagues for six
decades. The example of
Jackie Robinson
Robinson's character and unquestionable talent challenged the traditional basis of segregation, which then marked many other aspects of American life, and contributed significantly, to the Civil Rights Movement. In addition to his cultural impact, Robinson had an exceptional baseball career. Over 10 9
1st African American players.
seasons, Robinson played in six World Series and contributed to the Dodgers' 1955 World Series championship. He was selected for six consecutive AllStar Games. He was the recipient of the inaugural MLB Rookie of the Year Award in 1947, and won the National League Most Valuable Player Award in 1949. Robinson was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962. In 1997, MLB "universally" retired his uniform number, 42, across all major league teams; he was the first pro athlete in any sport to be highly honored. Achievements in other sports: -
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Football became Semiintegrated in 1946, but there were sill racial problems. 1950 basketball accepted there 10
GIVE US A SAY Voting RightsDuring the
civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, voting rights activists in the South were subjected to various forms of mistreatment and violence. One event that outraged
V
oting Rights Act of 1965outlawed literacy tests and other tactics used to deny African Americans the right to vote. Federal intervention ensured that eligible voters were not denied voting rights. Jim Crow Laws limited the right for African Americans to vote. In Louisiana of 1896 more than 130,000 African Americans were registered to vote. Only 1,342 of them were on the polls in 1904. So many were not accepted due to literacy tests and pool taxes- filled with unofficial loopholes and trick questions.
many Americans occurred on March 7, 1965, when peaceful participants in a voting rights march from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital in Montgomery were met by Alabama state troopers who attacked them with nightsticks, tear gas and whips after they refused to turn back. Some 11
protesters were severely beaten, and others ran for their lives. The incident was captured on national television. The voting rights bill was passed in the U.S. Senate by a 77-19 vote on May 26, 1965. After debating the bill for more than a month,
the U.S. House of Representatives passed the bill by a vote of 333-85 on July 9. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law on August 6, with Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders present at the ceremony.
African Americans strongly Held their ground until able to vote.
KLAN KILLS FIVE T he Ku Klux Klan, otherwise known as the KKK, was established in 1866. It was a secret white supremacist terrorist group that resisted reconstruction tormenting black Americans. Over many
decades there have been three clans. The first Ku Klux Klan flourished in the Southern United States in the late 1860s, and then died out by the early 1870s. At this time members adopted the well-known white costumes: robes, masks, and 12
Ku Klux Klan Holds 1st National Meeting In 1867
conical hats, designed to be outlandish and terrifying, and to hide their identities. Second KKK flourished nationwide in the early and mid1920s, and adopted the same costumes and code words as the first Klan, while introducing cross burnings. The third KKK emerged after World War II and was associated with opposing the Civil Rights Movement and progress among minorities. The "Ku Klux Klan" name was used by a numerous independent local groups opposing the Civil Rights Movement and desegregation, especially in the 1950s and 1960s. During this period, they often forged alliances with Southern police departments, as in Birmingham,
Alabama; or with governor's offices, as with George Wallace of Alabama. Several members of KKK groups were convicted of murder in the deaths of civil rights workers and children in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. Union Army veterans in mountainous Blount County, Alabama, organized "the antiKu Klux". They put an end KKK Robe and Hood to violence by threatening Klansmen with reprisals, unless they stopped whipping Unionists and burning black churches and schools. Armed blacks formed their own defense in Bennettsville, South Carolina and patrolled the streets to protect their homes.
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Schooling For All...
ONE-ROOM SCHOOL GEORGIA 1950
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textbooks from the "white" schools. Linda Brown was the young black schoolgirl who changed the school system with the Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court decision. It overturned the "separate but equal" ideology of Plessy vs. Ferguson. In 1954, it was decided that separate schools for black and white children was unconstitutional. It
he segregated classroom told a powerful story of the oppression of the African American race. Education is essential to a person's future and success, but with an entire race lacking a solid education they are generally forced to remain in the lower socioeconomic levels. Before the Civil Rights Movement, the "white" schools had more money to purchase supplies and pay teachers. The "black" schools were usually oneroom classrooms with the discarded supplies and outdated
required integration in the southern states allowing students such as the Little Rock Nine to attend schools that were 14
Ruby Bridges
formally "all white". The Little Rock Nine was a name given to a group of black students who were going to be the first students to integrate Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas in 1957. This occurred after the ruling of Brown vs. Board of Education banned "separate but equal" schooling. The Governor of Arkansas at the time prevented them from entering the High School. This violated federal law and President Eisenhower intervened and the students were allowed to attend with escorts from the National Guard. In response, Governor Faubus closed public schools the next year; this is known as the "Lost Year". The next year the schools were reopened by federal court decision. Only two of the original nine re-enrolled.
Interracial Marriage 15
I
nterracial marriage occurs when two people of differing racial groups marry. 11 southern states passed the AntiInterracial marriage law. It states that blacks were inferior to the whites and it prohibited that blacks and whites did not mix in any way. Some antiinterracial marriage laws
Mildred Loving, a black woman, and Richard Loving, a white man, who had been sentenced to a year in prison in Virginia for marrying each other. Their marriage violated the state's antimiscegenation statute, the Racial Integrity Act of Mildred & Richard Loving
1924, which
prohibited Asians, Africans, and Indians to mix with whites. Loving v. Virginia was a landmark civil rights decision of the United States Supreme Court which invalidated laws prohibiting interracial marriage. The case was brought by
prohibited marriage between people classified as "white" and people classified as "colored". The Supreme Court's unanimous decision held this prohibition was unconstitutional, overturning Pace v. Alabama (1883) and ending all racebased legal 16
restrictions on marriage in the United States. Interracial marriage in the United States has been fully legal in all U.S. states since the 1967 Supreme Court decision that deemed antimiscegenation laws
unconstitutional, with many states choosing to legalize interracial marriage at much earlier dates. Antimiscegenation laws have played a large role in defining racial identity and enforcing the racial hierarchy.
Put Us to Work: African American Employment
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t is one of the great ironies of American labor history that enslaved workers toiled at a wider variety of skilled tasks than did their descendants who were free. Slave owners had an economic incentive to exploit the multifaceted talents of blacks in the craft shop as well as in the kitchen and
field. But after emancipation, whites attempted to limit blacks to menial jobs. Throughout the late nineteenth century and well into the twentieth, blacks as a group were barred from machine work within the industrial sector, and from white-collar clerical and service work.
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Black maintenance worker in Allison Motors Plant, 1941.
"Modernization" wore a white face. In the 1940s and 1950s, Memphis was a place where blacks were concentrated in the lowest-paying, dirtiest, and most hazardous jobs, and where the political establishment (the noxious, violent Boss Crump machine) routinely colluded with employers to harass and assault union organizers. Within this statesanctioned system of segregation, industrial unionism represented the most progressive force for change,
and the leaders interviewed here recount their toughest battles in the period immediately following World War II. We hear from workers who were employed by large corporations such as Firestone, Fisher Body, and International Harvester; from those who worked as Pullman porters, domestic employees, and longshoremen; and from low-wage workers in furniture factories, commercial laundries, and food processing plants.
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This magazine was helped in formed by the following web sites: - Wikipedia - History Alive - History Channel - Learning History
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