America: Pathways to the Present Text

America: Pathways to the Present | Chapter 21: The Civil Rights Movement

This chapter explores the origins and development of the civil rights movement in the United States. The chapter is divided into five sections: Demands for Civil Rights, Leaders and Strategies, the Struggle Intensifies, the Political Response, and the Movement Takes a New Turn.

Section 1: Demands for Civil Rights

Main Ideas

  • After World War II, many African Americans felt it was time to fight discrimination.
  • Early leaders in the civil rights movement focused on desegregating schools and the transportation system.

Summary and Analysis
In the years following World War II, many African Americans felt the time was ripe to demand their civil rights. During the first half of the twentieth century, the African-American population of northern cities grew tremendously as blacks moved to escape the Jim Crow South. Out of these communities came educated, prominent African Americans who were able to form alliances and gain political influence. During the New Deal, African Americans were courted as voters and were given positions working in the government. During World War II, even more African Americans moved to northern cities, giving them power as a voting constituency. Furthermore, the horrors of the Holocaust in Germany demonstrated to many Americans, both black and white, the ugliness of racism. They felt that racism had no place in a country that called itself “the land of the free.”

The first sign that the racial status quo was about to change was the integration of major league baseball. Jackie Robinson's brave and dignified behavior fostered pride in Africans Americans and helped pave the way for the early civil rights movement.

One of the first issues pursued by civil rights leaders was the desegregation of public schools. African Americans scored a significant victory with the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which stated that segregation of schools was unconstitutional. The decision set off a battle as schools across the South declared they would never desegregate. In the fall of 1957, nine African-American students enrolled in Little Rock High School, setting off a violent reaction. Their right to attend school had to be supported by the National Guard. The nationwide desegregation of schools had begun.

In Montgomery, Alabama, a new leader of civil rights was emerging. African Americans began boycotting city busses to have integrated seating. The Montgomery Bus Boycott, which started after the arrest of Rosa Parks for refusing to give up her seat to a white man, lasted a year before the bus company gave in and integrated their seating. It was during this boycott that the country first heard of a young black pastor named Martin Luther King.

Section 2: Leaders and Strategies

Main Idea

  • Many different groups, each with its own strategy, worked to achieve the common goal of equal rights.

Summary and Analysis
Because the civil rights movement was a grass roots movement comprising ordinary citizens, there was no central organization leading the fight to end racial injustice. One of the first official organizations was the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) founded back in 1909. This was the group behind the case of Brown v. Board of Education. The NAACP appealed to mainly middle- and upper-class whites and blacks. Other groups working for civil rights included the National Urban League, which helped African Americans in the areas of jobs and housing. The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) was also a biracial group that fought segregation in cities across the country.

It was during the Montgomery Bus Boycott that the nation got its first glimpse of Martin Luther King. King believed in the practice of civil disobedience and nonviolent protest. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) was based on the ideology that “nonviolent resistance transforms weakness into strength.” King became a national leader in the civil rights movement and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. Nonviolence was also the hallmark of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) founded in 1960 for students active in the struggle for civil rights. Led by Robert Moses, the committee would become a powerful voice for change.

Section 3: The Struggle Intensifies

Main Ideas

  • The tactics of nonviolent protest brought change but also generated confrontations as nonviolent protesters were often violently attacked.
  • Television coverage of these events horrified the nation and forced the federal government to become involved to protect the rights of African Americans.

Summary and Analysis
Nonviolent protests became increasingly popular in the early 1960s. One of the most prominent techniques was the sit-in, which was used effectively to desegregate restaurants and other public places. An interracial group of students would enter the area such as a lunch counter and sit down. If they were refused service, they would simply remain where they were. Although many sit-in participants were arrested, it was an effective technique and helped to integrate restaurants and other public places. Sometimes, however, the method led to violent confrontation as in the Freedom Rides of the early 1960s. After segregation was declared illegal on interstate buses, in waiting areas, and in other service areas for passengers such as restaurants, several students wanted to see if they could take advantage of these newly gained rights. Interracial groups boarded busses heading to the South. The ride became the occasion of violent conflict as the busses were attacked and even set on fire. The “freedom riders” were arrested before reaching their destination. The attacks were shown on national television, forcing President Kennedy to take action by sending federal marshals to ride on the busses and by threatening to sue local communities that did not comply with desegregation.

The nation also watched on television as angry white protesters sparked a violent confrontation in Mississippi when African-American student James Meredith wanted to attend the state university, and when authorities attacked peaceful protesters with high-pressure fire hoses and trained police dogs in Birmingham, Alabama. Scenes such as these appalled Americans and convinced many that a basic change in the attitudes of Americans toward racial injustice was long overdue.

Section 4: The Political Response

Main Ideas

  • The civil rights movement and the change in public opinion to support racial equality slowly pushed legislators to introduce civil rights legislation.
  • Because of resistance from the South, it was difficult to get civil rights legislation passed.

Summary and Analysis
The scenes of violence against African-American protesters seen in living rooms across America turned the tide of public opinion in favor of civil rights. During his campaign, President Kennedy had shown strong support for the civil rights movement, but he was slow to act once he got in office. But he, like many Americans, was greatly disturbed by the scenes of violence against protesters shown in the media. Kennedy introduced a strong civil rights bill in July of 1963, but the bill stalled in Congress and did not pass until after Kennedy’s assassination. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 banned differing racial standards for voter registration; prohibited discrimination in public places; banned discrimination on the part of employers on the basis of race, sex, or religion; and allowed the federal government to withhold funds from any programs that practiced discrimination.

Now that protesters had the law on their side, they continued to push for change, particularly for voting rights. African Americans had long been denied their right to vote, and even the Civil Rights Act did not truly guarantee them that right. In the summer of 1964, black leaders began a movement to register African American voters in the South. This movement climaxed in the Selma March led by Martin Luther King in Selma, Alabama, which was seen across the nation. President Lyndon Johnson introduced the Voters Rights Act of 1965 (allowing the federal government to register voters when local officials refused) and the Twenty-Fourth Amendment (outlawing the poll tax that had been used to keep poor African Americans from voting).

Section 5: The Movement Takes a New Turn

Main Ideas

  • Although the civil rights movement had made significant progress, change still came too slowly for some African Americans.
  • Those who were dissatisfied called for more radical action, rejecting the nonviolent protests of Martin Luther King.
  • The violence culminated in the 1968 assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy.

Summary and Analysis
For many African Americans, the slow rate of change fueled their anger and moved them to more radical action. The leaders of this more radical movement included Malcolm X, a member of the Nation of Islam, a religious group that believed in Black Nationalism. After a visit to Mecca in 1964, Malcolm X began to alter his views on separatism, earning him enemies in the movement. He was assassinated in February 1965.

Malcolm X never had a chance to revise his message of black separatism, and it was picked up by a leader named Stokely Carmichael. SNCC members were moved by Carmichael’s ideas, and the group began to support his call for “black power,” a movement to recognize their heritage and build a sense of community within African-American culture. The idea of black power led to the formation of the Black Panthers, who used more violent methods to gain power, often sparking clashes with police. These more radical movements gave birth to the slogan “Black is Beautiful” and created a deep divide in the civil rights movement.

Urban ghettos were a fertile soil for more radical civil rights movements. Young African Americans in the ghetto saw white police as oppressors, and they felt mired in poverty while whites had opportunity and wealth. Their frustration boiled over, and the years between 1964 and 1968 were punctuated by riots in cities throughout the country, including the famous Watts Riot in Los Angeles that resulted in thirty-four deaths and over a thousand injuries. Finally, in 1968 Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were silenced by assassins’ bullets.

Despite dissatisfaction with the slow rate of change, the civil rights movement helped to transform America, making it closer to the country envisioned by Thomas Jefferson, one “where all…are created equal.”

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