William Morgan

Civil Rights and the Racial Divide Prior to 1954 African-Americans struggled to gain public, economic, educational, and political rights for themselves. Strong campaigns were made by black leaders such as Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Dubois, and Marcus Garvey. Although they all had different views and ideas, they all pushed for the same action, equal rights among African-Americans. By the 1950s enough discrimination and segregation triggered a court case between Oliver Brown and The Board of Education in the state of Kansas. America would soon discover that the body of this case would begin a whole new era. This era became known as the Civil Rights Era. In this period, African-Americans across the United States would actively drive for rights that they were promised a hundred years ago. African-Americans all over the country were about to take the strongest stand yet. Brown vs. Board of Education was a legal challenge case triggered by Oliver Brown and the NAACP. Mr. Browns daughter, Linda Brown, was a young girl who attended a black school in Topeka, Kansas in the early 1950s. She walked several miles to and from school every day. The issue was that there was an all white school only a few blocks from her home. When Mr. Brown tried to enroll his child there, the school would not allow it because of segregation laws. He was eager to make a difference, so he got help from the NAACP. Up until this time, funding in the black schools was significantly lower than that of the white schools. In an effort to avoid desegregation, The Topeka Kansas School Board offered to raise the funding in the black schools. Browns view was that funding was not the issue. Segregation set a standard of inferiority for African-Americans. The NAACP worked hard to undermine segregation in schools because they believed that children did not need to learn racism. The NAACP believed

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black education needed improving and that white children would be more adaptable to change growing up with blacks.1 Under the leadership of the new Chief Justice, Earle Warren, the Supreme Court later ruled 9-0 to overturn Segregation in the public school system on March 17, 1954. This was the greatest African-American victory since the Emancipation Proclamation. The reaction of the ruling was mixed. Some states supported the idea of integration and some did not. Many African-Americans feared integration for a few reasons. Black teachers feared losing their jobs, and black students and parents feared increased racism that would lead to violence.2 In 1955 another case called Brown II would determine how the results were to be carried out. The Supreme Court stated that the case should be carried out in All Deliberate Speed. School districts across the south tried to resist and reverse the decision. Southern senators came together for what was to be called The Southern Manifesto. They had a plan to use all lawful means to bring a reversal to the Supreme Courts decision. The group came up with a number of plans to get around the law of desegregation.3 In the years 1954-1959 there were 210 acts of violence on blacks from whites. Also in those years, nine black students were integrated, through great struggle, into Little Rock Central High School. They became known as the The Little Rock Nine. In order to enter the school, the nine students would have to go through the traffic of protesters and Governor Orval Faubus Arkansas National Guard. President Eisenhower would soon order federal troops to escort The Little Rock Nine into the school. Although desegregation was eventually a success in Arkansas, the south looked the same in 1960 as it did five years prior. Only 6% of the southern schools had
1 2

Fleegler, Lecture 6, July 12, 2012 Ibid 3 Ibid

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desegregated, but by the mid-1960s education was looking up. The integration of schools would mean biracial classrooms everywhere in the United States. African-Americans could now get the same education as White Americans.4 Jim Crow was still very much alive in the south in 1955. African-Americans grew even more frustrated with Jim Crow after the brutal killing of 14 year old Emmett Till in Tallahatchie County, Mississippi. Mississippi was the most resistant state in the south at this time. Till was murdered by two white males for allegedly whistling at a white woman in a department store. His mother held an open casket at the funeral to bring awareness of how bad Jim Crow was in the south.5 Not long after Tills murder, a middle aged woman by the name of Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama. On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks was on her way home from work. She boarded a city bus and sat in the designated white section. Three other African-Americans riding the bus would soon join her in the white section. As the section filled, a white man boarded the bus and demanded that the blacks give up their seats. When no one moved, the bus driver ordered all the blacks in the white section to give up their seats. All moved, except Rosa Parks. The white man then called the police and had Mrs. Parks arrested. Rosa Parks direct action would become increasingly popular for people involved in the Civil Rights Movement. She became the inspiration behind what was called the Bus Boycott of 1955-1956. The Bus Boycott was a year-long boycott that pushed to desegregate the

4 5

Fleegler, Lecture 7, July 12, 2012 Halberstam, David. The Fifties, Villard Books, New York, 1993, p.431-437

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public transportation system. It was lead by a twenty-six year old minister by the name of Martin Luther King, Jr.6 Until 1960 the progress of the Civil Rights Movement was inadequate. Meanwhile 1960 marked a new era for Africa. African countries were becoming more independent and free. A famous author by the name of James Baldwin was quoted saying, All of Africa will be free before I can get a cup of coffee. In America, blacks still had very little right to do much of anything. Frustration grew higher as blacks across the country were hungrier than ever for equal rights. Sit-ins became increasingly popular among blacks and whites. The Sit-in campaigns were conducted by the interracial Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Whites and blacks would sit in public, segregated places and demand service in restaurants, movie drive-ins, hotels, and libraries. By 1961, 70,000 black and white people had participated in a sit-in. In that same year, 200 cities began to desegregate. From 1960 to 1965 blacks make amazing progress in the Civil Rights Movement.7 With the election of John F. Kennedy in 1960, the Civil Rights Movement would soon make its biggest stride yet. Much like the presidents before him, Civil Rights were not one of Kennedys main concerns entering into office. In 1961 activists conducted a movement called The Freedom Rides. The Freedom Riders goal was to integrate public bus terminals in the South, and face racial resistance from white supremacists in Alabama. One of the more famous freedom rides was when a bus was traveling from Washington D.C. to Jackson, Mississippi. When the bus stopped in Anniston, Alabama, white supremacists slit the tires and threw a smoke bomb on the bus. This incident was later followed by a mob trying to prevent a man named

6 7

Ibid, p.539-541 Fleegler, Lecture 7, July 12, 2012

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James Meredith from becoming the first African-American student to attend The University of Mississippi in 1962. It was obvious that Civil Rights leaders needed federal help. State and local governments were not doing their jobs, and Civil Rights leaders had done all that they could do. In June of 1963, President Kennedy addressed the nation on Civil Rights. In his, he pushed for equality and heavily supported the Civil Rights Bill. Months later President Kennedy would be assassinated and replaced by Lyndon B. Johnson.8 President Johnson picked up right where Kennedy left off by signing the Civil Rights Bill in 1964. The Bill made racial discrimination in public places illegal. By law Black and White Only signs were to be taken down, and blacks were to be treated equally in public places such as restaurants, libraries and movie theatres. Also, the Bill stated that there were to be equal employment opportunities across the country for all races.9 A year after the Civil Rights Bill passed, African-Americans in the South still could not vote. At this point, the movement had helped blacks gain educational and public rights. Blacks across the country could now go to any public school that they chose. They could also get public accommodations in all public places, as well. It was not until after the incident in Selma, Alabama, that African-Americans in the South received voting rights. In 1965, a movement of activists planned to march to Montgomery, Alabama in an act to get rid of remaining segregation issues and to gain voting rights. The march was horror struck when Alabama state troopers brutally attacked men, women and children as they attempted to march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. President Johnson addressed the country following what took place in Selma. In his address he said, Racism is something that we must overcome, and we shall overcome. In that

8 9

Fleegler, Lecture 8, July 16, 2012 Fleegler, Lecture 9, July 17, 2012

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same year, The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed giving African-American men the right to vote in the South.10 In 1965, Jim Crow died. Blacks everywhere now had equal rights under the law. The Voting Rights Act was very effective. In fact by 1968, 59% of Blacks registered to vote. Although African-Americans now had more rights than ever, there were still riots and resistance that took place in some areas of the country. Also, economic status between whites and blacks was left unchanged. Today, there is still a gap between the economic status of whites and blacks. This does not change how much progress was gained in so little time during the Civil Rights Movement. In the span of one decade, blacks across the country fought and won their rights to be equal under the law. While things are still not perfect today, The Civil Rights Movement marks itself in history as the most important period of time for African-Americans in the United States.11

10 11

Ibid Ibid

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Bibliography

Fleegler, Robert. Lecture 6, July 12, 2012. Fleegler, Robert. Lecture 7, July 12, 2012. Fleegler, Robert. Lecture 8, July 16, 2012. Fleegler, Robert. Lecture 9, July 17, 2012. Halberstam, David. The Fifties, Villard Books, New York, 1993, p.431-437 Halberstam, David. The Fifties, Villard Books, New York, 1993, p.439-541