Transcript Civil Rights Movement and Conflict (1960s)

“Like a Mighty Stream”
Civil Rights
Movement and
The Warren
Court (1960s)
“We preach freedom
around the world, but
are we to say to the
world, and much more
importantly, to each
other, that this is a land
of the free except for
Negroes?"
- President John F.
Kennedy, 11 June 1963
CRM in the
1960s
James Meredith in 1962
• The Civil Rights Movement gained momentum
during the Kennedy and Johnson presidencies
• A close election in 1960 influenced President
Kennedy not to press the issue of civil rights,
but the defiance of Southern governors to
federal court rulings on integration forced a
showdown
• In 1962, James Meredith attempted to enroll in
the University of Mississippi (federal court
guaranteed his right to attend)
• When violence and rioting broke out on the
campus of the university, Kennedy sent 400
federal marshals and 3,000 troops
• Another incident occurred in Alabama in 1963
when Governor George Wallace tried to stop
the enrollment of an African American student
at the University of Alabama (Kennedy sent
troops)
The Leadership of Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr., a year later
in 1964, promoting the book Why
We Can't Wait, based on his "Letter
from Birmingham Jail"
• Throughout the Deep South, civil rights
activists and freedom riders who traveled
through the South registering African
Americans to vote and integrating public
places were met with bombs, beatings, and
murder
• MLK Jr. was committed to nonviolent
direct action protest against segregation
which led to the 1963 Birmingham
Campaign
The Birmingham Campaign (1963)
• This campaign was a strategic movement organized by SCLC
to bring attention to the unequal treatment of black Americans
in Birmingham, Alabama.
• The campaign ran during the spring of 1963, culminating in
widely publicized confrontations between black youth and
white civic authorities
• In the early 1960s, Birmingham was one of the most racially
divided cities in the United States
• Black citizens faced legal and economic disparities as well as
violent retribution when they attempted to bring attention to
their problems.
The Birmingham Campaign
continued…
Bill Hudson's image of Parker
High School student Walter
Gadsden being attacked by dogs
was published in The New York
Times on May 4, 1963.
• Protests in Birmingham began with a boycott
to pressure business leaders to provide
employment opportunities to people of all
races, and end segregation in public facilities,
restaurants, and stores.
• When business leaders resisted the boycott,
SCLC organizers began what they termed
Project C, a series of sit-ins and marches
intended to provoke mass arrests.
• After the campaign ran low on adult
volunteers, high school, college, and
elementary students were trained by SCLC to
participate, resulting in hundreds of arrests
and an instant intensification of national media
attention on the campaign.
The Birmingham Campaign
continued…
• To dissuade demonstrators and control the
protests the Birmingham Police Department, led
by Eugene "Bull" Connor, used high-pressure
water jets and police dogs on children and
bystanders.
• Media coverage of these events brought intense
scrutiny on racial segregation in the South.
High school students are hit by a
high-pressure water jet from a
• Scenes of the ensuing mayhem caused an
firehose during a protest in
Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963, as
international outcry, leading to federal
photographed by Charles Moore.
Images like this one, printed in Life,
intervention by the Kennedy administration.
inspired international support for the
demonstrators.
• By the end of the campaign, King's reputation
surged, Connor lost his job, the "Jim Crow"
signs in Birmingham came down, and public
places became more open to blacks.
The Birmingham Campaign
continued…
John F. Kennedy addressing
the nation about Civil Rights
on June 11, 1963
• The Birmingham campaign was a model of direct
action protest, as it effectively shut down the city.
• By attracting media attention to the adverse
treatment of black Americans, it brought national
force to bear on the issue of segregation.
• President Kennedy addressed the nation and
called the racism and segregation in the nation a
moral issue
• Although desegregation occurred slowly in
Birmingham, the campaign was a major factor in
the national push towards the Civil Rights Act of
1964, which prohibited racial discrimination in
hiring practices and public services in the United
States.
Martin Luther King Has a Dream
Martin Luther King Jr. in
front of the Lincoln
Memorial
• In 1963, Martin Luther King Jr.
led a march on Washington D.C.
• On August 8, 1963 over 250,000
people marched on the nation’s
capital
• Martin Luther King Jr. inspired the
nation with his “I Have a Dream
Speech”
Freedom Summer
UC Berkeley Campus in 1964 - Location of
'Freedom Summer' Protests and Civil Rights
Movements
• Freedom Summer (also known
as the Mississippi Summer
Project) was a campaign
launched in June 1964 to attempt
to register as many African
American voters as possible
• In Mississippi, which had
historically excluded most blacks
from voting, the project also set
up dozens of Freedom Schools,
Freedom Houses, and community
centers to aid the local black
population.
March to Montgomery
Alabama state troopers attack civil-rights
demonstrators outside Selma, Alabama, on
Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965
• When a voting rights march
from Selma to Montgomery in
1965 was met with police
beatings, President Johnson
sent in the troops to protect Dr.
King and other protesters
• Nevertheless, young African
Americans were losing
patience with the slow
progress toward equality and
the continued violence against
their people by white
extremists
A Shift in the CRM
Carmichael amidst a demonstration
near the United States Capitol
protesting the House of
Representatives' action denying Rep.
Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., his seat,
1967
• A shift in the Civil Rights Movement
took place in the mid-1960s from a
doctrine of nonviolence to the
increasing popularity of Black Power.
• After a failed attempt to assassinate
James Meredith along his planned
march from Memphis to Jackson in
1966, a young leader of SNCC named
Stokely Carmichael advocated “Black
Power”
• Carmichael’s popularity signaled a
change in what many blacks wanted and
how they would achieve these goals
Black Muslims and Malcolm X
Malcolm X advocated
black nationalism
which was a doctrine
that called for
complete separation
from white society
• Seeking a new cultural identity based on Africa
and Islam, the black Muslim leader Elijah
Muhammad preached black nationalism,
separatism, and self-improvement
• Muhammad attracted thousands of followers
including Malcolm X, a controversial figure who
criticized MLK Jr. as an “Uncle Tom”
• Malcolm X advocated self-defense using black
violence to counter white violence
• He eventually left the black Muslims to form the
Organization of Afro-American Unity-he was
assassinated shortly after
• The Autobiography of Malcolm X remains an
engaging testimony of Malcolm X’s life
experience
The Nations Black Ghettos Explode
Police arrest a man during the riots
• By the 1960s, almost 70 percent of
African-Americans lived in large cities
• Urban blacks were often concentrated in
ethnic ghettos
• Race riots in 1965 exploded into Watts,
an African-American ghetto in Los
Angeles
• African-Americans were frustrated
about poverty, prejudice, and police
mistreatment
• The Watts riot lasted six days (34 people
died, 900 injured, 45 million in
damages)
The Nations Black Ghettos Explode
Black Panther Party founders Bobby
Seale and Huey P. Newton standing
in the street, armed with a Colt .45
and a shotgun
• Over the next few years riots would erupt
in Chicago, Detroit, and Newark
• President Johnson established the
National Advisory Commission on Civil
Disorder to examine the causes of the
riots
• The Kerner Commission concluded that
“the nation was moving toward two
societies, one black, one white-separate
and unequal
• In 1966 the Black Panther Party was
founded in Oakland, California, and was
organized by Huey Newton, Bobby Seale
and other militants
Murder in
Memphis
Martin Luther King stands with Hosea
Williams, Jesse Jackson and Ralph
Abernathy on the balcony of the
Lorraine Motel on April 3, 1968, a day
before he was assassinated at
approximately the same place.
• Martin Luther King Jr. received the
Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, but his nonviolent approach was under increasing
pressure from all sides
• His efforts to use peaceful protests in
urban centers of the North met with little
success
• King also broke with President Johnson
over the Vietnam War
• In April of 1968, the nation was shocked
over the news that King was assassinated
on a motel balcony in Memphis
• Massive riots erupted in 168 citiesleaving 46 people dead
Achieving Landmark Civil Rights
Legislation
• The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed major forms of
discrimination against African Americans and women, including
racial segregation. It ended unequal application of voter
registration requirements and racial segregation in schools, at the
workplace and by facilities that served the general public
• This act also created the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission to end racial and gender discrimination in
employment
• The Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed discriminatory voting
practices that had been responsible for the widespread
disenfranchisement of African Americans (literacy exams and poll
taxes)
• The Twenty-fourth Amendment to the Constitution prohibited
poll taxes
Achieving Landmark Civil
Rights Legislation continued…
• Civil Rights Act of 1968 prohibited discrimination in
housing by prohibiting discrimination concerning the
sale, rental, and financing of housing based on race,
religion, or national origin
• Affirmative Action: a policy that calls on employers
to actively seek to increase the number of minorities
in their workforce
The Warren Court and
Individual Rights
• As Chief Justice of the Supreme Court
from 1953 to 1969, Earl Warren had
an impact on the nation comparable to
that of John Marshall in the early
1800s
• In the 1960s the Warren Court had a
profound effect on the criminal justice
system, the political system of the
states, and the definition of individual
rights
Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court Earl Warren
Criminal Justice
• Among the many decisions of the Warren Court concerning a
defendant’s rights, these were most important:
(1) Mapp v. Ohio (1961): rules that illegally seized evidence
cannot be used in court against the accused
(2) Gideon v. Wainwright (1963): required that state courts
provide counsel for indigent (poor) defendants
(3) Escobedo v. Illinois (1964): required the police to inform an
arrested person of his or her right to remain silent
(4) Miranda v. Arizona (1966): extended the ruling in Escobedo
to include the right to a lawyer being present during
questioning by the police
Reapportionment
Baker v. Carr was such an important
court case that there are many books
about it
• Before 1962, it was common for at
least one house of a state legislature
to be based upon the drawing of
district lines (strongly favored rural
areas)
• The Warren Court’s decision in the
landmark case of Baker v. Carr
declared such practices to be
unconstitutional
• This case established the principle of
“one man, one vote” (equal
representation for all of a state’s
citizens)
Freedom of Expression and Privacy
• Other rulings of the Warren Court extended the rights mentioned
in the First Amendment to protect radical actions of demonstrators
and students
• These cases allowed for greater latitude under the freedom of the
press, to ban religious activities from public schools, and to
guarantee adult’s rights to use contraceptives
(1) Yates v. United States (1957): said the First Amendment
protected radical and revolutionary speech unless it was a “clear
and present danger” to the safety of the nation
(2) Engel v. Vitale (1962): ruled that state laws requiring prayers and
Bible readings in the public schools violated the First
Amendment (separation of church and state)
(3) Griswold v. Connecticut (1965): ruled in recognition of a
citizen’s right to privacy (use of contraceptives)
Warren Court’s Impact
• The Warren Court’s defense of the
rights of unpopular groups and of the
freedoms of accused “criminals”
provoked a storm of controversy
• Critics even called for the
impeachment of Earl Warren
• Both supporters and critics, however,
agreed that the decisions of the Warren
Court caused profound and pervasive
revolution in the interpretation of
constitutional rights
An "Impeach Earl Warren sign," posted in
San Francisco in October 1958
Key Names, Events, and Terms
• Civil Rights Act of 1964
• Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission
• Twenty-fourth Amendment
• Voting Rights Act of 1965
• James Meredith
• Martin Luther King Jr.
• March on Washington; :I Have a
Dream Speech
• Black Muslims
• Malcolm X
• Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee (SNCC)
• Affirmative Action
• Congress of Racial Equality
(CORE)
• Stokely Carmichael
• Black Panthers
• Watts riots
• Kerner Commission
• Warren Court
• Civil Rights Act of 1968
• Brown v. Board of Education of
Topeka
• Gideon v. Wainwright
• Edcobedo v. Illinois
• Miranda v. Arizona
• reapportionment
Key Names, Events, and Terms
•
•
•
•
•
Baker v. Carr
“one man, one vote”
Yates v. United States
separation of church and state
Engel v. Vitale
Question
Which of the following was NOT a ruling of the Warren
Court?
(a) All election districts must provide equal
representation for voters
(b) The courts must provide lawyers for poor defendants
(c) Police must advise suspects of their rights to remain
silent
(d) The right to life of an unborn child is guaranteed by
the Fourteenth Amendment
(e) State-required prayers and Bible readings in public
schools violated the First Amendment
Answer
D: The right to life of an unborn child is
guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment