Nature and Characteristics of Discrimination
What was the response in the South to the ruling in Brown versus Board of Education?
For southerners, this decision did not just call for the end of segregated schools, it also threatened the foundation of white supremacy. This extensive negative reaction coalesced into a strategy called “massive resistance.” In May 1956, 101 congressmen issued the “Southern Manifesto” which pledged to reverse the decision. On every level from the school board to the state house, southerners fought this decision. Most southern school officials quietly developed their own plans to delay or deny the implementation of desegregation, including grade-per-year plans, transfer plans, and school closings. In addition, school boards also funneled money and supplies to existing facilities and constructed new black schools to dispute claims that they were underfunded and quell the desire for integration. When this strategy failed and federal court orders forced school districts to develop new desegregation plans, black teachers faced massive job losses as white school boards closed black schools. African American principals also received demotions or lost their jobs as their schools were eliminated.
What did the Civil Rights Act of 1964 accomplish?
Ended discrimination in the area of housing, hiring, education and public places
What was the role of the Nation of Islam in the Civil Rights Movement?
In the Civil Rights Movement, Blacks wanted to integrate and be a readily accepted part of White society with full access to White goods and services. The Nation of Islam, however, sought to totally break contact between the races. They desired Black communities to control their own economic, political, and social future with no room for Whites, who they referred to as 'devils'. The Nation of Islam didn't agree with the non-violent protests of the Civil Rights Movement. They saw the violence perpetrated against the peaceful protestors as worthy of retaliation, and the peaceful protestors' non-violent reaction to violence as blasphemy. The Nation of Islam’s teachings of Black pride looked down on accepting violence as simply fear deserving of compassion and understanding. Black pride meant returning violence with violence, and since Whites were 'devils', separating from them was the answer, not integrating with them.
What did the Voting Rights Act of 1965 do?
Ended discriminatory voting practices like poll taxes and literacy tests
How was the Jim Crow system engulfed by violence?
Blacks who violated Jim Crow norms risked their homes, their jobs, even their lives. The most extreme forms of Jim Crow violence were lynchings. Most of the victims of Lynch Law were hanged or shot, but some were burned at the stake, castrated, beaten with clubs, or dismembered. Lynchers were seldom arrested, and if arrested, rarely convicted.
How did white Americans used lynchings to terrorize and control black people?
Lynching would involve criminal accusations, often dubious, against a black American, an arrest, and the assembly of a “lynch mob” intent on subverting the normal constitutional judicial process. Victims would be seized and subjected to every imaginable manner of physical torment, with the torture usually ending with being hung from a tree and set on fire. More often than not, victims would be dismembered and mob members would take pieces of their flesh and bone as souvenirs. In a great many cases, the mobs were aided and abetted by law enforcement (indeed, they often were the same people). Officers would routinely leave a black inmate’s jail cell unguarded after rumors of a lynching began to circulate to allow for a mob to kill them before any trial or legal defense could take place.
What was the Freedom Summer?
A volunteer campaign in the United States launched in June 1964 to attempt to register as many African-American voters as possible in Mississippi. Blacks had been cut off from voting since the turn of the century due to barriers to voter registration and other laws. The project also set up dozens of Freedom Schools, Freedom Houses, and community centers in small towns throughout Mississippi to aid the local black population. The project was organized by the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), a coalition of the Mississippi branches of the four major civil rights organizations (SNCC, CORE, NAACP, and SCLC). Most of the impetus, leadership, and financing for the Summer Project came from the SNCC. Bob Moses, SNCC field secretary and co-director of COFO, directed the summer project.
What was Lyndon B Johnson’s role in the Civil Rights Movement?
Kennedy’s support for the movement effectively forced his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, to back it as well, even though Johnson had opposed civil rights legislation during his twelve years as Senate majority leader. Johnson realized that he had to honor Kennedy’s commitment to the movement in order to unite the Democratic Party and lead it effectively. He therefore put all his energy into pushing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a tougher civil rights bill than even Kennedy had envisioned. Johnson later followed through with the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Even though these acts were landmark achievements and finally gave black Americans equal social and political rights, Johnson likely would not have endorsed them had it not been for Kennedy’s prior commitment. In fact, after Johnson had done what he considered to be his political duty, he ordered the FBI to investigate civil rights activists and organizations for alleged ties to Communism.
How did the Civil Rights Act of 1964 advance education?
Even though the Supreme Court had ruled in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case that segregation in schools was inherently unequal, there had only been incremental efforts to desegregate public schools and universities in the subsequent decade. The Civil Rights Act required schools to take actual steps to end segregation, whether it was by busing, redistricting or creating magnet schools. It meant that black and white children got to know one another in school, just as Title VII of the act prohibited discrimination in the workplace, it got workers to interact with one another and find out they were human beings.
How were blacks deprived of the right to vote during the Jim Crow era?
Every state in the Deep South adopted a new state constitution, explicitly for the purpose of disenfranchising blacks. Various devices were used--poll taxes, literacy tests, arbitrary registration practices, felony disenfranchisement (for only those crimes that blacks disproportionately committed)
What was the significance of the Little Rock Nine for the Civil Rights Movement?
The Little Rock Nine was so instrumental for the movement because it brought national attention to the refusal of many Southern states to adhere to the Supreme Court’s ruling during Brown v. Board of Education that schools needed to be desegregated. The mass protest to the students’ entrance into the school helped display the blatant racism and hate from Southern whites who did not want to follow the law.
Explain the philosophy behind the nonviolence strategy in the Civil Rights movement
The leaders of the Civil Rights Movement chose the tactic of nonviolence as a tool to dismantle institutionalized racial segregation, discrimination, and inequality. They followed Martin Luther King Jr.'s guiding principles of nonviolence and passive resistance. Civil rights leaders had long understood that segregationists would go to any length to maintain their power and control over blacks. Consequently, they believed some changes might be made if enough people outside the South witnessed the violence blacks had experienced for decades. They hoped and often prayed that television and newspaper reporters would show the world that the primary reason blacks remained in such a subordinate position in the South was because of widespread violence directed against them. History shows there was no shortage of violence to attract the media.
How was the NAACP more effective in furthering the Civil Rights cause than other groups?
The courtroom victories of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) had the most lasting effect on the movement’s goal to desegregate the South. Had the NAACP not won these victories, it is doubtful that the movement would ever have gained as much momentum as it did. Thurgood Marshall, a brilliant lawyer working for the NAACP, attacked the “separate but equal” doctrine that justified segregation, winning a number of significant cases, including Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada (1938), Morgan v. Virginia (1946), and Sweatt v. Painter (1950). Marshall finally scored a direct hit on the “separate but equal” doctrine in 1954 with the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, decision.
Martin Luther King Jr. believed that black Americans lived within what two concentric circles of segregation?
One imprisons blacks on the basis of color, while the other confines blacks within a separate culture of poverty. The struggle to escape the circumstances is hindered by color discrimination. Blacks are deprived of normal education and normal social and economic opportunities.
Compare and Contrast the SCLC and the SNCC
Martin Luther King Jr. formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to coordinate peaceful protests—akin to the Montgomery bus boycott that had taken place two years earlier—against southern Jim Crow laws. He hoped that the peaceful-protest movement would gather momentum and that he would be able to rally the support of black churches—a tactic that worked well, because of the central role that the church played in the southern black community. Whereas King organized southern black churches, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) brought together like-minded students. Ella Baker, an SCLC director, formed the SNCC along with a group of activist students after the highly successful Greensboro sit-in in 1960. The SNCC worked diligently to mobilize black and white students in the North and South to work and protest for the civil rights cause. The SNCC organized hundreds of sit-ins, boycotts, and other peaceful protests across the country to end segregation in restaurants, stores, public transportation, and other common areas
How did the Klu Klux Klan respond to the rise of the Civil Rights movement?
Opposed to the Civil Rights Movement and its attempt to end racial segregation and discrimination, the Klan capitalized on the fears of whites, to grow to a membership of about 20,000. It portrayed the civil rights movement as a Communist, Jewish conspiracy, and it engaged in terrorist acts designed to frustrate and intimidate the movement's members. KKK adherents were responsible for acts such as the 1963 bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, in which four young African–American girls were killed and many others injured, and the 1964 murder of civil rights workers Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney, in Mississippi. The Klan was also responsible for many other beatings, murders, and bombings, including attacks on the Freedom Riders, who sought to integrate interstate buses
Examine the economic impact of the Montgomery Bus Boycott
One way the boycott disrupted the circular flow of the economy is that it prevented the city from gaining money from public transportation. This was done because African Americans were the main people doing the boycott and 75% of people who rode the buses were African American. The boycott economically impacted businesses as well. It did this through the way that since less people were riding buses the businesses in charge of said buses may have to lay some people off. It could also affect businesses in the way since more people would be driving opposed to riding the bus they would have to put more money to gas which means gas stations would be getting more money. This boycott would economically impact the government because since people were boycotting buses which are funded by the local government of Montgomery, the government would be getting less money from the consumers who normally used their buses. This boycott also had economic impacts on households. One is that people were saving more money not riding the bus which means they could provide for their family better. The other is that since they are not riding buses they may not be able to support their household without any way to get to work.
Describe Martin Luther King Jr.’s role in the Civil Rights movement
As the unquestioned leader of the peaceful Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, Dr. King was at the same time one of the most beloved and one of the most hated men of his time. From his involvement in the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955 until his untimely death in 1968, King's message of change through peaceful means added to the movement's numbers and gave it its moral strength. The legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. is embodied in these two simple words: equality and nonviolence.
How did Emmit Till’s death mobilize the black community in the fight for civil rights?
Till was killed for allegedly having wolf-whistled at a white woman. Emmett's mother brought him home to Chicago and insisted on an open casket. Tens of thousands filed past Till's remains, but it was the publication of the searing funeral image in Jet, with a stoic Mamie gazing at her murdered child's ravaged body, that forced the world to reckon with the brutality of American racism. News photographs circulated around the country, and drew intense public reaction. The visceral response to his mother's decision to have an open-casket funeral mobilized the black community throughout the U.S.
Outline the importance of the Brown versus Board of Education to the Civil Rights movement
The Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, decision was the most important momentum builder for the civil rights movement. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court, with the direct influence of the NAACP’s chief counsel, Thurgood Marshall, finally overturned the “separate but equal” doctrine established by the Plessy v. Ferguson ruling more than a half century earlier. In declaring that segregated schools were inherently unequal, the Brown v. Board of Education decision opened a floodgate for more attacks on southern Jim Crow laws. Empowered by Brown, blacks such as Rosa Parks and James Meredith took bolder steps to end segregation.
Examine the economic consequences of Jim Crow laws on the black community
Racial discrimination affected the Southern economy harshly. Primarily it affected the agrarian economy. Black store owners and entrepreneurs were at a severe disadvantage because they were unable to sell to white citizens. They were also unable to have stores in certain areas. In the Jim Crow economic climate it was extremely difficult to keep their business alive.
Explain the effect of the Freedom Rides on American society
The widespread violence provoked by the Freedom Rides sent shock waves through American society. People worried that the Rides were evoking widespread social disorder and racial divergence, an opinion supported and strengthened in many communities by the press. The press in white communities condemned the direct action approach that CORE was taking, while some of the national press negatively portrayed the Riders as provoking unrest. At the same time, the Freedom Rides established great credibility with black and white people throughout the United States and inspired many to engage in direct action for civil rights. Perhaps most significantly, the actions of the Freedom Riders from the North, who faced danger on behalf of southern black citizens, impressed and inspired the many black people living in rural areas throughout the South. They formed the backbone of the wider civil rights movement, who engaged in voter registration and other activities. Southern black activists generally organized around their churches, the center of their communities and a base of moral strength. The Freedom Riders helped inspire participation in other subsequent civil rights campaigns, including voter registration throughout the South, freedom schools, and the Black Power movement
NATURE AND CHARACTERISTICS OF DISCRIMINATION QUESTION: What type of economic growth did black nationalists favor, and how did Brown v. Board of Education affect this?
The Warren Court's landmark decision is both a spark for Black nationalist thinkers, but also the fundamental point of convergence for such voices in the diaspora of what it means to be American. At the time of its decision, few really understood what the court's ruling would do to the economic reality that had carved itself out of a world forged by Plessy v. Ferguson. The death of the segregated economic reality becomes one of the unintended realities of the Warren Court's action. The destruction of the Negro Leagues is but a symbolic dismantling of the economic reality that fueled much of Black Nationalism. The idea of the Black Nationalist was to solidify the ownership of Black businesses by African- Americans. The promises offered by Brown vs. The Board of Education made this a challenge because of the initial belief about integration and the idea that Black nationalism was pushing against this. It became fundamentally difficult for Black nationalist thinkers to advocate the idea of being able to be a part of the American social and economic fabric when they were being perceived to rejecting the fundamental inclusivity that was being advocated by the ground- breaking decision.
Examine the social consequences of Jim Crow laws on the black community
Despite 13th and 14th amendments, black citizens were still not taken seriously in society. Black citizens were treated almost as outcasts and not fully accepted into white society. Racial discrimination helped prevent full integration. Southern states refused to take black people seriously and social life was made far more difficult for black people. Black children were at a severe disadvantage in education. There was a lack of materials, experienced teachers, funds etc. White legislators claimed they were “equal”. Public services for black citizens were worse compared to those for white citizens. Parks, movie theatres, schools, transit, restaurants were outdated. Black people also had to adhere to Jim Crow etiquette which controlled how they were supposed to act in public.
How did blacks attempt to combat Jim Crow?
African Americans resisted these pervasive restrictions using many different strategies, from public advocacy and political activism to individual self-defense and attempts to escape to a better life. In the century following the end of Reconstruction, millions of African Americans moved away from the South in what became known as the Great Migration, only to discover that they faced discrimination in the northern states. In the middle of the twentieth century, generations of resistance to segregation culminated in the Civil Rights movement, in which African Americans launched widespread demonstrations and other public protests to demand the rights and protections provided by the Constitution