LBJ and his programs
The name for LBJ's overall set of domestic programs in the United States that were launched to address civil rights, education, medical care, urban problems, rural poverty, and transportation.
What is The Great Society?
Name 3 stipulations of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
What is:
►This law ended all racial discrimination in public facilities such as restrooms, restaurants, buses, movie theaters, and swimming pools.
•The act banned segregation in public accommodations
•Gave the federal government the ability to desegregate schools
•Prosecute individuals who violated people’s civil rights
•Outlawed discrimination in employment.
•Established the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
Supreme Court case that ruled that “separate educational facilities were inherently unequal” as it was a violation of 14th Amendment. It led to integration of schools.
What is Brown vs. Board of Education?
While this Amendment was passed in 1870 to protect the voting rights of U.S. citizens (regardless of race, color, or previous condition of servitude), it wasn't until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 when African Americans had no restrictions on voting.
What is the 15th Amendment?
Race riot that broke out 5 days after the Voting Rights Act, was triggered by police brutality, and lasted for 6 days and required 14,000 National Guard and 1,500 law officers to restore order.
Rioters burned and looted neighborhoods and 34 people were killed (900 injured)and there was $ 45 million in property damage.
What is the Watts Riot?
Refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery , Alabama when the bus driver demanded she let a standing white man take her place. It led to her arrest, the Montgomery bus boycott, and helped start the Civil Rights movement.
Who is Rosa Parks?
LBJ and Congress passed this program which established a comprehensive health insurance program for all elderly people; it was financed through the Social Security system.
What is Medicare?
Who/What were the Freedom Riders? What was their mission? Did they achieve their goal(s)?
The Congress of Racial Equality planned to take buses all around the South in Spring 1961 to make sure the laws that were passed about racial equality went into effect throughout the South. (Including integration of busses and terminals.)
►Apr-Dec 1961
►Who: CORE and SNCC
(congress of racial equality and student nonviolent coordinating committee)
►Plan of Action: to test the SC decision banning segregation on interstate bus routes
►Obstacles: violence
►Results: Desegregated busses due to loss of profit
The Freedom Riders were given hope by the election of John F. Kennedy.
They set off on May 4, 1961, with a mix of whites and blacks.
The first few days went by without incident.
►However, as the “Freedom Tour” went on to Anniston, Birmingham, and Montgomery, Alabama, angry white mobs started to attack them.
►Mobs slit tires, threw rocks at the windows, and in Anniston, someone even threw a firebomb into one of the busses. (Although fortunately nobody was hurt from it.)
►In Birmingham, however, they weren’t so lucky. A mob with baseball bats, chains and lead pipes beat the riders viciously.
►The violence made national news and came less than 4 months after JFK took office. While JFK did campaign for civil rights if elected, at first, he was as cautious as Eisenhower to take an actual stand. Events like this one started to convince him to take a more active stance.
►At first, JFK took a weak stance in protecting the Freedom Riders. When they entered Mississippi, JFK made a deal with Sen. James Eastland (a supporter of segregation) that if Eastland would use his influence to prevent violence, Kennedy would let the Mississippi police arrest the Freedom Riders. (JFK had a meeting with Khrushchev the same week and didn’t want violence in the South to give the impression that the U.S. was weak and divided.
►NAACP bailed out the riders and when JFK finished his meeting with Khruschev, he ordered the Interstate Commerce Commission to tighten its regulations against segregated bus terminals. By late 1962, segregation on interstate travel had come to an end.
Supreme Court Case in 1896 that that declared segregation was constitutional, and that the “separate but equal” law did not violate the 14th amendment.
What is Plessy Vs. Ferguson?
In 1965, African Americans made up a majority of Selma’s population, but only ____% of its registered voters.
What is 3%?
Commission put together by LBJ to study urban riots, their causes, and how to prevent them.
What is the Kerner Commission?
He became the Nation of Islam’s most prominent minister. He changed his last name to a letter as a symbol for the family name of his African ancestors who had been enslaved. Originally, his beliefs were militant, and he demanded a separation of the races. After a pilgrimage to Mecca where he many people of different races praying together, he changed his stance and felt an integrated society was possible.
Who is Malcolm X?
At LBJ's urging, Congress created this government agency aimed at creating jobs and fighting poverty.
What is The Office of Economic Opportunity?
What was the significance and outcome of the Greensboro, North Carolina lunch counter incident?
Greensboro, North Carolina
Lunch Counter Sit Ins:
►On February 1st, 1960, four black students in North Carolina sat down in a white diner at Woolworth’s department store and were told that they would not be served.
►Sit ins became a new way to protest segregation of public facilities. (The protesters come into a place, sit down, and refuse to move.)
►The students stayed at the counter until it closed, and then announced they would sit at the counter every day until they were given the same service as white customers. The next day 29 African Americans showed up, and by the end of the week there were 300 protesting at Woolworth’s! Within 2 months, sit-ins spread to 54 cities in 9 states.
In Miranda vs. Arizona, police must do what regarding suspects when they are arrested?
What is inform suspects of their rights duringb the arrest process? (Right to remain silent, right to an attorney, etc.)
Name and define three ways African Americans were kept from voting at the polls.
What are:
►Literacy tests-Voting officials used the tests for discriminatory purposes through several means, including asking questions to which people of a certain background were unlikely to know the answers, making use of ambiguous wording or trick questions, and evaluating answers subjectively.
►Poll taxes-A tax African Americans had to pay before voting. (Often they could not afford the tax to vote.)
►Intimidation(Violence, threats, etc.)
Grandfather clauses-It provided that those who had enjoyed the right to vote prior to 1866 or 1867, and their lineal descendants, would be exempt from recently enacted educational, property, or tax requirements for voting. Because the former slaves had not been granted the franchise until the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870, those clauses worked effectively to exclude Black people from the vote but assured the franchise to many impoverished and illiterate whites.
Southern Members of Congress signed this document which denounced the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education ruling. It vowed to resist the decision and use all power to reverse the decision. While not legal, it encouraged Southerners to defy the Supreme Court and integration.
What is the Southern Manifesto?
This group believed a revolution was necessary in the U.S. and urged African Americans to arm themselves and confront white society to force them to give them equal rights. Protected urban neighborhoods from police abuse.
Who are the Black Panthers?
This Act supported and set standards for water and air quality.
Compare and contrast The Little Rock 9 integration with the plight of James Meredith at Ole Miss. How were the events similar? How were they different?
§In 1954, Linda Brown’s parents wanted her to attend the school close to her home. Kansas law stated she had to attend a segregated school across town. NAACP and attorney Thurgood Marshall tested the law. They sued the Topeka school board.
►Question:
Can Linda Brown attend an “all white” school?
►Decision: “separate educational facilities inherently unequal” .Violation of 14th Amendment.
Desegregation required across the nation.
•The Supreme Court agreed with NAACP argument that segregated public education violated the U.S. Constitution
►In September 1957, the school board in Little Rock, Arkansas won a court order to admit nine African American students to Central High, a school with 2,000 white students. While racially moderate as some schools had already desegregated per the Supreme Court’s Brown vs. Board of Education ruling, school desegregation was about to get it’s first big test.
►The governor of Arkansas, Orval Faubus, was believed to be a moderate on racial issues, unlike other Southern politicians. However, he was determined to win re-election, and so he began to campaign as a defender of white supremacy to get votes.
►Faubus ordered troops from the Arkansas National Guard to prevent the nine African American students from entering the school. The next day, when the National Guard surrounded the school, and angry white mob joined the troops to protest the integration plan, and to intimidate the students.
►Television coverage of the event put this at the center of national attention. Faubus used the armed forces of a state to oppose authority of the federal government.
►
►After a conference between Eisenhower and Faubus proved fruitless, the district court ordered the governor to remove the troops, but now the students were at the mercy of the angry white mobs.
►Eventually Eisenhower orders the U.S. Army in to escort the students to school and the troops remained there for the rest of the year.
►September 1962
►Who: African American Air Force veteran James Meredith applied for a transfer to the University of Mississippi.(Which had been all white.) He tried to register in September 1962 and was denied entry by the Governor of Mississippi, Governor Ross Barnett
►
►Results: JFK ordered 500 federal marshals to escort Meredith.
►
►An angry white mob attacked the campus, a riot erupted, and the mob hurled bottles, bricks, rocks, and acid at the marshals. Marshals responded with tear gas but ordered not to fire.
►160 marshals were wounded, and JFK ordered several thousand troops to the campus for the rest of the year. Meredith graduated the following August.
In Norris vs. Alabama, the Supreme Court ruled that African Americans should not be excluded from what?
What is serving on juries?
Name 4 stipulations of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
►Prohibited discrimination at voting polls.
►Established bilingual ballots in areas with large amount of non-English speaking minorities.
►Outlawed literacy tests for voters.
►Gave Federal Government power to oversee all elections
Name 2 Civil Rights organizations, what they stand for, and what their goals were.
CORE: Congress of Racial Equality.
Used sit-ins to desegregate many restaurants, theatres, and other public facilities.
SCLC: Southern Christian Leadership Conference. It set out to eliminate segregation from American society and to encourage African Americans to register to vote. It challenged segregation at voting booths and in public transportation, housing, and public accommodations. (MLK was first president of organization.)
SNCC- Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee
Student leaders led this group. Helped desegregate public facilities, also sent volunteers to the Deep South to help register African Americans.
African American Air Force veteran who applied for a transfer to the University of Mississippi and was denied entry by the school, the Governor Ross Barnett, and an angry white mob.
Who is James Meredith?
Name and describe 3 programs/Acts that LBJ set up to help kids and improve education for all.
What are:
1) Child Nutrition Act-Established a school breakfast and lunch program to improve poor child nutrition.
2) Project Head Start-Pre-school program directed at disadvantaged kids to foster stable family relationships, enhance children's physical and emotional well-being, and establish an environment to develop strong cognitive skills. The transition from preschool to elementary school imposes diverse developmental challenges that include requiring the children to engage successfully with their peers outside the family network, adjust to the space of a classroom, and meet the expectations the school setting provides.
3) Higher Education Act-Supported supported college tuition scholarships.
4) Elementary and Secondary Education acts-Targeted aid to students and funded adult education and counseling.
Name 5 examples of Civil Disobedience (Non-violent protest)
What are:
►Sit ins
►The protesters come into a place, sit down, and refuse to move.
►Boycotts
Refusing to buy goods or services from a business in order to force it to change its policies
►Hunger strikes
Refusing to eat anything in order to get attention for your cause
►Petitions
Writing a letter to ask the government or a company to change its policy, and then getting as many people to sign it as possible.
►Marches and demonstrations
Getting as many people as possible to gather in one place to get attention to your cause
►Strikes
Refusing to work in order to force your managers or government to change their policies
The Supreme Court ruling that declared that state law schools had to admit qualified African American candidates.
What is Sweatt V. Painter?
Name and describe the event that MLK organized specifically for the purpose of conducting a voter registration drive for African Americans that would also march on to Montgomery. What Act would Congress pass after this event?
►Early 1965
►Who: SCLC, MLK and SNCC pick Selma, Alabama as a focal point to campaign for voter rights and conduct a voter registration drive and march to Montgomery.
►African Americans made up a majority of Selma’s population, but only 3% of its registered voters.
►Jim Clark, a local Sheriff, deputized and armed dozens of white citizens to prevent blacks from voting. Violence, erupted, people were arrested.
►To keep the pressure on to pass a Voting Rights bill into law, MLK organized a march to Montgomery, the capital of Alabama. While on their way out of Selma, the Sheriff ordered them to disperse. Instead, protestors knelt in prayer, and many were beaten to so bad they called the day “Bloody Sunday.” 70 African Americans were hospitalized, and more were injured.
►Reaction: LBJ responded by asking Congress for the swift passage of a new voting rights act. It passed in 1965.
"Black power" meant different things for different people. Name 3 ways "black power" could be interpreted by African Americans.
What are:
►To many, it meant that African Americans should control the social, political, and economic direction of their struggle.
►Black power also stressed African American pride rather than cultural assimilation(where minorities are supposed to adopt to the dominant majority culture. Many demanded that African American studies courses be part of the school curriculum and many African Americans took African names, new Afro hairstyles, and African style clothing.
Some interpreted it to mean that physical self defense and violence were acceptable in defense of one’s freedom- a rejection of MLK’s philosophy.
Complete the following excerpt from MLK's 'I Have a Dream Speech'
"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the _____ of their skin but by the content of their ______.
What is:
1)Color
2) Character