History

STUDY GUIDE: “MODERN CIVIL RIGHTS” Using this study guide The following document has all of the terms, quotes, lists, and ideas contained in the most recent powerpoint presentation (note: I change these frequently so some variations may exist). As a result, you should not feel that you need to copy any of this information while in class. The following questions are addressed in this section of the lecture. You should be able to answer these questions by the end of this section. If you can’t, see me during my office hours or talk with your seminar leader:

Questions Addressed in the Lectures that will help you to prepare for the exam:

• Was the modern civil rights movement inevitable? Wasn’ t America headed toward a notion that race was meaningless before 1954? Does middle-brow popular culture help or hurt this change?

• What is the NAACP? How does it attack the issue of segregation? Why does it chose this route?

• Why is Brown v. Board so important? What decision is reached and what are its implications? What connections are there between the Modern Civil Rights Movement and Reconstruction? (WARNING: unfair question, requires that you use what is learned in the first section)

• Why is Martin Luther King so effective? Is he the only voice of protest? What are others saying? What is the result of the Modern Civil Rights Movement? Can one claim that King failed after 1965? Did the Civil Rights Movement fail or succeed?

Sample Exam Questions from Previous Exams:

• Why does the national civil rights movement succeed in the 1950s when it had failed so often and so completely in the past? What unique conditions were present between 1954 and 1968 that aided in this victory? Be sure to cite specific examples to support your argument.

• From 1896 to 1965, the United States federal government completely reversed it’s stance regarding the racial segregation of African-Americans. (i) What were the leading causes of this transformation during these years and how did the federal government specifically help the crusade? (ii) Dating back to 1896, how did the NAACP generate conflicts which propelled the movement forward?

Selected Terms:

• Legal Defense Fund • Jackie Robinson (1947)

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• Brown -v- Board of Education • Martin Luther King • “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” • SCLC • Montgomery Bus Boycott • SNCC • Freedom Rides • Civil Rights Act of 1964 • Voting Rights Act of 1965 • Malcolm X

General Lecture Outline:

I. America Before 1954 a. Source of Change b. Goals of “Modern Civil Rights”

II. Approach to Brown v. Board a. NAACP Legal Defense Fund b. Popular Culture – Jackie Robinson c. Brown v. Board

III. After Brown a. Southern Backlash – KKK, etc. b. Local activism (NOT national)

IV. Martin Luther King, Jr. a. Bio b. Tenets of MLK c. Movement coalesces, why? d. Birmingham, March on Washington e. Civil Rights, Voting Rights Acts

V. Second Goal of MCR movement: racism (economics/class) a. Northern leadership very different b. Malcolm X, NOI, Black Panthers

VI. Movement weakens, why? VII. Conclusions

Powerpoint Notes: Modern Civil Rights Movement, 1945-1968

“If I am not who you say I am, then you are not what you think you are.” James Baldwin The Chris Rock Show (1999) The biggest problem with Civil Rights today is in remembering the past

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America to 1954

A Completely Racially Segregated Country Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896 Chinese Exclusion, Korematsu, “Judge Lynch” Source of Change? Progressivism Environmental causes of inequality could be addressed Interest Group politics could affect the political process (NAACP) Second World War Racial prejudice “un-American” Growing Federal involvement in daily life “Double V” campaign of Civil Rights Leaders

Source of Change?

A constant fight to demand equality based on the promise of the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence Driven by a desire to live the “American Dream” Dates back to Reconstruction Affluence: Economic growth creates upward mobility, non-white middle-class emerges

What are the primary goals of the “Modern Civil Rights” Movement?

1. Legal desegregation as a means to equal citizenship. 2. Legal equality as an end of the movement. 3. Eliminating “race” as meaningful social distinction as a means to avoiding future problems. 4. Addressing the “cost of racism” to American citizens as an end of the movement. (e.g. Affirmative Action)

NAACP Legal Defense Fund; Approaches

1. Gradualist/Incremental (no attack of Plessy) Guinn v. U.S. (1915) State grandfathered voting rights in OK Buchannan v. Warley (1917) Housing segregation in KY Nixon v. Herndon (1927) All-white primaries in TX 2. Education legislation (special cases, Plessy irrelevant) Hocutt v. UNC (1933) Law School Murray v. Maryland (1935) Med School Gaines v. Canada (1939) Law School 3. Direct Assault on Plessy But Supreme Court unwilling Smith v. Allwright (1944) rejected by SC Shelley v. Kramer (1948) rejected by SC Plessy now accepted precedent – needed to be wholly rejected

“Gradualists” Aided by Popular Culture

Marian Anderson (1939)

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Music Rock-n-Roll Jazz Harry Truman Desegregates Army (1948) Based on EO#8802 Jackie Robinson (1947)

All three approaches combined in one case: Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, 1952-1954

Brown v. Board (1954) Known to be “the watershed case of the century” S.C. Accepts case 1952 Much opposition by Chief Justice Vinson William Rehnquist, clerk to Justice Robert Jackson, “I think Plessy v. Ferguson was right and should be re-affirmed” Earl Warren (R-CA) appointed by Eisenhower Assumes Chief Justice Sept. 1953 Demands unanimity Dying, Justice Jackson is brought to reading on stretcher “Does segregation of school children solely on the basis of color, even though the physical facilities may be equal, deprive the minority group of equal opportunities in the educational system? We believe that it does” First effort to enforce the 14th Amendment (1868) Demands end to segregation “at all deliberate speed”

Substantial Backlash Called “Massive Resistance” by many whites “Southern Manifesto” Not signed by LBJ, Gore Sr., Kefauver Revival of KKK White Citizen’s Councils Federal Government A. C. Powell Amendment to ban aid to institutions practicing segregation opposed by: Eisenhower NEA Harry Truman AFL-CIO

Issues become intensely local: Murder of Emmitt Till, 1955

Chicago boy who just celebrated his 14th birthday Visits relations in Money, Mississippi County 2/3 black No blacks allowed to vote; none had served on a jury “Wolf whistle” at white woman; beaten, shot, body dropped in river Murderers arrested and tried (!!)

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Till’s uncle identifies abductors Defense att’y to jury: “I am sure that every last Anglo-Saxon one of you has the courage to free these men” Deliberation for 45 minutes, non-guilty Jurist: “If we hadn’t stopped to drink pop, it wouldn’t have taken that long”

Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-56) Arkansas Public Schools (1957)

Ordered to desegregate (based on Brown ruling) Governor Orval Faubus calls out Arkansas National Guard to defy the ruling President Eisenhower reluctantly sends in Federal troops and takes control of the Guard Students brought to school under armed guard Is this the intent of Brown? It still looks a lot like the era of Jim Crow Violence is contained by use of federal troops

Martin Luther King, Jr.

King does not start the Civil Rights movement!!! Montgomery Activist: “The Reverend didn’t stir us up, we’ve been stirred up for a mighty long time” King channels the movement into a non-violent, moral question What really is America? Who really are Americans? MLK on Boycott “Victory”

Tenets of King’s Approach: 1. Non-Violence (Ghandian concept of satyagraha or “truth force”)

MLK: “To meet hate with retaliatory hate would do nothing but intensify the existence of evil in the universe. Hate begets hate, violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness. We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love; we must meet physical force with soul force. Our aim must never be to defeat or humiliate the white man, but to win his friendship and understanding.” SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference): “nonviolence actively resists evil in any form. It never seeks to humiliate the opponent, only to win him. Suffering is accepted without retaliation. … Creatively used, the philosophy of nonviolence can restore the broken community in America.”

Tenets of King’s Approach: 2. Christian theology (an early “faith-based initiative”?!)

Old Testament (King loves book of Isaiah) Prophetic “deliverance”; the American dream Moses out of Egypt; Emancipation God’s promise; the Constitution’s promise New Testament Jesus’ message of unqualified love; nonviolence Many references to Christianity in Reverend King’s speeches. March on Washington: “Every valley shall be exalted” “Rough places shall be made plain”

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“The glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together” Tenets of King’s Approach: 3. Passive Resistance/Civil Disobedience

Henry David Thoreau: “Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.” SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Council) The SCLC “firmly believes that all people have a moral responsibility to disobey laws that are unjust… From a purely moral point of view, an unjust law is one that is out of harmony with the moral law of the universe, or… the Law of God. More concretely, an unjust law is one in which the minority is compelled to observe a code which is not binding on the majority.” In disobeying the law, one “does so peacefully, openly, and nonviolently. Most important, he willingly accepts the penalty for breaking the law.” King jailed 19 times

The Message Creates a Movement; Why? So many pre-existing streams of civil rights activism; King JOINS these through his message

Southern Black Churches (pre-1865) NAACP (1909) CORE (1942) & “Freedom Rides” SCLC (1957) Black Colleges & SNCC (1960) Sit-Ins (1960) Freedom Rides (1961)

Aided by New Generations: John Lewis

Born 1940, Troy, Alabama 1 of 9 children to sharecropper family Attends segregated schools (if at all) Called to Baptist ministry, Nashville Engaged in Civil Rights Chairman SNCC, Sit-ins 1960 Freedom Rides, 1961 Keynote Speaker, March on Washington (1963) at 23 years of age! Selma (“Bloody Sunday”), 1965 Beaten over 30x in protests 1986 Elected to U.S. Congress from Atlanta (4th District) 2000 DNC Keynote Speaker

Movement Intentionally Allows (and take the brunt of) Violence to Come to the Surface

Riots on College campuses in South (100s injured) Fire-bombing of buses and churches NAACP official Medgar Evars murdered outside his home (pushes JFK to act and MLK to Washington) Freedom Rides: 80 injured, 6 murdered

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King goes to Birmingham, AL (1963) Then to Washington (1963)

Pressure Maintained

Two weeks after “I Have a Dream” speech, King’s home and four churches fire-bombed 4 Sunday School girls incinerated Kennedy forced to place Civil Rights high on domestic agenda Proposes sweeping Civil Rights bill, knew it stood no chance Angers Southern Democratic base (MCR goes nowhere under JFK) Selma March (1964) – More Violence MLK wins 1964 Nobel Peace Prize – World wide recognition of “race problem” in U.S.

Victory: Passage of Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts

Johnson uses raw emotions of JFK assassination to lead Congress Civil Rights Act of 1964 Outlaws discrimination at work Outlaws discrimination in public Allows FEDERAL GOVERNMENT to bring suit against violators (not just NACCP Legal Defense Fund or private citizens) “Enables” 14th Amendment (1868) LBJ proud, but also knew passage was “the day we gave the South to the Republican Party for the rest of our lifetimes.” Voting Rights Act of 1965 Federal enforcement of voter registration and voting Suspends literary testing and poll taxes “Enables” 15th Amendment (1871) A very long, historical struggle was reaching a turning point: America proved willing to defend the Constitution rather than the racial prejudices of the majority. THIS is what it means to be American. Impact of the Voting Rights Act of 1965

Victory of MCR: end segregation to achieve legal equality

Effects of legal equality BEGIN in the 1970s First elected officials since Reconstruction First significant numbers of blacks and other minorities in professional schools (law, medicine, graduate school) First opportunity for middle management positions in larger firms First chance to move to previously segregated suburbs Home equity ($$) Suburban values (aid children’s ability to adjust to white society) Not until the 1980-90s do these changes begin to take hold across the country!! FIRST generation of truly middle-class African-Americans

King and MCR movement turns to lowering cost of RACISM; a VERY DIFFERENT PROBLEM than Equality

King Moves North

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By 1960 ~ 70% black population live in cities Urban politics support DE FACTO segregation (not legal, as in the south; many use illegal “red-lining”) Chicago a “city of neighborhoods” Whites abandoning the city, federal subsidies for suburban home ownership, urban tax base collapsing Any activism arose from blacks alone Rev. Jesse Jackson – Operation Breadbasket (1966) Few whites connected to N. urban MCR King: “Poor Peoples Campaign” “I choose to identify with the underprivileged. I choose to identify with the poor. I choose to give my life for the hungry. I choose to give my life for those who have been left out of the sunlight of opportunity. I choose to live for and with those who find themselves seeing life as a long and desolate corridor and with no exit sign. This is the way I’m going. If it means suffering a little bit, I’m going that way. If it means sacrificing, I’m going that way. If it means dying for them, I’m going that way, because I heard a voice saying, ‘Do something for others.’”

Mixed Northern Movements

Younger, less established black culture in North Race and class issues mixed Not as tied to Christian churches (reject moral tone of MLK as too preachy)

Nation of Islam

Afro-centric “The Honorable Elijah Muhammed” Malcolm X Rhetoric of RESISTANCE Much like W.E.B. DuBois Notice how King and X differ radically on their views of the COSTS of racism… moving on to the second end/means of the MCRM

Muhammad Ali

Ali emerges in a sports era that is changing as a result of television Young, handsome, witty, verbal As Cassius Clay, he defeats Sonny Liston in 1964 Displays a new urban black culture (unlike Joe Louis, Jackie Robinson) Verbal attacks, playing the “dozens” Often goes too far: Joe Frazier as “Tom” Conversion to Nation of Islam Rejection of assimilation, black nationalism MLK and others “brain-washed” about the reality of racial equality “The System” responds by shutting down his access to his profession - banned from boxing Extremely proud of black heritage Malcolm X promotes term “African-American” over Negro or black

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Black Panthers

Afro-centrism Led by Huey P. Newton, later CORE and SNCC See the “Black man of the ghetto” the true leader, not the bourgeois middle-class “Negro” who wants to be accepted by white society as an equal Anti-Intellectual: Book learning is “acting white” Militant An “eye for an eye” Rejects King’s approach and leadership Too slow Demands white acceptance Tied to rise of African anti-colonial wars of liberation Blacks in America like Africans throwing off European rule Similar to Marcus Garvey of Progressive Era

Movement Weakens: Why?

Largest goals realized Desegregation Voting Rights Economic and educational opportunity Northern and Southern movements too different for effective cooperation The experiences of urban poverty created problems that even Southern black society (conditioned by years of racial violence) couldn’t effectively deal with!!!

Movement Weakens: Why?

Violence Malcolm X (1965), MLK (1968) assassinated Riots in 1965, 1968, 1969 CORE and SNCC reject white liberal assistance, assume more openly militant and black nationalist stance

MCR Movement Weakens: Why?

Federal Government wracked by political indecision Democrats undermine their Southern base with Civil Rights Viet Nam undermines rest of Dem. party Collapse of Liberal coalition By 1972, Nixon able to practice “Benign Neglect” – draws dissatisfied whites to Republican party Conservative Backlash of late 1980s Argue that race is not a problem of poverty, and vice versa Focus on missing “values” or lack of capitalist initiative But, EVERY STUDY of the black inner-city shows that poor residents exhibit the SAME VALUES of hard work and capitalism William Julius Wilson, When Work Disappears (1996)

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Conclusions 1. Focus on schools critical to success of Civil Rights At root, Americans agree that everyone deserves an equal opportunity to succeed Little agreement beyond this (movement stalls) 2. Mixed legacy of Civil Rights Positives Colen Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Oprah, Robert Johnson (BET), Barack Obama, thousands of local, state, and federal representatives Shaquille O’Neil, Tiger Woods, Williams’ Sisters, LeBron James Early success in sports instructive: when rules are fair and enforced, race and ethnicity become meaningless Best athletes are gifted, but they spend hours every day perfecting these skills Negatives In 1998, Black families still earn less than 2/3 of what White families earn Poverty has undermined urban black family, “hyper-ghettoes” of the inner-city offer no way out (except crime) Conclusions (cont) 3. African-Americans prove to be the pioneers, many follow their model Latinos/Tejanos/Chicanos Sexual Orientation Conservatives like Moral Majority use same tactics, rely on same “movement culture” of Civil Rights Anti-abortion 4. Probably no single man affected America more than King from 1954 to the present Redefined the terms of the debate Racism simply un-American because it assumes citizens are inherently un-equal (profound implications for U.S. foreign policy) Validated all of our founding documents (based on notions of equality)

But second goal of MCR not realized

First Goal: Legal Equality Brown v. Board Civil Rights and Voting Rights Act Second Goal: Address historic costs of racism Racial attitudes still strong, evident at times of stress Howard Beach murders about “race” O.J. Simpson about “race” Barry Bonds about “race” Concept makes bigots feel good (the “problem” becomes “those people” rather than politics or class) Black writer James Baldwin: “If I am not who you say I am, then you are not what you think you are” What role does racial categorization play today in explaining tensions of the modern era? Ends and Means

Spike Lee, Do the Right Thing (1989)

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What happens when we use “race” to generalize about individuals? Tendency of HUMAN BEINGS to use external differences to explain conflict Very crude language… but notice how absurd these characters appear. They don’t see people but rather the projections of their own fears (of people who are different)

Affirmative Action

Affirmative action argues that racism is only meaningful if coupled with power E.g., You can have negative racial views of me, but it won’t affect your grade; if I have negative racial views of you, it can. In both cases racism is morally wrong, but in only one does racism have the power to negatively effect someone else Policy emerges from MCR Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (created by 1964 Civil Rights Act based on WWII FEPC) Bans discrimination, Promotes access to federal contracts by minority owned businesses Title IX of Educational Amendment Act (1972) “Affirmative action” must take place to insure colleges offer WOMEN equal opportunities Sporting teams/scholarships, academic opportunities, etc. Conservative backlash: “special treatment” for poor “Special treatment” supposedly “demeans” those historically shut out 1980-1990s, U.S. Federal Courts roll back affirmative action initiatives 1996 Hopwood v. Texas California Proposition 209 (1996) U.S. Supreme Court rules in 2004 that affirmative action is constitutional The use of race as a consideration in hiring and admission to school is appropriate as long as it is not the SOLE FACTOR under consideration Affirmative Action Comedian Chris Rock (2003) on Affirmative Action? Again, offensive language; but to highlight a larger point

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