American Legal History II
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CivilRights-Part2.pptxCivil Rights Law
Part II
Civil Rights Efforts Before Brown
Anti-Lynching Campaigns
World War II:
Double-V Campaign
Executive Order 8802
Post-World War II:
Executive Order 9981
Executive Order 10590
Jackie Robinson - 1947
Organizations:
NAACP
CORE
SNCC
SCLC
Brown Decision Implications
Court enters politics
Decision declares practice unconstitutional but does not suggest remedy.
Necessitates Brown II (May 1955) → Desegregation with “all deliberate speed”
Ambiguity?
NAACP wanted a date
White segregationists wanted to slow the process
Court imagined real integration:
Moving boundaries, teachers, busing, etc.
Supreme Ct. thwarted when it tried to lead on social change.
Southern Manifesto → 1956
The Warren Court & The Evolution of the Supreme Court
Changing profile of the court from the 1950s, on.
Earl Warren (1953 - 1969)
California Governor
Politically savvy
Short Brown opinion
Activist court → High point of judicial power
Constitutional overreach? Legislating from the bench?
Civil Rights After Brown
Legal and Constitutional equality.
Securing Equal Protection
Ending legally established discrimination
Equal Access
Education reform
Housing
Voting
Civil Rights Movement - Goals
Montgomery Bus Boycott
December 1955 - December 1956
Emmett Till Murder - August 1955
42,000 activists
Claudette Colvin/Rosa Parks
Martin Luther King, Jr.
King and 88 others indicted, convicted, and jailed.
Vicious white response.
Economically crippled public transportation system.
Browder v. Gayle (1955)
NAACP legal challenge during direct action in Montgomery.
Browder → Black Montgomery woman
Gayle → Mayor of Montgomery
The ghost of Plessy
Major Question: Did the district court err in striking down the racially separate but equal bus system in Montgomery, Alabama?
District Ct. Decision and Per Curiam Supreme Court Decision
Important Developments in the Civil Rights Movement
Civil Rights Act of 1957
Civil Rights Commission → Voting
Banned intimidation and coercion during federal elections
Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights → Civil Rights Division
Southern Christian Leadership Conference Formed (1957)
Little Rock Crisis (1957)
Bethel Baptist Church bombed by KKK, killing four girls (1958)
Cooper v. Aaron (1958)
Open opposition in Arkansas to Brown.
5 months after Little Rock 9 Crisis
School board filed suit:
Return African-American students to segregated schools
Delay integration for two years
Major Question:
Were Arkansas officials bound by federal court orders mandating desegregation?
Unanimous Decision
NAACP v. Alabama (1958)
Alabama attempted to drive the NAACP out of existence
Restraining Order
Subpoena → Records/Membership Lists
Major Question:
Did Alabama’s requirements violate the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?
Unanimous Decision
Discrimination and Segregation
The Growth of Direct Action
In concert with non-violence
Methods:
Litigation
Mass media
Boycotts
Demonstrations
Sit-Ins
Civil Disobedience
Relationship between legal victories and direct action
“One has not only a legal, but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”
Important Developments in the Civil Rights Movement
1960:
Greensboro, NC sit-ins
SNCC formed
Nashville, TN sit-ins
Civil Rights Act of 1960 → Voting
King arrested during Atlanta sit-in
What rights was it imperative for Civil Rights activists to be able to exercise?
Was it imperative for the federal courts to protect their exercise of these rights?
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
First Amendment
Important Developments in the Civil Rights Movement
1961:
Executive Order 10925 → EEO
Freedom Rides begin → Assaulted in Montgomery and arrested in Georgia
1962:
James Meredith barred from enrolling at U. of Miss → Riot ensues
Executive Order 11063 → Discrimination in federally funded housing.
1963:
George Wallace → “Segregation forever . . .”
Birmingham campaign begins
King arrested in Birmingham → Letter
University of Alabama confrontation
March on Washington → I Have a Dream
16th St. Baptist Church bombed in Birmingham → 4 girls killed
Boynton v. Virginia (1960)
Bruce Boynton - Virginia Law Student
Bus from D.C. to Alabama
Stop in VA → sat on white side of segregated restaurant at station
Asked to move, refused. Arrested, tried, convicted, and fined for unlawfully remaining on the premises.
Filed suit that treatment violated Interstate Commerce Act.
7 - 2 Decision:
ICA should be interpreted to ban all forms of segregation by race in any public transportation.
OFFENSES AFFECTING THE
GENERAL PEACE AND ORDER
§103. Disturbing the peace
A. Disturbing the peace is the doing of any of the following in such manner as would foreseeably disturb or alarm the public:
(1) Engaging in a fistic encounter; or
(2) Addressing any offensive, derisive, or annoying words to any other person who is lawfully in any street, or other public place; or call him by any offensive or derisive name, or make any noise or exclamation in his presence and hearing with the intent to deride, offend, or annoy him, or to prevent him from pursuing his lawful business, occupation, or duty; or
(3) Appearing in an intoxicated condition; or
(4) Engaging in any act in a violent and tumultuous manner by any three or more persons; or
(5) Holding of an unlawful assembly; or
(6) Interruption of any lawful assembly of people; or
(7) Intentionally engaging in any act or any utterance, gesture, or display designed to disrupt a funeral, funeral home viewing, funeral procession, wake, memorial service, or burial of a deceased person.
(8) Intentionally blocking, impeding, inhibiting, or in any other manner obstructing or interfering with access into or from any building or parking lot of a building in which a funeral, wake, memorial service, or burial is being conducted, or any burial plot or the parking lot of the cemetery in which a funeral, wake, memorial service, or burial is being conducted.
B.(1) Whoever commits the crime of disturbing the peace shall be fined not more than one hundred dollars or imprisoned for not more than ninety days, or both.
(2) Whoever commits the crime of disturbing the peace as provided in Paragraphs (A)(7) and (8) of this Section shall be fined not more than one hundred dollars or imprisoned for not more than six months, or both.
Sample Breach of the Peace State Statute
Edwards v. South Carolina (1963)
Peaceful student assembly at South Carolina State House
187 Arrested and convicted of breach of the peace.
Arrests followed disregard of order to disperse.
Major Question:
Did the arrests and convictions of the marchers violate their freedom of speech, assembly, and petition for redress of their grievances as protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments?
8 - 1 Decision
Cox v. Louisiana (1965)
23 members of CORE arrested on charge of illegal picketing
Cox → Leading member of CORE
Protestors demonstrate during hearing
Protestors ordered to disperse, then arrested
Cox was charged with four offenses under Louisiana law: criminal conspiracy, disturbing the peace, obstructing public passages, and picketing before a courthouse.
Major Questions:
Does Cox's conviction based on violation of the Louisiana statute prohibiting "disturbing the peace" violate his rights to free speech and assembly under the First and Fourteenth Amendments?
Does Cox's conviction based on violation of the Louisiana statute prohibiting "obstructing public passages" violate his rights to free speech and assembly under the First and Fourteenth Amendments?
Adderley v. Florida (1966)
Student protest against segregation in non-public jail driveway
Protesting arrests of students, state and local segregation, jail segregation.
32 Arrested and convicted for "trespass with a malicious and mischievous intent.
Major Question → Were the petitioners denied their rights of free speech, assembly, petition, due process of law and equal protection of the laws as guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments?
5 - 4 Decision
Important Developments in the Civil Rights Movement
1964
Civil Rights Act of 1964
Banned discrimination based on “race, color, religion, sex or national origin” in employment and public accommodations.
Freedom Summer → Voter registration
24th Amendment abolished poll tax
King awarded Nobel Peace Prize
1965
Bloody Sunday → Selma
Voting Rights Act of 1965
Federal oversight and enforcement of voter registration with a discriminatory history. Prohibits discriminatory practices.
Civil Rights Act of 1964
Commerce Clause and 14th Amendment
Congressional power “to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states . . .”
“nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
“Self-Help” vs. Reliance
Was the Civil Rights Act of 1964 intended to stifle direct action?
Was the hope that demonstrations and protests would dwindle as the movement sought reliance on civil suits provided for by the act?
Should protestants be required to litigate discrimination before relying on self-help?
What is the relationship between the Civil Rights Act, “self-help,” and judicial precedent of the type set in the Civil Rights Cases of 1883?
Hamm v. City of Rock Hill (1964)
Sit-Ins
South Carolina
5 & 10; purchases/lunch counter
Manager/Police
Trespassing
CRA during appeal
Question:
Did the Civil Rights Act forbid discrimination towards black customers at McCrory’s Five and Ten Cent Store if Hamm’s appeal was pending when the law took effect?
5 - 4 Decision:
Abatement
Trespass v. Sit-In
Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. U.S. (1964)
Civil Rights Act
Motel refused to service African-American customers
Government took action against motel to uphold Civil Rights Act
Counter-suit by Motel.
Major Question:
Did Congress, in passing Title II of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, exceed its Commerce Clause powers by depriving places of public accommodation of the right to choose their own customers?
Unanimous Decision
Important Developments in the Civil Rights Movement
1966
Evolution of Black Power and the founding of the Black Panther Party
1967
Newark and Detroit Riots
Thurgood Marshall sworn in as first African-American Supreme Court justice.
1968
King shot and killed in Memphis, TN
Riots in Chicago, D.C., Baltimore, Louisville, KC, and 150 other cities
Civil Rights Act of 1968
Fair Housing Act
Loving v. Virginia (1967)
Mildred Jeter (black woman) and Richard Loving (white man) married in Washington, D.C.
Virginia Residents → Returned after marriage
Charged with violated anti-miscegenation statute
Major Question: Did Virginia’s anti-miscegenation law violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?
Unanimous Decision
Assess the trajectory of the court in relationship to the trajectory of the civil rights movement.
