History Analytical essay

Great Depression, World War II, Cold War, & Civil Rights

Week 5

Agenda ➢ Lecture “Great Depression, World War II, Cold War, & Civil Rights”

○ Civil Rights Movement of the mid 20th Century ■ Post WWII ■ Brown v. Board of Education ■ Montgomery Bus Boycott ■ Leadership ■ Sit Ins ■ Birmingham ■ March on Washington ■ Enfranchisement

● Mississippi Freedom Summer ● Selma

Postwar Civil Rights ➢ Committee on Civil Rights ➢ Invisible Man ➢ Mexican Americans & Native

Americans ➢ Fair Employment Practices ➢ Enfranchisement ➢ Reducing Lynchings

Integrating the Military ➢ Executive Order 9981 ➢ July 26, 1948

Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka, Kansas

➢ 1954 ➢ Thurgood Marshall

represented the case and argued that segregation was inherently unequal.

➢ Supreme Court ruled in Brown’s favor, reversing the 1896 doctrine “separate but equal.”

Rosa Parks & the Montgomery Bus Boycott

➢ 1955 ➢ Rosa Parks refused to move from

her bus seat to the “colored” section in the back

➢ Sparked a year long boycott ➢ Leaders included women (JoAnn

Robinson), preachers (Martin Luther King, Jr.), and union leaders (E.D. Nixon). But successful due workers.

➢ Resulted integration of busses.

–Boycott Letter

“Another Negro woman has been arrested and thrown into jail because she refused to get up out of her seat on the bus and

give it to a white person…until we do something to stop these arrests, they will continue. The next time it may be you, or

you, or you. This woman’s case will come up on Monday. We are, therefore, asking every Negro to stay off the buses on

Monday in protest of the arrest and the trial.”

Rosa Parks & the Montgomery Bus Boycott

➢ 1955 ➢ Rosa Parks refused to move from

her bus seat to the “colored” section in the back

➢ Sparked a year long boycott ➢ Leaders included women (JoAnn

Robinson), preachers (Martin Luther King, Jr.), and union leaders (E.D. Nixon). But successful due workers.

➢ Resulted integration of busses.

Martin Luther King, Jr. ➢ Led Montgomery Bus Boycott ➢ Founded Southern Christian

Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957

➢ Nonviolence ➢ Assassinated April 4, 1968

Malcolm X ➢ Nation of Islam ➢ Rejected King’s strategies ➢ Highlighted limits of the

movement and the insidiousness of systemic racism

Greensboro Sit Ins ➢ First activism of 1960s ➢ Inspired action across the US ➢ Boycotts of Woolsworth and similar drug

stores, regardless of location, for having segregated lunch counters in the South.

SNCC ➢ Student Non-violent Coordinating

Committee ➢ John Lewis chairman until 1966 ➢ Integrated, nonviolent organization until

1966 ➢ Small but influential

Birmingham - 1963 ➢ Public Attention ➢ Over 50 bombings of African

American homes and institutions ➢ Bull Connor, public safety

commissioner ➢ SCLC action

March on Washington 1963

16th Street Baptist Church Bombing

Civil Rights Act 1964

Prohibits of voter registration, social segregation in school, employment, and public accommodations.

Freedom Summer ➢ Led by Bob Moses ➢ Focused on Mississippi

○ 90% of non white families lived below poverty line

○ 7% of Black Americans had high school education; 42% of white Americans had high school education

➢ Group centered leadership ➢ 1000 teachers, ministers, lawyers, students ➢ Integrated

Freedom Summer ➢ Violence ➢ Deaths of Andrew Goodman,

James Earl Chaney, and Michael Schwerner

➢ Meanings ○ Registered voters ○ Drew national attention ○ Tensions over

interracialism, gender relationships, commitment to nonviolence, and relationship to liberalism

Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party ➢ 60,000 members ➢ Delegates to DNC in Atlantic

City ➢ Part of final push for Democratic

Party

Malcolm X’s Death & Influence ➢ Break with Nation of Islam ➢ Founded Organization of Afro

American Unity (OAAU) ➢ Assassinated February 21, 1965

Selma 1965

Selma ➢ Launched January 1965 ➢ 355 of 15,000 Black Americans

allowed to register ○ 3% of population

➢ Jimmie Lee Jackson killed Feb. 26, 1965

➢ March 9, 1965 Bloody Sunday ➢ March 11, 1965 Turnaround

Tuesday ➢ March 15, 1965 LBJ called for

Voting Rights Act ➢ March 21-25, 1965 Selma to

Montgomery

Voting Rights Act 1965 ➢ Empowers federal government

to intervene in states to ensure suffrage is available regardless of race, religion, or gender.

➢ Key provisions overturned in 2013 Shelby v. Holder

Growth in Voter Registration

1965 1969

Alabama 20% 60%

Georgia 27% 60%

Louisiana 30% 60%

Mississippi 7% 67%

MLK’s Evolution ➢ Chicago Freedom Movement

1966 ➢ Opposition to Vietnam 1967 ➢ Poor People’s March 1968

MLK in Memphis ➢ Supporting Memphis Sanitation

Workers Strike ➢ Killed April 4, 1968

Washington DC, April 5, 1968

San Francisco Union Square, April 5, 1968

MLK & Malcolm X