THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT IN THE USA • The Civil War had officially abolished slavery, but it didn’t end discrimination against Black people • They continued to endure the devastating effects of racism, especially in the South • Mississipi Burning • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZsIWIPdUc THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT IN THE USA • After the Civil War some 4 million enslaved Black men, women and children had been granted their freedom, an emancipation that would be formalized with passage of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. • For Black Americans, gaining the full rights of citizenship—and especially the right to vote—was central to securing true freedom and selfdetermination. “Slavery is not abolished until the Black man has the ballot,” Frederick Douglass famously said in May 1865, THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT IN THE USA • The civil rights movement was a struggle for social justice that took place mainly during the 1950s and 1960s for Black Americans to gain equal rights under the law in the United States • By the mid-20th century, Black along with many white Americans, mobilized and began an unprecedented fight for equality that spanned two decades. THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT IN THE USA • In 1865-66, most Southern state legislatures enacted restrictive laws known as Black codes, which strictly governed Black citizens’ behaviors and denied them suffrage and other rights. • Radical Republicans in Congress were outraged, arguing that the Black codes went a long way toward reestablishing slavery in all but name. THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT IN THE USA • The 14th Amendment, approved by Congress in 1866 and ratified in 1868, granted citizenship to all persons “born or naturalized in the United States,” including former slaves, and guaranteed “equal protection of the laws” to all citizens. • In 1870, Congress passed the 15th Amendment, which stated that voting rights could not be “denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Black people segregation • Segregation is the practice of requiring separate housing, education and other services for people of color • The first steps toward official segregation came in the form of “Black Codes.” These were laws passed throughout the South starting around 1865 Black people segregation • Legislators segregated everything from schools to residential areas to public parks to theaters to pools to cemeteries, asylums, jails and residential homes. There were separate waiting rooms for whites people and Black people in professional offices and, in 1915, Oklahoma became the first state to even segregate public phone booths. Rose Parks Rosa Parks (1913—2005) helped initiate the civil rights movement in the United States when she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in 1955 On Thursday, December 1, 1955, the 42-year-old Rosa Parks was commuting home by bus from a long day of work 70 percent or more riders on a typical day were Black, and on this day Rosa Parks was one of them Rosa Parks • Segregation was written into law; the front of a Montgomery bus was reserved for white citizens, and the seats behind them for Black citizens. • At one point on the route, a white man had no seat because all the seats in the designated “white” section were taken. So the driver told the riders in the four seats of the first row of the “colored” section to stand, in effect adding another row to the “white” section. The three others obeyed. Parks did not Rosa Parks • “People always say that I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired,” wrote Parks in her autobiography, “but that isn’t true. I was not tired physically… No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.” • Eventually, two police officers approached the stopped bus, assessed the situation and arrested Parks Rose Parks • .Her actions inspired the leaders of the local Black community to organize the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Led by a young Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the boycott lasted more than a year and ended only when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that bus segregation was unconstitutional. Rose Parks • On November 13, 1956, the Supreme Court ruled that bus segregation was unconstitutional; the boycott ended December 20, a day after the Court’s written order arrived in Montgomery. Parks—who had lost her job and experienced harassment all year— became known as “the mother of the civil rights movement.” THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT IN THE USA • In the 1950s and ‘60s, securing voting rights for African Americans in the South became a central focus of the civil rights movement. While the sweeping Civil Rights Act of 1964 finally banned segregation in schools and other public places, it did little to remedy the problem of discrimination in voting rights MARTIN LUTHER KING • Martin Luther King Jr. first became a prominent voice in the Civil Rights movement in 1955 when, as a new pastor in Montgomery, Alabama, he agreed to head the Montgomery Improvement Association. The organization was formed to coordinate the Montgomery bus boycott, prompted by the arrest of Rosa Parks for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white passenger. King was able to succeed by using protest strategies that involved mobilizing the African-American community through their churches and utilizing the nonviolent protest methods of Indian civil rights activist Mahatma Gandhi MARTIN LUTHER KING THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT IN THE USA • While the 15th Amendment barred voting rights discrimination on the basis of race, it left the door open for states to determine the specific qualifications for suffrage. • Southern state legislatures used such qualifications—including literacy tests, poll taxes and other discriminatory practices— to disenfranchise a majority of Black voters MARTIN LUTHER KING • On August 28, 1963, King participated in the March on Washington, where 250,000 black and white people rallied in support of the civil rights bill that was pending in Congress. Near the end of the day at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial, Martin Luther King Jr. made his now famous "I Have a Dream" speech. His words, echoing the Bible and the Constitution, expressed hope that his dream of equality for all people would someday be realized. MALCOLM X • Malcolm X first became involved in the Civil Rights Movement when, after a stint in prison, he turned his life around and aligned himself with the Nation of Islam. • He believed in a complete separation of the races as the solution to the problems faced by black Americans. In 1950, a fully-converted Malcolm replaced his birth surname “Little” with “X,” explaining that “X” symbolized the African family name that he would never know. In his autobiography he wrote, “For me, my 'X' replaced the white slavemaster name of 'Little' which some blue-eyed devil named Little had imposed upon my paternal forebears.” The rev. King and Malcolm X 1) Listen to and compare the speeches of Rev King and Malcolm X in order to highlight main differences and similarities as for their strategies, means to achieve goals, relationship between black peolple and white people • I have a dream speech • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dKimoybmEo • Malcolm X’s speeches • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zLQLUpNGsc 2) What was the central focus of the civil right movement in the 60’s?
