Civil rights

The Civil Rights Movement
We Shall
Overcome!

Origins of Civil Rights
Problems
• Slavery (of course)
– Centuries of slavery created a sense of superiority
among whites; generated prejudices and stereotypes
that were very difficult to dislodge
– Also created a sense of fear among whites: a fear of
rebellion
• Jim Crow laws after the Civil War
– Caste system created, especially in the South.
– Daily offenses against blacks: school segregation,
separate waiting rooms, water fountains, etc.
– Political offenses: blacks kept from voting; serving
on juries.

Origins of Civil Rights
Problems
• Sharecropping: Created economic
dependency
• Lynching: Created fear among African-
Americans.
– Late 1800s-early 1900s: avg. 100 lynchings
per year.
– Worst year- 1892: 161 recorded lynchings.
– In excess of 85% of these mob murders
occurred in the South.

A “legal” foundation:
Plessey v. Ferguson
• June 7, 1892, Homer Plessey purchases first
class ticket on East Louisiana Railway to
Covington.
• 50 miles round trip.
• He wanted and expected to be arrested for
violating the 1890 state law requiring that “no
person or persons shall be permitted to occupy
seats in coaches, other than the ones assigned
to them on account of the race they belong
to.” The law required “equal but separate”
facilities.

Plessey v. Ferguson
• Plessey got on board, sat in white
section.
• Conductor ordered him to move. He
refused. Arrested and taken to jail in
New Orleans.
• Plessey actually had to arrange his
arrest because he was so light skinned
that he looked white.

Plessey v. Ferguson
Case took 4 years to get to Supreme Court.
• By time case reached court, attitudes had become
even more hostile towards blacks.
– Jim Crow laws began to prevent blacks from
voting.
– Reconstruction laws protecting blacks repealed.
• Court ruled against Plessey’s 14th Amendment
claims.
– Ct. differentiated between political and social
rights.
• “If one race be inferior to the other socially, the
Constitution of the United States cannot put
them upon the same plane.”

Plessey v. Ferguson
• Far reaching
implications of
Plessey.
– Separate but equal
doctrine
• Allowed for segregation
in many areas.
– Schools included.

The Civil Rights Movement in
the 1940s
• Domestic racism interferes with Cold
War, especially propaganda and appeals
to new nations
• African Americans leave WWII ready to
challenge racism and their political
power grows in urban north; Truman
needs this vote
• Truman also upset by racial
violence/inequality
• Creates Committee on Civil Rights and
orders desegregation of US
Government/military

Supreme Court Decisions on
Civil Rights
• NAACP brings series of cases to
challenge segregation as violation of
14th Amendment
• NAACP wins admission of black
students to white professional and
graduate schools
• In Brown v. Board of Education Of
Topeka (1954); Warrens rules “separate
but equal has no place” in education
• Energizes African American
action/protest

Brown v. Board of Education
Brown argument and decision really a combination with
other cases
• Briggs v. Elliot, for example.
– Briggs from rural S. Carolina where there was a
long tradition of Jim Crow.
– 70% of Clarendon County residents black. More
than 1/3 of blacks over 10 could not read. Children
attended very poor schools, most w/o electricity or
plumbing.
– County spend $179 per white student; $43 per black
student.
– Indoor toilets in white schools; outhouses in black.
– Desks for every white student; in one black school
not a single desk for students.
– Whites schools had lunchrooms; none of black
schools did.

Psychological research used. Kenneth Clark’s doll study.
• White and black dolls.
• Asked students to identify white and black dolls. They
could.
• Asked for the “nice” doll, the “doll you like to play
with,” the “doll that looks bad,” the “doll that is a nice
color.”
• Black children disproportionately chose white and one
to play with and as nice doll, and chose black as the
“bad” one.
• This study was done in Clarendon county. Replicated in
New York City, Philadelphia, Boston, and communities
in Arkansas.
• “Schools could buy newer books or hire better teachers
for black students, but they could not erase feelings of
inferiority from their minds. “

Warren’s decision stressed psychological impact
• “Importance of education in a democratic
society.” Need schools to foster values and
citizenship.
• Separation by race indicates “inferiority of the
Negro group.” “To separate them from others
of similar age and qualifications soley because
of their race generates a feeling of inferiority
as to their status in the community that may
affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely
to ever be undone.”

• Unanimous decision striking down
school segregation.
• “Separate is inherently unequal.”
• Implementation of the decision to take
place “with all deliberate speed.”
– What does this mean?
– To most of the South, it meant as slow as
possible.

White Resistance to Civil Rights
• KKK violence surges; middle-class
White Citizens’ Councils prefer
economic pressure
• Southern states pass laws to resist Brown
• Eisenhower refuses to say he will enforce
Brown
• Eisenhower eventually acts in Little
Rock, AR (1957–58), but only after state
resistance and white mobs create
potential for violence

A Movement Begins
In the mid-1950s, a broad-based
movement of African-Americans
predicated on a belief in the use of non-
violent civil disobedience began.
• The origins of this movement can be
found in India.

Gandhi and Non-Violent Civil
Disobedience
• Concept of Civil Disobedience we
are familiar w/ from Thoreau
– For Thoreau it seems a rather individual
act- to be at peace w/ one’s conscience
– With Mohandas Gandhi it becomes a
tactic of creating social change towards
justice.
• First learned principles of non-
violent resistance in South Africa
– Laws discriminated against Indians
there as against Blacks.

Disobedience
Key principle of non-violent resistance: ahisma
• “non-harm”
• since no group has absolute claim to truth, no group
should use violence to compel others to act against
their own understanding of truth.
– W/o this thinking, ‘saints’ can become more
murderous than ‘sinners’- dogmatic certainty is
dangerous.
• influenced by Tolstoy’s The Kingdom of God is
Within You
– said he was “overwhelmed” by its argument.
– a Christian argument against the use of force (by
individual or government using individuals)
• shows Gandhi’s openness.

Disobedience
• At first he called this ‘passive
resistance’. Later rejected this term-
non-violent action is not passive-
very energetic.
• He later rejected that term and
replaced it w/ satyagraha
– this word combines Hindu words for
“truth” and “hold firmly”
– sometimes translated as ‘truth force’ or
‘soul force’

Disobedience
To make satyagraha a practical tool, had to bring
pressure to bear on the opponents.
• “I do not believe in making appeals when
there is no force behind them, whether moral
or material.”
• Practicality of satyagraha lies in the fact,
according to Gandhi, that rulers are
dependent upon the cooperation of the ruled
for any system to work. But, the ruled have
the choice of whether to obey or resist.
– Non-cooperation thus becomes a very
powerful activity

Disobedience
Satyagraha not for saints- all people could prepare
themselves and use the method.
• Preparation important. Not enough to have self-rule.
Must also have self-discipline.
– Thich Nhat Hanh- have Statue of Liberty on east coast,
should have Statue of Responsibility on west coast.
• Gandhi believed that needed to purge society of
weaknesses brought by British (commercialism, for
example) and home-grown weaknesses (caste
system, forced marriages)
– Gandhi early in his work in India sought to erase
barriers, between Hindu/Muslim, men/women, castes
• Freedom a personal as well as a political condition.

DisobedienceThe Method:
• Declare opposition to the unjust law
– do not try to be secretive
– make moral arguments
– appeal to justice
• Break the unjust law
– refuse to comply w/ injustice
– do so out in the open
– do not engage in general lawlessness- break only the
unjust law
• Suffer the consequences
– may be legal consequences (prison, fine, etc.)
– may be physical abuse
– may be social consequences
• Do so in a way that brings pressure to bear on the
perpetrators of injustice

Gandhi’s Guide to
ActionKeep thoughts positive, because
thoughts become words.
Keep words positive because
words become behavior.
Keep behavior positive because
behavior becomes habit.
Keep habit positive because
habit becomes values.
Keep values positive because
values become destiny.
Thoughts » Words » Behavior » Habits » Values »
Destiny

Wealth without Work
Pleasure without Conscience
Science without Humanity
Knowledge without Character
Politics without Principle
Commerce without Morality
Worship without Sacrifice
An 8th
(added by Gandhi’s grandson):
Rights without Responsibility

Civil Rights Movement and Non-violence
From Gandhi to King and Beyond
• 1936 Dr. Howard Thurman, African-
American minister, met w/ Gandhi.
1 year later two others came. To see
if Gandhi’s methods would work in
US South.
– Gandhi told them that non-violence
“cannot be preached. It can only be
practiced.” Not just by individuals as if
a moral choice, but “on a mass scale.”

Montgomery Bus Boycott and the
Beloved Community
• Dec. 1, 1955- Rosa Parks arrested for
violating bus segregation laws.
• Women in community who had been
active in civil rights decided to
organize a one day boycott for
Monday Dec. 5. Expanded into
more.

Formed an organization Montgomery Improvement
Association. Dr. King elected President.
• New in town. Not all that well known. Preacher at
Joanne Robinson’s church, and she was one of the
prime organizers of the original boycott.
• His opening speech- p. 22, Beloved Community.
• As Boycott grew and expanded in time, King’s
philosophy of non-violence developed in the face of
increasing threats against him, and the bombing of
his house.
– King’s words, p. 37-9, Beloved Community.
• King spoke of the power and dignity of resisting
injustice non-violently. “With love and unrelenting
courage.”
– In anticipation of “the coming new world in which men will
live together as brothers.”

• King related the non-violent struggle to
“picking up one’s cross.”
– non-violent resistance embodies the event of the
cross in the human struggle for justice.
• King looked for guidance to Gandhi’s work.
– saw his activities as “complementing the long
tradition of our Christian faith” (relate to
Gandhi’s reading of Tolstoy, the consilience of
religions). Gandhi supplied the Christian
doctrine of love w/ a strategy of social protest.
– King’s copies of Gandhi’s works became worn
and tattered over time w/ reading.

The Beloved Community.
• “where the kingdom of God meets the
American dream.”
• belief in love between people, human
progress.
• rather like the social gospel movement
we studied earlier.
• “segregation is the blatant denial of all
we have in Jesus Christ.” The
beloved community is a new space of
reconciliation introduced into history.

Nashville Sit-Ins
• Jim Lawson- teacher of non-violent methods
of civil disobedience.
– Had read about Gandhi- who got good coverage
in black newspapers.
– Went to prison for refusing to submit to draft in
Korean War.
– Went to India after college.
• Went to be a missionary/teacher at a college. While he
went to teach, his true mission was to learn- about
Gandhi and his methods.
• For Lawson, being Gandhian and being Christian
became the same thing.
• While in India, read about the bus boycott in 1955. He
came home in ’56, prepared to participate in the
struggle.

Nashville saw itself as a progressive city, but segregation
still very persistent: Couldn’t eat at lunch counters;
had to enter movie theaters through alley door and sit
in balcony; excluded from public pools and golf
courses; in banks, department stores, and restaurants,
could only work in back, out of sight.
• A virtual caste system.
• Significant number of young blacks in town
attending predominantly black colleges, such as Fisk.
– some had lived w/ segregation their whole lives as
southerners
– some feeling it for the first time as northerners who
came to college.
– Most not eager to do anything on civil rights- afraid to
make waves.

• Some students were eager.
– Diane Nash- from Chicago. John Lewis- a poor southern
student.
• Lawson began organizing workshops.
– Taught the philosophy of non-violence: its morality and
how it would be effective.
– Taught techniques of handling verbal and physical assaults
– the strong and courageous are unharmed by words.
– curl up and protect internal organs and head when struck.
– Also taught that there would be negative consequences to
their actions, and they had to be prepared for that
– Self-discipline built through the workshops. Lawson
emphasized “the necessity of fierce discipline and training
and strategizing and planning and recruiting … That can’t
be done spontaneously. It has to be done systematically.”
Anything less would dissolve under the force that would
meet them.

• Nashville students began their sit-ins in
February of 1960.
• Pressure on system-
– Students to fall in behind students who were
arrested and take their seats- fill the jails
– Boycott of downtown by adults
– March after bombing- confrontation w/ Mayor
West on steps.
• Key role of Diane Nash: After CT Vivian attacked the
Mayor verbally, Nash appealed to Mayor’s sense of
decency. When he admitted he though segregation of
the counters was wrong and should be ended, the system
crumbled.
• This was the sort of transformation that Gandhian
satyagraha was supposed to produce.

By end of April, sit-ins had spread to 78 cities in
the South. About 70,000 students protested.
About 3,000 went to jail at some point.
• The days of Jim Crow were numbered.
When the ruled refuse to cooperate w/
injustice, the injustice will fall.
– Gandhi’s message was being
implemented in America.

Protests against Segregation
& for the Vote
• SCLC and SNCC use sit-ins; CORE uses
Freedom Rides; ‘63 freedom vote also
tried
• In response, JFK begins to act (U of MS,
‘62; U of AL, ‘63; submits legislation, ‘63)
• In March on Washington (Aug.’63)
250,000 peacefully protest in support of
legislation
• TV records white violence: death of Evers,
Birmingham police, church bombing (‘63)

LBJ’s Great Society
• Program builds on ideas of FDR, HST,
JFK
• Civil Rights Act of ‘64 bans
discrimination in public
accommodations and employment
• Empowers Justice Dept. to end school
segregation and promote voting rights
• 24th Amendment bans poll taxes (‘64)
• Equal Employment Opportunity Comm
(‘64) investigates job discrimination

Election of 1964; Voting
Rights Act of 1965
• LBJ appeals to majority desire for
continued economic growth and social
justice
• Crushes Goldwater; Dems dominate Cong,
‘65-66 and pass most reforms since New
Deal
• Att Gen able to supervise voter registration
• See Map 30.1 for explosion in black
voting
• Elementary and Secondary Education Act
‘65 provides first federal funding to
education

War on Poverty
• Start with Economic Opportunity Act (1964)
and then create/expand Job Corps, Head
Start, Upward Bound, VISTA, Model Cities
• Medicare (elderly) and Medicaid (poor),
1965
• See Table 30.1* for flurry of legislation
• Mixed success: “community action” angers
mayors; confusion of so many programs
• Rural poverty doesn’t drop much; still
migration
*A People & a Nation, Sixth Edition

War on Poverty (cont.)
• Great Society and economic growth cuts
poor from 25% to 11% of population
by 1973
• Big drop in elderly poverty (40% to
16%)
• Poverty drops for families headed by
males, but many women/children (11
million) in female-headed homes remain
poor by 1973
• See Figure 30.1 for poverty change by
race: poverty drops faster for whites
than blacks

The Warren Court
• Continues liberal reform even when Great
Society stalls over Vietnam and race riots
• Baker v. Carr (1962): one person, one
vote
• Griswold v. CT (1965): right of privacy
voids legal restrictions on access to birth
control
• Gideon (1963), Escobedo (1964), and
Miranda (1966) increase protections for
accused
• Court bans prayer/Bible readings in
schools

Civil Rights Disillusionment
• Democrats’ response to MFDP (1964)
alienates activists; anti-civil rights
actions by Hoover and FBI increase
alienation
• Early race riots occur in NY and NJ
(1964) in response to white police
brutality
• Northern African Americans upset with
lack of improvement in ghettos (same
for West)
• Suffer poverty, unemployment,
segregation

Race Riots, 1965–68
• Watts (1965) is first major riot as blacks
loot white-owned stores and fight white
police
• Violence grows; 1967 very bloody
(Newark and Detroit); same in 1968 after
King’s death
• National Advisory Committee on Civil
Disorders (1968) blames white racism as
source of riots
• Many blacks (especially in North) start
to question effectiveness of nonviolent
protest

Malcolm X
• Spokesman for Nation of Islam; espouses
black pride and separation from “white
devil”
• Advocates self-defense when faced with
white violence; rejects King’s passive
resistance
• Fellow Muslims assassinate him (1965)
when he softens his opposition to whites
and expresses cautious support for
nonviolence
• Becomes hero to Black Power Movement

Black Power (post-1965)
• Growing movement among young
blacks
• Stress need for African Americans to
control their own
institutions/organizations
• SNCC (1966) and CORE (1967) expel
white members and reject goal of
integration
• Black Panthers blend black nationalism
with revolutionary communism;
institute programs to improve ghetto life

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