Chapter 21: Civil Rights Section 2: The Triumphs of a Crusade

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Chapter 21Civil RightsSection 2The Triumphs
of a Crusade
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• California Academic Standards 11.10.3 11.10.4
  11.10.5 11.10. 6
• 11.10 Students analyze the development of federal
  civil rights and voting rights.
• .3 Describe the collaboration on legal strategy
  between African American and white civil rights
  lawyers to end racial segregation in higher
  education.

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• .4 Examine the roles of civil rights advocates
  (e.g., A. Philip Randolph, Martin Luther King,
  Jr., Malcom X, Thurgood Marshall, James Farmer,
  Rosa Parks), including the significance of Martin
  Luther King, Jr. 's "Letter from Birmingham Jail"
  and "I Have a Dream" speech.
• .5 Discuss the diffusion of the civil rights
  movement of African Americans from the churches
  of the rural South and the urban North, including
  the

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• resistance to racial desegregation in Little
  Rock and Birmingham, and how the advances
  influenced the agendas, strategies, and
  effectiveness of the quests of American Indians,
  Asian Americans, and Hispanic Americans for civil
  rights and equal opportunities.
• .6 Analyze the passage and effects of civil
  rights and voting rights legislation (e.g., 1964
  Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act of 1965) and
  the Twenty-Fourth Amendment, with an

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• emphasis on equality of access to education and
  to the political process.
• Objectives
• Following lecture and reading of this section,
  students will be able to
• Identify the goal of the freedom riders
• Explain how civil rights activism forced
  President Kennedy to act against segregation
• State the motives behind the 1963 March on
  Washington

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• Describe how civil rights organizers tried to
  secure passage of a voting rights act
• Overview
• Civil rights activists break down numerous racial
  barriers through continued social protest and the
  prompting of landmark legislation
• What was the goal of the freedom riders?

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• Freedom riders expose Southern resistance to
  federal desegregation rulings, they rode buses
  throughout the south hoping to provoke white
  racists and force Kennedy and the administration
  to act
• The Freedom Riders were attacked and the bus line
  refused to take them any further after one bus
  was fire bombed
• CORE Freedom Riders stopped, but SNCC (Student
  Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) resumed

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• the rights, realizing that if they gave up
  because of violence then the white racists had
  won
• When the SNCC riders went to Birmingham the
  Police Chief Bull Connor had them beaten and
  taken to Tennessee, but they returned and sat in
  a white only bus terminal until They could get a
  ride to Montgomery
• Attorney General, Robert Kennedy finally forced
  the bus company to take them on May 20, 1961
  after waiting for 18 hours

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• The police in Montgomerey had failed to protect
  the riders
• Violence against the freedom riders entering
  Montgomery, forces the Kennedy administration to
  intervene, sending 400 U.S. marshals to protect
  riders on the final part of their journey to
  Jackson.
• In addition, a federal order banning segregation
  in all interstate travel facilities, including
  waiting rooms, restrooms, and lunch counters was
  handed down

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• How did civil rights activism force JFK to act
  against segregation?
• Civil rights organizers turn their attention to
  integrating some Southern campuses and towns at
  each turn they encountered opposition from some
  whites
• Federal troops are needed to get James Meredith
  into the all-white University of Mississippi

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• Meredith won a court case that allowed him to
  enroll
• The governor, Ross Barnett refused to let him
  register as a student
• JFK ordered federal marshals to escort Meredith
  to the registrars office
• Barnet appealed over the radio to Mississippians
  to never surrender
• Riots broke out on September 30, 1962

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• 2 deaths resulted
• it took 5,000 soldiers, 200 arrests, and 15 hours
  to stop the rioters
• Meredith was escorted to class following the
  incident and nightriders shooting at his parents
  house forced federal protection
• Television coverage of the brutal treatment of
  marchers (children attacked with fire hoses,
  dogs, and clubs) in Birmingham leads President
  Kennedy to call for passage of a new civil rights
  bill

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• Birmingham was strict on its total segregation
  policy and had 18 bombings between 1957 and 1963
• MLK Jr. and SCLC invited to Birmingham to
  desegregate city by Fred Shuttlesworth, head of
  Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights
• MLK Jr. arrested and write a letter from
  Birmingham jail

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• Economic boycott and negative press convinced
  Birmingham officials to end segregation
• What were the motives behind the 1963 March on
  Washington?
• Civil rights activists organize a great protest
  march on Washington to pressure Congress into
  passing the civil rights bill introduced by JFK

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• August 28, 1963 250,000 people (75,000 whites)
  march on Washington and hear MLK Jr. deliver his
  improvised I have a Dream speech
• The Violence continued with more bombings of
  churches and President Johnson pushes the Civil
  Rights Act of 1964 through Congress
• How did civil rights organizers try to secure
  passage of a voting rights act?

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• Violence and intimidation prevent millions of
  African Americans in the South from registering
  to vote
• Civil rights workers try to win a voting rights
  act through two campaigns Freedom Summer, led by
  Robert Moses in MS, which did not get the
  attention of Congress it had hoped for after a
  summer of encountering brutal violence at the
  hands of whites, and a march from Selma to
  Montgomery, AL, which saw 25,000 marchers go

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• into Montgomery, hoping with more African
  Americans registered to vote they could elect
  legislators who would support civil rights
• The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP)
  Organized by the SNCC, was established in hopes
  of unseating regular democrats who did nothing to
  help African Americans
• The Voting Rights Act of 1965, passed 10 weeks
  after the Selma March, guarantees the right to
  vote for African Americans

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• Some African Americans are still not happy,
  feeling the years of inequality were still not
  righted
• Close
• Although civil rights activists across the South
  faced massive resistance in their efforts to
  achieve desegregation, they forced the federal
  government to pass monumental civil rights
  legislation.
• Page 721 Review Civil Rights Victories