The Quest for Civil Rights

• Poverty, segregation and discrimination

  • Most black people were impoverished sharecroppers
  • All aspects of southern life - schools, restaurants, hospitals, prisons, even graveyards - were segregated
  • Segregation was supposedly meant to follow the rule 'separate but equal'. Yet black facilities were invariably inferior to white facilities
  • Southern white people stopped black people from voting, e.g., by making them pay an expensive poll tax, pass literacy tests or prove their grandfathers had voted
  • Many black people lived in fear of being lynched by white mobs
• Northern migration

  After 1910, many black people migrated to northern cities, mainly because they:

  • Found better-paid jobs, particularly after 1914 when the First World War stimulated US manufacturing
  • Could vote
  • Were unlikely to be lynched
• Black pride

  Marcus Garvey, born in Jamaica, founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in 1914 to inspire pride in black people and culture. Establishing himself in Harlem, Garvey was a rousing speaker. However, Garvey's support for separatism antagonised Du Bois and NAACP. After Garvey was deported in 1927, the UNIA quickly collapsed.
• Little Rock, Arkansas

  In 1957, nine black students tried to attend Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. When white students, supported by State Governor Faubus, tried to stop them entering, Eisenhower sent federal troops to Little Rock and federalised Arkansas's National Guard so it was under his command, not that of Faubus.
• Sit-ins

  In 1960, students in Greensboro, North Carolina, successfully used Farmer's 'sit-in' method at an all-white Woolworth's cafe. This action was copied across the South in segregated cafes, hotels and libraries. Boycotts supplemented sit-ins, pray-ins and stand-ins. No one organisation co-ordinated the action. A variety of organisations were involved:

  • the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
  • the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
  • and the Student Non-violent Co-ordinating Committee (SNCC)
• Civil Rights Act

  In 1964, LBJ pushed Kennedy's bill through Congress. It:

  • set up an Equal Employment Commission
  • ensured desegregation
  • outlawed segregation in public facilities
  • strengthened black American voting rights
• Northern riots

  In 1964, northern and western cities experienced riots in the ghettos. The riots continued for the next four years. In 1965, in the Watts district of Los Angeles, there were six days of rioting. 34 people were killed and 900 injured. In 1967, there were 43 deaths in Detroit. The riots were perceived to arise from black poverty in the North, where there were de facto segregation in housing and schools. In 1967-68, a National Advisory Committee on Civil Disorder, headed by Governor Kerner, warned of the danger of the USA splitting into warring civilisations - black and white.
• Malcolm X

  Malcolm X was the most important voice of Black Power. As a young man he was sentenced to a 10-year jail sentence for drugs, pimping and armed robbery. In prison he converted to the Nation of Islam (NOI) - a religious movement established in Detroit in 1930 and then led by Elijah Muhammed. Once released, Malcolm became the Nation's most famous preacher. His pilgrimage to Mecca led him to see Islam as a way to overcome racism. He established the Organisation of Afro-American Unity. He was assassinated in 1965, by members of the Nation of Islam.
• King's assassination

  In April 1968, King was assassinated by a white man in Memphis. In the aftermath of King's murder, a mass outpouring of grief and anger led to riots in more than 100 US cities. 46 people died, 2,000 were injured, 21,000 were arrested and property valued at $67 million was damaged.
• Native American problems

  In 1960, the Native Americans' plight was more desperate than any other minority group

  • Many lived on reservations
  • Unemployment was ten times the national rate
  • Life expectancy was 20 years lower than the national average
  • The suicide rate was a hundred times higher than the rate for white people
  • Alcoholism was a widespread problem
• Hispanic problems

  Most Hispanic people were poor. They were also isolated from mainstream American life by the language barrier. The belief that Hispanic people were entitled to schooling in Spanish as well as English divided the Hispanic community. Some wished to promote their heritage. Others feared that failure to adopt English as their main language would block their advance.
• Mexican Americans


  The plight of Mexican American migrant farm workers was especially dire. In the 1960s, Cesar Chavez founded the United Farm Workers (UFW) in California. He then launched a series of strikes for an increase in the wages and benefits of migrant workers. By 1970, the UFW had won recognition from grape owners and national visibility for the plight of Hispanic farm labourers through well-publicised boycotts of grapes and lettuce. It won its fight for better wages and working conditions.
• Gay activism

  On 27-28 June 1969 at New York's Stonewall Inn bar, gay patrons refused to disperse after a police raid. Street rioting ensued. As word spread, hundreds of gay people in New York joined the confrontation with the police which continued for several days. The Stonewall riot became a symbol of new militancy. Joining groups like the Gay Activists Alliance and the Gay Liberation Front, activists campaigned for gay rights. Their main goals were to:

  • decriminalise homosexual acts
  • ensure equal treatment under the law
  • ensure the dissemination of unbiased information about homosexuality