Black Civil Rights

• Jim Crow Laws


  State laws enforcing separation of Black and White people in the South from 1877-1900
• 90% of Black people lived in the Southern states
• Facilities segregated by Jim Crow laws


  • Toilets
  • Housing areas
  • Trains
  • Buses
  • Hotels
  • Hospitals
• Whites who beat, threatened or killed Blacks were seldom tried or convicted
• 14th Amendment of the American Constitution was designed to protect the rights of slaves, but Jim Crow laws were deemed constitutional under "separate but equal"
• US system of government

  • Power split between Legislative (parliament), Executive (President) and Judicial (Supreme Court) branches
  • Each state has its own government controlling law, education, taxes, healthcare etc
  • For a law to pass, it must be approved by Congress, Senate and President
  • President can stop any law, and any law can be taken to the Supreme Court
• NAACP


  National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, founded in 1909 to ensure equality and remove racial discrimination
• NAACP membership grew from 50,000 in 1940 to 450,000 by 1945
• Brown vs Board of Education


  1. Linda Brown, aged 8, went to a school with power facilities (Miles away) and couldn’t go to the only white kids school 2. Her father, Oliver, challenged "separate but equal" doctrine

  3. Case taken to Supreme Court

  4. Decision made on 17th May 1954 in favor of Brown, ending legal racial segregation in schools
• Montgomery Bus Boycott 1955


  1. Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus and was arrested

  2. She started a new movement of non-violent protest - became known as the ’Mother of the Civil Rights Movement’ 3. Martin Luther King Jr organized boycott of buses, his house was bombed because of this

  3. NAACP took case to federal and Supreme Court, resulting in buses being desegregated
• Little Rock, Arkansas 1957


  1. 9 Black students enrolled at Little Rock School

  2. Governor blocked them from entering, so President Eisenhower sent in troops to protect them

  3. The Governor, Orval Faubus, Schools closed for 1 year, resulting in a vote to stop African American attendance, students had to complete high school via correspondence

  4. Schools reopened in 1959
• Sit-Ins 1960


  1. 4 black students sat in white-only sections of Woolworths and other businesses, started a trend of daily sit ins throughout the south

  2. Sit-in participants received training to prepare for abuse 3. Most were successful, except in the Deep South
• Freedom Rides 1961


  1. Decision made by Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) interstate travellers could be integrated. Buses desegregated in 1961, but some were bombed and riders targeted by KKK (Ku Klux Klan)
• Birmingham March (global prominence of Martin Luther King - forced law changes in mid 1960’s)


  1. Targeted racist town to gain media attention - stronghold of the KKK - through marches and sit ins

  2. Bull Connor (chief of police) decided to close all public parks/playgrounds so he would not have to accept segregation 3. Martin Luther King Jr arrested for defying ban on marches, wrote "Letter from Birmingham Jail"

  4. Demonstrations witnessed nationwide on TV

  5. President Kennedy organised settlement to stop desegregation in 1963 (Mississippi NAACP leader shot dead)
• March on Washington 1963


  1. 250,000 people marched to show support for President Kennedy’s Civil Rights Bill - from Washington monument to Lincoln Memorial

  2. Martin Luther King Jr gave "I Have a Dream" speech

  3. March failed to change Republican minds, violence and killing erupted
• Voting Rights Act 1965


  Many states took away voting rights by making Blacks pass a very hard literacy test. Gave Black Americans the right to vote, overcoming legal barriers like literacy tests
• Malcolm X and Black Power

  • Sought radical change and separatism, Black Muslims rejected Martin Luther King Jr's nonviolent approach
  • Members rejected slave surnames and called themselves X. Believed in black pride and a violent method to secure a separate black nation - changed his mind after visit to Mecca (believed Islam could unite and be equal with others) - Malcom X was assassinated by 3 Black Muslims in 1965.
• By the end of the 1960s, the civil rights movement had made significant progress through nonviolent protest, achieving important equal-rights legislation for African Americans
• Key events that shaped history

  • 1954 - Brown vs. Board of Education
  • 1955 - Montgomery Bus Boycott
  • 1957 - Desegregation at Little Rock
  • 1960 - Sit-in Campaign
  • 1961 - Freedom Rides
  • 1962 - Mississippi Riot
  • 1963 - Birmingham
  • 1963 - March on Washington DC
• Civil Rights Act 1963

  • Ended segregation in public places, banned employment discrimination based on race, color, religion or sex.
  • Proposed by Kennedy, great resistance before signed by Lyndon B Johnston.
  • Why did the Civil Rights Bill eventually get passed: 1963 March on Washington, sympathy over Kennedy’s assassination, President Johnson was not elected President - wanted Blacks to vote for him to force the Bill
• Black Power (seen by some as a cry against white power)

  • Some saw this as making Black status higher, others believed it would lead to no integration with whites
  • NAACP condemned Black Power
  • Martin Luther King believed Black Power gave the impression of black supremacy = evil