Kennedy and Civil Rights

• Boynton v. VA - Interstate buses must be desegregated, as well as all bus stops, rest stops, etc.
• CORE + SNCC

  • will the states follow the law of integration
  • what will Kennedy do if states don’t follow the laws

  Freedom Rides - 2 buses go from DC to New Orleans, everyone rode on the bus integrated, would use the same facilities as each other.

  • went through old south bus stops and tensions were high
  • got to deep south, states worsened.
  • a bus got burned, nobody was hurt.
  • In Alabama, klansmen were waiting in a mob along with other angry white people. James Peck (white, worked for CORE) gets off the bus first, klan jumps him.
  • John Lewis (white, worked for SNCC), also got jumped after James.
• Bull Connor - super racist man, ordered law enforcement to allow this attack to continue for 15 minutes before they stepped in, Peck and Lewis get arrested and taken to the hospital.
• The Freedom Rides attack goes viral, nobody has ever seen a white man risk his life for the civil rights movement, Kennedy is asked what he is going to do.

  Kennedy asks SNCC to stop, SNCC wasn’t happy with this. Kennedy calls Mississippi to let the freedom riders pass through without violence or he’ll send military forces, governor of Miss. agrees and lets them pass.
• SCLC- southern christian leadership conference, a traveling protest group, they settle on Albany, Georgia to spread their protests.

  Albany Movement - SCLC is protesting against segregation in Georgia

  Laurie Pritchett - segregationist, he knows media attention makes the protests successful, instead of attacking protesters, he just arrests everyone and occupies the entire Albany jail and many other jails so they can’t get any media attention.
• SCLC leaves Albany because their protests didn’t work, so they go to Birmingham, Alabama.

  Only 1 integrated neighborhood in Birmingham at the time, Bull Connor is there and he’s crazy.

  SCLC encourages boycotts in places that wouldn’t hire black people, but Bull Connor said if these businesses hired a black person he would take their license away.
• Bull Connor was not non-violent, even when he was arresting the SCLC protesters and Dr. King. His jails aren’t big enough so it fills up fast.

  A lot of pressure on the SCLC because they can’t just keep getting arrested.

  1. A Letter from a Birmingham Jail, written by MLK for the people of America, focused on the religious part of the Civil Rights movement.
  2. Jackie Kennedy called MLK’s wife who tells her to work on segregation. MLK gets out of jail and has more supporters.
• Project C(confrontation) - the SCLC needs the confront method to go up in these protests.

  The Children’s Crusade - kids are used for these protests instead of parents who need to go to work. These kids marched from school to City Hall, principals tried to lock all doors, kids jumped out the windows, its all over TV.

  Bull Connor arrests the kids.
• SCLC plans the Children’s Crusade to happen again the next day and Kennedy is like wtf man.

  George Wallace - super racist man, “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever”

  More adults and children are protesting again, Bull Connor orders the FD to spray the protesters with water and the PD to release K-9s on them.

  This is now international, Kennedy finally steps in and orders the national guard to go to Birmingham and send people home, martial law (curfews).
• Kennedy goes on TV, gives an address about the protests in Birmingham, says he thinks segregation is bad, and they’re working on a new bill that will end segregation.

  (The Civil Rights Act)

  SCLC likes this.