The USA, 1954-75: conflict at home and abroad

• Segregation and discrimination in the southern states

  • Jim Crow laws
  • Legal to segregate as long as services are separate but equal
  • Segregated public facilities and services: cinemas, toilets, schools and transport
• Discrimination and violence in the southern states

  • Majority of white people viewed black americans as inferior
  • Officials (police and judges) were often members of the Ku Klux Klan
  • Frequent assaults and murders of black people were not properly investigated or prosecuted
  • Black people not allowed to sit on juries in a court of law
• Voting rights

  • White gangs physically stop black americans from voting
  • Sometimes attack them for trying to register voting
  • Some states (e.g georgia) passed laws making it harder for black people to vote
  • White employers may sack black workers if they registered to vote
• NAACP (national association for the advancement of coloured people)

  • Set up in 1909
  • Fought for civil rights using the legal system and the courts
  • Defend black people who had been unfairly convicted of crimes
  • Focus on overturning the separate but equal ruling
• CORE (congress of racial equality)

  • Set up in 1942
  • Members use non violent direct action (train local activists in these techniques)
  • Operate mostly in northern states
  • Most members are white and middle class in early years of the organisation
• Brown v. Topeka: Legal case of Linda Brown's experiences of segregated school education against the Topeka Board of Education
• Brown v. Topeka: Black schools are often underfunded compared to white schools -> poor facilities
• Brown v. Topeka timeline

  1. 1952: NAACP took school segregation cases to the supreme court to claim that segregated schools broke the 14th amendment -> made black children feel inferior

  2. 1954: Supreme court ruled that segregated education was unconstitutional but didn't set a limit for the desegregation of schools

  3. 1955: School court ruling said that desegregation in schools should happen 'with all deliberate speed'

  4. 1957: 723 school districts had desegregated education
• Short term significance of Brown v. Topeka

  • Overturned the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision
  • White backlash and membership of the Ku Klux Klan increased
  • Black students and teachers faced threats and hostility in desegregated schools
• Long term significance of Brown v. Topeka

  • Awareness of civil rights issues in the southern states increased
  • Inspired other desegregation campaigns
  • White americans moved out of areas where black americans lived
• The little rock nine: Nine students that registered on joining Little Rock High School
• Governor Orval Faubus

  • State governor of arkansas
  • Closed every school in little rock to stop racial integration taking place after the Brown v. Topeka case
• Events at Little Rock (1957)

  1. Brown case led to the school board agreeing that little rock high school would be desegregated on 3/9/1957

  2. NAACP arranged for new black students to get there together on 4/9

  3. Faubus sent 250 state troops to surround the school when the little rock nine were due to start (actually blocking black students from gaining entrance)

  4. Elizabeth Eckford didn't get the notification to arrive with the rest of the group (targeted by crowd and racially abused)

  5. NAACP used the courts to challenge Faubus and force him to withdraw the state troops

  6. President Eisenhower sent in federal troops on 24/9 to ensure black students could attend school without being attacked
• Presidential intervention

  • Eisenhower got involved due to worldwide media coverage the event at Little Rock High School
  • Wanted to improve black civil rights while avoiding potential violent unrest about racial integration in deep south
• Significance of events at little rock

  • Reporters from local and international news reported the events
  • Continued resistance against school integration
  • First blacks students graduated from little rock high school in 1958
• The montgomery bus boycott (1955)

  1. Civil rights activists in montgomery met to discuss a boycott of the city buses, formed the montgomery improvement association (MIA), elected martin luther king as their chairman (5/12/1955)

  2. MIA met bus company officials but they refuse to change the segregation on their buses, MIA decided that they continue boycott until they won (no black americans would use the bus service) (8/12)

  3. MIA held meetings with church groups and other organisation to plan car sharing (12/12), later grew to 300 cars

  4. MIA negotiated and reduced cab fares with black drivers to enable boycotters to travel by the price of a standard bus fare

  5. Martin luther king's home was bombed (30/1/1996), king responded by calling for peaceful protest

  6. Violence in response to the peaceful protest increased media coverage of the boycott (media reports largely sympathetic to the civil rights campaigners)
• Causes of the boycott

  • Short term causes: Rosa park refused to give up her seat in the black area of a bus to a white man who had no seat (1/12/1955)
  • Long term causes: Women's political council in montgomery had focused on bus discrimination since 1950
  • Montgomery bus company discriminated against black passengers by forcing them to sit at the back of buses + vacate their seat for white people
  • Request to the bus company to change their rules were not listened to
• Significance of rosa parks

  • Was secretary of the montgomery NAACP
  • Had already been involved in campaigns for black voter registration
  • Understood the principles of nonviolent direct action
• Reasons for the boycott's success

  • Well organised
  • Committed to success
  • Well publicised
  • Bus company was hurt financially
• Supreme court ordered that segregation on buses was unconstitutional (5/6)
• MIA called off the boycott on 20/12
• Significance of martin luther king's leadership

  • Was a pastor
  • Emphasise christian values of love and humility
  • Always advocate nonviolent approach
  • Made powerful speeches that had a huge impact on his audiences
  • Played a huge part in raising funds for the MIA in the montgomery bus boycott
• The southern christian leadership conference (SCLC)

  • Set up in jan 1957
  • Coordinate church based protest across the south
  • Led by martin luther king + ralph abernathy
  • Members campaigned against segregation
  • Use nonviolent direct action
  • Secure black and white membership
• The 1957 civil rights act

  • Aim to increase black voter registration
  • Illegal to obstruct voter registration
  • Allow federal courts to prosecute states that did not guarantee citizen's voting rights
• Activities of the Ku Klux Klan

  • Set up in 1865 after black slaves won their freedom
  • Want to stop black americans from gaining equality
  • Operate mostly in the southern states
  • Terrorised black americans families by intimidation and extreme violence
• The murder of emmett till (1955)

  1. 14 year old black boy from chicago went to mississippi in 1955 to visit family

  2. Carolyn bryant said that till made sexual advances when he went to her store

  3. Bryant's husband and his half brother abducted till and beat him severely

  4. They shot him and threw him into the river with a weight around his neck

  5. Till's body was found 3 days later

  6. Led to extensive media coverage which fuelled widespread shock and outrage

  7. Murder trial was reported nationwide

  8. Defendants were found not guilty

  9. Later sold their story to a magazine on admitting to the murder
• Dixiecrats

  • Democratic party made up of southern politicians
  • Strong views about keeping segregation
• Types of resistance

  • State officials shut down all state schools so they could not be integrated
  • State officials used more devious ways to oppose desegregation
• White citizens' councils (WCC)

  • Set up from 1954 onwards to stop desegregation
  • Have around 60000 members in the mid 1950s
  • Oppose desegregation
  • Use economic to stop calls for desegregation
• Events at Greensboro (1960): 4 black students in north carolina waited to be served at a segregated lunch counter in woolworth department store
• Events at Greensboro (1960): Students knew they would be asked to leave the whites only area but refused to
• Events at Greensboro (1960): Remain in the store until closing time
• Events at Greensboro (1960): Aim to generate publicity that would make woolworth department stores end their policy of segregation
• Events at Greensboro (1960): More than 300 students both black and white continue the protest by 4/2
• Events at Greensboro (1960): Greensboro woolworth store desegregated in july due to loss of earnings and continued disruption to business
• Organisation of the sit ins

  • CORE and the SCLC sent experienced campaigners to train students in nonviolent protest methods
  • Student nonviolent coordinating committee (SNCC) was set up
• Significance of the greensboro sit ins

  • White and black supporters
  • Media coverage
  • Visible to public
  • Spread quickly
  • Mass
• Supreme court ruled that state transport must desegregate in 1956
• Supreme court ordered desegregation of bus station facilities in december 1960
• CORE activists organised bus journeys from the north to the deep south to test whether desegregation was really happening in 1961