10.5: Civil Rights Movement in the USA - TEACH -

• History
• Middelbare school
• havo
• Leerjaar 3

 The Time of Television and Computers

10.5. The Civil Rights Movement in the USA

TEACH

What do you know about the "black lives matter" movement?
(one / two word answers)

One answer per group
What do you know about the origins of racism in the USA?

One answer per group
What do you know about SEGREGATION in the USA?

The three Allied leaders at the Yalta Conference. From left to right: Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin. 9th February 1945.

A bus station in the State of North Carolina in 1940

One answer per group
What do you know about the Civil Rights movement in the USA in the 1950s and 1960s?

What is this lesson about?

After World War II, not everybody in the USA profited from the great economic growth the country experienced. In many - mainly southern - states, society was segregated. African Americans were treated as second-class citizens. In the 1950s and ‘60s, the Civil Rights Movement gained lots of support by organising non-violent protest. In 1965, African Americans got the same rights as white Americans. However, discrimination was not completely eliminated and the struggle against this still goes on.

people in this lesson

Dr Martin Luther King

Malcolm X

Rosa Parks

Word Duty

standard of living: the welfare and well-being of citizens

second-class citizens: citizens who have fewer rights than the dominant group in society

Jim Crow Laws: set of racist laws enforcing segregation in the southern states of the USA (1890-1965)

Civil Rights Movement: a movement in the USA aimed at improving civil rights for African Americans in the USA

extremism: holding extreme political or religious views, often violently

WORD DUTY

Important dates in this lesson:

1865: slavery abolished in the USA

          K.K.K. founded

1957: Little Rock high school 

1963: March on Washington ("I have a Dream")

          president Kennedy murdered

1964: Civil Rights Act signed

1965: Malcolm X murdered

1968: Martin Luther King murdered

2008: Barrack Obama first colored president

2014: racial riots in Ferguson

Segregation in the USA

The situation of African Americans in the USA had never been equal to that of the white population. Ever since the abolition of slavery in 1865, they had lived as second-class citizens. African Americans did not get access to the same schools or hospitals as white Americans. They did not have the same job opportunities and in many states, did not hold the same voting rights, though they did have the right to serve their country as soldiers in the army. Having fought in two world wars for freedom and democracy  for others, protest against their situation at home increased.

The three Allied leaders at the Yalta Conference. From left to right: Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin. 9th February 1945.

A bus station in the State of North Carolina in 1940

It was not only African Americans, but also many immigrants who lived in poverty. Attracted by America's wealth, many Europeans had packed their belongings and moved to the USA to start a new life in the 'land of endless opportunities'.

The southern states of the USA used to have a plantation economy based on the labour of African slaves. Many modern African Americans are descendants of former slaves.

African Americans and white Americans went to separate schools and hospitals, had separate waiting rooms at train stations, separate public water fountains and toilets, separate (places in) bars, restaurants, theatres, etcetera. 

The position of the two groups was not equal. Schools and hospitals for African Americans were of a lesser quality than those for white citizens. African Americans were only allowed to stand in the back of buses, while the seats in front were reserved for white people. Although the American constitution says that ‘all men are created equal’, African Americans in the southern states did not have the same rights as white citizens. These states had special sets of laws for African Americans. These laws were referred to as Jim Crow Laws, named after Jim Crow, a figure from a song sung by white artists who would do funny acts dressed as black people. The Jim Crow Laws put limits on the civil rights that all Americans were supposed to have. African Americans were not allowed to stand up against white people.

A poster announcing a show of a white artist performing as a black person in 1900. The act usually consisted of funny dances.

Although they lived segregated, there was contact between white and coloured people. Coloured people often worked for white people and often even raised their children.

The rise of the Civil Rights Movement

In the 1950s, protest against this unequal situation increased. African Americans started to demand the same opportunities that white Americans had, beginning with education. In 1954, the American High Court declared that segregation based on colour was not in line with the constitution and therefore illegal. As a result, African American students started to subscribe to white schools. This led to a lot of resistance among the white community. At many schools, African American students needed protection from policemen.

pro- and anti segregation protests, 1954.

Students shouting at African American student Elizabeth Eckford, as she tries to pass through the lines of National Guardsmen in an effort to gain entrance to Little Rock's (Ark.) Central High School.

Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division escort the Little Rock Nine students into the all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Ark.

However, it was a great break-through. After 1954, many more people started movements that strived towards more equality for African Americans. Together these movements were called the Civil Rights Movement. In the 1950s and ‘60s, their actions were mostly non-violent, based on non-cooperation, as Gandhi had done in India. After Rosa Parks was arrested because she refused to stand in the back of a bus, a bus boycott was organised. Others organised sit-ins and marches.

Segregation in the bus: white people in the front , black people in the back.

If the front of the bus was crowded, black people had to give up their seats for white passengers

During the Bus Boycott, black people refused to take the bus, to force the bus company to lift the racist rules.

This was successful. The bus company almost went bankrupt and eventually changed the rules, allowing free choice of seats for everybody.

This is the bus company's website today..

Rosa Parks was arrested for not giving up her seat to a white passenger in the bus.

The march on Washington, whre Martin Luther King gave his famous speech.

The most famous leader of this non-violent movement was Reverend Martin Luther King. In 1963, he organised a large march on Washington to demand ‘jobs and freedom’. He ended this mass meeting with his famous ‘I have a dream’ speech, which made a huge impression on the world.

In 1964, President L.B. Johnson passed a Civil Rights Act (initiated by J.F. Kennedy), which made discrimination against African Americans (and everybody else) illegal and guaranteed the same employment rights and equal access to facilities for everybody. Equal voting rights and equal rights to housing were not yet guaranteed. It took until 1968 before African Americans had full civil rights.

White extremism

The rise of the Civil Rights Movement also caused a rise in white extremism. Many white people in the Jim Crow Laws-states saw their way of life threatened by the rise of the African American community. Groups emerged that intimidated, assaulted and sometimes killed supporters of the Civil Rights Movement. Such an extremist organisation was the Ku Klux Klan. The ‘KKK’ was originally founded in 1865, right after the abolition of slavery, but disappeared again a few years later. However, in 1915, a second Klan was founded: during the 1920s and early ‘30s, the KKK used extreme violence – such as public lynchings - against African Americans, Jews and other people who in their view did not belong within American society. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Klan was less openly active, mainly because the organisation fragmented into several smaller groups. Nevertheless they still played a big role in the violence against supporters - black as well as white - of the Civil Rights Movement.

A group of Ku Klux Klan members burning a cross in Knoxville, Tennessee. September 4, 1948.

The white suits, the pointy hats and a burning cross were the Klan’s trademarks.

The KKK feels very connected to the racial theories of the Nazis.

Here two children of KKK members bring the nazi salute.

The Confederate flag was the flag of the southern (slave) states during the American Civil War. Today it stands as a symbol of white supremism in the USA.

The Civil Rights Movement had a lot of supporters, but some people thought that change should happen faster. This group increased after the murders of President Kennedy in 1963, African American activist Malcolm X in 1965 and Martin Luther King in 1968. 

New movements, such as the Black Panthers and Black Power, not only wanted to change laws, but also change the minds of people. They wanted to make African Americans proud of what they were and to force white people to acknowledge them. Some groups, such as the Black Panthers, believed that it was legitimate to use violence to achieve these goals.

Black Panther members hold a news conference in Oakland after the shooting of one of their members, 17-year old Bobby Hutton, in 1968. Hutton was shot by Oakland police when he and Panther Eldridge Cleaver were evolved in a shootout with police. At microphones is Bobby Seale, and behind his left shoulder is William Lee Brent. 

The activist Stokely Carmichael, pictured here at a 1966 rally in Berkeley, Calif., took a stand against white oppression and helped popularize the term black power

Slow change

Demonstrations and violent clashes went on, even after the Civil Rights Act had been passed, and most African Americans remained economically disadvantaged. In the 1980s and ‘90s, the matter gradually got less and less attention until in 2008, when African American Barack Obama was elected president. For many Americans, this was a very special occasion. It showed that there had been progress in the struggle for equality. However, by the end of his term, there was new unrest, when it became clear that white policemen still use more - and sometimes unnecessary - violence against African Americans than against white people. This triggered a movement with the slogan ‘Black Lives Matter’.

Protestors carrying placards at a Black Lives Matter demonstration in New York City

28 November 2014

A group of demonstrators yell in front of police officers during a protest march on West Florissant Avenue in Ferguson, Mo. on August 9, 2015. 

Protesters took part in a Black Lives Matter rally in Seattle on Apr. 15, 2017

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