Chapter 28

Theme: Organizing Peace

• In 1955 Montgomery's black community mobilized when Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat and comply with segregation laws.
  
• Led by Martin Luther King, Jr., a Baptist minister, a boycott of busses was launched.
  
• A network of local activists organized car pools using private cars to get people to and from work.
  
• Leaders endured violence and legal harassment, but won a court ruling that the segregation ordinance was unconstitutional.
  

Civil Rights After World War II

• Rock The WWII experiences of African Americans laid the foundations for the subsequent struggle.
  
• A mass migration to the North brought political power to African Americans working through the Democratic Party.
  
• The NAACP grew in numbers and its Legal Defense Fund initiated a series of lawsuits to win key rights.
  
• Key ways the African Americans were breaking color barriers included:
  
  • Jackie Robinson's entrance into major league baseball
    
  • Ralph Bunche's winning a Nobel Peace prize
    
• A new generation of jazz musicians created be-bop.
  

Segregation & Brown vs. Board

• In the South, segregation and unequal rights were still the law of the land.
  
• Law and custom kept blacks as second-class citizens with no effective political rights. African Americans had learned to survive and not challenge the situation.
  
  • Brown v. Board of Education
    
• The NAACP initiated a series of court cases challenging the constitutionality of segregation. (trying to turn around Plessy vs. Ferguson.)
  
• Thurgood Marshall was a key lawyer for the NAACP and fought Brown vs. Board of Education for them.
  
• In Brown v. Board of Education, newly appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren led the court to declare that separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.
  
• The court postponed ordering a clear timetable to implement the decision.
  
• Southern whites declared their intention to nullify the decision.
  

Crisis in Little (1^st of many school desegregations)

• In Little Rock, Arkansas, a judge ordered integration.
  
• The governor ordered the National Guard to keep African American children out of Central High. (Orvil Faubus)
  
• When the troops were withdrawn, a riot erupted forcing President Eisenhower to send in more troops to integrate the school.
  
  • (He & Eisenhower made a deal, Faubus backtracks on his deal, troops are withdrawn)
    

Martin Luther King and the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference)

• Martin Luther King, Jr. emerged from the bus boycott as a prominent national figure.
  
• A well-educated son of a Baptist minister, King taught his followers nonviolent resistance, modeled after the tactics of Mohandas Gandhi.
  
• The civil rights movement was deeply rooted in the traditions of the African American church.
  
• King founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to promote nonviolent direct action to challenge segregation.
  

Sit-Ins

• African American college students, first in Greensboro, NC, began sitting in at segregated lunch counters.
  
• Nonviolent sit-ins were:
  
  • widely supported by the African American community
    
  • accompanied by community-wide boycotts of businesses that would not integrate.
    

SNCC and the "Beloved Community"

• A new spirit of militancy was evident among young people.
  
• 120 African American activists created the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to promote nonviolent direct challenges to segregation. (SCLC & SNCC work together with MLK to make things happen)
  
• The young activists were found at the forefront of nearly every major civil rights battle.