Critical Thinking

Why were white Southerners so threatened by blacks voting?

One Person, One Vote

The Struggle for African-American Voting Rights

The Legacy of Jim Crow

Disenfranchisement Withholding the voteLimits on registration

Poll taxesLiteracy testsGrandfather clause

Challenges to Disenfranchisement

Organizing Registration drives Coaching

Protests Marches

Court cases

March on Washington August 28, 1963 Led by Martin Luther

King, Jr. Southern Christian

Leadership Conference (SCLC)

John Farmer Congress of Racial

Equality (CORE) 250,000 people

March on Washington King’s “I Have a

Dream Speech”

“…I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

Murder in Birmingham Sept. 15, 1963 KKK bombs 16th

Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama

26 Children meeting in basement, 4 killed

March and this incident cause many to work for civil rights

Critical Thinking

Why do you think black civil rights workers did not turn to violence in response?

24th Amendment

Proposed August 29, 1962Ratified January 24, 1964Abolished Poll TaxDirectly affected

Virginia Arkansas Alabama Texas Mississippi

Freedom Summer

Summer 1964Massive black voter

registration drive in Mississippi

Young civil rights workers from all over the country Three murdered in August

1964: 6.7% registered1969: 66.5% registered

Civil Rights Act,1964

July 2, 1964Most sweeping CR

legislation since Reconstruction

Outlawed discrimination in: Voting Employment Public Services

Selma, Alabama 1965

Selma’s blacks prevented from voting by discrimination

MLK leads series of attempts to march from Selma to Birmingham, the state capitol.

King asks Gov. Wallace to protect marchers

Wallace orders police to block marchers

Bloody Sunday: March 7, 1965

Voting Rights Act, 1965

Selma lights fire under LBJAugust 6, 1965Outlawed any restrictions on voter

registrationMade registration a federal

responsibility in areas with less than 50% registered

Active response