the american odyssey

The American Odyssey

Chapter 20 – The Civil Rights Struggle

Government Response

• Section three• Pages 681-682

President John F. Kennedy

JFK and Civil Rights(P. 681-682)

• 1960 Presidential Election– John F. Kennedy (D)– Richard M. Nixon (R)

• Kennedy made an all out effort for the vote of African Americans

• He endorsed sit-ins• He sponsored a civil rights bill• He pledged to end racial segregation in federally

supported housing projects


• Kennedy wanted the Southern white vote and the African American vote

• He strategically selected Lyndon. B. Johnson as his VP candidate– LBJ was from Texas and he carried

significant Southern white support


• The arrest of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.– He was arrested during a sit-in in Atlanta, but

was not released from jail.– The other protesters were released

immediately after, but not King• The judge ruled that King was in violation of his

probation from a previous incident of driving without a license

– His arrest test Kennedy’s campaign


• The arrest of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (cont.)– King was sentenced to four months on a rural

prison road gang– His supporters were concerned for his

personal welfare– Nixon did nothing to help King in prison


• The arrest of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (cont.)– John F. Kennedy called Coretta Scott King to ease

her concerns about her husband– Robert F. Kennedy called the judge on King’s behalf;

King was released a day later from prison– Kennedy’s campaign received a lot of support for

helping MLK– Kennedy won the election by the slimmest margin in

the twentieth century• The African American vote helped him win the Presidency


• After Kennedy helped Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. get out of prison, Dr. King switched his support from Nixon to Kennedy


• During the first years of Kennedy’s Presidency he tried to remain neutral between the Southern whites and the African Americans – He failed to sponsor the civil rights bill– He, instead, offered African Americans jobs

and votes

Kennedy and the Militants(P. 682-686)

• The Freedom Riders– Organized by James Farmer

• The Executive Director of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)

– In December 1960 the Supreme Court ruled that bus stations/terminals serving interstate travelers had to be integrated

– The purpose of the Freedom Rides was to challenge if the decision carried any authority


• The Freedom Riders (cont.)– African Americans and whites traveled

together from Washington D.C. to New Orleans by bus to test the integration interstate rule

– In Anniston, Alabama a CORE bus was firebombed by white protesters

– Robert Kennedy petitioned the Interstate Commerce Commission to rule against segregation of interstate facilities.


• The Voter Education Project– To avoid future violence, Robert Kennedy

stressed the importance of voting as a means of achieving change, he wanted to increase voter registration drives for African Americans

– He worked with the SCLC, SNCC, CORE, and the NAACP to increase black voting turnout

– The SNCC held voting workshops to educate black voters how to vote


• The Voter Education Project (cont.)– The presence of the SNCC in Southern

communities led to white segregationists to attack African Americans

• Four African American churches in Georgia were firebombed

• Blacks were also beaten and intimidated• Blacks who dared to vote were threatened with the

loss of their homes and jobs


• After Kennedy and Dr. King met on June 11, 1963. Kennedy announced that he would present Congress with a comprehensive civil rights bill.

• Hours later, a KKK member assassinated Mississippi NAACP leader Medgar Evers


• The March on Washington– In an explosive situation, civil rights leaders

organized a massive protest march on Washington, D.C. in support of the civil rights bill

– More than 200,000 people gathered in the National Mall

– The march took place on August 28, 1963– MLK gave his “I Have a Dream” speech

The March on Washington

• Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. giving his “I Have a Dream Speech” during the March on Washington

Look at P. 686 in your book

The Triumph of Civil Rights(P. 687-689)

• After the Kennedy assassination, the civil rights efforts fell to Lyndon B. Johnson

• Johnson used all of his political talents to push through the civil rights bill

• Johnson signed into law the 1964 Civil Rights Act– Forbade segregation in public places– Gave the government the job bringing

discrimination complaints before the courts


• Filibuster– A nonstop debate on a bill to keep it from

coming to a vote – The Southerners in the Senate intended to

prevent a vote on the Civil Rights Act by launching a filibuster


• The passage of the civil rights bill did not mean that the civil rights movement came to an end

• African Americans could still not vote in much of the South

• To achieve this goal, King mounted another campaign of nonviolent protest – this time in Selma, Alabama


• After the months of beatings, arrests, and one murder – civil rights leaders in Selma planned a key march from Selma to Montgomery to protest the racial discrimination in the South– The march was banned by the Governor of

Alabama, George Wallace– March led by John Lewis and Hosea Williams


• The first Selma March happened on March 7, 1965

• The 600 protestors, led by Williams and Lewis, were stopped on a bridge outside Selma by state troopers whom shot tear gas among the protesters– MLK did not participate in the first

demonstration because he was out of town


• Dr. King conducted a second march on March 9, 1965 from Selma, but surprisingly he turned his group of protesters around on the bridge and headed back to Selma

• During the protest they sang “We Shall Overcome”


• Dr. King had discussed with Johnson his decision to turn around on the bridge.

• MLK won the support of the North, and on March 15, 1965 Johnson pushed through the Voting Right Act of 1965– It provided blacks the most basic right of

citizenship – the right to vote

Disappointed Hopes

• Section four• Pages 690-695

New Directions in Civil RightsP. 691-693

• “Black Power” burst on the scene after the 1966 arrest of SNCC worker Stokley Carmichael– He was the first to use the phrase

• One martyr after another had begin to question the effectiveness of nonviolent resistance


• The SNCC efforts to work within the system had left members disillusioned

• In 1964 the Mississippi Freedom Democrats Party (MFDP), a grassroots organization, was denied the right to speak at the Democratic National Convention– Mississippi’s vocal representation went to

Southern Democrats


• LBJ was against the MFDP because he saw it as a distraction and a possible chance for white Southerners a chance to flee to the Republican Party


• The sense of black pride inspired by the success of the early civil rights movement now led some African Americans to call for black separatism

• Black separatism was the antithesis of the civil rights movement’s goal of racial integration– It was a view promoted by, among others, the

Nation of Islam (Black Muslims)


• The most vocal Black Muslim leader was Malcolm X, a brilliant and bold orator– Born Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska– By the time he was thirteen his father was in

prison and his mother was in a mental hospital

– He turned to crime and was sentenced to 8 to 10 years in prison for larceny

– In 1945 he converted to Islam


• He was eventually ousted from the Nation of Islam in a power struggle

• He went to Mecca on a religious pilgrimage – there he was exposed to more traditional Islamic teachings, which did not include racial separatism


• He returned home with softened views about separation of blacks and whites

• Before he was able to share his views, he was assassinated by three members of the Nation of Islam on February 21, 1965, in Harlem


• The rhetoric of Malcolm X – and his rejection of nonviolence in favor of self-defense – lived on long after his death.

• His words influenced members of the SNCC and founders of the Black Panthers

• Malcolm X believed the teachings of MLK were naïve– He called for blacks to arm and protect

themselves


• Black Panthers– By 1966, Stokley Carmichael was elected

chairman of the SNCC– Later that year he organized a group in

Alabama called the Lowrides County Freedom Organization

• There symbol was a black panther

• The actual Black Panthers were started in Oakland in 1966

The Long, Hot SummersP. 693-694

• The civil rights movement began in the South but moved to the Northern cities where prejudice had turned hopes of equality into simmering rage


• Frustration over poverty, unemployment , and racial discrimination exploded in the Los Angeles ghetto of Watts when a police office arrested a young African American

• The simple arrest triggered a riot that lasted 6 days– 34 dead– Over 1000 injured– $40 million in property damages


• In 1967 the race riots moved to Detroit due to racial tensions and frustrations

• Federal troops had to be called in to restore order– After a political debate between LBJ and the

Michigan Governor, George Romney– 43 dead– 7200 arrests– 2000 buildings burned


• To identify and address the causes of the riots, Johnson appointed a National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, headed by Otto Kerner of Illinois

• The professed Kerner Report identified racial discrimination and prejudice as the main causes


• Three triggers of the riots:1. Frustrated hopes of African Americans2. The approval and encouragement of

violence (by whites and blacks)3. The sense many African Americans had of

being powerless in a society dominated by whites

One More Assassination(P. 694-695)

• The Kerner Report did not end race riots• One more race riot swept through nearly

130 ghettos following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4, 1968– He was assassinated in Memphis, TN – he

was 39 years old– Murdered by James Earl Ray

• Sentenced to 99 years in prison

the american odyssey

Documents

civil rightsp

martin luther king

kennedy drichard

civil rights billhe

white protestersrobert

nixon r kennedy

vote of african americanshe

coretta scott king