What ARE Civil Rights? CIVIL RIGHTS CIVIL RIGHTS = Rights of all persons, regardless of

race, religion or sex to equal treatment under the law. Providing equality to groups that have historically

been subject to discrimination.

The question is NOT whether government can treat, or classify, people of different races, ethnicities, genders differently. . . Instead, it is whether such differences in treatment are REASONABLE.REASONABLE.

Generally, classifying people on the basis of race or ethnicity is deemed unreasonable – a “SUSPECT CLASSIFICATION”

Civil Rights & the Constitution Who was included in our early views of equality?

The original Constitution is a plan of government, not a guarantee of individual rights. It DOES ensure that: 1) Gov’t does not discriminate against us 2) Gov’t protects us from interference by private

individuals.

The Framers referred to these rights as “NATURAL “NATURAL RIGHTS”RIGHTS” – the rights of all people to dignity & worth.

Today they are called HUMAN RIGHTS.HUMAN RIGHTS.

So …what exactly is EQUALITY? Equality OF:

Freedom “to” exercise individual rights and Freedom “from” government interference UNLESS it compromises someone else’s rights

Equality OF opportunity – all can go for it…..this, of course, also means competition will exist.

Equality OF Outcome Equality OF Outcome - i.e., Affirmative Action - not just a boost but seen as government having an obligation to promote minority development…. blacks, Hispanics, females, etc.

“Equality” is not even mentioned in the original Constitution. The first mention is in the 14th Amendment: All will have “equal protection” under the law unless there is a “compelling public interest” to discriminate.

So….. . . to right a past wrong, you may have to discriminate!(affirmative action for example)

Equality ….What is it exactly?Equal Justice - not equal results or equal rewards. . .the Constitution does NOT intend to provide equal

condition. . . just equal opportunity

AFRICAN AMERICAN ISSUESERA OF SLAVERY / ERA OF RECONSTRUCTION

13th Amendment– 1865 prohibits slavery overturned Dred Dred

Scott v. SanfordScott v. Sanford 14th Amendment–

1868 Equal protection;

citizenship 15th Amendment -

Right to vote for MEN (1870)

FREE

MEN

VOTE!

AFRICAN AMERICAN ISSUESERA OF SLAVERY / ERA OF RECONSTRUCTION

BUT, society did not transform as quickly. Segregation and White Supremacy

prevailed. Reconstruction ended in 1877 w/

Whites in control of the “New South,” and blacks were left to Jim Crow Jim Crow Laws that preached a separate society.

Ineffective Civil Rights Acts passed …. And then invalidated in the Civil Rights Cases of 1883 14th Amendment corrects actions by

states … NOT actions by private citizens

“Individual invasion of individual rights is not the subject of the amendment.”

Jim Crow Laws Right after the Civil War there

were Black Codes-restrictive laws such as labor contracts and vagrancy codes to keep freemen as submissive laborers

Jim Crow laws- state and local laws imposing segregation, late 1800’s-1960’s, upheld by Supreme Court’s “separate but equal” Plessy v Ferguson ruling

Plessy v. Ferguson

Voting Discrimination Other forms of

discrimination: Housing

discrimination Job discrimination Discrimination in

accessibility to public accommodations

NAACP formed in 1910 – how does it work?

LAWSUITS to achieve civil rights

AFRICAN AMERICAN ISSUESAFRICAN AMERICAN ISSUESERA OF RECONSTRUCTION……ERA OF RECONSTRUCTION……

Denial of Black Vote in the Post-Reconstruction South:

The Great Migration• During WWI & WWII eras

- Blacks migrated north to the cities and their sheer numbers (6 million) became a political force as middle class became accessible

• During WWII. . . judicial relief sought• Truman started

integration of the military

• Ike integrated Fed Bureaucracy

AFRICAN AMERICAN ISSUESERA OF CIVIL RIGHTS

1950’S - BLACKS SEEK POLITICAL MUSCLE:

MLK, Jr., using the First Amendment - freedom of petition sought relief via civil disobediencecivil disobedience white supremacists responded

with fire hoses and police brutality Congress dragged its feet w/ a

Southern Senatorial block, so Executive and Judicial branches responded. Brown v. Board of Education (1954) Overrules Plessy v. Ferguson Brown II Ruling?

Segregation by law - ““de jure segregation” de jure segregation” was unconstitutional.

But “de facto segregation”- segregation by choice or reality- still prevailed … until Swann v. Charlotte

Mecklenburg Board of Education 1971

where the SC ruled that schools will re-district to end segregation via BUSING, a very unpopular device to integrate!

AFRICAN AMERICAN ISSUES

Rosa Parks & Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955) Little Rock 9 school integration ’57 Lunch counter sit-ins ’60; Freedom Riders ‘61 Birmingham March/riots 1963:

JFK FINALLY promoted civil rights legislation March on Washington 1964 Civil Rights Act of 1964

TRIBUTE to JFK; enacted after death No discrimination in schools, workplace, public accommodations

Selma March; Voting Rights Act of 1965 The “New Direction” by the mid-60’s

SNCC, Black Power, Malcolm X, Black Panthers Long, Hot Summers of 1965-1967: Watts, Detroit, Harlem

OVERVIEW OF EVENTS/STRATEGIES IN THE CRM

The Civil Rights Act of 1964

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was landmark legislation in the United States that outlawed segregation in U.S. schools and other public places. First conceived to help African Americans, the bill was amended prior to passage to protect women in courts, and explicitly included white people for the first time. It also started the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. It prohibited discrimination in public facilities, in government, and in employment, eliminating the Jim Crow laws in the Southern United States.

President Lyndon Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of

1964

Early Civil Rights MovementGoals and Strategies

MLK & SCLC - Southern Christian Leadership Conference sought integration

Modeled after Ghandi Preached non-violent protests / civil disobedience to

achieve equal rights.

CRM by the mid to late 60’sViolence, Militancy & Separatism

SNCC started out as non-violent (lunch counter sit-ins) but …. Stokely Carmichael takes

over – “go get you some guns!”

Black Power! Malcolm X

Initially separatism but … Black Panthers most militant

What caused the change?

Only 70 blacks held elected office in 1965 Sent federal registrars into South to register blacks Voting Rights Act outlawed methods used by states to deny

the vote to blacks: poll taxes (24th Amendment) white primaries grandfather clauses literacy tests gerrymandered districts.

Still not enough minorities getting elected so legislature encouraged “minority v. majority” districts that promoted minority electorates . . .

But Shaw v. Reno, Bush v. Vera and other cases have condemned the design of districts using race as the predominant factor.

Voting Rights Act of 1965

The Passing of the24th Amendment

January 1964

Poll taxes had been enacted in eleven Southern states after Reconstruction as a measure to prevent poor people from voting. These taxes stayed in force until an amendment to the Constitution made them illegal in 1964. At the time of this amendment’s passage, only five states still preserved the poll tax: Virginia, Alabama, Texas, Arkansas, and Mississippi. However it wasn’t until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections that all state poll taxes were declared unconstitutional because they violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

24th Amendment