The civil

rights
movement
AHLEENA.
KAMINSKI
Brown vs. the
board of education

∙After World War II, the NAACP continued

to challenge segregation in the courts.
Director Thurgood Marshall focused his
efforts on ending segregation in public
schools. On May 17, 1954, the Supreme
Court ruled unanimously in Brown v.
Board of Education of Topeka,
Kansas, that segregation in public
schools was unconstitutional.
The Montgomery
bus boycott

∙The Montgomery bus boycott had a

successful outcome. It was run by
Several African American leaders who
would negotiate with city leaders. They
elected 26-year-old martin Luther king jr
to lead them, martin agreed if they kept
the protests peaceful and nonviolent.
Crisis in little rock

∙ In September 1957, the school board in Little Rock, Arkansas,

was under a federal court order requiring that nine African
American students be admitted to Central High. The governor of
Arkansas, Orval Faubus began to campaign as a defender of
white supremacy. He ordered troops from the Arkansas National
Guard to prevent the nine students from entering the school they
sent an angry white mob to threaten the students. The violence
finally convinced President Eisenhower that he had to act. the
troops had encircled the school, bayonets ready. A few hours
later, the nine African American students arrived in an army
station wagon and walked into the high school. Federal authority
had been upheld, but the troops had to stay in Little Rock for the
rest of the school year.
The sit in
movement

∙ In the fall of 1959, four young African Americans—Joseph

McNeil, Ezell Blair, Jr., David Richmond, and Franklin
McCain—enrolled at North Carolina Agricultural and
Technical College, an African American college in
Greensboro. On February 1, 1960, the four friends entered
the nearby Woolworth’s department store. They purchased
school supplies and then sat at the whites-only lunch
counter and ordered coffee. When they were refused
service, they stayed at the counter until close every single
say until they were treated like every white customer. News
got around and by 1961 sit-ins were held in over 100 cities!
The freedom riders

∙ Despite rulings outlawing segregation in interstate bus

service, bus travel remained segregated in much of the
South. In early May 1961, teams of African American and
white volunteers who became known as Freedom Riders
boarded several southbound interstate buses. riders
emerged from a bus to face a gang of young men armed
with baseball bats, chains, and lead pipes. The gang beat
the riders viciously. FBI evidence later showed that Connor
had told the local Ku Klux Klan to beat the riders until “it
looked like a bulldog got a hold of them.” The violence
made national news, shocking many Americans and
drawing the federal government’s attention to the plight of
African Americans in the South.
Jfk and civil rights

∙While campaigning for the presidency in

1960, John F. Kennedy had promised to
support civil rights. Kennedy brought in
approximately 40 African Americans into
high-level government positions. He
appointed Thurgood Marshall to a federal
judgeship on the Second Circuit Appeals
Court in New York. Kennedy also created
the Committee on Equal Employment
Opportunity.
The civil acts right
of 1964
∙ Events in Alabama grew more and more tragic. At
his inauguration as Alabama’s governor, George
Wallace had stated, “I draw a line in the dust . . . and
I say, Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow!
Segregation forever!” The next day, a white
segregationist murdered civil rights activist Medgar
Evers in Mississippi. Evers had been the NAACP’s
first field secretary and had focused his efforts on
voter registration and boycotts. His death made him
a martyr of the civil rights movement. Amid these
events, President Kennedy announced a civil rights
bill.
The march on
Washington

∙ In December 1964, Dr. King received the Nobel Peace Prize in

Oslo, Norway, for his work in the civil rights movement. he
announced, “We are not asking, we are demanding the ballot.” In
January 1965, the SCLC and Dr. King selected Selma, Alabama,
as the focal point for their campaign for voting rights. African
Americans made up only 3 percent of registered voters. King’s
demonstrations in Selma led to the arrest of more than 3,000
African Americans, including schoolchildren, by Sheriff Clark.
activists organized a “march for freedom” from Selma to the
state capitol in Montgomery, As the protesters approached the
Edmund Pettus Bridge, ordered them to disperse. Many
protesters were beaten in full view of television cameras. This
brutal attack, known later as “Bloody Sunday,”
Voting rights act of
1965

∙ On August 3, 1965, the House of Representatives passed

the voting rights bill by a wide margin. The results were
dramatic. By the end of the year, almost 250,000 African
Americans had registered as new voters. By 2011, there
were 44 African American members of CongrThe Voting
Rights Act of 1965, like the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
immediately raised constitutional questions. Historically,
each state had been allowed to set the rules regarding
eligibility to vote. the Supreme Court ruled that the
Fourteenth Amendment gave Congress the authority to ban
literacy tests and impose voting rules on the state
governments.
The watts riot

∙Just five days after President Johnson

signed the Voting Rights Act, a riot erupted
in Watts. Riots broke out in dozens of other
American cities between 1964 and 1968.
burning, looting, and conflicts with police
and the National Guard resulted in 43
deaths and more than 1,000 wounded in
1967. Property loss was estimated at almost
$200 million.
Black power

∙ Dr. King’s lack of progress in Chicago seemed to

show that nonviolent protests could do little to
solve economic problems. young people, began
to turn away from King. Some leaders called for
more aggressive forms of protest. Many young
African Americans called for black power, a term
that had many meanings. A few, including Robert
F. Williams and H. Rap Brown, interpreted black
power to mean that physical self-defense was
acceptable.
Malcolm X

∙By the early 1960s, a young man named

Malcolm X had become a symbol of the
black power movement. Eventually, he
joined the Nation of Islam, commonly
known as the Black Muslims. Despite the
name, the Nation of Islam is very different
from mainstream Islam
The assassination
of MLK

∙ In March 1968, Dr. King went to Memphis,

Tennessee, to support a strike of African
American sanitation workers. The purpose of this
campaign was to lobby the federal government to
commit billions of dollars to end poverty and
unemployment in the United States. On April 4,
1968, as he stood on his hotel balcony in
Memphis, Dr. King was assassinated by a sniper.
Dr. King’s death touched off both national
mourning and riots in more than 100 cities.
Work cited
∙https://www.dol.gov/agencies/oasam/civil-rights-center/statutes/civi
l-rights-act-of-1964
∙https://www.britannica.com/biography/Martin-Luther-King-Jr
∙https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/march-on-washington
∙https://www.history.com/
∙https://connected.mcgraw-hill.com/ssh/book.lesson.do?bookId=OG
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CCRG4TVQ