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History Notes American History - 1863-1975 Notes

Civil Rights Notes

Updated Civil Rights Notes

American History - 1863-1975 Notes

American History - 1863-1975

Approximately 46 pages

American history following the Civil War. Includes: Progressivism, Populism, the New Deal, Cold War, Vietnam, and Civil Rights....

The following is a more accessible plain text extract of the PDF sample above, taken from our American History - 1863-1975 Notes. Due to the challenges of extracting text from PDFs, it will have odd formatting:

AMERICAN HISTORY SINCE 1865

THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

Why was the Civil Rights Movement Successful? What did it achieve and what did it leave undone?

Introduction

Objectives of the movement

De jure / de facto

Education

Bus boycotts

Sin-ins

Voting rights

Radicalisation

Economic inequality

Conclusion

The Struggle for Black Equality: H. Sitkoff

- Membership of the NAACP multiplied nearly ten times over the course of the Second World War, reaching half a million. The CRE was established in 1942 and began exploring non-violent methods of opposition to the Jim Crow laws.

- Black membership of labour unions reached 1.25million by 1945.

- The number of Southern blacks registered to vote in the South reached 1million by 1950, but the majority remained unable to exercise this right.

- Economic growth during the post-war years accelerated black advancement; their median income doubled between 1940 and 1960; life expectancy and educational attainment grew with economic progress.

- These gains justified the NAACP’s approach to race relations. Led by Thurgood Marshall, the NAACP pressed cases in the Supreme Court, hoping for significant rulings against segregation, namely, Plessy v. Ferguson.

- When the Warren Court found against the South in Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka it refused to set a timeline for compliance; aware of the potential difficulties in implementation, the court’s hesitance nonetheless created new problems. Eighty-percent of white Southerners opposed school desegregation.

- Eisenhower hesitated to support the ruling, fearing not only a loss of Southern votes but also outbreaks of violence or non-compliance. Many Southern states sought to drive out the NAACP, and by 1958 it had lost 246 Southern branches and half of its membership.

- In 1957, Congress enacted the first civil rights legislations since the Reconstruction, formally declaring illegal the disenfranchisement of black Americans.

- However, by 1964 less than 2% of Southern blacks were attending desegregated schools, and much of the social and economic framework of segregation remained in place.

- The Montgomery bus boycott, lasting 381 days, served to galvanise the civil rights movement once again, and saw the emergence of Martin Luther King as a new leader. The Supreme Court judged segregation on the buses a breach of the 14th Amendment.

- Emerging from prison in 1952, Malcolm X became the head of the Nation of Islam’s mosque in Harlem; he insisted that African-Americans create their own separate society, and that they should not seek integration.

- Sit-ins - By August 1961 an estimate 700,000 Southern blacks and whites had participated in sit-ins.

- Kennedy won the 1960 election by only 100,000 votes (out of 69million cast) and he was wary of agitating the South.

- Core? The 1961 Freedom Ride led to, by 1962, the Interstate Commerce Commission banning interstate carriers from using any terminal which imposed segregation.

- Victory for the SCLC in Birmingham, mediated by a reluctant Kennedy, saw desegregation of lunch rooms, restrooms, and public fountains as well as an end to discriminatory practices by the industrial community.

- King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and was made Time man of the year in 1964, something Johnson was both jealous and fearful of. The FBI monitored King closely and Hoover denounced King publically as ‘the most notorious liar in the country’1.

- In 1964, 94% of African-American votes were won by Johnson; 6million had voted, a 50% increase on 1960. It was clear that increased registration of black voters in the South would be of enormous electoral benefit to the Democrats.

- In August 1965 the House of Representatives passed Johnson’s voting rights Bill. Registration of blacks in Alabama rose from 22% in 1964 to 57% to 1968; in Missippi it grew from 7% to 59%; across the South as a whole the number of Southern African-American voters tripled2.

- Malcolm X – Race riots in Watts, LA, began five days after Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law. The emergence of race violence in the North split the civil rights coalition and resulted in a haemorrhaging of white support for the movement. Race rioting continued after 1965, reaching a peak in the summer of 1967 when over ninety were killed and four thousand injured.

- Malcolm X’s black nationalism encapsulated the feelings of an African-American population enormously frustrated with the slow pace of economic and social progress.

- Carmichael? SNCC?

- King was assassinated in April 1968. By the end of the week rioting left 46 dead and 27,000 arrested.

- Richard Nixon stormed in to the White House campaigning, among other things, against open housing and bussing for racial balance.

-The Supreme Court’s muddled judgement of the 1978 Bakke case reignited white anger over affirmative action.

- There were 25 black congressmen by 1992, up from 2 at the time of Brown.

- By 1990, 80% of African-American students completed high school, double the number of two decades earlier.

- In 1990 the median income of a household of black college graduates was c20% lower than whites of educational equivalence; the gap in net worth was far greater.

- The number of African-American families headed by a sole female rose from 20% in 1950 to 56% in 1990, compared to 17% for white families at the end of the period; 66% of black children were born to unmarried mothers in 19903. Black life expectancy remains significantly less than white and blacks remain far more likely to be victims and perpetrators of violent crime. Improved legal status has not conferred socio-economic betterment.

Freedom Bound – A History of America’s Civil Rights Movement: R. Weisbrot

- By the mid-twentieth century, business interests in the South, which had pulled much of the black workforce away from plantations, saw Jim Crow laws as a burdensome hindrance.

- Twice in the 1930 Federal anti-lynching Bills passed the House of Representatives, before being felled by the Senate’s opposition...

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