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THE U.S. CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
—1 —
Slavery Spreads to America 3
A Global Phenomenon Transplanted to America
Slavery Takes Hold
Slave Life and Institutions
Family Bonds
Spotlight: The Genius of the Black Church
—2 —
“Three-Fifths of Other Persons:” A Promise Deferred 8
A Land of Liberty?
The Pen of Frederick Douglass
The Underground Railroad
By the Sword
The Rebellious John Brown
The American Civil War
Spotlight: Black Soldiers in the Civil War
—3 —
“Separate but Equal:” African Americans Respond
to the Failure of Reconstruction 18
Congressional Reconstruction
Temporary Gains … and Reverses
The Advent of “Jim Crow”
Booker T. Washington: The Quest for Economic Independence
W.E.B. Du Bois: The Push for Political Agitation
Spotlight: Marcus Garvey: Another Path
—4 —
Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall
Launch the Legal Challenge to Segregation 26
Charles Hamilton Houston: The Man Who Killed Jim Crow
Thurgood Marshall: Mr. Civil Rights
The Brown Decision
Spotlight: Ralph Johnson Bunche: Scholar and Statesman
Spotlight: Jackie Robinson: Breaking the Color Barrier
—5 —
“We Have a Movement” 35
“Tired of Giving In:” The Montgomery Bus Boycott
Sit-Ins
Freedom Rides
The Albany Movement
Arrest in Birmingham
Letter From Birmingham Jail
“We Have a Movement”
The March on Washington
SPOTLIGHT: Rosa Parks: Mother of the Civil Rights Movement
Spotlight: Civil Rights Workers: Death in Mississippi
Spotlight: Medgar Evers: Martyr of the Mississippi Movement
—6 —
“It Cannot Continue:” Establishing Legal Equality 52
Changing Politics
Lyndon Baines Johnson
The Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Act’s Powers
The Voting Rights Act of 1965: The Background
Bloody Sunday in Selma
The Selma-to-Montgomery March
The Voting Rights Act Enacted
What the Act Does
SPOTLIGHT: White Southerners’ Reactions to the Civil Rights Movement
Epilogue 65
The Triumphs of the Civil Rights Movement
—1 —
Slavery Spreads to America
A
mong the antiquities displayed at the United slaves and that the Hebrews, upon their exodus from Egypt,
Nations headquarters in New York is a replica used slaves of their own. Early Christianity accepted the
of the Cyrus Cylinder. Named for Cyrus the practice, as did Islam. North and East African Arabs enslaved
Great, ruler of the Persian Empire and conqueror black Africans, and Egypt and Syria enslaved Mediterranean
of Babylonia, the document dates to about 539 B.C. Cyrus Europeans, whom they captured or purchased from slave
guaranteed to his subjects many of what we today call civil traders and typically employed to produce sugar. Many Native
rights, among them freedom of religion and protection of American tribal groups enslaved members of other tribes
personal property. Cyrus also abolished slavery, “a tradition,” captured in war.
he asserted, that “should be exterminated the world over.” A number of factors combined to stimulate the Atlantic
Throughout history, nations have varied in how broadly slave trade. The Ottoman conquest of Constantinople (now
they define and how vigorously they defend their citizens’ Istanbul) in 1453 disturbed trade patterns and deprived
personal protections and privileges. The United States is sweet-toothed Europeans of highly prized sugar. Led by the
a nation built on these civil rights, on the soaring ideals Portuguese, Europeans began to explore the West African
enshrined in its Declaration of Independence and the coast and to purchase slaves from African slave traders. After
legal protections formalized in its Constitution, and most Christopher Columbus’s 1492 discovery of the New World,
prominently, in the first 10 amendments to that Constitution, European colonizers imported large numbers of African
known collectively as the American people’s Bill of Rights. slaves to work the land and, especially in the Caribbean, to
Yet one group of arrivals did not enjoy those rights
and protections. Even as European immigrants found
unprecedented economic opportunity and greater personal,
political, and religious liberty in the New World, black
Africans were transported there involuntarily, often in
chains, to be sold as chattel slaves and compelled to labor
for “masters,” most commonly in the great agricultural
plantations in the South.
This book recounts how those African-American slaves
and their descendants struggled to win — both in law and
in practice — the civil rights enjoyed by other Americans. It
is a story of dignified persistence and struggle, a story that
produced great heroes and heroines, and one that ultimately
succeeded by forcing the majority of Americans to confront
squarely the shameful gap between their universal principles
of equality and justice and the inequality, injustice, and
oppression faced by millions of their fellow citizens.
The African-American family structure adapted to meet Slavery brought Africans to America and deprived them
the challenges posed by slavery, and later by discrimination of the freedoms enjoyed by Americans of European origin. But
and economic inequality. Many black family units resembled even in bondage, many African Americans developed strong
extended clans rather than smaller, immediate families. Some family ties and faith-based institutions and laid a foundation
were organized with strong females as central authority upon which future generations could build a triumphant
figures. Slaveholders sometimes encouraged these family civil rights movement. The struggle for freedom and equality
ties, reasoning that the threat of breaking up a family helped began long before Rosa Parks claimed a seat on the front of
undermine the threats of disobedience and rebellion. the bus, more than a century before Martin Luther King Jr.
Regardless, strong immediate and extended families inspired Americans with his famous dream.
helped ensure African-American survival. In the Caribbean
colonies and in Brazil, slave mortality rates exceeded birth
rates, but blacks in the United States reproduced at the same
rate as the white population. By the 1770s, only one in five
slaves in British North America had been born in Africa. Even
after 1808, when the United States banned the importation of
slaves, their numbers increased from 1.2 million to nearly
4 million on the eve of the Civil War in 1861.
A
frican-American Anglicanism, the United communal spirituality of of imprisoned African
religious communi- Methodist Church, and a the black church in the face Americans. The search
ties have contributed host of other traditions. of repression helped spawn toward common identity
immensely to American The great gift, indeed a civil rights movement remains the foundation of
society, not least by supplying genius, of African-American that sought its objectives by such a spirituality, however.
much of the moral, political, religious sensibility is its peaceful means. Through the election of
and organizational founda- drive to forge a common Many of the powerful the first African-American
tion of the 20th-century identity. Black slaves from voices of the civil rights president and the increase
civil rights movement and different parts of Africa were movement — King, of course, of minorities in higher
by shaping the thought of its transported to America but also such powerful and education, the journey toward
leaders, Rosa Parks and the by means of the “middle significant figures as U.S. common identity remains
Reverend Martin Luther King passage” across the Atlantic. Representatives Barbara on course.
Jr. among them. As slaves, they endured Jordan and John Lewis, the In sum, the black church
Enslaved and free African- massive oppression. Against political activist and Baptist helped African Americans
Americans formed their this background of diversity minister Jesse Jackson, and survive the harshest forms
own congregations as early and social deprivation, the gospel legend Mahalia of oppression and developed
as the mid- to late 18th African-American religious Jackson — all were formed a revolutionary appeal
century. After emancipation, belief and practice afforded from their worship life in for universal communal
fully fledged denominations solace and the intellectual the black church. Indeed, spirituality. The black church
emerged. What we today foundation for a successful King’s role as chief articulator didn’t just theorize about
call the “black church” means of solving deep-seated of civil rights reflects the democracy, it practiced
encompasses seven major conflict: the techniques direct relationship between democracy. From its roots
historic black denominations: of civil disobedience and African-American religious there flowered the civil
African Methodist Episcopal nonviolence. The black communities and the struggle rights movement — creative,
(AME); African Methodist church also supplied black for racial and social justice inclusive, and nonviolent.
Episcopal Zion (AMEZ); political activists with a in the United States. The
Christian Methodist powerful philosophy: to focus spiritual influence of African-
Episcopal (CME); the upon an ultimate solution for American religious practice
National Baptist Convention, all rather than palliatives for spread beyond this nation’s By Michael Battle
USA, Incorporated; the a select few. The civil rights shores, as global leaders Ordained a priest by
National Baptist Convention movement would adopt such as Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond
of America, Unincorporated; this policy — never to allow Archbishop Desmond Tutu Tutu, the Very Rev. Michael
the Progressive National systemic oppression of any learned from King how to Battle is Provost and Canon
Baptist Convention; and the human identity. Its genius, embody a loving, inclusive Theologian of the Cathedral
Church of God in Christ. then, was a natural overflow African and Christian Center of St. Paul in the
These denominations from African-American identity. Episcopal Diocese of Los
emerged after the religious communities that Today’s African-American Angeles. His books include
emancipation of the African- sought to make sense of communal spirituality is as The Black Church in America:
American slaves. They drew a tragic history and move strong and engaged as ever. African American Spirituality.
mainly on Methodist, Baptist, toward a future, not just for Black churches work to craft
and Pentecostal traditions, themselves, but also for their responses to contemporary
but often featured ties to nation and the world. challenges such as the spread
American Catholicism, In short, while some form of HIV/AIDS, the need to
of resistance to slavery and ameliorate poverty, and the
then Jim Crow segregation disproportionate recidivism
probably was inevitable, the
D
uring the 19th and early 20th centuries,
African Americans and their white
allies employed many strategies as
they fought to end slavery and then
to secure legal equality for the “freedmen.” Progress
toward racial equality was destined to be slow, not least
because slavery and oppression of blacks were among
the sectional political compromises that undergirded
national unity. The Civil War of 1861-1865 would end
slavery in the United States, but once the conflict ended,
northern political will to overcome white southern
resistance to racial equality gradually ebbed. The
imposition of the “Jim Crow” system of legal segregation
throughout the South stifled black political progress.
Nevertheless, African-American leaders continued to
build the intellectual and institutional capital that would
nourish the successful civil rights movements of the mid- Depiction of George Washington with his black field workers on his Mount
to late 20th century. Vernon, Virginia, estate, 1757.
A Land of Liberty?
By 1787, many Americans had determined to replace
Slavery divided Americans from their very first day of
the existing loose, decentralized alliance of 13 states with a
independence. As the South grew more dependent on a new
stronger federal government. The Constitutional Convention,
staple crop — “King Cotton” — and on the slave-intensive
held in Philadelphia from May to September of that year,
plantations that cultivated it, the prospect of a clash with
produced a blueprint for such a government. “There were
increasingly antislavery northern states grew. The young
big fights over slavery at the convention,” according to David
nation delayed that conflict with a series of moral evasions and
Stewart, author of The Summer of 1787: The Men Who
political compromises.
Invented the Constitution. While “many of the delegates were
The United States’ Declaration of Independence (1776)
actually abolitionist in their views … there was not a feel for
includes stirring language on universal brotherhood: “We
abolition in the country at the time.”
hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created
Because any proposed constitution would not take effect
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
until ratified by 9 of the 13 states, it became necessary to reach
unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and
a compromise on the status of the African-American slaves.
the Pursuit of Happiness.” And yet its principal draftsman,
Northern delegates to the convention, led by James Wilson
Thomas Jefferson, was himself a slaveholding Virginian.
of Pennsylvania, reached an agreement with three large
Jefferson understood the contradiction, and his draft sharply
slaveholding states. Both sides agreed that every five “unfree
condemned the slave trade — although not slavery itself
persons” — slaves — would count as three people when
— calling it “a cruel war against human nature.” But the
calculating the size of a state’s congressional delegation. They
Continental Congress, America’s de facto government at the
also agreed to bar the U.S. Congress for 20 years from passing
time, deleted the slave trade reference from the Declaration
any law prohibiting the importation of slaves. (Congress later
to avoid any controversy that might fracture its pro-
would abolish the slave trade, effective 1808. By then, this was
independence consensus. It would not be the last time that
not a controversial measure owing to the natural increase of
political expediency would trump moral imperatives.
the slave population.)
By the Sword
As early as 1663, when several Gloucester County, Virginia,
blacks were beheaded for plotting rebellion, African- A depiction of the 1831 Virginia slave rebellion led by Nat Turner.
American slaves launched a number of rebellions against their
W
hen the Why did many military controlled (southern) out Confederate-controlled
American Civil and civilian leaders reject mainland. Most of their slaves South Carolina, Georgia, and
War began the idea of recruiting black remained on the islands, Florida — and to recruit black
in 1861, Jacob Dodson, a soldiers? Some said that and they soon were joined men capable of bearing arms
free black man living in black troops would prove too by black escapees from the as Union soldiers. He would
Washington, D.C., wrote cowardly to fight white men, mainland who believed they attempt to train and form the
to Secretary of War Simon others said that they would would be liberated if only they first all-black regiment of the
Cameron informing him be inferior fighters, and some could reach the Union lines. It Civil War.
that he knew of “300 reliable thought that white soldiers would not be that simple. News traveled slowly in
colored free citizens” who would not serve with black Even as Hunter needed those days, and President
wanted to enlist and defend soldiers. There were a few more soldiers to control the Abraham Lincoln did not
the city. Cameron replied military leaders, though, who region’s many tidal rivers hear about Hunter’s
that “this department has had different ideas. and islands against stubborn regiment until June. While
no intention at present to On March 31, 1862, almost Confederate guerrilla Lincoln opposed slavery,
call into the service of the a year after the first shots of resistance, he observed how he feared moving more
government any colored the Civil War were fired at escaping mainland slaves quickly than public opinion
soldiers.” It didn’t matter that Fort Sumter, South Carolina, were swelling the islands’ in the embattled North —
black men, slave and free, had Union (northern) troops black population. Perhaps, and particularly in the
served in colonial militias and commanded by General he reasoned, the African slaveholding border states
had fought on both sides of David Hunter took control Americans could solve his that had sided with the
the Revolutionary War. Many of the islands off the coasts manpower shortage. He Union — would allow. He
black men felt that serving in of northern Florida, Georgia, devised a radical plan. also was adamant that “no
the military was a way they and South Carolina. Local Hunter, a staunch aboli- commanding general shall
might gain freedom and full whites who owned the rich tionist, took it upon himself do such a thing, upon my
citizenship. cotton and rice plantations to free the slaves — not just responsibility, without
fled to the Confederate- on the islands but through- consulting me.” In an angry
Frederick Douglass: “Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letters U.S.
… a musket on his shoulder, and bullets in his pocket, and there is no power on earth
which can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship.”
M
This reconstruction-era wood engraving depicts a Freedman’s Bureau
ore than 600,000 Americans perished in representative standing between armed white and black Americans. The
the Civil War. Their sacrifice resolved some failure of Reconstruction would usher in the era of “Jim Crow” segregation in
of the nation’s most intractable conflicts. the American South.
Slavery at last was prohibited, and the
principle that no state could secede from the Union was
established. But incompatible visions of American society generally applied only to men — could work where and how
persisted, and the consequences for African Americans would he wanted, could accumulate property in his own name, and,
prove immense. most importantly, was free to rise as far as his talents and
One vision, associated during the 19th and early 20th abilities might take him.
centuries with the Democratic Party, blended American Abraham Lincoln was a model of this self-made man. As
individualism and suspicion of big government with a president, he would boast: “I am not ashamed to confess that
preference for local and state authority over federal power, 25 years ago I was a hired laborer, mauling rails, at work on a
and, at least in the South, a dogged belief in white superiority. flat-boat. … ” Even as many Republicans condemned slavery
The Republican Party, founded in the 1850s, was more willing as immoral, all viewed the South as lagging in both economic
to employ federal power to promote economic development. growth and social mobility. As the historian Antonia Etheart
Its core belief was often called “free labor.” For millions of has written, Republicans saw in the South “an unchangeable
northerners, free labor meant that a man — the concept then
M
arcus Garvey persons around the world Washington’s Up From Garvey was determined
(1887-1940), should make a united effort Slavery, Garvey asked himself: to spread his program of
a major black to form institutions that “Where is the black man’s black empowerment in the
nationalist of the early 20th could concentrate wealth and government? Where is his United States. Arriving
century, was born in Jamaica power in their own hands. To king and kingdom? Where in 1915, Garvey argued
but spent his most successful this end he formed, among is his president, his country, that African Americans
years in the United States. other organizations, the his ambassadors, his army, could command respect
An enthusiastic capitalist, United Negro Improvement his navy, and his men of big by building their economic
he believed that African Association (UNIA). affairs? I could not find them. power. To that end, he strove
Americans and other black After reading Booker T. I decided, I will help to to establish a network of
make them.” black-owned businesses:
Garvey was born in the grocery stores, laundries, and
parish of St. Ann, Jamaica, others capable of thriving
where in his early teens independently of the white
he was apprenticed to his economy. While these and
godfather, a printer named other initial attempts to
Alfred Burrowes. Garvey’s organize the masses met
father was a bookish man, with little success, Garvey’s
as was Burrowes, and the perseverance earned him
youthful Marcus received increasing fame; by the end
early exposure to the world of the First World War, his
of letters. Migrating to name was widely known
Kingston, Garvey displayed among black Americans.
highly refined talents as a Garvey was a master at
typesetter and developed an manipulating the media
interest in journalism. and at staging dramatic
After being blacklisted public events. He founded
for attempting to organize his own newspaper, Negro
workers, he left Jamaica to World, which was distributed
visit Latin America, and widely throughout the
he later spent two years in United States and in some
England. During these years, Latin American countries.
he studied informally at the He held colorful annual
University of London and conventions in New York
worked for the Sudanese- City, where men and women
Egyptian black nationalist, marched under a banner
Duse Mohammed Ali, of red, black, and green.
founder of The African Times This flag, along with other
and Orient Review. tricolored emblems, remains
popular among African
Americans to the present
day. The striking military
The black nationalist Marcus Garvey represented one strand of African- regalia sometimes worn by
American thought. Most blacks, however, would choose to fight for equality Garveyites demonstrated the
and full participation in U.S. political and economic life. nationalistic and militaristic
I
n November 1956, a black-instigated boycott of the and their allies had long struggled to achieve the rights
segregated bus system in Montgomery, Alabama, promised them by the U.S. Constitution and its post-Civil
had entered its 12th month. A year earlier, a black War amendments. It is important also to understand that
woman named Rosa Parks had bravely refused to the modern civil rights movement rested on two pillars.
relinquish her front seat on a municipal bus to a white man, One was formed by the brave nonviolent protesters who
launching a political movement and introducing Americans forced their fellow Americans at last to confront squarely
to a courageous and dynamic leader — the Reverend Dr. the scandalous treatment of black Americans. The second
Martin Luther King Jr. But it was not until the courts forbade consisted of attorneys such as Charles Hamilton Houston and
the relegation of African Americans to the back of the his greatest student, Thurgood Marshall, who ensured that
bus that the city of Montgomery yielded and the boycott those protestors would have the United States’ most powerful
succeeded. As historian Kevin Mumford has written: force — the law of the land — on their side.
“Without constitutional legitimacy and the promise of Marshall, the attorney who argued for Montgomery’s
protection from the courts, local black protesters would be blacks in 1956, relied on legal precedents he had established in
crushed by state and local officials, and white segregationists other successful court cases. Brown v. Board of Education was
could easily prevail.” the most celebrated, but even before Brown, the partnership
Americans often refer to the mid-20th-century social between Houston and Marshall had dismantled much of the
justice campaigns led by King and others as the civil rights legal structure by which the American South had enforced its
movement. As we have seen, however, African Americans Jim Crow system of race segregation.
Thurgood Marshall (left) and Charles Hamilton Houston flank Donald Gaines Murray, plaintiff in Thurgood Marshall in 1962, after Senate confirmation of
a case that struck the University of Maryland Law School policy denying admission to qualified his appointment to the U.S. Court of Appeals. In 1967,
black students. President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Marshall the first
African-American Supreme Court justice.
for white students and only $43 for blacks. Marshall would that the Supreme Court at last rule that segregated facilities
succeed in getting this direct ruling with the “case of the were, by definition and as a matter of law, unequal and hence
century,” Brown v. Board of Education. unconstitutional.
Marshall’s legal strategy relied on social scientific
The Brown Decision evidence. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund assembled a
team of experts spanning the fields of history, economics,
The Brown case began to take shape once Marshall found
political science, and psychology. Particularly significant
the right plaintiff in the Reverend Oliver Brown, father of
was a study in which the psychologists Kenneth and Mamie
Topeka, Kansas, grade-schooler Linda Brown. Linda had
Clark sought to determine how segregation affected the self-
been obliged to attend a black school 21 blocks from her
esteem and mental well-being of African Americans. Among
house, although there was a white school only seven blocks
their poignant findings: Black children aged three to seven
away. The Kansas state courts had rejected Brown’s claim by
preferred white rather than otherwise identical black dolls.
finding that the segregated black and white schools were of
comparable quality. This gave Marshall the chance to urge
E
ven as African
Americans fought for
their civil rights, their
individual accomplishments
demonstrated the justice of
their cause. The achievements
of the Nobel Prize-winning
scholar and international
official Ralph Bunche
demonstrated to all fair-
minded people that black
Americans could contribute
fully to American society.
Ralph Bunche was born
in Detroit, Michigan, on
August 7, 1903. His father
was an itinerant barber, his
mother a housewife and
amateur pianist. His father
abandoned the family, and his
mother died when Bunche
was 14 years old. From then
on he lived in Los Angeles,
California, with his maternal
grandmother, whose wisdom
and strength of character
greatly influenced him. He
graduated with honors from
the University of California
at Los Angeles and continued Dr. Ralph J. Bunche, peacemaker, mediator, and U.S. diplomat, receives the
Bunche set up the Political 1950 Nobel Prize for Peace.
as a graduate student on
Science Department at
scholarship at Harvard
Howard University, the
University. of U.S. race relations, An State Department. At the
historically black university
From his earliest years, American Dilemma, was San Francisco Conference
in Washington, D.C. His
Bunche was acutely conscious cited approvingly by the U.S. in 1945, he drafted two
many articles on racial
of racial discrimination and Supreme Court in its Brown v. chapters of the charter,
discrimination later became
was determined to work Board of Education decision. on non-self-governing
basic literature for the U.S.
against it. His studies of As the Second World territories (colonies) and
civil rights movement.
colonial Africa persuaded War loomed, Bunche on the trusteeship system.
Bunche also pioneered
him that colonialism had was recruited by the U.S. These chapters provided
the study of colonialism in
much in common with racial government to advise on the basis for accelerating
the United States. He was
discrimination in the United Africa, and then transferred decolonization after
the chief associate and co-
States. He was determined to to the State Department to the war. Bunche did as
writer of the Swedish social
help put an end to both. work on the future United much as anyone to make
economist Gunnar Myrdal,
Nations charter. He was decolonization a reality.
whose landmark 1944 study
the first black official in the
T
he Brooklyn Dodgers
arrived at Shibe Park,
bringing their new
lightning rod of controversy
to the baseball stadium in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
— a black player named Jackie
Robinson. The symbols of
intolerance flew down from
the crowd, and the words
of intolerance spilled out
from the home team’s bench.
“Philadelphia was the worst,”
said Ralph Branca, who
was there as a pitcher for
Brooklyn. “They threw black
cats on the field. They threw
watermelon on the field. Ben
Chapman, the Philadelphia
manager, was very vocal,
getting on Jackie.”
It was 1947 in the United
States, and for many the
country still came in two
shades — black and white. But then came Robinson,
Some hearts, including many bursting past the color
from the South, were long barrier on April 15, 1947, as
filled with hate simply over an infielder for the team in
the color of a person’s skin. the racially diverse New York
Black people, from their City borough of Brooklyn. He
perspective, didn’t deserve became a pioneering symbol
equal civil rights with whites. that transcended sports, a
And that had extended to the large first step on a lengthy
unofficial-but-understood path toward driving home
idea among baseball officials the concept of equality. His
and team owners since before teammate Branca explained
the turn of the century that how Robinson’s achievement
the major leagues were for transcended the baseball Top: After a Brooklyn victory over the New York Yankees in the first game of the
diamond: 1952 World Series, Jackie Robinson (front right) celebrates with teammates
white players only. Blacks Joe Black (back left), Duke Snyder (front left), and Pee Wee Reese (back right).
would have to play on their I’ve often said that it Team manager Chuck Dressen is at center.
own circuit, the Negro changed baseball, but Above: Jackie Robinson (right) and former boxing heavyweight champion
leagues. Floyd Patterson (left) meet in Birmingham, Alabama with civil rights leaders
it also changed the
Ralph D. Abernathy and Martin Luther King Jr., 1963.
country and eventually
changed the world … ..
Jackie made it easier for
T
Above: Dr. King outlines strategies for the
he successful boycott of segregated buses boycott of Montgomery, Alabama, buses.
in Montgomery, Alabama — which began Among his advisors is Rosa Parks, seated
with the arrest of Rosa Parks on December second from left in the front row.
1, 1955 — transformed the civil rights Left: After Rosa Parks refused to give up
her bus seat, she was arrested, booked,
cause into a mass political movement. It demonstrated and jailed. Her booking photo was
that African Americans could unite and engage in discovered nearly a half-century later,
disciplined political action, and marked the emergence of during a house cleaning of the sheriff’s
Martin Luther King Jr. — the indispensable leader who office.
inspired millions, held them to the high moral standard
of nonviolent resistance, and built bridges between
Americans of all races, creeds, and colors. While many by for blacks in the South, Parks was active in her local
brave activists contributed to the civil rights revolution of the NAACP, a registered voter (another privilege held by few
1960s, it was King who, more than any other individual, forced southern blacks), and a respected figure in Montgomery,
millions of white Americans to confront directly the reality Alabama. In the summer of 1955, she attended an interracial
of Jim Crow — and shaped the political reality in which the leadership conference at the Highlander Folk School, a
landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of Tennessee institution that trained labor organizers and
1965 could become law. desegregation advocates. Parks thus knew of efforts to
improve the lot of African Americans and that she was well-
“Tired of Giving In”: The Montgomery Bus Boycott suited to provide a test case should the occasion arise.
On December 1, 1955, Parks was employed as a
Rosa Parks would later say of the day that changed her life: seamstress at a local department store. When she rode home
“The only tired I was was tired of giving in.” A secondary- from work that afternoon, she sat in the first row of the
school graduate at a time when diplomas were hard to come “colored section” of seats between the “white” and “black”
One news photo of a policeman clutching the shirtfront of a Boy: Can I say something?
black youth with one hand while his other held the leash of Judge: Anything you like.
a dog swirling at the youth’s midsection happened to pass
under the eyes of the president in the Oval Office, and he Boy: Well, you can say that because you’ve got your
told a group of visitors that day, “It makes me sick.” freedom. The Constitution says we’re all equal, but Negroes
aren’t equal.
On May 7, Fred Shuttlesworth was injured by a fire hose
stream that hurled him against the side of his church. Arriving Judge: But you people have made great gains and they still
are. It takes time.
Boy: We’ve been waiting over 100 years.
“I have a dream today!” Martin Luther King addresses the largest political
demonstration the nation had ever seen. For many, his speech in 1963
was the finest ever delivered by an American.
R
osa McCauley Parks
is known today as the
“mother of the civil
rights movement” because
her arrest for refusing to
give up her bus seat sparked
the pivotal Montgomery,
Alabama, bus boycott. She
didn’t set out to make history
when she left her job as a
seamstress to board a bus on
the afternoon of December 1,
1955. She was tired, and she
just wanted to go home. Still,
when the bus driver asked her
to move toward the back of
the bus so that a white man
could sit, she couldn’t bring
herself to do it.
“I didn’t get on the bus
with the intention of being
arrested,” she said later. “I got
on the bus with the intention
of going home.”
While she did not know
her act would set in motion
a 381-day bus boycott, she
knew one thing. Her own
personal bus boycott began
that day.
“I knew that as far as I was
concerned, I would never ride
on a segregated bus again.”
The arrest and brief jailing
Above: Rosa Parks seated at the front of
of Rosa Parks, a woman
the bus, after the Supreme Court of the
highly respected in the black United States ruled unconstitutional the
community, and the boycott segregated seating that had prevailed on
that followed led to a U.S. the Montgomery, Alabama, bus system.
Supreme Court decision Parks’s December 1955 refusal to give
outlawing segregation on up her seat to a white man sparked the
Montgomery Bus Boycott and launched the
city buses. The boycott also civil rights career of Martin Luther King Jr.
raised to national prominence Right: Rosa Parks being fingerprinted after
a youthful, little-known her arrest.
minister named Martin
Luther King Jr. Under his
leadership, the boycott set a
T
he murders of civil Fearing that the rest of the
rights workers James United States did not fully
Chaney, Andrew understand the importance
Goodman, and Michael of these events, the civil
Schwerner by a conspiracy of rights movement hatched a
police and Ku Klux Klansmen plan to create the Mississippi
in Mississippi on June 21, Summer Project, later known
1964, was one of the pivotal as Freedom Summer, in
events of the civil rights which 1,000 northern college
movement. Because two students, mostly white,
of the victims were white would flood the state to
— and their disappearance help with voter registration
baffled investigators for and, by their presence, make
almost the entire summer Mississippi’s situation better
of 1964 — the case became known. At the prospect
a national preoccupation, of such an “invasion,”
bringing the Federal Bureau local resistance stiffened;
of Investigation (FBI) and belligerent state leaders
world press attention to tiny vowed opposition, and the Ku
Philadelphia, Mississippi, the Klux Klan, a white vigilante
town where the young men group that historically had
had disappeared. employed violence and
Mississippi was intimidation to enforce
historically a conservative regional racial customs, was
state where whites exercised revived.
considerable control over the On the very first day of
majority black population; Freedom Summer, June 21,
over the years, it had the three civil rights workers
developed a strong distrustful — Chaney, a local black
attitude toward outsiders Mississippian who was 21;
or anyone who threatened Goodman, a 20-year old New
“the southern way of life,” York college student; and A 44-day FBI search in Mississippi discovered the bodies of the murdered
meaning segregation and the Schwerner, a social worker civil rights workers Andrew Goodman, James Early Chaney, and Michael
Henry Schwerner.
denial of many basic rights from New York’s Lower East
to black people. As early as Side who at 24 was already
1961, civil rights workers a veteran activist — drove After meeting with their them to the Neshoba County
had targeted Mississippi to the remote black hamlet contacts there and viewing jail. The civil rights workers,
for efforts to encourage of Longdale to investigate a the charred remains of a while naturally suspicious
expanded voting rights, for recent Klan assault. They had church the Klan had set on of the local police, did not
in its repressive environment, visited previously in the hope fire, the young men were resist. Like everyone in their
few blacks were allowed to of opening a class to teach heading west toward the movement, they believed in
vote. The voter registration blacks how to register to vote. county seat of Philadelphia the power of nonviolence and
work was difficult, however, when Deputy Sheriff Cecil nonconfrontation to attain
with volunteers frequently Ray Price stopped them for the goal of racial equality.
being beaten and arrested. speeding. He placed them
under arrest and escorted
M
edgar Evers, head and fight a bass. There is
of the National room here for my children to
Association play and grow and become
for the Advancement of good citizens — if the white
Colored People (NAACP) in man will let them.”
Mississippi, was a dynamic At the time, however,
leader whose life was cut whites’ cooperation appeared
short by assassination in 1963. very much in doubt. Two
His loss at age 37 was a tragic of the United States’ most
reversal for the civil rights infamous modern lynchings
movement, but it galvanized occurred in Mississippi
further protest and drew in those years — the 1955
the sympathetic concern of killing of 14-year-old
the federal government to Emmett Till, and the 1959
his cause. lynching of Mack Charles
Born in rural Mississippi Parker in Poplarville. Evers
in 1925, Evers served with helped investigate the Till
U.S. armed forces in Europe murder, a case that received
in the Second World War, extensive national attention.
returning home to attend Despite strong evidence of
Alcorn College (a historically the defendants’ guilt, an all-
black institution located near Medgar Evers in 1963. He would be assassinated later that year. white male jury took only
Lorman, Mississippi), where 67 minutes to acquit them.
he was an accomplished the demand for civil rights In 1954, Evers challenged One juror later asserted that
student and athlete. There he among the broader black the segregationist order by the panel took a “soda break”
met his future wife, Myrlie; population. applying for enrollment to stretch deliberations
the couple was married Evers determined to see at the law school of the beyond one hour, “to make
in 1951. the freedoms he had fought all-white University of it look good.” (In May 2004,
Evers became a protégé for overseas established at Mississippi, known as “Ole the Justice Department,
of T.R.M. Howard, a black home. He soon emerged Miss.” Evers was turned away, calling the 1955 prosecution
physician and businessman as one of the Mississippi but his effort won him the a “grotesque miscarriage of
who founded both an Regional Council’s most admiration of the NAACP’s justice,” reopened the murder
insurance agency and effective activists. Like his Legal Defense Fund, and he investigation. But with many
a medical clinic in the mentor, he mixed business was subsequently named potential witnesses long dead
Mississippi Delta. Howard with civil rights campaigning, the organization’s first field and evidence scattered, a
also established the working as a salesman for secretary in Mississippi, grand jury declined to indict
Mississippi Regional Council Howard’s Magnolia Mutual a dangerous and lonely the last remaining living
of Negro Leadership, a civil Life Insurance Company assignment. suspect.)
rights organization that while organizing local “It may sound funny, but Mississippi reacted harshly
employed a “top-down” chapters of the NAACP I love the South,” Evers once to the Supreme Court’s 1954
approach, encouraging and leading boycotts of gas said. “I don’t choose to live Brown v. Board of Education
leading African-American stations that refused blacks anywhere else. There’s land ruling and its order to
professionals and clergy to access to restrooms. (“Don’t here where a man can raise desegregate the nation’s public
promote self-help, business Buy Gas Where You Can’t cattle, and I’m going to do schools. Local white groups
ownership, and, ultimately, Use the Restroom” read one it someday. There are lakes known as Citizens Councils
bumper sticker.) where a man can sink a hook vowed to resist integration
T
he civil rights movement led by Martin
Luther King Jr. and others was the
indispensable catalyst for the passage of
two new laws of unparalleled importance.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights
Act of 1965 at last would establish firmly the legal
equality of African Americans. They were enacted
partly because of a structural transformation of
American politics, including the unexpected elevation
of a powerful, pro-civil-rights southern president who
helped overcome the forces that had defeated earlier
civil rights legislation. Above all, support for these
laws came from the growing political constituency for
change — the millions of Americans horrified by the
actions of segregationists in the South.
Top to bottom: The Rev. Hosea Williams addresses a 1965 Selma, Alabama
Changing Politics voter registration rally.
Ever since post-Civil War Reconstruction failed to ensure 1966: With the Voting Rights Act now law, Alabama African Americans queue
up to register as voters.
the civil rights of blacks in the American South, two great
obstacles had blocked efforts at the national level to end
The Act’s Powers • Title IV, which authorized the attorney general to file suit
to force the desegregation of public schools. This provision
After two centuries of slavery, segregation, and legal
aimed to accelerate the slow progress made during the
inequality, and the resulting economic disadvantage, the Civil
decade since Brown v. Board of Education.
Rights Act of 1964 gave the federal government and private
• Title VI, which extended the act’s provisions to “any
individuals the legal authority they needed to attack squarely
program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.” It
racial (and gender — the act also bars discrimination on the
authorized the federal government to withhold federal funds
basis of sex) discrimination.
from any such program that practiced discrimination.
This authority is spelled out in broad provisions, called
• Title VII, which prohibited employment discrimination by
“titles.” The major points include:
any business employing more than 25 people. It established
•T itle I, which abolished unequal application of voter
the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to
registration requirements.
review complaints of discrimination in recruitment, hiring,
•T itle II, which prohibited discrimination in public
compensation, and advancement.
accommodations. The title authorized individuals to file
lawsuits to obtain injunctive relief (a court order ordering
The Voting Rights Act of 1965: The Background
someone to do or not to do something) and allowed the
attorney general of the United States to intervene in those Court decisions and civil rights statutes were crucial tools
lawsuits he deemed “of general public importance.” in establishing, protecting, and enforcing the civil rights
• Title III, which authorized the U.S. attorney general to of African Americans. The surest way to guarantee the
file a lawsuit, provided the case would “materially further permanence of these rights, however, was to empower blacks
the orderly progress of desegregation in public facilities,” politically to assert themselves as full participants in the
where an aggrieved person was unable himself or herself to democratic system. The right to vote, then, was arguably
maintain such a suit. the most fundamental right of all, and one that, practically
A
frican Americans on African Americans. Blacks
who waged epic labored in white homes as
struggles for civil nannies, cooks, maids, and
rights also altered white yardmen. Whites expected
Southerners’ worlds. Some docility; black resistance
whites embraced the seemed unfathomable.
prospect of a new interracial Through the long years of
land. Many more reacted slavery and segregation, white
with hostility. They feared Southerners produced and
social and political change, absorbed cruel stereotypes
and grappled uncomfortably about African Americans:
with the fact that their way of that they were unclean and
life seemed gone for good. shiftless, unintelligent and
The “Southern way of life” oversexed. Blacks became
encompassed a distinctive either clowns or savages, with
mix of economic, social, no area in between. Whites
and cultural practices — often defined themselves —
symbolized by the fragrant their status, identities, daily
magnolia, the slow pace lives, and self-worth — in
of life, and the sweet mint relation to these concocted
julep, a popular alcoholic notions about African Demonstrators protesting the integration of a New Orleans, Louisiana, public
elementary school, 1960.
beverage. It also contained Americans. If blacks were
implications about the submissive and infantile,
region’s racial order — one in whites were strong and the falsity of such beliefs. At Southern politicians
which whites wielded power dignified. Blackness meant long last, African Americans denounced the court ruling.
and blacks accommodated. degradation; to be free was voiced their discontent and In language that played upon
Centuries of slavery and to be white. The civil rights demanded dignity. Black whites’ underlying racial
decades of segregation struggle threatened to hoist rebellion clashed so sharply fears and stoked contempt
cemented a legal and political African Americans up and with white perceptions that for the federal government,
system characterized by out of this social “place” that many disbelieved their own senators such as Harry Byrd
white dominance. By the whites had created for them. eyes. And as grassroots of Virginia claimed the
20th century, “Jim Crow” White Southerners would organizers led a mass court had overstepped its
had become a shorthand for find blacks in their schools movement for black equality, bounds. White Southerners
legalized segregation. (That and neighborhoods, their whites rose up in resistance. tried to circumvent the
phrase derived from the restaurants, and polling The U.S. Supreme Court, order, and rallied to beat
name of a character in a 19th places. Many whites feared with its 1954 decision in back desegregation at every
century minstrel show in this vision of the Southern Brown v. Board of Education, turn. Local leaders and
which whites wore blackface future. ensured that Southern businessmen organized
makeup and caricatured slave Many white Southerners schools would become the themselves into Citizens
culture.) Massive inequalities came to believe that African first battlegrounds. The court Councils, groups that visited
marked every facet of daily Americans abided — and ruled that segregated schools economic reprisal upon any
life. Blacks always addressed even enjoyed — their roles as stamped black children with blacks — or whites — who
whites as “Mr.” or “Mrs.,” second-class citizens. When a “badge of inferiority,” and dared advocate integration.
though whites seldom the civil rights movement that Southern states must
bestowed such courtesy titles tore through the South in the integrate their schools “with
1950s and 1960s, it exposed all deliberate speed.”
O
history, we are all Americans.
n March 21, 1965, Marshall, King, and the Integration, he said, was “an
as civil rights others. The great triumphs insidious subterfuge, for
advocates and their of the civil rights movement the maintenance of white fragmented the Panther
supporters gathered in Selma, were evidence that, in a supremacy.” Meanwhile, movement. It petered out in
a local Southern Christian nation of laws, the key to the Black Panther Party, a maze of factionalism and
Leadership Conference progress lay in establishing (some accounts trace the mutual recriminations.
leader warned the press the real legal equality of name to a visual emblem for The year 1968 was one of
that the “irresponsibility” of African Americans — in illiterate voters used in an political upheaval throughout
the more militant activists public facilities, in places of Alabama voter registration much of the Western world.
might cause the movement education, and, most of all, at drive) founded in Oakland, In the United States, that year
enormous harm. The the voting booth. California, in October 1966 would see the assassination
Reverend Jefferson P. Rogers But this truth was not by activists Huey P. Newton of Senator Robert F. Kennedy,
was referring to the Student yet apparent. By May and Bobby Seale, employed who as attorney general had
Nonviolent Coordinating 1966, Stokley Carmichael, armed members — “Panthers” provided timely assistance to
Committee, whose leadership veteran of numerous voter — to shadow police officers civil rights activists. And it
was growing increasingly registration drives, had whom they believed unfairly would see the end of King’s
impatient with the gradualist established himself as the targeted blacks. While remarkable career.
strategy of Martin Luther new head of SNCC. In the party briefly enjoyed It was a measure of the
King and the mainstream a speech at Greenwood, a measure of popularity, civil rights movement’s
civil rights movement. Nearly Mississippi, Carmichael particularly through its social accomplishments in securing
every broad-based social raised a call for “Black services programs, armed legal equality that King
movement faces similar Power.” Where Thurgood altercations with local police dedicated his last years
tensions, but the years and Marshall and Martin resulted in the death or to fighting for economic
decades that followed would Luther King Jr. had sought jailing of prominent Panthers, equality. On April 3, 1968,
prove the wisdom of the integration, Carmichael turned many Americans he campaigned in Memphis,
strategy pursued by Thurgood instead sought separation. against its violent ways, and Tennessee, on behalf of
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