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February: Black History Month

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Blacks in Oregon

Black Exclusion Laws

Holmes v. Ford
On April 16, 1852, a former slave named Robin Holmes filed suit against his white former owner, Nathaniel Ford, in the only slavery case adjudicated in an Oregon court. Holmes was one of about fifty slaves who settlers had brought to Oregon from Missouri. Many of Oregon's first white settlers were non slave-holding farmers from Missouri and other border states, who had struggled to compete against farmers using slaves. Most were opposed to slavery, but they were also opposed to having African Americans among them, a sentiment reflected in several exclusion laws enacted in Oregon that prohibited free African American settlers. Ford was among a smaller group who did bring slaves to the territory. Although the first provisional government had passed a law in 1843 banning slavery, it had not been enforced. The case, Holmes v. Ford, made it clear that slavery was unlawful in Oregon.
Louis Southworth

Fourteenth Amendment
The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution declared that the federal government would guarantee the rights of citizenship to "all persons born or naturalized in the United States." No state could "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law." Passed by Congress in 1866, the law was intended to safeguard the rights of recently freed slaves in the South, where whites were working hard to subjugate them. Most white Oregonians had opposed both slavery and the presence of blacks in Oregon since the early 1840s, and the Oregon legislature ratified the Fourteenth Amendment in 1866 by a narrow margin. Two legislators protested that the amendment would "change, if not entirely destroy, the republican form of government under which we live, and crush American liberty." The same legislature passed a law prohibiting racial intermarriage.
Salem's Colored School and Little Central
The first school open to African American students in Oregon-referred to as the Colored School-was founded in March 1867 by African American residents in Salem. In 1868, the original school closed when the city opened a segregated public school called Little Central, which was also called the "Colored School." Oregon did not have a state superintendent of schools to institute and manage free and uniform schools in every district until 1872, so people often organized their own schools and determined enrollment requirements and school fees. In a state where African Americans were legally, economically, and socially marginalized by the white population, the children of black families were routinely barred from school attendance.
Buffalo Soldiers at Fort Vancouver

DeNorval Unthank

Kathryn Hall Bogle

Kathryn Hall Bogle, a freelance journalist, social worker, and community activist, was born on December 24, 1906. She is remembered as "one of Portland's earliest and most passionate advocates of racial diversity." She wrote articles for many African American newspapers, including the Pittsburgh Courier, the Seattle-based Northwest Enterprise, the Portland Observer, and The Skanner, and was presented a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Portland Association of Black Journalists in 1993. Bogle may be best known for "An American Negro Speaks of Color," a 2,000-word article she sold to the Oregonian in 1937, which described the realities of being black in Portland. It was the first time the newspaper paid an African American for a story, and Bogle would contribute many more articles to the Oregonian over the years.

Golden West Hotel

The Golden West Hotel, located at Northwest Broadway and Everett Streets in Portland, was the first hotel in the city to accommodate African American patrons. For twenty-five years, from 1906 through 1931, it was a social center and a focal point of the black community, a place for African Americans of all ages to gather and socialize in a segregated and largely unfriendly city. On the lower floors of the hotel, there were several black-owned businesses, including a bar, a barbershop, an ice cream parlor, and an athletic club. In the twenty-first century, the Golden West still functions as low-income housing, now under its original name. The quarter-century of the original Golden West stands as a reminder of a time in Portland when a black middle class and a vibrant, tightly knit culture thrived in a city weighed down by racism.

Black Cowboys

Oregon's most celebrated rodeo, the Pendleton Round-Up, began in 1910 and included African American competitors from the beginning. The Round-Up's most famous black rider, George Fletcher, was born in the Midwest, but he moved to Pendleton as a young man, learning from horsemen on the nearby Umatilla Indian Reservation. Throughout the 1910s, he enthralled audiences with his flamboyant style, which included wearing bright orange chaps, and his loose, relaxed way of riding that made every movement look as though it would fling him off. In 1911, Fletcher competed against John Spain, who was white, and Jackson Sundown, who was Nez Perce, in the bucking finals. Spain was awarded first prize, but the crowd disagreed with the judge's decision and cheered loudest for Fletcher. Most spectators agreed that Fletcher had ridden better and that the decision derived from the judge's reluctance to award the first prize to a nonwhite man. Fletcher would later serve in the military during World War I, where he sustained injuries that ended his rodeo career.

Beatrice Morrow Cannady

Thelma Johnson Streat

Thelma Johnson Streat was an African American artist who focused on ethnic themes in her work. Born on August 29, 1912, in Yakima, Washington, she moved with her family to Portland where she graduated from Washington High School. Streat began painting at the age of seven and received art training at the Museum Art School in the mid-1930s. Her work is powerful, both in line and color, as exemplified by the piece Black Virgin, now in the collection of Reed College. Her art is also included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Mills College in Oakland, California, the San Francisco Museum of Art, and the Honolulu Academy of the Arts.

Lizzie Weeks

William McClendon

Willie Mae Young Hart
Willie Mae Young was born on April 4, 1916, in Vicksburg, Mississippi, where she trained informally as a nurse. She relocated to Oregon in 1939, first to Coos Bay and then to Portland, where she worked in the shipyards on Swan Island. In addition to the community organizing that characterized so many of her contemporaries, Willie Mae Young Hart has made a habit of breaking the color line. She helped operate Portland'sfirst black-owned cab company and was the first African American nurse to work at Portland's Physicians and Surgeons Hospital. As a founding member of the Portland Chapter of the National Council of Negro Women and Women In Community Service, Hart inspired others to serve as agents of change.
Arthur Lee "Artie" Wilson
Artie Wilson was a professional baseball player who was A longtime Portland resident, Artie Wilson played for the Pacific Coast League for most of his professional baseball career. Born in Springfield, Alabama, on October 28, 1920, he was the first African American player hired on an integrated team, the Oakland Oaks. Wilson played shortstop for the Birmingham Black Barons, a Negro League team, from 1942 to 1948. During his last year with the Barons, the team competed in the Negro League World Series, and Wilson became the last professional baseball player to bat over 400 (.402). That year, he mentored the young Willie Mays, who played for the team. In 1949, the New York Yankees signed Wilson and then sold his contract to the Oakland Oaks of the Pacific Coast League. In 1950, the Oaks won the PCL championship, and Wilson won the PCL batting title with a .348 average; he led the league with 47 stolen bases. For the next sixteen years, he played for PCL teams, including the Portland Beavers (1955-1956; 1961).
Billy Webb Elks Lodge
The Billy Webb Elks Lodge, a modest, shingle-sided building located at 6 North Tillamook Street in Portland, is a reminder of the city's history of segregation history and is a key historical landmark for the African American community. Designed by DeYoung and Roald, the structure was completed in 1926 as a project of the Portland YWCA. The building replaced a temporary structure that since 1921 had housed the YWCA's first effort to reach out to Portland's small African American community. During the 1920s, "membership reflected segregated housing in the city, with separate clubs for African-American, Japanese, Chinese, and native/foreign-born white girls." People referred to it as the "Williams Avenue branch" or the "Colored YWCA."
Triple Nickles

The Dude Ranch

On December 5, 1945, impresario Norman Granz brought his touring jam session, Jazz at the Philharmonic, to the Dude Ranch, Portland's premier jazz venue on North Williams Avenue, the center of the city's African American community. That night, legendary saxophonist Coleman Hawkins led a group that included trumpeter Roy "Little Jazz" Eldridge, bassist Al McKibbon, and a twenty-five-year-old pianist with a "lightning-like right hand" who was soon to usher in the bebop age, Thelonious Monk. "Never before in the history of the northwest has there been as much jazz music played per square minute by any group," Bill McClendon proclaimed in The Observer, Portland's African American newspaper.

Clarence Pruitt
Oregon joined California as two of the five western states that considered and rejected the Fifteenth Amendment, which stated that voting rights "shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." Oregon did not formally ratify the amendment until 1959. This refusal was largely symbolic, since Oregon could not overturn the rule of the land. Hence, Oregon's Supreme Court in 1870 upheld the rights of two African American men in Wasco County to vote for county commissioner, explaining: "To hold otherwise would be to unwarrantably overthrow certain well established principles of law. . . ."
Black Panthers in Portland

Fred Milton

William A. Hilliard

William A. Hilliard was named the first African American editor of the Oregonian in 1982, and one of the few blacks to serve as the editor of a major newspaper. Growing up in Portland, he was refused a paper route for the Oregonian when he was a boy for fear that white subscribers would resent it, and he transferred from the University of Oregon after a professor told him there was no place for blacks on newspapers. In 1993, Hilliard was named president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, the first African American to hold that position. At the end of his one-year term, he retired as editor of the Oregonian. "I want to believe," Hilliard said at his retirement, "that over the years, scores of young people of color have looked at me and said, 'It can happen.'"

Jazz Musicians in Oregon

For most of her career, Nancy King has been considered the Pacific Northwest's pre-eminent jazz singer. National recognition was slower to come, though she always received the praise of her peers. For twenty years, King was known as an underground classic-a supremely talented vocalist whose strict adherence to straightahead jazz and independent attitude at times got in the way of national tours and higher visibility. By the end of the 1990s, however, King had become one of the leading jazz singers in the world. If one had to choose a single musician to represent the history of jazz in Portland, it would be drummer and bandleader Mel Brown. One of the most active, influential, and respected artists in the area jazz scene since the 1970s, Brown's roots are in Portland's historic jazz district that flourished along Williams Avenue in the 1940s and 1950s. Just as he was brought into jazz as a teenager, he helps train and nurture later generations of musicians. Though he spent only the last thirteen years of a long career in Portland, celebrated bassist Leroy Vinnegar became a central figure in the local jazz scene. In 1995, the Oregon legislature honored his contributions to the cultural life of the state by designating May 1 as Leroy Vinnegar Day. The Leroy Vinnegar Jazz Institute at Portland State University was named in his honor, and in 1998, Vinnegar became the first member of the Jazz Society of Oregon's Hall of Fame.

Esperanza Spalding's fierce talent in double bass and vocal work earned her a Grammy in 2011 for Best New Artist, making her the first jazz musician and one of only four Oregonians to ever win that award. She won three more Grammys in 2013 and 2014, one of them shared with her mentor, Portland jazz trumpeter Thara Memory. Not only did Spalding master singing while playing bass, but she also distinguished herself as a woman in the male-dominated jazz genre within the even narrower pool of female double bass players. During more than thirty years on the Portland jazz scene, singer and bassist Marianne Mayfield was a rare female instrumentalist in a male-dominated jazz world and was proud of her place in it. "I'm grateful for...the fact that I have enjoyed the respect of my contemporaries, the musicians, the guys. Not as a woman but as a musician and as a person," she said in a 1985 interview. It is unusual for musicians to achieve the respect of peers and professional success in more than one field. Pianist, music director, educator, and composer Janice Scroggins did. Between her arrival in Portland in 1979 and her death at age fifty-eight in 2014, she played a central role in the blues, gospel, and jazz communities. Such a wide scope was possible for the Oklahoma native due to her command of the common elements underlying those styles.

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This Month in Oregon History: Black History Month

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Want to learn about Oregon History every day? Like The OE Facebook and Twitter pages to see our daily history posts. Blacks in Oregon Black Exclusion Laws Holmes v. Ford On April 16, 1852, a former slave named Robin Holmes filed suit against his white former owner, Nathaniel Ford, in the only slavery case adjudicated in an Oregon court.

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History of Civil Rights Movement including 13-15th Amendments 

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History of Civil Rights Movement including 13-15th Amendments 

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The African-American Civil Rights Movement was a group of social movements in the United States. Their goal was to gain equal civil rights for African-American people. The word "African-American" was not used at the time, so the movement was usually called The Civil Rights Movement. This article talks about the part of the movement that lasted from about 1954 to 1968.

However, the Civil Rights Movement was made up of many different people and groups. Not everyone believed the same things. For example, the Black Power movement believed black people should demand their civil rights and force white leaders to give them those rights by using violence.

The Civil Rights Movement was also made of people of different races and religions. The Movement's leaders and most of its activists were African-American. However, the Movement got political and financial support from labor unions, religious groups, and some white politicians, like Lyndon B. Johnson.

Before the Civil Rights Movement

After the Civil War, the United States government passed three Constitutional amendments:

In the South

Starting in 1890, Southern Democrats began to pass state laws that took away the rights African Americans had gained. These racist laws became known as Jim Crow laws. For example, they included:

Laws that made it impossible for black people to vote (this is called disenfranchisement). Since they could not vote, black people also could not be on juries.

Laws that required racial segregation - separation of black people and white people. For example, black people could not:

Go to the same schools, restaurants, or hospitals as white people.

Use the same bathrooms or drink from the same water fountains as white people.

Sit in front of white people on buses.

In 1896, the United States Supreme Court ruled in a case called Plessy v. Ferguson that these laws were legal. They said that having things be " separate but equal" was fine. In the South, everything was separate. However, places like black schools and libraries got much less money and were not as good as places for white people. Things were separate, but not equal.

Violence against black people increased. Individuals, groups, and huge crowds of people could hurt or even kill African Americans, without the government trying to stop them or punishing them.

Across the United States

Problems were worst in the South. However, social discrimination affected African Americans in other areas as well.

Segregation in housing was a problem across the United States. Many African Americans could not get mortgages to buy houses. Some realtors would not sell black people houses in the suburbs, where white people lived. They also would not rent apartments in white areas. Until the 1950s, the federal government did nothing about this.

When he was elected in 1913, President Woodrow Wilson made government offices segregated. He believed that segregation was best for everyone.

Early activism

African Americans tried to fight back against discrimination in many ways. They formed new groups and tried to form labor unions. They tried to use the courts to get justice. For example, in 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was created. It fought to end race discrimination through lawsuits, education, and lobbying.

However, eventually, many African Americans became frustrated and began to dislike the idea of using slow, legal strategies to achieve desegregation. Instead, African American activists decided to use a combination of protests, nonviolence, and civil disobedience. This is how the African-American Civil Rights Movement of 1954-1968 began.

Photo gallery

Important events

Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

Schools in the South, and some other parts of the country, had been segregated since 1896. In that year, the Supreme Court had ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that segregation was legal, as long as things were "separate but equal."

The lawsuit eventually went to the United States Supreme Court. After years of work, Thurgood Marshall and a team of other NAACP lawyers won the case. The Supreme Court ruled that segregated schools were illegal. All nine Supreme Court judges agreed.

In their decision, the Court said:

We conclude that, in ... public education, the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.

This was the Civil Rights Movement's first major victory. However, Brown did not reverse Plessy v. Ferguson. Brown made segregation in schools illegal, but segregation in other places was still legal.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-1956)

On December 1, 1955, local black leader Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a public bus to make room for a white passenger. Black people were not allowed to sit on the bus in front of white people, and if a white person got on the bus and there were no seats available, a black person was expected to give up their seat. Parks was a civil rights activist and NAACP member; she had just returned from training on nonviolent civil disobedience. She was arrested.

De-segregating Little Rock Central High School (1957)

In 1957, the NAACP had signed up nine African American students (called the " Little Rock Nine") to go to Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Before this, only white people were allowed at the school. However, the Little Rock School Board had agreed to follow the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education and de-segregate its schools.

Unfortunately, the Little Rock Nine were treated very badly by many of the white students at the school. At the end of the school year, Little Rock Central High School closed so it would not have to allow black students the next year. Other schools across the South did the same thing.

Sit-ins (1958-1960)

Between 1958 and 1960, activists used sit-ins to protest segregation at lunch counters (small restaurants inside stores). They would sit at the lunch counter and politely ask to buy some food. When they were told to leave, they would continue to sit quietly at the counter. Often they would stay until the lunch counter closed. Groups of activists would keep coming back to sit in at the same places until those places agreed to serve African Americans at their lunch counters.

The sit-ins even got the support of President Eisenhower. After the Greensboro sit-ins started, he said he was "deeply sympathetic with the efforts of any group to enjoy the rights of equality that they are guaranteed by the Constitution."

In April 1960, students who had led sit-ins were invited to a conference. At the conference, they decided to form the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). SNCC would become an important group in the civil rights movement.

Freedom Rides (1961)

In 1960, the Supreme Court ruled in Boynton v. Virginia that it was illegal to segregate people on public transportation that was going from one state to another. In 1961, student activists decided to test whether the Southern states would follow this ruling. Groups of black and white activists decided to ride buses through the South, sitting together instead of segregating themselves. They planned to ride buses from Washington, D.C., to New Orleans, Louisiana. They called these rides the "Freedom Rides."

The Freedom Riders were met with danger and violence. For example:

One bus in Alabama was firebombed, and the Freedom Riders had to run for their lives.

In Birmingham, Alabama, Public Safety Commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor let Ku Klux Klan members attack the Freedom Riders for 15 minutes before the police "protected" them. The Riders were badly beaten, and one needed 50 stitches in his head.

In Montgomery, Alabama, the Freedom Riders were attacked by a mob (a large, angry group) of white people. This caused a huge riot that lasted two hours. Five Freedom Riders needed to go to the hospital, and 22 others were hurt.

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) brought in more Freedom Riders to keep the movement going.

In Montgomery, another mob attacked a bus. They knocked one activist unconscious and knocked another's teeth out.

In Jackson, Mississippi, the Freedom Riders were arrested for using "white only" bathrooms and lunch counters.

New Freedom Riders joined the movement. When they arrived in Jackson, they were arrested also. By the end of the summer, more than 300 had been put in jail.

However, people around the country began to support the Freedom Riders, who had never used violence, even when being attacked. Eventually, Robert Kennedy, the Attorney General in his brother John F. Kennedy's government, insisted on a new law about de-segregation. It said that:

People could sit wherever they chose on buses.

There could be no "white" and "colored" signs in bus stations.

There could be no separate drinking fountains, toilets, or waiting rooms for white people and black people.

Lunch counters had to serve people of all races.

Voter registration (1961-1965)

Between 1961 and 1965, activist groups worked on trying to get black people registered (signed up) to vote. Since the end of Reconstruction, the Southern states had passed laws and used many strategies to keep black people from registering to vote. Often, these laws did not apply to white people.

Meanwhile, black people who tried to register to vote were fired from their jobs, thrown out of their homes, beaten, arrested, threatened, and sometimes murdered.

In 1964, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. It made discrimination illegal and specifically said it was illegal to have different voter registration requirements for different races.

Integrating Mississippi universities (1956-1965)

Kennard was arrested twice for crimes he never committed. He died of colon cancer in prison. Later, in 2006, a court ruled that Kennard was innocent of the crimes for which he had been sent to jail.

In September 1962, James Meredith won a lawsuit that gave him the right to go to the University of Mississippi. He tried three times to get into the university to sign up for classes. Governor Ross Barnett blocked Meredith each time. He told Meredith: "[N]o school will be integrated in Mississippi while I am your Governor."

Meredith and other activists kept working on de-segregating public universities. In 1965, the first two African American students were able to go to the University of Southern Mississippi.

Birmingham Campaign (1963)

The activists used a few different non-violent ways of protesting, including sit-ins, "kneel-ins" at local churches, and marches. However, the city got a court order saying all protests like this were illegal. The activists knew this was illegal, and in an act of civil disobedience, they refused to follow the court order. The protesters, including Martin Luther King, were arrested.

While in jail, King was held in solitary confinement. While there, he wrote his famous " Letter from Birmingham Jail." He was let go after about a week.

The Children's Crusade

One of SCLC's leaders came up with the idea of training college, high school, and elementary school students to take part in the protests. He reasoned that students did not have full-time jobs to go to, they did not have families to take care of, and they could "afford" to be in jail more than their parents.

Newsweek magazine later named this plan the " Children's Crusade." On May 2, more than 600 students, including some as young as 8 years old, tried to march from a local church to City Hall. They were all arrested. The next day, another 1,000 students started to march. Bull Connor let police dogs loose to attack them and used fire hoses to knock down the students. Reporters were there, and videos and pictures showing the violence were shown on television and printed across the country.

People throughout the United States were so angry at seeing these videos that President Kennedy worked with the SCLC and the white businesses in Birmingham to work out an agreement. It said:

Lunch counters and other public places downtown would be de-segregated.

They would create a committee to figure out how to stop discrimination in hiring.

All jailed protesters would be let go (labor unions like the AFL-CIO had helped raise bail money).

Black and white leaders would communicate regularly.

On September 15, 1963, the Ku Klux Klan bombed a church in Birmingham, where civil rights activists often met before starting their marches. Since it was a Sunday, church services were going on. The bomb killed four young girls and hurt 22 other people.

"Rising tide of discontent" (1963)

During the spring and summer of 1963, there were protests in over a hundred United States cities, including Northern cities. There were riots in Chicago after a white police officer shot a 14-year-old black boy who was running away from the scene of a robbery. In Philadelphia and Harlem, black activists and white workers fought when the activists tried to integrate state-run construction projects. On June 6, over a thousand white people attacked a sit-in in North Carolina; black activists fought back, and a white man was killed.

In Cambridge, Maryland, white leaders declared martial law to stop fighting between black people and white people. Attorney General Robert Kennedy had to get involved to create an agreement to desegregate the city.

Meanwhile, the Kennedy government had become very worried. Black leaders had told Robert Kennedy that it was getting harder and harder for African Americans to be nonviolent when they were getting attacked, and when it was taking so long for the United States government to help them get their civil rights. On the evening of June 11, President Kennedy gave a speech about civil rights. He talked about "a rising tide of discontent (unhappiness) that threatens the public safety." He asked Congress to pass new civil rights laws. He also asked Americans to support civil rights as "a moral issue ... in our daily lives."

In the early morning of June 12, Medgar Evers, a leader of the Mississippi NAACP, was murdered by a Ku Klux Klan member. The next week, President Kennedy gave Congress his Civil Rights bill and asked them to make it into law.

The March on Washington (1963)

In 1963, civil rights leaders planned a protest march in Washington, D.C. The march's full name was "The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom." The goal of the march was to get the same rights for all people: black and white.

Many people thought it would be impossible for so many activists to come together without violence and rioting. The United States government got 19,000 soldiers ready nearby, in case of riots. Hospitals got ready to treat huge numbers of injured people. The government made selling alcohol in Washington, D.C. illegal for the day.

Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke last. His speech, called " I Have a Dream," became one of history's most famous civil rights speeches.

Historians have said that the March on Washington helped get President Kennedy's civil rights bill passed.

Malcolm X joins the movement (1964)

However, in March 1964, Malcolm X was kicked out of the Nation of Islam because he had disagreements with the group's leader, Elijah Muhammad. He offered to work with other civil rights groups if they accepted that black people had the right to defend themselves.

Malcolm met with Martin Luther King, Jr. on March 26, 1964. Malcolm had a plan to bring the United States before the United Nations on charges that the U.S. violated African Americans' human rights. Dr. King may have been planning to support this.

Between 1963 and 1964, civil rights activists got angrier and more likely to fight back. In April 1964, Malcolm gave a famous speech called "The Ballot or the Bullet." ("The ballot" means "voting.") In the speech, he said that if the U.S. government is "unwilling or unable to defend the lives and the property of Negroes," then African Americans should defend themselves. He warned politicians that many African Americans were not willing "to turn the other cheek any longer." Then he warned America about what would happen if black people were not allowed to vote:

Mississippi Freedom Summer (1964)

In the summer of 1964, civil rights groups brought almost 1,000 activists to Mississippi. Most of them were white college students. Their goals were to work together with black activists to register voters, and to teach summer school to black children in "Freedom Schools." They also wanted to help create the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP).

Many white Mississippians were angry that people from other states were coming in and trying to change their society. They tried to keep black people from registering to vote.

During Freedom Summer, activists set up at least 30 Freedom Schools and taught about 3,500 students. The students included children, adults, and the elderly. The schools taught about many things like black history, civil rights, politics, the freedom movement, and the basic reading and writing skills needed to vote.

Also during the summer, about 17,000 black Mississippians tried to register to vote. Only 1,600 were able to. However, more than 80,000 joined the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). This showed that they wanted to vote and take part in politics, not just let white people do it for them.

Civil Rights Act of 1964

John F. Kennedy's suggested civil rights bill had support from Northern members of Congress - both Democrats and Republicans. However, Southern Senators blocked the suggested law from passing. They filibustered for 54 days to block the bill from becoming a law. Finally, President Lyndon B. Johnson got a bill to pass.

On July 2, 1964, Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The law said:

It was illegal to discriminate against people in public places or jobs because of their race, skin color, religion, sex, or home country.

If places broke the law, the Attorney General could file lawsuits against them to force them to follow the law.

Any state or local laws that made it legal to discriminate in public places or jobs were no longer legal.

King awarded Nobel Peace Prize (1964)

In December 1964, Martin Luther King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. When giving him the award, the Chairman of the Nobel Committee said:

Today, now that mankind [has] the atom bomb, the time has come to lay our weapons and armaments aside and listen to the message Martin Luther King has given us: "The choice is either nonviolence or nonexistence"...[King] is the first person in the Western world to have shown us that a struggle can be [fought] without violence. He is the first to make the message of brotherly love a reality in the course of his struggle, and he has brought this message to all men, to all nations and races.

Selma to Montgomery Marches (1965)

In January 1965, Martin Luther King and the SCLC went to Selma, Alabama. Civil rights groups there had asked them to come help get black people registered to vote. At the time, 99% of the people registered to vote in Selma were white. Together, they started working on voting rights.

The SCLC was worried that people would be angry about the violence against black people, and they organized a 54- mile (87- kilometer) march. Activists hoped the march would show how badly African-Americans wanted to vote. They also wanted to show that they would not let racism or violence stop them from getting equal rights.

The marches took place between March 7 and 25. Sadly, many were injured or killed. The first day of the march came to be known as Bloody Sunday. Pictures and film of the marchers being beaten were shown in newspapers and on television around the world. Seeing these things made more people support the civil rights activists. People came from all over the United States to march with the activists.

After the march, Viola Liuzzo, a white woman from Detroit, drove some other marchers to the airport. While she was driving back, she was murdered by three members of the Ku Klux Klan.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965

On August 6, 1965, the United States passed the Voting Rights Act. This law made it illegal to stop somebody from voting because of their race. This meant that all the state laws that kept black people from voting were now illegal. The Voting Rights Act also said that if a registrar discriminated against black people, the Attorney General could send federal workers to replace local registrars.

The law worked right away. Within a few months, 250,000 new black voters had signed up to vote. Politics in the South were completely changed by African Americans having the power to vote. White politicians could no longer make laws about African Americans without black people having a say. Also, black people who were registered to vote could be on juries. Before this, any time an African American was charged with a crime, the jury that decided whether they were guilty would be all-white.

Fair housing movements (1966-1968)

From 1966 to 1968, the civil rights movement focused a lot on fair housing. Even outside the South, fair housing was a problem.

Activists, including Martin Luther King, led a movement for fair housing in Chicago in 1966. The next year, young NAACP members did the same in Milwaukee. Activists in both cities got attacked physically by white homeowners and legally by politicians who supported segregation.

The Fair Housing Bill

Of all the civil rights laws passed during the Civil Rights Movement, the Fair Housing Act was the hardest to pass. The law would make discrimination in housing illegal. This meant black people would be allowed to move into white neighborhoods. As Senator Walter Mondale said: "This was civil rights getting personal."

Many in Congress thought the bill gave too much power to black people. They wanted to weaken the bill. However, on April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King was murdered. This made many members of Congress feel like they needed to do something about civil rights quickly. The day after Dr. King's murder, Senator Mondale stood in front of the Senate and asked them to immediately pass the bill and move quickly to provide housing and job opportunities for black people.

On April 10, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1968. President Johnson signed the law the next day. Part of the law is called the "Fair Housing Act." It makes it illegal to discriminate in selling, renting, or lending money for housing based on a person's race, skin color, religion, or home country.

The King assassination and the Poor People's Campaign (1968)

In 1968, Martin Luther King and the SCLC were planning the Poor People's Campaign. People of all races took part in the movement. The movement's goal was to decrease poverty for people of all races.

Civil rights leader Ralph Abernathy continued the Poor People's Campaign after King's death. About 3,000 activists camped out on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., for about six weeks.

The day before Dr. King's funeral, his wife, Coretta Scott King, and three of their children led 20,000 marchers through Memphis. Soldiers protected the marchers. On April 9, Mrs. King led another 150,000 people through Atlanta during Dr. King's funeral. An old, wooden wagon, pulled by mules, pulled Dr. King's casket. The wagon was a symbol of Dr. King's Poor People's Campaign.

Mrs. King once said:

[Martin Luther King, Jr.] gave his life for the poor of the world, the garbage workers of Memphis, and the peasants of Vietnam. The day that Negro people and others in bondage are truly free, on the day want is abolished, on the day wars are no more, on that day I know my husband will rest in a long-deserved peace.

Many people were killed during the Civil Rights Movement. Some were killed because they supported civil rights. Others were killed by the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) or other racist white people who wanted to terrorize black people. No one knows just how many people were killed during the Civil Rights Movement.

Key facts about the Civil Rights Movement

The Civil Rights Movement in the United States was begun because African American people did not have the same rights as those who had lighter skin. The goal of the movement was to let every person have the same (equal) rights.

The movement is famous for using non-violent protests and civil disobedience to get attention.

The Civil Rights Movement was made up of activists that were from different races and religions.

Before the Civil war, there were many black slaves in the United States.

In the South, Democrats did not support civil rights for black people. They started passing laws that took away the rights that African Americans had gained. These became known as Jim Crow laws.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was formed in 1909 and used the law to try to regain rights for African Americans.

In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled that it was illegal for schools to be segregated. Until then, black children in the Democrat-run southern states were not allowed to go to the same schools as white children.

Activists in the 1950s and 1960s banded together to get the attention of lawmakers by organizing events like a bus boycott, sit-ins, freedom rides, the children's crusade, and the march on Washington.

Martin Luther King and Malcolm X joined the movement and became famous for the ways they helped the Civil Rights Movement.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a major victory for all African Americans. It stated that it was illegal to discriminate against people in public places or jobs because of their race, skin color, religion, sex, or home country.

The Civil Rights Movement was successful. It helped change both laws and the way many white people felt about the way black people were treated.

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The African-American Civil Rights Movement was a group of social movements in the United States. Their goal was to gain equal civil rights for African-American people. The word "African-American" was not used at the time, so the movement was usually called The Civil Rights Movement.

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Important Dates and People in Civil Rights Movement

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Important Dates and People in Civil Rights Movement

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Timeline and facts about Civil Rights Movement

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Timeline and facts about Civil Rights Movement

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History >> Civil Rights for Kids

African-American Civil Rights Movement

March on Washington Aug 28, 1963
from the United States Information Agency

The African-American Civil Rights Movement was an ongoing fight for racial equality that took place for over 100 years after the Civil War. Leaders such asMartin Luther King, Jr., Booker T. Washington, and Rosa Parks paved the way for non-violent protests which led to changes in the law. When most people talk about the "Civil Rights Movement" they are talking about the protests in the 1950s and 1960s that led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Background

The Civil Rights Movement has its background in the abolitionist movement before theCivil War. Abolitionists were people that thought slavery was morally wrong and wanted it to come to an end. Before the Civil War, many of the northern states had outlawed slavery. During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln freed the enslaved with the Emancipation Proclamation. After the war, slavery was made illegal with the thirteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Segregation and the Jim Crow Laws

Jim Crow Drinking Fountain
by John Vachon

After the Civil War, many southern states continued to treat African-Americans as second class citizens. They implemented laws that kept black people separate from white people. These laws became known as Jim Crow laws. They required separate schools, restaurants, restrooms, and transportation based on the color of a person's skin. Other laws prevented many black people from voting.

Early Protests

In the early 1900s, black people began to protest the Jim Crow laws that southern states were implementing to enforce segregation. Several African-American leaders such as W.E.B. Du Bois and Ida B. Wells joined together to found the NAACP in 1909. Another leader, Booker T. Washington, helped to form schools to educate African-Americans in order to improve their status in society.

The Movement Grows

The civil rights movement gained momentum in the 1950s when theSupreme Court ruled that segregation in schools was illegal in the case of Brown v. Board of Education. Federal troops were brought in to Little Rock, Arkansas to allow the Little Rock Nine to attend a previously all white high school.

Major Events in the Movement

The 1950's and early 1960's brought about several major events in the fight for the civil rights of African-Americans. In 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested for not giving up her seat on the bus to a white passenger. This sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott which lasted for over a year and brought Martin Luther King, Jr. to the forefront of the movement. King led a number of non-violent protests including the Birmingham Campaign and the March on Washington.

Lyndon Johnson signing Civil Rights Act
by Cecil Stoughton

Civil Rights Act of 1964

In 1964, the Civil Rights Act was signed into law byPresident Lyndon Johnson. This act outlawed segregation and the Jim Crow laws of the south. It also outlawed discrimination based on race, national background, and gender. Although there were still many issues, this law gave the NAACP and other organizations a strong base on which to fight discrimination in the courts.

Voting Rights Act of 1965

In 1965, another law was passed called the Voting Rights Act. This law said that citizens could not be denied the right to vote based on their race. It outlawed literacy tests (a requirement that people be able to read) and poll taxes (a fee that people had to pay to vote).

Interesting Facts about the African-American Civil Rights Movement

The Civil Rights Act was originally proposed by President John F. Kennedy.

The 1968 Civil Rights Act, also known as the Fair Housing Act, outlawed discrimination in the selling or renting of housing.

The National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee was once the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot and killed in 1968.

Today, African-Americans have been elected or appointed to the highest positions in the U.S. government including Secretary of State (Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice) and President (Barack Obama).

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Civil Rights Leaders

Overview Works Cited

History >> Civil Rights for Kids

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Kids learn about the history of the African-American Civil Rights Movement including segregation, Jim Crow laws, protests, Martin Luther King, and the passage of the Civil Rights Act.

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Important People In the Civil Rights Movement

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Important People In the Civil Rights Movement

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Kids learn about the history of civil rights in the United States. Educational articles for teachers, students, and schools including civil rights leaders, movements, timelines, glossary, and major events. What are civil rights and why are they important?

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Racial Justice | American Civil Liberties Union

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The Racial Justice Program (RJP) fights to eradicate racial injustice in the U.S. and works to foster a society in which people of color and communities of color have full access to the rights and benefits of American society. Working with affected communities, RJP litigates, advocates, and educates…

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Martin Luther King facts | National Geographic Kids

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Learn about the world-famous civil rights campaigner in our Martin Luther King facts. Born in Atlanta, Georgia in the United States of America, Martin Luther King is famous for campaigning for the rights of African Americans during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s and his assassination in 1968...

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Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was one of the leading men involved in the civil rights movement.

He was a Baptist Minister and most well-known for following Mahatma Gandhi's belief of non-violent protest.

King was involved in many of the social and political activist movements from the mid 1950's until the day he was assassinated in 1968.

Martin Luther King Jr. born and raised

He was born in 1922 in Atlanta, Georgia and was from a family that had its roots in the country areas of Georgia; and his father and father-in-law had been ministers in the local church.

He and his father adopted the name of 'Martin Luther' to honor the German protestor that established the Protestant religion.

King's family environment discouraged any prejudice based on race, religion or economic situation.

These lessons would be the founding base for King's beliefs for the rest of his life.

What school did Martin Luther King Jr go to?

By 1944, King attended Moorehouse College an early-admission student at the age of 15 and then Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania.

He was considered to be a good student, but rebelled against what he thought was the more conservative religious attitude of his father.

A friend of his father, theologian Reinhold Niebbuhr, became the single individual that had the most influence over King's growing spiritual and intellectual development.

King was accepted by a number of colleges and universities for his doctoral study which included Yale and Scotland's Edinburgh; he chose to go to Boston University.

He graduated when he was 25 years old and became pastor of a Montgomery, Alabama church.

Rosa Parks

December 1, 1955 was the date that Rosa Parks, a Black American woman, refused to give up her seat to a white person and was arrested.

The segregation and prejudice of the time was bad and the local chapter of the NAACP met with King and other community members to arrange a boycott of the bus system.

King was elected to speak to the community and this speech started his career on the road to the many protests against unfair situations.

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

The success of King's reception and his ability to speak to the people led him and others to form the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Their purpose was to address unfair practices for the Black American community and other race-related topics. He traveled all over the country preaching reform and especially non-violent protest.

Martin Luther King Arrested

Dr. King encouraged and participated all types of non-violent protest efforts including 'sit-ins' at lunch rooms where the black and whites were separated.

Returning to Atlanta, he took over his father's church, and continued to support civil rights.

He was arrested in 1960 when he and 75 other Black Americans entered a department store and requested service at the lunch counter and were denied due to their race.

They continued to sit until the time they were arrested.

The story was brought to the attention of the then candidate for President, John F. Kennedy, who called King's wife and expressed concern for the treatment.

What happened in Birmingham Alabama 1963?

In 1963 King organized a demonstration in Birmingham, Alabama.

Police turned fire hoses on the demonstrators and the attention for mistreatment became nationwide.

King was arrested along with a number of other people and it was from his jail cell that he announced the nonviolent way to achieve success:

"Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community, which has constantly refused to negotiate, is forced to confront the issue."

I Have a Dream Speech

King worked with others to organize a massive 1963 demonstration to Washington, D.C. Over 200,000 people showed up and it was there, at the podium, that Dr. King gave his famous "I have a dream" speech.

Tensions were mounting in cities and towns across the country and it became obvious that change in discrimination had to occur.

Dr. King's actions helped the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and Dr. King received the Nobel Peace Prize.

What happened on Bloody Sunday in Selma?

While Dr. King always asked for nonviolence and peaceful protest, violence broke out in Selma, Alabama during Civil Rights march.

This horrible situation became known as "Bloody Sunday" and while Dr. King wasn't there, the nation watched as police turned violent against the demonstrators.

By the time a third march was planned, Dr. King knew they couldn't violate the restraining order that had been set in place, so instead, white and black demonstrators marched to the Pettus Bridge where the barricades had been set in place and everyone kneeled in prayer.

They then turned and walked away.

His point had been made at the bridge, without violence, but some of the less patient younger supporters began to shy away from these kinds of tactics. Dr. King made the decision to extend the protests to include the Vietnam War.

The unpopular and politically motivated war was taking American lives and many across the country was in opposition to it.

He added additional positions to address the poor and unemployed.

In 1968, Dr. King was frustrated with the slow movement of civil rights and equality and was attempting to broaden the range of programs that he wanted to address in the hope that it would attract leaders that would take action.

Martin Luther King Assassination

On Thursday, April 4th, 1968, while standing on a balcony at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, he was killed by a sniper bullet from James Earl Ray who was a former convict.

King's last words were to musician Ben Branch, "Ben, make sure you play 'Take My Hand, Precious Lord' in the meeting tonight. Play it real pretty."

James Earl Ray was later sentenced to 99 years' imprisonment for the murder of Dr. King.

Facts about Martin Luther King

Born January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia

His birth name was Michael, not Martin

He went to Booker T. Washington High School

He started his college education at Morehouse College in 1944

Arrested on Oct 19 1960 at Atlanta sit-in

The civil rights leader went to jail 29 times

Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.

Assassinated On Thursday, April 4th, 1968

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is a national holiday held on the third Monday of each January.

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Martin Luther King, Jr. was one of the leading men involved in the civil rights movement. He was a Baptist Minister and most well-known for following Mahatma Gandhi's belief of non-violent protest. King was involved in many of the social and political activist movements from the mid 1950's until the day he was assassinated in ...

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Kids learn about Martin Luther King, Jr.'s biography. A great civil rights leader.

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Good Biography Article

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A hero is born

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1929. At the time in that part of the country, segregation-or the separation of races in places like schools, buses, and restaurants-was the law. He experienced racial predjudice from the time he was very young, which inspired him to dedicate his life to achieving equality and justice for Americans of all colors. King believed that peaceful refusal to obey unjust law was the best way to bring about social change.

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Civil Rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., never backed down in his stand against racism. Learn more about the life of this courageous hero who inspired millions of people to right a historical wrong.

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Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr: Biography for ... - SafeShare.tv

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Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, was a famous Civil Rights leader, pastor, and humanitarian. He is best known for his peaceful, nonviolent protests and speeches calling for change! This kid-friendly video is filled with facts and information about Martin Luther King Jr. and his life.

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Ruby Bridges and the Civil Rights Movement Slide Show for Grades 3-8 | Scholastic

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Pictures of Ruby Bridges and the civil rights movement help tell the story of what Ruby did and some of the ways in which her world was different than the one we live in

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Big Decisions for Melba Pattillo and Integration | The Melba Pattillo Story | Scholastic.com

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Read about Melba Pattillo's decision to attend the all-white Central High School in Little Rock, after the Supreme Court rules that separate public schools are illegal. Students have the opportunity to share their feelings and explore links to related resources.

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On Thursday evening December 1, 1955, after a long day of work as a seamstress for a Montgomery, Alabama, department store, Rosa Parks boards a city bus to go home.

Tired as she is, Mrs. Parks walks past the first few — mostly empty — rows of seats marked "Whites Only." It's against the law for an African American like her to sit in these seats. She finally settles for a spot in the middle of the bus. Black people are allowed to sit in this section as long as no white person is standing. Though Rosa Parks hates the segregation laws, and has been fighting for civil rights at the NAACP for more than 10 years, until today she has never been one to break rules.

The bus continues along its route. After several more stops the bus is full. The driver notices that all the seats in the "Whites Only" section are now taken, and that more white people have just climbed aboard. He orders the people in Mrs. Parks's row to move to the back of the bus, where there are no open seats. No one budges at first. But when the driver barks at the black passengers a second time, they all get up. . . except for Rosa Parks.

QUESTIONS FOR ROSA PARKS
Was Rosa Parks nervous standing her ground? Find out from Mrs. Parks herself! She explains how she felt on the bus that day in her interview.

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Rosa Parks Refuses to Give Up Her Seat | How Rosa Parks Fought for Civil Rights | Scholastic.com

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On Thursday evening December 1, 1955, after a long day of work as a seamstress for a Montgomery, Alabama, department store, Rosa Parks boards a city bus to go home. Tired as she is, Mrs. Parks walks past the first few - mostly empty - rows of seats marked "Whites Only."

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King's "I Have a Dream" Speech

Freedom's Ring is Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, animated. Here you can compare the written and spoken speech, explore multimedia images, listen to movement activists, and uncover historical context. Fifty years ago, as the culminating address of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, King demanded the riches of freedom and the security of justice. Today, his language of love, nonviolent direct action, and redemptive suffering resonates globally in the millions who stand up for freedom together and elevate democracy to its ideals. How do the echoes of King's Dream live within you?

Credits & Acknowledgements

Director, Art and Content: Evan Bissell
Design and Programming: Erik Loyer
Content, Curriculum Design and Project Coordinator: Andrea McEvoy Spero
Project Advisor: Clayborne Carson
Video: Owen Bissell
Project Administration: Regina Covington

Freedom's Ring is a project of The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University in collaboration with Beacon Press's King Legacy Series.

We extend our deep appreciation to the many people whose work and lives contributed to Freedom's Ring. Thank you to the interviewees: Aldo Billingslea, Clayborne Carson, Dorothy Cotton, Miriam Glickman, Kazu Haga, Bruce Hartford, Ericka Huggins, Clarence B. Jones, Kim Nalley, Wazir Peacock, and Marcus Shelby.

Thank you to Tenisha Armstrong. Her dedication and tireless efforts in editing Dr. King's papers allow us to make this history available to teachers and students.

Thank you to the many photographers whose work has inspired much of this project and allowed these important histories to continue. We have made our best efforts to credit these photographers. They include: Bob Adelman, Eve Arnold, George Ballis, Martha Cooper, Benedict Fernandez, Bob Fitch, Declan Haun, Matt Herron, John Loengard, Danny Lyon, Spider Martin, Charles Moore/Black Star, Herbert Randall, Steve Schapiro, Flip Schulke, Maria Varela, and Tamio Wakayama.

Thank you to David Stein for his invaluable contributions and conversations about this history. Thanks to Lucas Guilkey for his work on the videos, Ming-kuo Hung for editing support, and Naomi Wilson for her comments on content.

Thanks to Beacon Press for editing support.

Thanks to Headlands Center for the Arts for the time and space to finish the project.

The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute Staff:

Clayborne Carson
Director

Tenisha Armstrong
Associate Director and Editor of the King Papers Project

Regina Covington
Administrator

Andrea McEvoy Spero
Director of Education

Clarence B. Jones
Scholar in Residence

Susan Carson
Editorial Consultant

Stacey Zwald
Assistant Editor

Dave Beals
Research Assistant

Video hosting by Critical Commons
Content management by Scalar,
a project of the Alliance for Networking Visual Culture

Works Cited

Baldwin, James. The Fire Next Time. New York: Dell, 1985. Print.

Branch, Taylor. Parting the Waters: America in the King years, 1954-63. New York : Simon and Schuster, 1988. Print.

Carson, Clayborne, eds. The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.. New York: Intellectual Properties Management; Warner Books, 1998. Print.

Freed, Leonard. This Is the Day: The March on Washington. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2013. Print.

Hansen, Drew D.. The Dream: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Speech that Inspired a Nation. New York : Ecco. 2003. Print.

Johnson, Charles and Bob Adelman. King: The Photobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. New York : Viking, 2000. Print.

Jones, Clarence B. and Stuart Connelly. Behind the Dream: The Making of the Speech that Transformed a Nation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Print.

Jones, William P.. The March on Washington: Jobs, Freedom and the Forgotten History of Civil Rights. New York : W.W. Norton, 2013. Print.

Jones, William P. and Labor and Working-Class History Association. "The Unknown Origins of the March on Washington: Civil Rights Politics and the Black Working Class." Labor: Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas 7.3 (2010). Print.

Kasher, Steven. The Civil Rights Movement: A Photographic History, 1954-68. New York: Abbeville, 1996. Print.

Katznelson, Ira. Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time. New York: Liveright, 2013. Print.

Kelen, Leslie G., eds. This Light of Ours: Activist Photographers of the Civil Rights Movement. Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, 2011. Print.

LaFayette, Jr., Bernard and David C. Jehnsen. The Nonviolence Briefing Booklet: A 2-Day Orientation to Kingian Nonviolence Conflict Reconciliation. 1995. Galena: Institute for Human Rights and Responsibilities. 2007. Print.

Le Blanc, Paul. "Freedom Budget: The Promise of the Civil Rights Movement for Economic Justice." WorkingUSA: The Journal of Labor & Society 16 (2013), 43-58. Print.

Levine, Ellen. Freedom's Children : Young Civil Rights Activists Tell Their Own Stories. New York : Putnam, 1993. Print.

Lewis, John and Michael D'Orso. Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1998. Print.

Sundquist, Eric J.. King's Dream. New Haven : Yale University, 2009. Print.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Freedom's Ring is Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, animated. Here you can compare the written and spoken speech, explore multimedia images, listen to movement activists, and uncover historical context. Fifty years ago, as the culminating address of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, King demanded the riches of freedom and the security of justice.