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Brown v. Board of Education [Dec 9, 1952-May 17 1954]

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Brown v. Board of Education [Dec 9, 1952-May 17 1954]

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On Dec 9, 1952, Thurgood Marshall (an African American lawyer from Baltimore) challenged the Supreme Court, with other lawyers apart of the NAACP, on the legality of segregation in public education. The decision of the Chief of Justice (Earl Warren) and the Supreme Court declared “In the field of public education the doctrine of separate but equal has no place”.

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Pete Hernandez was a Mexican-American, cotton picker, who was accused of murdering Joe Espinoza and was sentenced to life in prison. Gus Garcia, Carlos Cadena, and James de Anda were civil rights lawyers that took the Hernadez case to the United States Supreme Court on May 2, 1954. The Hernadez case’s lawyers said that “the all Anglo-Saxon jury, which indicted Hernandez, denied him his equal protection under the 14th Amendment”. After multiple attempts by jury, “They indicted and imprisoned him for murder”. Now there only remains very few documents on the case, due to most either being hidden or vanished. To this day Hernadez v. Texas has been the only Mexican-American civil-rights case heard.

Sources;
https://guides.loc.gov/latinx-civil-rights/hernandez-v-texas

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Montgomery Bus Boycott [Dec 5, 1955-Dec 20, 1956]

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Montgomery Bus Boycott [Dec 5, 1955-Dec 20, 1956]

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On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, boarded a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, and took her seat. Many stops later a white passenger asked her to give up her seat, due to the law in Montgomery stating African Americans were required to give up their seat to a white person. Rosa Parks refused and thus was later arrested due to breaking the law. She said to the police “I told them I didn’t think I should have to stand up after I paid my fare and occupied a seat, I didn’t think I should have to give it up”. This sparked civil rights activists in Montgomery to organize a boycott where the black community refused to ride the bus in a way to express their opposition to Rosa Park’s arrest, this became known as the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

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Nine African American students volunteered to enroll at Central High School in Arkansas, for a push toward integration in public education. This caused an uproar from white students of Central High School and the Governor of Arkansas, Orval Faubus. He sent Arkansas’ National Guard to stop the Nine from entering the school. After that day President Eisenhower stepped in sending federal troops to protect the students and enforce the court's decision of integration within public education.

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The Civil Rights Act of 1957 established the United States Civil Rights Commission and gave them power to investigate violations of civil rights. This bill signed into law by President Eisenhower allowed the U.S. Attorney General to address civil right violations and bring them into lawsuits. This bill also gave greater power to protect the voting rights of African Americans. Although this bill “lack teeth” it still held a great importance as the first civil rights law passed since Reconstruction.

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Four African American, college students ordered food at Woolworth’s in Greensboro, North Carolina. The white waiter refused to take the four students order, as they excepted would happen. So as a way to protest the discrimination against them, they sat peacefully at the Woolworth’s lunch counter until they closed for the day. This peaceful protest known as the Greensboro Sit-in, sparked a pattern of similar protests all across the United States to fit for racial equality.

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In the Spring of 1961, students from CORE created the Freedom Rides. Where they protested against segregation on interstate buses and bus terminals. The students of CORE started their journey on May 4th, 1961 in Washington D.C. and traveled all the way down to Jackson Mississippi.  The spring campaign was a major success in gaining the Interstate Commerce Commission ban on segregation in all facilities.

Sources;
https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/freedom-rides#:~:text=During%20the%20spring%20of%201961,interstate%20buses%20and%20bus%20terminals.

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Although Martin Luther King publicly supported the Freedom Riders, he did not participate in the protests.

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The 24th Amendment outlawed poll taxes as a voting requirement. This Amendment effected African Americans in the south the most. Creating this amendment was a way of aiming to try to take away the disenfranchise and segregation “Jim Crows” laws caused on them.

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https://history.house.gov/HistoricalHighlight/Detail/37045

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On this date in 1962, the House passed the Twenty-fourth Amendment, outlawing the poll tax as a voting requirement in federal elections, by a vote of 295 to 86. At the time, five states maintained poll taxes which disproportionately affected African-American voters: Virginia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Texas. The poll tax exemplified "Jim Crow" laws, developed in the post-Reconstruction South, which aimed to disenfranchise black voters and institute segregation. Some critics of the legislation thought the amendment did not go far enough to protect black voting rights in state and local elections. Representative John Lindsay of New York contended, "If we're going to have a constitutional amendment, let's have a meaningful one." Judiciary Chairman Emanuel Celler of New York dismissed the criticism and proceeded with the bill as introduced. On January 23, 1964, the Twenty-fourth Amendment became part of the Constitution when South Dakota ratified it.

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The Twenty-fourth Amendment | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives

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On this date in 1962, the House passed the Twenty-fourth Amendment, outlawing the poll tax as a voting requirement in federal elections, by a vote of 295 to 86. At the time, five states maintained poll taxes which disproportionately affected African-American voters: Virginia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Texas.

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James Meredith and "Ole Miss" [Oct 1, 1962]

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James Meredith and "Ole Miss" [Oct 1, 1962]

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James Meredith was an Air Force veteran that wished to attend The University of Mississippi, “Ole Miss”. Ole Miss was an all-white school at the time, but Meredith wished to change that. In September of 1962, Meredith with the support of the NAACP won a court case that enforced university's to desegregate. Ross Barnett, the governor of Mississippi at the time, wanted to stop the integration at Ole Miss. Meredith on the other hand arrived at the university on September 30, with Federal marshals protecting him. This caused uproars in riots across campus. President Kennedy stepped in saying “Americans are free… to disagree with the law but not to disobey it… for any government laws… no man, however prominent and powerful… is entitled to defy a court law”. James Meredith graduated at Ole Miss in 1963 and got his degree in law from Columbia University soon after.

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What University did James Meredith attend to get his degree in Law after he went to Ole Miss?
A) Harvard University
B) Yale University
C) Columbia University

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Letter From Birmingham Jail [April 3,1963] 

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Letter From Birmingham Jail [April 3,1963] 

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Martin Luther King Jr. wrote a letter from his jail cell in Birmingham, Alabama about how he and other civil rights activists were tired of waiting for reform. During the 1960s Birmingham, Alabama was one of the most segregated cities in all of the South. To help change that nonviolent marches and sit-ins took place on April 12, 1963, also known as Good Friday. Martin Luther King Jr. decided to participate in the protest even though he knew he would get arrested. From his cell he wrote, creating influential that would be read by people all over the country some of his most famous words from the letter were “For years now I have heard the word ‘wait!’ it rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This ‘Wait!’ has almost always meant never” and “Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, ‘Wait!’. But… when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored people… Then you will understand why we find difficult to wait”.

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On August 28, 1963, over 200,000 people of all different races, ages, classes, religious backgrounds, and parts of the country gathered at The Washington Monument in Washington D.C. Here singers performed songs about the civil rights movement and marched to the Lincoln Memorial, where people heard speeches from various representatives from different religious and labor groups, one of the most moving speeches though came from Martin Luther King Jr. On the podium in front of the Lincoln Memorial, he gave his “I Have a Dream” speech. This day soon became known as The March on Washington, and to this day it is one of the largest, most peaceful political demonstrations in U.S. history.

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I Have a Dream speech by Martin Luther King .Jr HD (subtitled)

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The organizers hoped for and excepted only about 100,000 people to show up to the capital for the March on Washington, but over double that arrived.

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Bombing at Sixteenth St. Baptist [Sept. 15, 1963]

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Bombing at Sixteenth St. Baptist [Sept. 15, 1963]

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On September 15, 1963, a bomb exploded at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. The explosion killed four young African American girls getting ready for Sunday school in the churches basement. Later three Ku Klux Klansmen members were convicted of the crime of  murdering the four girls and the bombing at the Sixteenth St. Baptist Church.

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Around a thousand student volunteers flooded Mississippi to register African Americans to vote, known as “Freedom Summer”. This campaign created the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), to give African Americans more voice in state politics.

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Civil Rights Act of 1964 [July 2, 1964] 

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Civil Rights Act of 1964 [July 2, 1964] 

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The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed into law by President Johnson. This Act created a banning on segregation in public places, giving federal government the ability to enforced states and local school boards to desegregate their schools, giving the right to the Justice Department to prosecute individuals that violated peoples civil rights, and ban discrimination of race, color, sex, and nationality origin in employment. This Act also created Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EECO), which was responsible for enforcing the act and investigating discrimination charges.

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Economic Opportunity Act [Aug 20, 1964] 

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Economic Opportunity Act [Aug 20, 1964] 

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In January of 1964, President Johnson announced at his State of Union an “unconditional war on poverty”. Hoping to help end poverty in the United States he introduced his War on Poverty and Great Society programs, and also the Economic Opportunity Act (EOA). The EOA aimed to help bring education, health care, employment, and general welfare to impoverished Americans.

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https://www.britannica.com/topic/Economic-Opportunity-Act

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Martin Luther King Jr. and the the SCLC organized a campaign in Selma, Alabama. This campaign pushed the federal government to enact voting rights legislation. But as the protesters reached the Edmund Pettus Bridge during their march, they were meet with heavily armed state troops and different authorities waiting to attack the marchers that attempted to cross the bridge, this day had soon become known as “Bloody Sunday”. As the television covered the attack, the nation became filled with angry from the violence.

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From the events that happened on “Bloody Sunday”, President Johnson went to national television to call for strong federal voting rights law, stating “It is wrong to deny any of your fellow citizens the right to vote… Their cause is our cause too because it is not just Negroes, but really it is all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice and we shall overcome”. His words and the actions of the protesters in March on Selma spurred Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act. This act banned literacy tests and empowered the federal government to oversee voter registration and elections in states that held discrimination against minorities.

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The Affirmative Action was a campaign created by Nixon’s administration as a way to help close the economic gap between blacks and whites. Soon after the Affirmative Action was created,  many schools, businesses, and state and local governments followed the federal government and created their own action plans to increase African American representation in schools and workforces. Some whites argued that this was constituted reverse discrimination and went against the goal of a colorblind society. But Justice Thurgood Marshall disagreed saying “Three hundred and fifty years ago, the Negro was dragged to this country in chains to be sold into slavery… The position of the Negro today in America is the tragic but inevitable consequence of centuries of unequal treatment”.

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Malcolm X and the "Black Power" Movements [1966]

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Malcolm X and the "Black Power" Movements [1966]

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Malcolm X who was one of the most well-known African American radical. That was born in Omaha, Nebraska, but later in his teenage years he moved to Boston and then to New York City. There he got involved in drugs and crime and was imprisoned from burglary charges at 21, where he converted to the Nation of Islam. After his release he became a prominent minister for the Nation of Islam. Here he preached about self-reliance, self-protection, and black pride. In 64’ he separated from the Nation of Islam and created is own organization and returned to the United States. In February of 65’ though, Malcolm X was shot and killed by three members of the Nation of Islam. After Malcolm X’s death many young African Americans began to move away from nonviolent principles and questioned the goal of integration. This came the term “black power”, first said by Stokely Carmichael. He said that the term was meant for African Americans to collectively use their economic and political muscle to gain equality. Many white Americans felt threatened by these words and believed the words meant black violence.

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What religion did Malcolm X convert to during his time in prison?
A) Muslin (Nation of Islam)
B) Christianity
C) Buddhism

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On the morning of July 23rd, Detroit's police vice squad raided William Scott’s “blind pig” (an after hour illegal club). The night it was holding a party for veterans, as the police took them away as around 200 onlookers saw this happen fury grew. A bottle crashed onto the street, the police ignored the first bottle but then bottles were continued to crash down into the streets and even the police men’s car. Within an hour after the police had fled the scene, riots flooded 12th Street. This started the Detroit Race Riots and became the most violent and destructive riots in U.S. history. After five days the looting and fires ended leaving 43 people dead, 342 injured, and 1400 buildings burned.

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https://www.history.com/topics/1960s/1967-detroit-riots

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Race Relations in 1960s America

In the sweltering summer of 1967, Detroit's predominantly African American neighborhood of Virginia Park was a simmering cauldron of racial tension. About 60,000 low-income residents were crammed into the neighborhood's 460 acres, living mostly in small, sub-divided apartments.

The Detroit Police Department, which had only about 50 African American officers at the time, was viewed as a white occupying army. Accusations of racial profiling and police brutality were commonplace among Detroit's Black residents. The only other whites in Virginia Park commuted in from the suburbs to run the businesses on 12th Street, then commuted home to affluent enclaves outside Detroit.

The entire city was in a state of economic and social strife: As the Motor City's famed automobile industry shed jobs and moved out of the city center, freeways and suburban amenities beckoned middle-class residents away, which further gutted Detroit's vitality and left behind vacant storefronts, widespread unemployment and impoverished despair.

A similar scenario played out in metropolitan areas across America, where "white flight" reduced the tax base in formerly prosperous cities, causing urban blight, poverty and racial discord. In mid-July, 1967, the city of Newark, New Jersey, erupted in violence as Black residents battled police following the beating of a Black taxi driver, leaving 26 people dead.
READ MORE: The 1967 Riots: When Racial Injustice Boiled Over
The 12th Street Scene and Lead-Up to Riot

At night, 12th Street in Detroit was a hotspot of inner-city nightlife, both legal and illegal. At the corner of 12th St. and Clairmount, William Scott operated a "blind pig" (an illegal after-hours club) on weekends out of the office of the United Community League for Civic Action, a civil rights group. The police vice squad often raided establishments like this on 12th St., and at 3:35 a.m. on Sunday morning, July 23, they moved against Scott's club.

On that warm, humid night, the establishment was hosting a party for several veterans, including two servicemen recently returned from the Vietnam War, and the bar's patrons were reluctant to leave the air-conditioned club. Out in the street, a crowd began to gather as police waited for vehicles to take the 85 patrons away.

An hour passed before the last person was taken away, and by then about 200 onlookers lined the street. A bottle crashed into the street. The remaining police ignored it, but then more bottles were thrown, including one through the window of a patrol car. The police fled as a small riot erupted. Within an hour, thousands of people had spilled out onto the street from nearby buildings.

Looting began on 12th Street, and closed shops and businesses were ransacked. Around 6:30 a.m., the first fire broke out, and soon much of the street was ablaze. By midmorning, every policeman and fireman in Detroit was called to duty. On 12th Street, officers fought to control the unruly mob. Firemen were attacked as they tried to battle the flames.
READ MORE: The Detroit Riots, from a Child's Perspective
National Guard Arrives

Detroit Mayor Jerome P. Cavanaugh asked Michigan Governor George Romney to send in the state police, but these 300 additional officers could not keep the riot from spreading to a 100-block area around Virginia Park. The National Guard was called in shortly after but didn't arrive until evening. By the end of Sunday, more than 1,000 people were arrested, but the riot kept spreading and intensifying. Five people had died by Sunday night.

On Monday, the rioting continued and 16 people were killed, most by police or guardsmen. Snipers reportedly fired at firemen, and fire hoses were cut. Governor Romney asked President Lyndon B. Johnson to send in U.S. troops. Nearly 2,000 army paratroopers arrived on Tuesday and began patrolling the streets of Detroit in tanks and armored carriers.

Ten more people died that day, and 12 more on Wednesday. On Thursday, July 27, order was finally restored. More than 7,000 people were arrested during the four days of rioting. A total of 43 people were killed. Some 1,700 stores were looted and nearly 1,400 buildings burned, causing roughly $50 million in property damage. Some 5,000 people were left homeless.
READ MORE: 11 Anthems of Black Pride and Protest Through American History
Kerner Commission

The so-called 12th Street Riot was considered one of the worst riots in U.S. history, occurring during a period of fever-pitch racial strife and numerous race riots across America.

In the aftermath of the Newark and Detroit riots, President Johnson appointed a National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, often known as the Kerner Commission after its chair, Governor Otto Kerner of Illinois. In February, 1968, seven months after the Detroit Riots had ended, the commission released its 426-page report.

The Kerner Commission identified more than 150 riots or major disorders between 1965 and 1968. In 1967 alone, 83 people were killed and 1,800 were injured-the majority of them African Americans-and property valued at more than $100 million was damaged, looted or destroyed.
READ MORE: Why the 1967 Kerner Commission Report on Urban Riots Suppressed Its Own Findings
Ominously, the report declared that "Our nation is moving toward two societies, one Black, one white-separate and unequal. Reaction to last summer's disorders has quickened the movement and deepened the division. Discrimination and segregation have long permeated much of American life; they now threaten the future of every American."

However, the authors also found cause for hope: "This deepening racial division is not inevitable. The movement apart can be reversed." Additionally, the report stated that "What the rioters appeared to be seeking was fuller participation in the social order and the material benefits enjoyed by the majority of American citizens. Rather than rejecting the American system, they were anxious to obtain a place for themselves in it."

Sources

5 Days in 1967 Still Shake Detroit: The New York Times.
Uprising of 1967: Detroit Historical Society.
Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders: Summary of Report: National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders.

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1967 Detroit Riots - Causes, Facts & Police

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The 1967 Detroit Riots were among the most violent and destructive riots in U.S. history. By the time the bloodshed, burning and looting ended after five days, 43 people were dead, 342 injured, nearly 1,400 buildings had been burned and some 7,000 National Guard and U.S. Army troops had been called into service.

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Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. [April 4, 1968] 

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Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. [April 4, 1968] 

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On April 4th, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis Tennessee. He was shot on his motel room balcony from a high-powered rifle, by James Earl Ray, a white ex-convict. King died at the hospital at the age of 39. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination marked an important turning point, his efforts had raised minority participation in politics and encouraged racial integration.

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Who assassinated Martin Luther King Jr.?
A) John Wilkes Booth
B) James Earl Ray
C) Ku Klux Klan