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The Scottsboro boys were nine African american boys ranging from the ages of 13-20. They were blamed on the rape of two white woman in 1931 on a train. They've had many different trials that lasted several years.  Each of the boy's lives resulted with a different outcome. Some were sentenced to imprisonment or a death sentence.

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Who is Homer Plessy? What did he to to be arrested? 

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Who is Homer Plessy? What did he to to be arrested? 

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Homer Plessy is a light-skinned black man. He grew up in New Orleans and was the third generation of his family. He was a shoemaker. He had one act of disobedience in 1896. Plessy challenged Louisiana segregation legislation by refusing to move from a "whites only" rail car while boarding a train in New Orleans.
Database Link:
McNeese, Tim. “Plessy and Ferguson.” Plessy v. Ferguson, Revised Edition, Facts On File, 2018. History, online.infobase.com/Auth/Index?aid=17225&itemid=WE52&articleId=358338. Accessed 15 Nov. 2018.

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When Plessy v. Ferguson was decided, what upheld the decision, and what doctrine supported the Supreme Court decisions?  

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When Plessy v. Ferguson was decided, what upheld the decision, and what doctrine supported the Supreme Court decisions?  

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Plessy v Ferguson was decided on May 18,1896. The decision was upheld because Plessy did not agree with the case. He didn't believe that there was an accurate way to determine whether someone was a 100% white or black. Since Louisiana  was so diverse in different nationalities it was almost impossible to point out  who belonged where. Later on, the doctrine that supported the Supreme Court decision was called "Separate but Equal."
Citation:
McNeese, Tim. “Plessy Meets Ferguson.” Plessy v. Ferguson, Revised Edition, Facts On File, 2018. History, online.infobase.com/Auth/Index?aid=17225&itemid=WE52&articleId=358335. Accessed 15 Nov. 2018.

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How did Harper Lee feel about society she was raised in?

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How did Harper Lee feel about society she was raised in?

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During her childhood and her adult life she felt as if society wasn't the best since her books, and her lifetime had many problems such as race inequality, overall inequality. She lived her childhood in Alabama which was the South where most problems were occurring
Sigelman, Katherine. C. Shelby and A. Kissel ed. "To 🤬 a Mockingbird Study Guide". GradeSaver, 29 July 2007 Web. 15 November 2018.

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What role did justice John Marshall Harlan play in the Plessy v. Ferguson case?

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What role did justice John Marshall Harlan play in the Plessy v. Ferguson case?

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"If a white man and a black man choose to occupy the same public conveyance on a public highway, it is their right to do so; and no government proceeding alone on grounds of race, can prevent it without infringing the personal liberty of each." stated John Marshall. He was trying to prove that every race, no matter the skin color should be treated the same and all races should be equal.
Database link:
Leiter, Richard A., and Roy M. Mersky. “Plessy v. Ferguson.” Civil Rights and Equal Protection, Facts On File, 2017. History, online.infobase.com/Auth/Index?aid=17225&itemid=WE52&articleId=357900. Accessed 15 Nov. 2018

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During the first trial Stephen Roddy represented the nine boys accused by Victoria Price and Ruby Bates. In the courtroom the atmosphere was filled with hatred against the 9 boys.

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During the first trial Stephen Roddy represented the nine boys accused by Victoria Price and Ruby Bates. In the courtroom the atmosphere was filled with hatred against the 9 boys.

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What was the outcome of Powell V. Alabama?

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What was the outcome of Powell V. Alabama?

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The Outcome of Powell V. Alabama was that all defendants are entitled to adequate council and representation of the law.
Citation:
Aberjhani. “Scottsboro Trial.” Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance, Facts On File, 2003. History, online.infobase.com/Auth/Index?aid=17225&itemid=WE01&articleId=160653. Accessed 15 Nov. 2018.

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The Scottsboro boys were arrested on March 25, 1931 on a train to Memphis.

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Harper Lee was born on April 28, 1926, in Monroeville, Alabama. She was the youngest of four children, she grew up as a tomboy in a small town. In 1960, lee became an american novelist for her novel "To 🤬 a Mockingbird"
Resources :
https://www.aresearchguide.com/nelle-harper-lee-biography.html

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What contributions is she most famous for?

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What contributions is she most famous for?

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Harper Lee is famous for contributions such as "To 🤬 a Mockingbird", and "Go set a watchman" those books talked about how it was like living in the South as a colored person and how unequal society was back then. Like race inequality, gender roles, and a hypocritical society.
Doe, John. “How Did Society Influence Harper Lee in To 🤬 A Mockingbir.” Prezi.com, 18 Feb. 2016, prezi.com/xmwd0xjt94sh/how-did-society-influence-harper-lee-in-to-🤬-a-mockingbir/.

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The great depression was a huge economic downturn  that spanned across North America and Europe. Somewhat wealthy families were thrown into poverty and wave of money problems resonated throughout the country. Jobs and everyday items were scarce so citizens had to be as thrifty as possible and cut corners to save money.

The great depression started in America as well as most other countries on October 29, 1929. This deficiency in money lasted about 10 years for Americans but many other nations were burdened with it for some time longer.

In America, it was kicked off by a stock market fluctuation, throwing wall street into a panic. Key investors withdrew their shares, subsequently causing more panic. During this extreme plumet in the economy, 9,000 banks failed. With all this being said, there was no one cause of the depression. The stock market crash was especially damaging to companies that expanded their reach in the roaring 20’s.

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Great Depression: Causes, Definition & Dates | HISTORY

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The Great Depression was the worst economic downturn in world history. Learn about the Dust Bowl, New Deal, causes of the Great Depression, a Great Depression timeline more.

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When was the first trial, and who was the defendant?

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When was the first trial, and who was the defendant?

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The Scottsboro's first trial was in April of 1931. And the defendants were Clarence Norris and Charles Weems.
http://online.infobase.com/HRC/Search/Details/5?articleId=158436&q=%22Scottsboro%20Trial%22

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Work Cited:

Aberjhani. “Scottsboro Trial.” Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance, Facts On File, 2003. History, online.infobase.com/Auth/Index?aid=17225&itemid=WE01&articleId=160653. Accessed 15 Nov. 2018.

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During this time people’s savings had lost all their money in the bank. The banks had experienced bankruptcy, and therefore millions of people were in poverty. Many people lost their jobs, and had to find another way to earn a living. The majority of the population were agricultural workers. This meant many of the farmers had to sharecrop. When farmers would sharecrop they would have to share or rent the land they owned to other farmers.

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The effect on a average family was difficult because 25% of people didn’t have a job, Cabbage soup became popular because money and food was scarce. Some families took turns eating meals, When kids became 13 or older they went out to go look for a job. Families started to give birth at home because it was a little cheaper than having birth in the hospital.

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Why are the Jim crow laws, called Jim Crow Laws?

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Why are the Jim crow laws, called Jim Crow Laws?

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Jim crow was a character  played by Thomas Dartmouth Rice. It was to imitate a clumsy  dimwitted black slave. It was named after an insulting song lyric regarding African Americans. Jim Crow was preformed in blackface.
Yenerall, Kevan M. “Jim Crow Laws.” Encyclopedia of American Government and Civics, Second Edition, Facts On File, 2017. History, online.infobase.com/Auth/Index?aid=17225&itemid=WE52&articleId=168633. Accessed 13 Nov. 2018.
“Was Jim Crow a Real Person?” History.com, A&E Television Networks, www.history.com/news/was-jim-crow-a-real-person

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What year were the Jim Crow Laws in place?

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What year were the Jim Crow Laws in place?

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The year that the Jim Crow laws took in place was in the South between the end of Reconstruction in 1877 and the beginning of the civil rights movement in the 1950's.

Resources:https://www.britannica.com/event/Jim-Crow-law

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What concept was the Jim Crow way of life based on?

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What concept was the Jim Crow way of life based on?

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The Jim crow way of life was based on that whites were superior to blacks in all important ways, including but not limited to intelligence, morality, and civilized behavior. So it was technically based on segregation.

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Image Gallery
Jim Crow was the name of the racial caste system which operated primarily, but not exclusively in southern and border states, between 1877 and the mid-1960s. Jim Crow was more than a series of rigid anti-black laws. It was a way of life. Under Jim Crow, African Americans were relegated to the status of second class citizens. Jim Crow represented the legitimization of anti-black racism. Many Christian ministers and theologians taught that whites were the Chosen people, blacks were cursed to be servants, and God supported racial segregation. Craniologists, eugenicists, phrenologists, and Social Darwinists, at every educational level, buttressed the belief that blacks were innately intellectually and culturally inferior to whites. Pro-segregation politicians gave eloquent speeches on the great danger of integration: the mongrelization of the white race. Newspaper and magazine writers routinely referred to blacks as niggers, coons, and darkies; and worse, their articles reinforced anti-black stereotypes. Even children's games portrayed blacks as inferior beings (see "From Hostility to Reverence: 100 Years of African-American Imagery in Games"). All major societal institutions reflected and supported the oppression of blacks.

The Jim Crow system was undergirded by the following beliefs or rationalizations: whites were superior to blacks in all important ways, including but not limited to intelligence, morality, and civilized behavior; sexual relations between blacks and whites would produce a mongrel race which would destroy America; treating blacks as equals would encourage interracial sexual unions; any activity which suggested social equality encouraged interracial sexual relations; if necessary, violence must be used to keep blacks at the bottom of the racial hierarchy. The following Jim Crow etiquette norms show how inclusive and pervasive these norms were:

A black male could not offer his hand (to shake hands) with a white male because it implied being socially equal. Obviously, a black male could not offer his hand or any other part of his body to a white woman, because he risked being accused of rape.

Blacks and whites were not supposed to eat together. If they did eat together, whites were to be served first, and some sort of partition was to be placed between them.

Under no circumstance was a black male to offer to light the cigarette of a white female -- that gesture implied intimacy.

Blacks were not allowed to show public affection toward one another in public, especially kissing, because it offended whites.

Jim Crow etiquette prescribed that blacks were introduced to whites, never whites to blacks. For example: "Mr. Peters (the white person), this is Charlie (the black person), that I spoke to you about."

Whites did not use courtesy titles of respect when referring to blacks, for example, Mr., Mrs., Miss., Sir, or Ma'am. Instead, blacks were called by their first names. Blacks had to use courtesy titles when referring to whites, and were not allowed to call them by their first names.

If a black person rode in a car driven by a white person, the black person sat in the back seat, or the back of a truck.

White motorists had the right-of-way at all intersections.

Stetson Kennedy, the author of Jim Crow Guide (1990), offered these simple rules that blacks were supposed to observe in conversing with whites:

1. Never assert or even intimate that a white person is lying.

2. Never impute dishonorable intentions to a white person.

3. Never suggest that a white person is from an inferior class.

4. Never lay claim to, or overly demonstrate, superior knowledge or intelligence.

5. Never curse a white person.

6. Never laugh derisively at a white person.

7. Never comment upon the appearance of a white female.

Jim Crow etiquette operated in conjunction with Jim Crow laws (black codes). When most people think of Jim Crow they think of laws (not the Jim Crow etiquette) which excluded blacks from public transport and facilities, juries, jobs, and neighborhoods. The passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution had granted blacks the same legal protections as whites. However, after 1877, and the election of Republican Rutherford B. Hayes, southern and border states began restricting the liberties of blacks. Unfortunately for blacks, the Supreme Court helped undermine the Constitutional protections of blacks with the infamous Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) case, which legitimized Jim Crow laws and the Jim Crow way of life.

In 1890, Louisiana passed the "Separate Car Law," which purported to aid passenger comfort by creating "equal but separate" cars for blacks and whites. This was a ruse. No public accommodations, including railway travel, provided blacks with equal facilities. The Louisiana law made it illegal for blacks to sit in coach seats reserved for whites, and whites could not sit in seats reserved for blacks. In 1891, a group of blacks decided to test the Jim Crow law. They had Homer A. Plessy, who was seven-eighths white and one-eighth black (therefore, black), sit in the white-only railroad coach. He was arrested. Plessy's lawyer argued that Louisiana did not have the right to label one citizen as white and another black for the purposes of restricting their rights and privileges. In Plessy, the Supreme Court stated that so long as state governments provided legal process and legal freedoms for blacks, equal to those of whites, they could maintain separate institutions to facilitate these rights. The Court, by a 7-2 vote, upheld the Louisiana law, declaring that racial separation did not necessarily mean an abrogation of equality. In practice, Plessy represented the legitimization of two societies: one white, and advantaged; the other, black, disadvantaged and despised.

Blacks were denied the right to vote by grandfather clauses (laws that restricted the right to vote to people whose ancestors had voted before the Civil War), poll taxes (fees charged to poor blacks), white primaries (only Democrats could vote, only whites could be Democrats), and literacy tests ("Name all the Vice Presidents and Supreme Court Justices throughout America's history"). Plessy sent this message to southern and border states: Discrimination against blacks is acceptable.

Jim Crow states passed statutes severely regulating social interactions between the races. Jim Crow signs were placed above water fountains, door entrances and exits, and in front of public facilities. There were separate hospitals for blacks and whites, separate prisons, separate public and private schools, separate churches, separate cemeteries, separate public restrooms, and separate public accommodations. In most instances, the black facilities were grossly inferior -- generally, older, less-well-kept. In other cases, there were no black facilities -- no Colored public restroom, no public beach, no place to sit or eat. Plessy gave Jim Crow states a legal way to ignore their constitutional obligations to their black citizens.

Jim Crow laws touched every aspect of everyday life. For example, in 1935, Oklahoma prohibited blacks and whites from boating together. Boating implied social equality. In 1905, Georgia established separate parks for blacks and whites. In 1930, Birmingham, Alabama, made it illegal for blacks and whites to play checkers or dominoes together. Here are some of the typical Jim Crow laws, as compiled by the Martin Luther King, Jr., National Historic Site Interpretive Staff:

Barbers. No colored barber shall serve as a barber (to) white girls or women (Georgia).

Blind Wards. The board of trustees shall...maintain a separate building...on separate ground for the admission, care, instruction, and support of all blind persons of the colored or black race (Louisiana).

Burial. The officer in charge shall not bury, or allow to be buried, any colored persons upon ground set apart or used for the burial of white persons (Georgia).

Buses.All passenger stations in this state operated by any motor transportation company shall have separate waiting rooms or space and separate ticket windows for the white and colored races (Alabama).

Child Custody. It shall be unlawful for any parent, relative, or other white person in this State, having the control or custody of any white child, by right of guardianship, natural or acquired, or otherwise, to dispose of, give or surrender such white child permanently into the custody, control, maintenance, or support, of a negro (South Carolina).

Education.The schools for white children and the schools for negro children shall be conducted separately (Florida).

Libraries. The state librarian is directed to fit up and maintain a separate place for the use of the colored people who may come to the library for the purpose of reading books or periodicals (North Carolina).

Mental Hospitals. The Board of Control shall see that proper and distinct apartments are arranged for said patients, so that in no case shall Negroes and white persons be together (Georgia).

Militia. The white and colored militia shall be separately enrolled, and shall never be compelled to serve in the same organization. No organization of colored troops shall be permitted where white troops are available and where whites are permitted to be organized, colored troops shall be under the command of white officers (North Carolina).

Nurses. No person or corporation shall require any White female nurse to nurse in wards or rooms in hospitals, either public or private, in which negro men are placed (Alabama).

Prisons. The warden shall see that the white convicts shall have separate apartments for both eating and sleeping from the negro convicts (Mississippi).

Reform Schools. The children of white and colored races committed to the houses of reform shall be kept entirely separate from each other (Kentucky).

Teaching. Any instructor who shall teach in any school, college or institution where members of the white and colored race are received and enrolled as pupils for instruction shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof, shall be fined... (Oklahoma).

Wine and Beer. All persons licensed to conduct the business of selling beer or wine...shall serve either white people exclusively or colored people exclusively and shall not sell to the two races within the same room at any time (Georgia).¹

The Jim Crow laws and system of etiquette were undergirded by violence, real and threatened. Blacks who violated Jim Crow norms, for example, drinking from the white water fountain or trying to vote, risked their homes, their jobs, even their lives. Whites could physically beat blacks with impunity. Blacks had little legal recourse against these assaults because the Jim Crow criminal justice system was all-white: police, prosecutors, judges, juries, and prison officials. Violence was instrumental for Jim Crow. It was a method of social control. The most extreme forms of Jim Crow violence were lynchings.

Lynchings were public, often sadistic, murders carried out by mobs. Between 1882, when the first reliable data were collected, and 1968, when lynchings had become rare, there were 4,730 known lynchings, including 3,440 black men and women. Most of the victims of Lynch Law were hanged or shot, but some were burned at the stake, castrated, beaten with clubs, or dismembered. In the mid-1800s, whites constituted the majority of victims (and perpetrators); however, by the period of Radical Reconstruction, blacks became the most frequent lynching victims. This is an early indication that lynching was used as an intimidation tool to keep blacks, in this case the newly freed people, "in their places." The great majority of lynchings occurred in southern and border states, where the resentment against blacks ran deepest. According to the social economist Gunnar Myrdal (1944): "The southern states account for nine-tenths of the lynchings. More than two thirds of the remaining one-tenth occurred in the six states which immediately border the South" (pp. 560-561).

Many whites claimed that although lynchings were distasteful, they were necessary supplements to the criminal justice system because blacks were prone to violent crimes, especially the rapes of white women. Arthur Raper investigated nearly a century of lynchings and concluded that approximately one-third of all the victims were falsely accused (Myrdal, 1944, p. 561).

Under Jim Crow any and all sexual interactions between black men and white women was illegal, illicit, socially repugnant, and within the Jim Crow definition of rape. Although only 19.2 percent of the lynching victims between 1882 to 1951 were even accused of rape, lynch law was often supported on the popular belief that lynchings were necessary to protect white women from black rapists. Myrdal (1944) refutes this belief in this way: "There is much reason to believe that this figure (19.2) has been inflated by the fact that a mob which makes the accusation of rape is secure from any further investigation; by the broad Southern definition of rape to include all sexual relations between Negro men and white women; and by the psychopathic fears of white women in their contacts with Negro men" (pp. 561-562). Most blacks were lynched for demanding civil rights, violating Jim Crow etiquette or laws, or in the aftermath of race riots.

Lynchings were most common in small and middle-sized towns where blacks often were economic competitors to the local whites. These whites resented any economic and political gains made by blacks. Lynchers were seldomly arrested, and if arrested, rarely convicted. Raper (1933) estimated that "at least one-half of the lynchings are carried out with police officers participating, and that in nine-tenths of the others the officers either condone or wink at the mob action" (pp. 13-14). Lynching served many purposes: it was cheap entertainment; it served as a rallying, uniting point for whites; it functioned as an ego-massage for low-income, low-status whites; it was a method of defending white domination and helped stop or retard the fledgling social equality movement.

Lynch mobs directed their hatred against one (sometimes several) victims. The victim was an example of what happened to a black man who tried to vote, or who looked at a white woman, or who tried to get a white man's job. Unfortunately for blacks, sometimes the mob was not satisfied to murder a single or several victims. Instead, in the spirit of pogroms, the mobs went into black communities and destroyed additional lives and property. Their immediate goal was to drive out -- through death or expulsion -- all blacks; the larger goal was to maintain, at all costs, white supremacy. These pogrom-like actions are often referred to as riots; however, Gunnar Myrdal (1944) was right when he described these "riots" as "a terrorization or massacre...a mass lynching" (p. 566). Interestingly, these mass lynchings were primarily urban phenomena, whereas the lynching of single victims was primarily a rural phenomena.

James Weldon Johnson, the famous black writer, labeled 1919 as "The Red Summer." It was red from racial tension; it was red from bloodletting. During the summer of 1919, there were race riots in Chicago, Illinois; Knoxville and Nashville, Tennessee; Charleston, South Carolina; Omaha, Nebraska; and two dozen other cities. W.E.B. DuBois (1986), the black social scientist and civil rights activist, wrote: "During that year seventy-seven Negroes were lynched, of whom one was a woman and eleven were soldiers; of these, fourteen were publicly burned, eleven of them being burned alive. That year there were race riots large and small in twenty-six American cities including thirty-eight killed in a Chicago riot of August; from twenty-five to fifty in Phillips County, Arkansas; and six killed in Washington" (p. 747).

The riots of 1919 were not the first or last "mass lynchings" of blacks, as evidenced by the race riots in Wilmington, North Carolina (1898); Atlanta, Georgia (1906); Springfield, Illinois (1908); East St. Louis, Illinois (1917); Tulsa, Oklahoma (1921); and Detroit, Michigan (1943). Joseph Boskin, author of Urban Racial Violence (1976), claimed that the riots of the 1900s had the following traits:

1. In each of the race riots, with few exceptions, it was white people that sparked the incident by attacking black people.

2. In the majority of the riots, some extraordinary social condition prevailed at the time of the riot: prewar social changes, wartime mobility, post-war adjustment, or economic depression.

3. The majority of the riots occurred during the hot summer months.

4. Rumor played an extremely important role in causing many riots. Rumors of some criminal activity by blacks against whites perpetuated the actions of the white mobs.

5. The police force, more than any other institution, was invariably involved as a precipitating cause or perpetuating factor in the riots. In almost every one of the riots, the police sided with the attackers, either by actually participating in, or by failing to quell the attack.

6. In almost every instance, the fighting occurred within the black community. (pp. 14-15)

Boskin omitted the following: the mass media, especially newspapers often published inflammatory articles about "black criminals" immediately before the riots; blacks were not only killed, but their homes and businesses were looted, and many who did not flee were left homeless; and, the goal of the white rioters, as was true of white lynchers of single victims, was to instill fear and terror into blacks, thereby buttressing white domination. The Jim Crow hierarchy could not work without violence being used against those on the bottom rung. George Fredrickson (1971), a historian, stated it this way: "Lynching represented...a way of using fear and terror to check 'dangerous' tendencies in a black community considered to be ineffectively regimented or supervised. As such it constituted a confession that the regular institutions of a segregated society provided an inadequate measure of day-to-day control" (p. 272).

Many blacks resisted the indignities of Jim Crow, and, far too often, they paid for their bravery with their lives.

© Dr. David Pilgrim
Professor of Sociology
Ferris State University
Sept., 2000
Edited 2012

Note

1 This list was derived from a larger list composed by the Martin Luther King, Jr., National Historic Site Interpretive Staff. Last Updated January 5, 1998. The web address is: http//www.nps.gov/malu/documents/jim crowlaws.htm.

References

Boskin, J. (1976). Urban racial violence in the twentieth century (2nd ed.). Beverly Hills, CA: Glencoe Press.

Dubois, W. E. B. (1986). Writings. N. Huggins, (Ed.). New York NY: Literary Classics of the United States.

Kennedy, S. (1959/1990). Jim Crow guide: The way it was. Boca Raton, FL: Florida Atlantic University Press.

Myrdal, G. (1944). An American dilemma: the Negro problem and modern democracy. New York, NY: Harper.

Raper, A. F. (1933). The tragedy of lynching. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.

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Image Gallery Jim Crow was the name of the racial caste system which operated primarily, but not exclusively in southern and border states, between 1877 and the mid-1960s. Jim Crow was more than a series of rigid anti-black laws. It was a way of life.

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Ruby Bates and Victoria Price accused the Scottsboro boys of raping them on a train to Memphis.
When the deputies found them they were forced to say that the boys raped them while on board the train.

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What did the Jim Crow Laws legally enforce?

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What did the Jim Crow Laws legally enforce?

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The laws that the Jim Crow Laws enforce were the enforcement of segregation in the south between the end of reconstruction and beginning of the civil rights movement.

Urofsky, Melvin I. “Jim Crow Law.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 20 Aug. 2018, www.britannica.com/event/Jim-Crow-law.

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Based on Jim Crow, what were black people excluded from?

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Based on Jim Crow, what were black people excluded from?

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Black people were excluded from public transport and facilities, juries, jobs, and neighborhoods.
“What Was Jim Crow.” Negative Racial Stereotypes and Their Effect on Attitudes Toward African-Americans - Scholarly Essays - Jim Crow Museum - Ferris State University, ferris.edu/jimcrow/what.htm.

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What are some of the Jim Crow etiquette norms

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What are some of the Jim Crow etiquette norms

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Some of the Jim Crow etiquette norms were that a black man could not offer his hands with a white man because it implied being socially equal. Also, blacks and whites were not supposed to eat together.

Resources: https://ferris.edu/jimcrow/what.htm#

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Why was the violence sometimes used to enforce Jim Crow?

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Why was the violence sometimes used to enforce Jim Crow?

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Violence was sometimes used to enforce Jim Crow so that blacks could not vote and whites still be powerful. For example, in August 1955 a man named Lamar Smith was shot and killed by a white police officer for urging backs to vote.

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The American Civil Rights Movement in the late 1950s and 1960s represents a pivotal event in world history. The positive changes it brought to voting and civil rights continue to be felt throughout the United States and much of the world. Although this struggle for Black equality was fought on hundreds of different "battlefields" throughout the United States, many observers at the time described the state of Mississippi as the most racist and violent.

Mississippi's lawmakers, law enforcement officers, public officials, and private citizens worked long and hard to maintain the segregated way of life that had dominated the state since the end of the Civil War in 1865. The method that ensured segregation persisted was the use and threat of violence against people who sought to end it.

Philosophy of nonviolence

In contrast, the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement chose the tactic of nonviolence as a tool to dismantle institutionalized racial segregation, discrimination, and inequality. Indeed, they followed Martin Luther King Jr.'s guiding principles of nonviolence and passive resistance. Civil rights leaders had long understood that segregationists would go to any length to maintain their power and control over African Americans. Consequently, they believed some changes might be made if enough people outside the South witnessed the violence African Americans had experienced for decades.

According to Bob Moses and other civil rights activists, they hoped and often prayed that television and newspaper reporters would show the world that the primary reason African Americans remained in such a subordinate position in the South was because of widespread violence directed against them. History shows there was no shortage of violence to attract the media.

History of violence

In 1955, Reverend George Lee, vice president of the Regional Council of Negro Leadership and NAACP worker, was shot in the face and killed for urging African Americans in the Mississippi Delta to vote. Although eyewitnesses saw a carload of White people drive by and shoot into Lee's automobile, the authorities failed to charge anyone. Governor Hugh White refused requests to send investigators to Belzoni, Mississippi, where the murder occurred.

In August 1955, Lamar Smith, sixty-three-year-old farmer and World War II veteran, was shot in cold blood on the crowded courthouse lawn in Brookhaven, Mississippi, for urging African Americans to vote. In Local People, John Dittmer writes "although the sheriff saw a white man leaving the scene 'with blood all over him' no one admitted to having witnessed the shooting" and "the killer went free."

On September 25, 1961, farmer Herbert Lee was shot and killed in Liberty, Mississippi, by E.H. Hurst, a member of the Mississippi State Legislature. Hurst murdered Lee because of his participation in the voter registration campaign sweeping through southwest Mississippi. Authorities never charged him with the crime. According to Charles Payne in his book, I've Got the Light of Freedom, "black witnesses had been pressured by the sheriff and others to testify that Lee tried to hit Hurst with a tire tool. They testified as ordered. Hurst was acquitted by a coroner's jury, held in a room full of armed white men, the same day as the killing. Hurst never spent a night in jail."

NAACP State Director Medgar Evers was gunned down in 1963 in his Jackson driveway by rifle-wielding White Citizens Council member Byron De La Beckwith from Greenwood, Mississippi.

Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner

Perhaps the most notable episode of violence came in Freedom Summer of 1964, when civil rights activists James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner left their base in Meridian, Mississippi, to investigate one of a number of church burnings in the eastern part of the state. The Ku Klux Klan had burned Mount Zion Church because the minister had allowed it to be used as a meeting place for civil rights activists. After the three young men had gone into Neshoba County to investigate, they were subsequently stopped and arrested by Neshoba County Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price. After several hours, Price finally released them only to arrest them again shortly after 10 p.m. He then turned the civil rights workers over to his fellow Klansmen. The group took the activists to a remote area, beat them, and then shot them to death. Dittmer suggests that because Schwerner and Goodman were White the federal government responded by establishing an FBI office in Jackson and calling out the Mississippi National Guard and U. S. Navy to help search for the three men. Of course this was the response the Freedom Summer organizers had hoped for when they asked for White volunteers.

After several weeks of searching and recovering more than a dozen other bodies, the authorities finally found the civil rights workers buried under an earthen dam. Seven Klansmen, including Price, were arrested and tried for the brutal killings. A jury of sympathizers found them all not guilty. Some time later, the federal government charged the murderers with violating the civil rights of Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney. This time the Klansmen were convicted and served sentences ranging from two to ten years.

In addition to these murders, violence persisted through mass arrests, jail beatings, lynchings, and church bombings. Eventually, national public exposure brought about substantive change. Once the cameras began to capture incidents similar to the ones described here, progress in the movement became a reality. President John F. Kennedy, and later President Lyndon Johnson, moved to put a halt to at least some of the violence by supporting the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Arms in defense

Nonetheless, many African Americans had already taken it upon themselves to defend their lives and property with whatever weapons they could muster. Despite their adherence to the philosophy of nonviolence, Black Mississippians understood too well the implications of not being armed to defend their lives and property. Civil rights workers throughout the state set up around-the-clock surveillance of some of the churches and homes they used as meeting places. As far as they were concerned, not striking back while participating in a public protest was quite different from not defending one's home, church, or community center from imminent attack.

Griffin McLaurin, a Covington County activist, recalled his experiences for the University of Southern Mississippi's Center for Oral History. He said civil rights activists "were guarding all of our houses" and "we formed a little group that was patrolling the community and keeping an eye on our community center." McLaurin noted that there was still plenty of fear because they received threats on their lives every day. He added that although individual citizens and racist groups like the Ku Klux Klan "blew up a lot of cars on the road going to the center," they did not succeed in bombing it because they kept a 24-hour watch on the building. McLaurin stated that "they'd come in late at night and try to get to the center, but we had our guards. We stood our ground, and whenever we heard something that we thought wasn't right, we had our firepower."

Walter Bruce, a Durant native and former chair of the Holmes County Freedom Democratic Party, told the Center for Oral History the story of how "fighting fire with fire" was the only way many African Americans and their supporters were able to survive the sixties.

Bruce:
"Well, our strategy was we always did carry our weapons out there. . . .And so, when they came over that Wednesday night and started to shooting, and when they got down there about half a mile, our people opened fire on them. And so, they turned around, and come back that a-way. And when they come back that a-way, the people on that side started shooting over they heads. And [when they] got in town, they said, "We not going to go back out there no more." And said "Them niggers got all kinds of machine guns out there."...and that word got out, and so from then on we never had no more problems when we'd go out there [with] nobody coming by shooting no more. So that broke that up."

From these examples it is clear that many African Americans used the term and tactic of nonviolence quite loosely. Their public stance was undoubtedly necessary to attract supporters and to compel government action, while the more private reliance on armed self-defense was a reality that few activists shunned.

The larger Civil Rights Movement can attribute its success to the tactic of nonviolence contrasting with the exposure of violence-prone policemen, sheriffs, vigilante groups, and other defenders of the status quo. Yet, the tactic of armed self-defense was indispensable in order to protect lives and property since the courts and law enforcement officials often stood silent or protected the perpetrators of racist violence. Thus, African Americans and their supporters were compelled to fight the evils of segregation with nonviolence as well as with force. While this may seem paradoxical, it worked to advance their struggle for freedom, equality, and justice.
Curtis J. Austin, Ph.D., is professor of history at the University of Southern Mississippi.

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On Violence and Nonviolence: The Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi

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The American Civil Rights Movement in the late 1950s and 1960s represents a pivotal event in world history. The positive changes it brought to voting and civil rights continue to be felt throughout the United States and much of the world.

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Citation for effects of average families From 1929-1939

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Citation for effects of average families From 1929-1939

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkAfjRolNCI&t=206s

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Emmitt  Louis till was a young African - American boy who was lynched in Mississippi at 2:30 am on August 28, 1955 Roy Bryant, Carolyn's husband and his half brother J.W. Milam kidnapped till from Moses home and beat the teenager brutally and shot him in the head and tied him up with barbed wire and shoved him into the water.

“Emmett Till.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 28 Aug. 2018, www.biography.com/people/emmett-till-507515.

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Plessy v. Ferguson was a significant event because it established a document called "Separate not equal," allowing states to split up all white and blacks.

Video:
https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/plessy-v-ferguson

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Database: http://online.infobaselearning.com/Default.aspx

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What was her family socioeconomic status when she was growing up

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What was her family socioeconomic status when she was growing up

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She wasn't poor or looked different since her family was white and her father was a lawyer.
https://www.biography.com/people/harper-lee-9377021

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What influenced Harper Lee to become a writer?

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What influenced Harper Lee to become a writer?

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Harper Lee Lived in a town where people had a racist attitude to people with a different skin color. Because of these racist events happening in her home town it inspired her to write "How to 🤬 a mocking Bird"
Link:Resources and databases

http://online.infobase.com/HRC/Search/Search/12?q=%22Lee%20Harper%22%20OR%20%22Harper%20Lee%22

https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/what-influenced-harper-lee-write-novel-🤬-389305

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What Historical events did Harper Lee Lived through?

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What Historical events did Harper Lee Lived through?

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The famous author Harper Lee, Was born in the early 1920's when more racism started to be a big more of a problem then before.Back in 1931 "9 young African-American men were convicted and went to many trials after two white women falsely accuse them of rape, which the case became known as the Scottsboro Boys Trial".Later on in "August 28,1955 Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African-American boy from Chicago, is murdered by a gang of white men for allegedly whistling at a white woman". and the well known and one of the most famous event that caused Harper,Lee to write "How to 🤬 a mocking bird was when "Rosa Parks tries to keep her seat in the bus which caused the bus boycott in December 1, 1955". Some of these event's caused Harper lee to write the book"How to 🤬 a Mocking bird"which was inspired by the racist attitudes in Harper Lee's Home town of Monroeville,Alabama.

Link:other resources and databases
http://online.infobase.com/HRC/Search/Search/12?q=%22Lee%20Harper%22%20OR%20%22Harper%20Lee%22

https://www.shmoop.com/harper-lee/timeline.html

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The International Labor Defense helped the Scottboro boys through their trials.

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Which organization did not help the Scottsboro boys?

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Which organization did not help the Scottsboro boys?

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The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), did not help the Scottsboro boys throughout their trials.
http://online.infobase.com/HRC/Search/Details/5?articleId=158436&q=%22Scottsboro%20Trial%22