Chapter 37: Desegregating the South

President Eisenhower brought to his presidency in 1953 a deep commitment to egalitarian values, nurtured by his heartland upbringing, and an abiding belief in the law of the land, as interpreted by the Supreme Court. He will use U.S. Supreme Court to improve Black Civil Rights.

Earl Warren, appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (By Eisenhower), actively assailed Black injustice and ruled in favor of African-Americans.

On May 17, 1954 the landmark case of Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional. The decision overturned the previous 1896 ruling of Plessy vs. Ferguson

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks inspires the Montgomery, Alabama Bus Strike.  The newly arrived 25 year old preacher, Martin Luther King Jr. will lead the non violent movement to success. Please click on the following link:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5gvNPWSuKM

 

Emmett Tills ghastly murder will bring national attention and awareness to the despicable practices of prejudice and injustice in the Jim Crow South.  Please click on the following link:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMdSYxZqIXc

On September 1957, when Orval Faubus, the governor of Arkansas, mobilized the National Guard to prevent nine Black students from enrolling in Little Rock’s Central High School, Ike sent troop sot escort the children to their classes. Please click on link:

http://il.youtube.com/watch?v=HH-eC4LgZT4

Chapter 37: "Checkers Speech"

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The “Checkers speech” showed the awesome power of television..watch speech on link below:

 

•V.P. Ricard Nixon "Checkers Speech"

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Civil Rights Timeline

 

Brief Civil Rights Timeline

1896	Supreme Court's Plessy v. Ferguson decision establishes the Separate but equal doctrine
1903	In The Souls of Black Folk , W.E.B. DuBois breaks with Booker T. Washington over the latter's emphasis on graduation and vocational education. DuBois wants the college educated Talented Tenth to lead the masses of the Negro people to political and social equality.
1909	DuBois' Niagara Movement joins with whites outraged by the Springfield Riot of 1908 to form the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Its strategy relies on legal action, protest, and education.  William Edward Burghardt
1934	Southern Tenant Farmers Union
1954	U.S. Supreme Court declares school segregation unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka ruling.
!955	Rosa Parks refuses to move to the back of a Montgomery, Alabama, bus as required by city ordinance; boycott follows and bus segregation ordinance is declared unconstitutional.
1957	SCLC Founded in Atlanta “To redeem the soul of America: Dr. King
1957	Desegregation at Little Rock:, Governor Orval Faubus
1957	Civil Rights Act (first since 1875) created a commission on Civil Rights to investigate denial of voting rights
1960	Civil Rights Act – Federal penalties imposed on anyone resorting to violence to obstruct the Civil Rights Act
1960	Sit-in Campaign: After having been refused service at the lunch counter of a Woolworth's in Greensboro, North Carolina, Joseph McNeill, a Negro college student, returned the next day with three classmates to sit at the counter until they were served (Greensboro 4).
1960	Nashville, Tenn. – became the first major Southern city to de-segregate public facilities
1963	Civil rights leader Medgar Evers is killed by a sniper's bullet
September 1963	Ku Klux Klan bombed the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, killing four little girls who, dressed in the “Youth Sunday” best, this murderous act shocked the nation and galvanized the civil rights movement.
July 2, 1964	The Civil Rights Act of 1964: Congress passes Civil Rights Act declaring discrimination based on race illegal after 75-day long filibuster.
1964	Three civil rights workers (Scherner, Goodman, and Chaney) disappear in Mississippi after being stopped for speeding; found buried six weeks later.
1965	Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibits literacy tests and poll taxes which had been used to prevent blacks from voting. According to a report of the Bureau of the Census from 1982, in 1960 there were 22,000 African-Americans registered to vote in Mississippi, but in 1966 the number had risen to 175,000. Alabama went from 66,000 African-American registered voters in 1960 to 250,000 in 1966. South Carolina's African-American registered voters went from 58,000 to 191,000 in the same time period.