Part 4: Civil Rights Movement, Part I
In this series, Racism in America, I aim to discuss the history of the United States with a focus on the topic of racism, both systemic and individual racism. Through this series, I hope to play a part in fighting the issue of racism that still persists in our society today. This series was inspired by the Black Lives Matter protest movement.
Continuing on from the previous post in this series, today we will be taking a closer look at the Civil Rights Movement. The movement was a fight by Black Americans to gain equal treatment under the law and desegregate the country. Having endured segregation and harsh Jim Crow laws for many years, an uprising occurred during the 1950s and ’60s, beginning a fight for equality and eventually ending in victory.
During America’s involvement in World War II, the American economy rose from the depths of the Great Depression and the war-related economy skyrocketed. Unfortunately, Black people were not allowed to hold higher-paid jobs and were discouraged from joining the U.S. Military. After a threat from Blacks to march in Washington, D.C. to demand equal employment rights, President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) issued an executive order in June 1941 to open all defense and government jobs to all Americans regardless of race, color, or national origin. Despite still facing segregation and discrimination, large numbers of Blacks still served in the war, with one Black aviator earning upward of 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses.
During the beginning of the Cold War, President Truman issued an executive order to fully end segregation in the military. These events helped to initiate the Civil Rights Movement.
The first major victory was the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court case in May 1954, where the court ruled unanimously to fully end segregation in public schools (a closer look will come in a future post). One major event that resulted due to this case occurred in 1957, where the Governor of Arkansas ordered the Arkansas National Guard to prevent nine Black students from attending the Little Rock Central High School (the case is now known as the “Little Rock Nine”). Eventually, President Dwight D. Eisenhower intervened and ordered federal troops to walk the nine students to school every day for an entire year to enforce the desegregation of public schools.
The movement continued to gain traction after Emmett Till, an African-American 14-year-old boy who was brutally murdered in Mississippi by a white man in 1955, was acquitted by an all-white jury. This prompted outrage across the country.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott in Alabama was initiated by African-Americans living in the town in December 1955 after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man and was arrested. The arrest sparked outrage and resulted in Parks becoming the “mother of the Civil Rights Movement,” and started a 381 day-long bus boycott by the Black community. The boycott only ended in the Supreme Court case of Browder v. Gayle, which ruled segregated seating unconstitutional. The boycott was one of the first major actions of the Civil Rights Movement and resulted in the bus company losing a lot of revenue since most riders were African-American.
This culminated in the first major civil rights legislation since Reconstruction, where President Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 into law, allowing federal prosecution of anyone who tried to prevent someone from voting (voter suppression of Black Americans was common throughout the South) and created a commission to investigate voter fraud.
Throughout the late 1950s, other major ways the movement gained traction was by nonviolent protests, sit-ins (where Black people sat in areas reserved for white people and refused to move), in order to get stores to remove segregation. One major sit-in occurred in February 1960, in Greensboro, North Carolina, where four college students refused to leave a lunch counter in a Woolworth’s store without being served. Hundreds joined in, and after arrests and boycotts, the store finally changed the policy. This helped make such forms of protest common across the country.
On May 4, 1961, a group of seven Black and six white activists, calling themselves “Freedom Riders,” got onto a Greyhound bus in Washington, D.C., to go on a tour of the South to protest segregated bus terminals, to test the Supreme Court case of Boynton v. Virginia, which ruled that segregation was unconstitutional for passengers engaging in interstate travel. The bus was due to arrive in New Orleans on May 17. The group faced violence from white supremacists and police officers in the South, drawing international attention.
In Anniston, Alabama, a mob threw a bomb onto the bus. Although the riders were able to escape the bus, they were badly beaten. Attorney General Robert Kennedy had to negotiate with Alabama’s governor to be able to find the group a suitable driver, and the group resumed their journey under a police escort on May 20. However, after the policemen left the group in Montgomery, Alabama, a white mob attacked the bus. This resulted in the Attorney General sending federal marshals to Montgomery. On May 24, in Jackson, Mississippi, the group was arrested for trespassing in a white-only facility and sentenced to 30 days in jail despite having hundreds of supporters. Eventually, the Supreme Court reversed the convictions. This resulted in hundreds of new riders joining in the cause, and, in fall 1961, the Kennedy administration pressured the Interstate Commerce Commission to prohibit segregation in interstate transit terminals.
On August 28, 1963, the March on Washington occurred. It was a major event organized by major civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr., A. Phillip Randolph, Banyard Rustin, and was a collaborative effort of all major civil rights organizations. 200,000 to 300,000 people gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., and King delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech there. The speech later became a symbol of the Civil Rights Era.
Although President John F. Kennedy was committed to passing civil rights legislation, it was unclear whether the bills would have enough votes to pass Congress. However, after Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson used his influence in Congress to try and pass civil rights legislation. These bills had support from Northern Congressmen and Senators of both parties but were severely opposed by Southern Congressmen and Senators from both parties, who filibustered the bills for 54 days. After lots of maneuvering, compromising, and filibustering, President Johnson was able to pass the bill through Congress.
Therefore, on July 2, 1964, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law, the biggest victory for the Civil Rights Movement since it began. The bill prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, and fully ended legal segregation. It also gave the Attorney General the power to enforce the new law and nullified all laws that required segregation.
In the next post in this series, we will look at all the events of the Civil Rights Movement that occurred after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Make sure to subscribe to the blog so you don’t miss it.