Black Freedom Struggle 04 22 2014 Introduction I The Timing of the Movement In WWII blacks and whites fought side by side toward the end of the war just because they were desperate but the military was still VERY SEGREGATED US was fighting against racism in WWII When soldiers return to the South they want to vote o Blacks hadn t been able to vote much since 1890 As early as 1948 presidential election democrats had to start paying attention to the black vote because African Americans were moving to places where the black vote mattered Truman desegregates the military to win the black vote A The Long Civil Rights Movement B Why Didn t the Mass Movement Happen Earlier Negative Factors anticommunism hurt the civil rights movement because it was leftist and people were opposing anything too liberal Fake photos were released of Martin luther king at a communist training school Earlier version of civil rights 1940 s was going after ECONOMIC equality like equality in workplace Which was more strongly opposed than voting rights and education and the other later goals of civil rights C Why Didn t the Mass Movement Happen Later Positive Factors Brown v Board of Education 1954 Emmett Till Jackie Robinson signed to Brooklyn dodgers 1942 supreme court rules against segregation they make buses running across state lines illegal to segregate Massive wave of decolonization o racism in America becomes embarrassing o blacks are inspired Brown vs Board of Ed Rules separate but equal is not okay due to psychological scarring of AA children who begin feeling inferior o Overturns Plessey vs Ferguson o Southern reaction realizes they have to go along with it But they call their state legislatures to resist o The Southern Manifesto was signed by the former confederate states to outline a support of segregation and why integration was bad Emmett Till o Southern public schools close instead of integrating o Flirts with a white woman in a store down south when visiting o The image of his mutilated corpse was published because his mother wanted the nation to take notice of what had from Chicago happened II The Southern Movement Battling Jim Crow A The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Emergence of Martin Luther King Southern Christian Leadership Conference Rosa parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white person and her arrest launched the Montgomery bus boycott After more than a year the city was forced to integrate the bus system Martin Luther King had recently taken a post in Montgomery and he becomes a central leader of this movement Boycott led by black ministers Southern Christian Leadership Conference o SCLC was led by King The importance of using the national media was discovered o If you stage the right kind of protest you attract the media and force public officials to take action o Strategy requires the right people to be arrested at the right time to attract attention B From Sit Ins to Birmingham Non Violent Direct Action 1960 63 1 Strategy shun violence at all costs it would give the other side an excuse to do even worse also it would not have be as solid of a threat 2 The Sit In Movement Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee SNCC Greensboro was the first sit in done by college students SNCC was formed by such college stuents Anne moody was involved in some of these sit ins 3 CORE and the Freedom Rides 1961 SNCC activists decide they want to continue the rides even after the violence faced in Birmingham 4 The Birmingham Campaign 1963 Bull Connor Note I will discuss the campaign for Voting Rights and the passage of major national legislation during my lecture on Liberalism Trium 04 22 2014 04 22 2014