Big Picture Theme: How did Black Americans fight for political, economic, and social equality, and to what extent was that fight effective?
Overview:
During the 1950s, African Americans rebelled against their second-class status. The ranks of civil rights advocates swelled, and African Americans, joined by some white liberals, began following the non-violent ideas of Martin Luther King Jr. They fought for equality first in the South and eventually in the North. Met with violence at every turn, many African-Americans abandoned King’s ideas and developed new philosophies. Whatever their ideas, these civil rights activists inspired hope to other minorities in the 1950s and 60s.
Essential Questions:
During the 1950s, African Americans rebelled against their second-class status. The ranks of civil rights advocates swelled, and African Americans, joined by some white liberals, began following the non-violent ideas of Martin Luther King Jr. They fought for equality first in the South and eventually in the North. Met with violence at every turn, many African-Americans abandoned King’s ideas and developed new philosophies. Whatever their ideas, these civil rights activists inspired hope to other minorities in the 1950s and 60s.
Essential Questions:
- Does Lyndon Johnson deserve to be called the “civil rights president?”
- How was civil disobedience used to fight for civil rights?
- Did the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s effectively change the nation?
The Civil Rights Era 1948-1975
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Civil Rights Era 1960-1964
The Election of 1960
The 1960 election was a close race in which Senator John F. Kennedy beat Vice President Richard Nixon by a very narrow margin.
Overview
In the 1960 election, the incumbent president Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower had already served two terms and thus was not eligible to run again. The Republican Party nominated Richard Nixon, Eisenhower’s Vice-President, while the Democrats nominated John F. Kennedy, a Senator from Massachusetts. Kennedy was elected in the closest election based on the electoral college vote since 1916.
The Nominees
Democratic Nomination
Senator John F. Kennedy initially faced opposition from some Democratic Party elders who claimed Kennedy was too young and inexperienced to be president. However, JFK, as he came to be known, had an effective campaigning strategy even in the primaries. In the week before the Democratic National Convention, two new candidates challenged Kennedy: Lyndon B. Johnson, the powerful Senate Majority Leader from Texas, and Adlai Stevenson, the party’s nominee in 1952 and 1956. However, neither Johnson nor Stevenson were a match for the talented and highly efficient Kennedy campaign team, and Kennedy won the Democratic Party nomination. Kennedy asked Johnson to be his running mate.
Republican Nomination
Eisenhower’s Vice President, Richard Nixon, was the obvious choice for the Republican nomination. Early on in the campaign season, in 1959, it looked as though Nixon might face a serious challenge for the GOP nomination from New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller. However, Rockefeller declined to run, and Nixon did not face any significant opposition for the Republican nomination.
At the Republican National Convention, Nixon was the overwhelming choice of the delegates. Nixon chose United Nations Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. to be his running mate. Lodge’s foreign-policy credentials fit into Nixon’s strategy of campaigning more on foreign policy than domestic policy.
Campaign Issue: Civil Rights
In the south, the central issue in the 1960 election was the pro-civil rights stances of both Kennedy and Nixon. Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., the civil-rights leader, was arrested in Georgia while leading a civil rights march. While Nixon refused to become involved in the incident, Kennedy placed calls to local political authorities. As a result, Kennedy received favorable publicity in the black community.
Results of the Election
The election on November 8, 1960 remains one of the most famous election nights in American history. In the national popular vote, Kennedy beat Nixon by just one tenth of one percentage point (0.1%)—the closest popular-vote margin of the 20th century. In the Electoral College, Kennedy’s victory was larger, as he took 303 electoral votes to Nixon’s 219 (269 were needed to win).
The 1960 election was a close race in which Senator John F. Kennedy beat Vice President Richard Nixon by a very narrow margin.
Overview
In the 1960 election, the incumbent president Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower had already served two terms and thus was not eligible to run again. The Republican Party nominated Richard Nixon, Eisenhower’s Vice-President, while the Democrats nominated John F. Kennedy, a Senator from Massachusetts. Kennedy was elected in the closest election based on the electoral college vote since 1916.
The Nominees
Democratic Nomination
Senator John F. Kennedy initially faced opposition from some Democratic Party elders who claimed Kennedy was too young and inexperienced to be president. However, JFK, as he came to be known, had an effective campaigning strategy even in the primaries. In the week before the Democratic National Convention, two new candidates challenged Kennedy: Lyndon B. Johnson, the powerful Senate Majority Leader from Texas, and Adlai Stevenson, the party’s nominee in 1952 and 1956. However, neither Johnson nor Stevenson were a match for the talented and highly efficient Kennedy campaign team, and Kennedy won the Democratic Party nomination. Kennedy asked Johnson to be his running mate.
Republican Nomination
Eisenhower’s Vice President, Richard Nixon, was the obvious choice for the Republican nomination. Early on in the campaign season, in 1959, it looked as though Nixon might face a serious challenge for the GOP nomination from New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller. However, Rockefeller declined to run, and Nixon did not face any significant opposition for the Republican nomination.
At the Republican National Convention, Nixon was the overwhelming choice of the delegates. Nixon chose United Nations Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. to be his running mate. Lodge’s foreign-policy credentials fit into Nixon’s strategy of campaigning more on foreign policy than domestic policy.
Campaign Issue: Civil Rights
In the south, the central issue in the 1960 election was the pro-civil rights stances of both Kennedy and Nixon. Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., the civil-rights leader, was arrested in Georgia while leading a civil rights march. While Nixon refused to become involved in the incident, Kennedy placed calls to local political authorities. As a result, Kennedy received favorable publicity in the black community.
Results of the Election
The election on November 8, 1960 remains one of the most famous election nights in American history. In the national popular vote, Kennedy beat Nixon by just one tenth of one percentage point (0.1%)—the closest popular-vote margin of the 20th century. In the Electoral College, Kennedy’s victory was larger, as he took 303 electoral votes to Nixon’s 219 (269 were needed to win).
Birmingham, 1963
The 1963 SCLC campaign was a movement to bring attention to the integration efforts of African Americans in Birmingham, Alabama. Led by figures such as King, James Bevel, and Fred Shuttlesworth, the campaign of nonviolent direct action culminated in widely publicized confrontations between young black students and white civic authorities, and eventually led the municipal government to change the city’s discrimination laws. Unlike the earlier efforts on Albany, which focused on desegregation of the entire city, the campaign focused on more narrowly defined goals: desegregation of Birmingham’s downtown stores, fair hiring practices in stores and city employment, reopening of public parks, and creation of a biracial committee to oversee the desegregation of Birmingham’s public schools. The brutal response of local police, led by Public Safety Commissioner “Bull” Connor, stood in stark contrast to the nonviolent civil disobedience of the activists. After weeks of various forms of nonviolent disobedience, the campaign produced the desired results. In June 1963, the Jim Crow signs regulating segregated public places in Birmingham were taken down.
Three months later, on September 15, 1963, four KKK members planted at least 15 sticks of dynamite attached to a timing device beneath the front steps of the 16th Street Baptist Church. The church was one of the most important places of organization and protest during the campaign. The explosion at the church killed four girls and injured 22 others. Although the FBI had concluded in 1965 that the bombing had been committed by four known Ku Klux Klansmen and segregationists, no prosecutions took place until 1977, with two men sentenced to life imprisonment as late as 2001 and 2002, respectively, and one never being charged.
The 1963 SCLC campaign was a movement to bring attention to the integration efforts of African Americans in Birmingham, Alabama. Led by figures such as King, James Bevel, and Fred Shuttlesworth, the campaign of nonviolent direct action culminated in widely publicized confrontations between young black students and white civic authorities, and eventually led the municipal government to change the city’s discrimination laws. Unlike the earlier efforts on Albany, which focused on desegregation of the entire city, the campaign focused on more narrowly defined goals: desegregation of Birmingham’s downtown stores, fair hiring practices in stores and city employment, reopening of public parks, and creation of a biracial committee to oversee the desegregation of Birmingham’s public schools. The brutal response of local police, led by Public Safety Commissioner “Bull” Connor, stood in stark contrast to the nonviolent civil disobedience of the activists. After weeks of various forms of nonviolent disobedience, the campaign produced the desired results. In June 1963, the Jim Crow signs regulating segregated public places in Birmingham were taken down.
Three months later, on September 15, 1963, four KKK members planted at least 15 sticks of dynamite attached to a timing device beneath the front steps of the 16th Street Baptist Church. The church was one of the most important places of organization and protest during the campaign. The explosion at the church killed four girls and injured 22 others. Although the FBI had concluded in 1965 that the bombing had been committed by four known Ku Klux Klansmen and segregationists, no prosecutions took place until 1977, with two men sentenced to life imprisonment as late as 2001 and 2002, respectively, and one never being charged.
Letter from Birmingham Jail
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. replies to his critics in a disarming, conciliatory and moderate tone. He explains that although the demonstrators and protesters in the Civil Rights Movement were breaking the law, their actions were obeying a higher moral law, as opposed to a human law, based on divine justice. MLK was referring to St. Augustine who had said that "an unjust law is no law at all".
Martin Luther King justified the tactic of civil disobedience by equating it to the Bible when Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to obey Nebuchadnezzar’s unjust laws. And just as the early colonists had staged the Boston Tea Party, he refused to submit to laws and injunctions that were "used to maintain segregation and to deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest".
In answer to the charge that the protests created racial tensions, Martin Luther King, Jr. responded with “We who in engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive” Injustice, MLK insisted, had to be exposed "to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured". MLK's aim was, like the apostles and prophets in the Bible who had traveled distances to challenge injustice and bring the "gospel of freedom". His belief was that all citizens of the United States were bound in purpose and future.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. replies to his critics in a disarming, conciliatory and moderate tone. He explains that although the demonstrators and protesters in the Civil Rights Movement were breaking the law, their actions were obeying a higher moral law, as opposed to a human law, based on divine justice. MLK was referring to St. Augustine who had said that "an unjust law is no law at all".
Martin Luther King justified the tactic of civil disobedience by equating it to the Bible when Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to obey Nebuchadnezzar’s unjust laws. And just as the early colonists had staged the Boston Tea Party, he refused to submit to laws and injunctions that were "used to maintain segregation and to deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest".
In answer to the charge that the protests created racial tensions, Martin Luther King, Jr. responded with “We who in engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive” Injustice, MLK insisted, had to be exposed "to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured". MLK's aim was, like the apostles and prophets in the Bible who had traveled distances to challenge injustice and bring the "gospel of freedom". His belief was that all citizens of the United States were bound in purpose and future.
JFK & Civil Rights
On the evening of May 3, 1963, Americans watched on television as Martin Luther King Jr.'s campaign to desegregate Birmingham, Alabama collapsed under a wave of officially sanctioned violence. Birmingham police attacked peaceful black demonstrators with clubs, dogs, and high-pressure fire hoses, and for the first time many citizens understood the breadth of America's racial divide. Perhaps no one regarded the events with more anguish than President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. The violence in Birmingham proved that Kennedy's piecemeal approach to civil rights had failed.
On the evening of May 3, 1963, Americans watched on television as Martin Luther King Jr.'s campaign to desegregate Birmingham, Alabama collapsed under a wave of officially sanctioned violence. Birmingham police attacked peaceful black demonstrators with clubs, dogs, and high-pressure fire hoses, and for the first time many citizens understood the breadth of America's racial divide. Perhaps no one regarded the events with more anguish than President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. The violence in Birmingham proved that Kennedy's piecemeal approach to civil rights had failed.
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Kennedy's approach to civil rights was viewed, by civil rights leaders, as noncommittal. But the violence in Birmingham on May 3rd, 1963 left him no choice but to alter his course. The nightsticks, the police dogs, and the fire hoses had revealed a glimpse of what America could become. Unless Kennedy took a firm stand, the New Frontier might deteriorate into a bloody race war.
On the evening of June 11th, just hours after federal marshals had escorted black students to their dormitories at the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, the president delivered a televised address to the nation. Speaking with conviction, Kennedy announced he would send comprehensive civil rights legislation to Congress. The package would include provisions for access to public facilities, voting rights, and technical and monetary support for school desegregation.
"The heart of the question," the president said, "is whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and opportunities." The answer from those who opposed civil rights came later that evening, when segregationist Byron de La Beckwith shot and killed Medgar Evers, the NAACP's Mississippi field secretary.
Five months later, Kennedy himself was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Comprehensive civil rights legislation had not yet passed. It would be up to Lyndon Baines Johnson, Kennedy's successor -- and to committed activists across the nation -- to resume the battle for equality.
Kennedy's failure to secure meaningful civil rights legislation was emblematic of other stalled domestic policy initiatives introduced by his administration. His efforts to cut taxes and increase funding for education also died in Congress. At the end of his brief presidency, much of the bright promise of the New Frontier had yet to be fulfilled.
On the evening of June 11th, just hours after federal marshals had escorted black students to their dormitories at the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, the president delivered a televised address to the nation. Speaking with conviction, Kennedy announced he would send comprehensive civil rights legislation to Congress. The package would include provisions for access to public facilities, voting rights, and technical and monetary support for school desegregation.
"The heart of the question," the president said, "is whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and opportunities." The answer from those who opposed civil rights came later that evening, when segregationist Byron de La Beckwith shot and killed Medgar Evers, the NAACP's Mississippi field secretary.
Five months later, Kennedy himself was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Comprehensive civil rights legislation had not yet passed. It would be up to Lyndon Baines Johnson, Kennedy's successor -- and to committed activists across the nation -- to resume the battle for equality.
Kennedy's failure to secure meaningful civil rights legislation was emblematic of other stalled domestic policy initiatives introduced by his administration. His efforts to cut taxes and increase funding for education also died in Congress. At the end of his brief presidency, much of the bright promise of the New Frontier had yet to be fulfilled.
MLK I Have a Dream Speech