A Hot Topics Hot Serials Supplement from DEFINITIONS Civil Rights
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Prints and Photographs Division Civil Library of Congress,* LC — USZ62-116776 Rights: A Hot Topics Hot Serials Supplement from DEFINITIONS CIVIL RIGHTS. The rights of personal liberty guaranteed to INTRODUCTION U.S. citizens by the 13th and ! 14th Amendments to the if the country would change its Constitution and by acts of ways. The North defeated the South and slavery was ended. Congress. The new governments in the CIVIL RIGHTS South passed laws granting MOVEMENT. An effort to more rights to blacks. But that establish citizenship rights for was short-lived. Soon there was blacks – rights that whites took a return to slavery-like conditions. for granted, such as voting and “Separate but equal” was the freely using public facilities. phrase used to describe laws that separated the races for everything, whether drinking from a waterfountain or attending school. Civil rights was not a hot topic among most Americans. But blacks were not sitting idly by. Some moved west, looking for places to start all-black towns without racism. Others left the South and moved north, settling in cities like Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York. Wherever they went, blacks orga- nized and fought for their rights. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Urban League, and other civil rights organizations were formed in the early 1900s. People such as Mary McLeod Bethune and Booker T. Washington founded black colleges. Black newspapers such as the Philadelphia Tribune Martin Luther King press conference, March, 1964. and the Chicago Defender U.S. News & World Report Magazine Photograph reported on lynching and other Mary MacLeod Bethune* Collection, Marion Trikosko, photographer. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress atrocities that black people suf- Reproduction Number LC-U9-11696-9A. fered. Writers such as Langston Hughes and Richard Wright t’s hard to say just when the civil rights movement wrote about the African began. Many people believe it began with the 1954 American experience. Political U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case called Brown leaders such as W.E.B. DuBois Booker T. Washington* v. Board of Education. In that ruling, which concerned and A. Phillip Randolph led marches the schools in Topeka, Kan., the court said that and wrote news- separating public school students by race was paper articles. unconstitutional and had to stop “with all deliberate Whites from speed.”I This decision shocked the country. But many various social Langston Hughes and political (above) people don’t know that Brown was the result of a Richard Wright (left) multi-year effort to stop school segregation. As far back movements W.E.B. DuBois as 1849, the Boston school system was challenged for its wrote articles (below)* racial policy. Brown was just one step in what became and attempted known as the civil rights movement. Others say the civil to change laws. rights movement started with the bus boycott in Events like these, together, were the Montgomery, Ala., in 1955 and 1956. A. Phillip Randolph* Actually, though, there has been a civil rights movement incubator from which since even before the United States was a country. In the the civil rights movement was born. 1600s, many black slaves ran away from slavery, a move This newspaper section will look at a toward winning their civil rights. Mennonites in Philadelphia few of the key events of that time period protested against slavery in the 1660s. Many blacks brought and at the work of one man in particular cases to courts, challenging their slavery. Lucy Terry was a — the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. slave granted freedom by the Massachusetts legislature. As America grew, so did the struggle for equal rights. This Hot Topics supplement was: Copyright 2009 Hot Topics Hot Serials Some states freed their slaves and granted rights to blacks. Written by John Colgan-Davis Edited by Ken Bookman Others ended slavery but allowed laws that discriminated NIE activities by Debby and Ned Carroll *Image from the Prints and Photographs Division, against blacks. After the Civil War (1860-1865), it seemed as Graphic Design by Berns & Kay, Ltd. Library of Congress 2 Civil Rights in the The Movement Begins NEWS n the 1940s, in issue of segregation one that mies rather than send their Learning standards: understanding that close observation is one tool of social scientists, writing Farmville, Virginia, had to be addressed publicly. children to integrated schools. observations black and white The problem was no longer a Violence flared. The Ku Klux 1. Throughout this section, you will read about Istudents were segregated. local issue. It was now a Klan, an extremist white group, the struggle to make equal opportunities for all The black students were in an national issue – important all burned crosses, held rallies, people, no matter what their race. Have we overcrowded building — Moton across the country. and attacked blacks across achieved this? Consider African American and High School. In 1948, the The reaction of the whites the South. Other white organi- white relationships in your city or town today. school board decided to build in Prince County, Va., was the zations, such as the White What are your observations about what is going on around you? Write an essay telling what you three tarpaper shacks at same as in many communities Citizens Council, were think. Then, specifically focus on your local Moton to ease the overcrowd- in the South. The Prince formed. Many black leaders newspaper. Skim it to see whether there is equal ing. Barbara Rose Johns, a County school board built were attacked and/or mur- coverage of people of all races. Write your 16-year-old Moton student, led a new building for Moton, dered. Acts of violence were observations of what you see. a strike of students to protest but rather than eliminate designed to scare black 2. What would the country be like today if the the conditions and to demand segregation, it closed all public people to force them to Supreme Court had ruled the opposite way in the a new building. With the help schools from 1959 through stop their movement. But Brown case and said that “separate but equal” of the local NAACP, the Moton 1964. White citizens and the movement was just was okay and allowed it to remain legal? Are there stories in today’s newspaper that might be High students filed a lawsuit churches started “citizenship gaining momentum. different if that had happened? to force the county to desegre- schools” and private acade- gate. Things in America start- ed to change. And the violence, rather Brown v. Board of than halting the movement, Education was one of the most seemed to propel it forward. famous decisions in Supreme In Baton Rouge, La., Court history — partly T.J. Jemison started a bus because it reversed one of boycott. It lasted 10 days and the court’s own landmark did not significantly challenge decisions. An 1896 decision, segregation, but it was a sym- Plessy v. Ferguson, ruled that bol of a new determination by the “separate but equal” treat- African Americans. They were ment was legal. The Topeka, willing to come together to Kan., NAACP brought the make their dissatisfaction pub- Brown case. The NAACP had lic. And later, in Montgomery, long wanted to find cases to Ala., that organized outrage challenge racism and segrega- was about to change the way tion. Their chapter in Topeka, the nation did things. Kansas combined five cases, including the Moton High School case, and challenged the idea of “separate but equal” that kept segregation going. A team of attorneys, including Thurgood Marshall (who later would become the first black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court) argued the case before the Supreme Court. In May 1954, the Court ruled unanimously that “separate but equal” in public education was unconstitution- al. This was the first major Headline from the Montgomery, Alabama, Bus Boycott, “5,000 at Meeting Outline Boycott; Bullet Clips Bus”. victory for the budding civil George E.C. Hayes, Thurgood Marshall, and James Nabrit, congratulating each other, following Supreme Montgomery Advertiser, December 6, 1955. Copyprint rights movement. It made the Court decision declaring segregation unconstitutional, 1954. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of from microfilm. Serial and Government Publications Congress, LC-USZ62-111236. Copyright New York World-Telegram and Sun Photograph. Division. (9-3). Courtesy of the Montgomery Advertiser.* 3 Martin Luther King Jr. In the mid-1950s, Martin Luther King Jr. lived in Montgomery, living examples of religious values, even if it meant going Ala. He had graduated from Crozier Theological Seminary and against the society. Their ideas gave King much to think about, from Boston University. He studied religious concerns, but he and in Montgomery he put those ideas into action. was also interested in how religion and social change could be On September 5, 1954, he preached his first sermon at connected. He had read several books about Mohandas Gandhi Dexter Baptist Church in Montgomery. He was nervous, but he and his nonviolent movement in India. He also read the works of had advice from his father. He made several changes that got more people involved in running the church and serving it. He Walter Rauschenbusch and Reinhold Niebuhr, two religious think- demonstrated his ability to work with all members of the church, ers who talked about the “Social Gospel.” That was the name and that impressed others. He became involved in the local given to a religious movement that stressed the need to act as NAACP chapter. His work was crucial for what followed in Montgomery because his skills as a leader and organizer At freedom rally, Washington Temple were being formed when he would most need them.