The Civil Rights Movement in the United States An Outline

This outline concerns itself with the modern civil rights movement, i.e., in the 1950’s and 1960’s. The struggle for full legal equality can be traced back as far as one likes – to the Emancipation Proclamation, or in a more general sense to John Locke or to the Magna Carta or to Mosaic injunctions. The immediate background to the modern civil rights movement was the loss of political participation which had been gained in the Reconstruction Era. More African-Americans were elected to Congress in the 1870’s and 1880’s than in 1920’s. After WWII, the Blacks worked to regain these rights.

1944. - Eisenhower desegregates U.S. combat troops in Europe during the Battle of the Bulge; he does this to improve logistics, supplies lines, and the distribution of replacement troops (probably the first American military integration ever).

1948. - Truman’s executive order # 9981 orders the desegregation of the armed forces, but Truman fails to fully implement this. Eisenhower will do so when he becomes president.

1954. - Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas overturns the “separate but equal” doctrine of Plessy vs. Ferguson – the Democrat Party’s candidate for president, John W. Davis, argues in favor of segregation at the Supreme Court.

1955. - Montgomery, Alabama, Bus Boycott, Rosa Parks and Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

1955. - the murder of Emmett Till

1957. - Little Rock Nine; Democrat Governor Orval Faubus resists integration; Republican President Eisenhower enforces it, sending federal troops to ensure that black students are allowed into a high school.

1957. - Civil Rights Act of 1957 passed in Congress. Democrats filibuster and attempt to stop it. Senator John F. Kennedy votes against it. Republicans pass it. Eisenhower signs it. 100% of the Republicans in the Senate vote for the bill. 38% of Senate Democrats vote against it.

1958. - Oklahoma City sit-in desegregates lunch counters at drugstores.

1960. - Civil Rights Act of 1960 passed in Congress. Democrats filibuster and

Page 1 attempt to stop it. Republicans pass it. (90% of the Republicans in the House of Representatives voted for the act – 132 of them in all. Only 65% of the House Democrats voted for it.) Eisenhower signs it.

1960. - Greensboro sit-in desegregates lunch counters at drugstores; movement spreads to Nashville.

1961. - Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) organizes “freedom rides” on interstate bus lines to ensure compliance with federal desegregation laws.

1962. - Democrat Governor Ross Barnett seeks to stop Black student James Meredith from enrolling as the first African-American Student at the University of Mississippi; Meredith enrolls, later becoming a leader in the Republican Party.

1963. - MLK write “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” while imprisoned for non- violent protesting. It was in Birmingham, Alabama, that the Commissioner of Public Safety, Theophilus Eugene “Bull” Connor, infamously turned firehoses and attack dogs loose to pounce upon the civil rights protesters. Bull Connor had been elected as a candidate put forth by the Democratic Party, and even after iconic images became a symbol for the civil rights struggle, he continued to be elected by the Democrats until 1972.

1963. - MLK delivers “I have a dream” speech in Washington, D.C.

1964. - Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed in Congress. Democrats filibuster and attempt to stop it. Republicans pass it. 80% of Republicans in the House of Representatives vote for the measure (138 to 34), while only 61% of Democrats vote for it (152 to 96).

1964. - in Atlanta, Georgia, restaurant owner Lester Maddox refuses to serve Black customers; he physically throws them out of the building, and greets others at the with an ax. The Democratic Party in Georgia chooses him to be their candidate for governor.

1964. - Malcolm X leaves Elijah Muhammad and leaves the Nation of Islam.

1965. - Death of Malcolm X.

Page 2 1965. - Riots in Watts.

1965. - Selma, Alabama; MLK, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) organize voter registration; “bloody Sunday” at the Edmund Pettus Bridge; possible turning point away from “voting and desegregation” and toward “Black Power.” Charlton Heston supports MLK publicly.

1965. - Voting Rights Act passes Congress; 97% of Senate Republicans vote for it, compared to only 73% of the Senate Democrats; 85% of House Republicans vote for it, compared to only 78% of House Democrats

1966. - Black Panthers founded by Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver. Stokely Carmichael leaves SNCC to join Black Panthers.

1967. - Riots in Detroit and Newark

1968. - Civil Rights Act of 1968 passed in Congress. Democrat filibuster and attempt to stop it. Republicans pass it. LBJ signs it.

1968. - MLK assassinated.

1968. - Chicago Riots.

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