Civil Rights

Section 18.1

Rosa Parks

- December 1, 1955

- arrested for refusing to give her seat on a bus to a white man

- not the first to do so, but was considered to be a good fit for being model for Civil Rights movement

Montgomery Boy Boycott

- African Americans refused to use the buses in Montgomery, AL

- will not give up until segregation on public transportation

- began on the day of Rosa Park’s appeared in court

- ends in November 1956, Supreme Court affirmed the decision of a special three-judge panel declaring Alabama’s laws requiring segregation on bus unconstitutional

Martin Luther King Jr.

- pastor

- civil rights activist

- only moral way to end segregation and racism was through nonviolent passive resistance

- killed in Memphis while supported strike → caused Civil Rights Act of 1968

- marked end of era, civil rights movement never the same

Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)

- established in 1957 by African American ministers, lead by Martin Luther King Jr.

- set out to eliminate segregation from American society and to encourage Af. Am. to register to vote

How did the Montgomery Bus Boycott help create a mass movement for change?

- started a chain reaction

Section 18.2

The Sit-in Movement

- February 1, 1960

- four young college-age African Americans hold a sit-in in a white-only department store, Woolworth’s

- each day, more student joined them; also spread to other states

- brought large number of idealistic and energized college students into the civil rights struggle

civil disobedience

- breaking laws that are seemingly unjust

non-violent protest

- King believed this the only moral way to combat segregation and racism

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

- created during Sit-in movement

- student run organization for civil right movement

- members included Marion Barry (mayor of D.C.), John Lewis (member of Congress)

- students mainly from the South, also included whites

- key role in desegregating public facilities

- sent volunteers to help Af. Ams. register to vote

Freedom Riders

- teams of Af. Am. and white volunteers who travelled down to the South to draw attention to its refusal to integrate bus terminals

- bus still segregated even though it was already outlawed

- May 1961, first ones set out to Anniston, Birmingham and Montgomery, Alabama, where they were attacked with firebombs, bats, chains, pipes, tires on buses slit

- aided by Kennedys

Eugene “Bull” Connor

- head of the police in Birmingham, Public Safety Commissioner

- explained Freedom Riders brutal beating by saying there were no police at the station because it was Mother’s Day and he had given many people the day off

- FBI found evidence that he told the KKK to beat the Freedom Riders

- ran for mayor as Dr. King decided to launch demonstrations

- responded to protest with force

Project “C”

- C for Confrontation

- Birmingham: Af. Am. children are beaten and hosed down

- wanted to demonstrate that the South cannot resist integration

- Connor attacks demonstrators

The March on Washington

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