Demands for Civil Rights

Angela BrownChapter 27 Section 4

2

The Struggle for Equality

• Truman privately held racial prejudice from growing up in South but realized as President must push for equality opportunity.

Truman’s Actions

• 1946 Truman met with group of African American leaders.

• They ask for: support for a federal anti-lynching law, abolish the poll tax, establish a board to prevent discriminatory practices in Congress.

• Congress refused to address

• Dec 1946 – Truman appointed a biracial committee on Civil Rights – group produced a report demanding actions on above concerns

• Recommended permanent Civil Rights commission be established

• Congress again failed to act.

• 1948 Truman banned discriminatory hiring of fed. Employees – ended segregation and discrimination in armed forces

• Only with onset of Korean War in 1950 did armed forces make significant progress at ending segregation.

Jackie Robinson • Major league baseball

had refused to allow African Americans to participate – played in Negro leagues.

• Mid 1940s Branch Rickey, gen. manager of Brooklyn Dodgers selected Jackie Robinson to be first African American to break the color line.

http://www.veaweteach.org/images/photos/people/Jackie_Robinson.jpg

Robinson

• Robinson earned college letters in football, basketball, baseball, and track at UCLA.

• Robinson was the only player in UCLA history to letter in four sports.

• Had a record for standing up against racial injustice – undergone court martial in Army during WWII for refusing to set in back of non-segregated post bus – was cleared

• Rickey role played with Robinson what he might endure – “I want a player with guts to fight back.”

• 1947 joined Dodgers as first African American player in major leagues.

• Despite instances of prejudice he behaved with dignity and was named Rookie of the Year.

• 1949 voted league most valuable player.

Racism on Gridiron • 1946 Penn State vs. University of

Miami – canceled due to two African American players on Penn State team.

• President of Miami U stated hoped to avoid any “unfortunate incidents”.

• Penn State Dean stated they were part of the team and no conditions would be put on them.

• Other schools made arrangements such as… African Americans would play them at home but not away.

Brown vs Board of Education • NAACP tried to overturn 1896

Plessy v. Ferguson decision “Separate but Equal”.

• 1951 Oliver Brown sued the Topeka Kansas Board of Education to allow daughter attend white school – she walked to on way to bus.

• Lawyer Thurgood Marshall argued on behalf of Brown against segregation.

Thurgood Marshall

http://www.law.harvard.edu/library/collections/special/exhibitions/portrait_exhibit/Thurgood_Marshall.jpg

• May 1954 – Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka declared unanimously that “separate facilities are inherently unequal”.

• Separate but equal no longer permissible in public schools – Eisenhower disagreed.

• 1967 President Johnson appointed Marshall Supreme Court’s first African American associate Justice.

• Liberal presence on court until retirement in 1991.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott • 1955 Rosa Parks refused bus

drivers order to give up seat in mixed, middle section of the bus to a white man.

• Sec of Montgomery NAACP for 12 years – arrested and ordered to stand trial for violating segregation laws.

• Civil rights leaders met and organized the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Rosa Parks

http://www.blogography.com/photos10/RosaParks.jpg

Boycott

http://home.att.net/~reniqua/bus12.jpg

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAmontgomeryB.jpg

• African Americans refused to use the bus system until the company agreed to change segregation policy.

• Martin Luther King Jr. became spokesperson for protest movement (26 year old minister where protest meeting took place).

• 50,000 African Americans in Montgomery walked, biked, car pooled for a year – bus company lost money but would not change its policies.

• Supreme Court finally ruled bus segregation unconstitutional.

• Produced new generation of African American leaders – and nonviolent protest as a means of achieving equality for minority groups.

Resistance in Little Rock

• 1957 Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.

• Governor Orval Faubus declared he could not keep order if forced to integrate – bring races together.

Central High School

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/brown/images/br0130bs.jpg

• Posted Arkansas National Guard troops at school – nine African American students had tried to enroll.

• Eisenhower placed National Guard under federal command – paratroopers and soldiers on guard to protect the nine students.

http://www.ark-ives.com/photo/gallery/central.asp

Other Voices of Protest

• Mexican American worked for rights.

• Texas funeral home refused to bury Felix Longoria, Mexican American War Hero – protest led to soldiers burial in Arlington National Cemetery in Washington D.C.

http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/longoria.htm

• Native Americans – 1953 governor sought to eliminate reservations = “termination”

• Goal to assimilate Native Americans into mainstream.

• Resistance = government discarded termination policy

• Poverty, discrimination, and little political representation remained a problem.