Civil Rights Movement
Document Actions
Four Periods
SLAVERY: 1619-1865
- Goal was to maintain property rights
- Infamous Dred Scot decision
- Court determined that slavery was constitutional
RECONSTRUCTION: 1865-1876
- 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments
- South under military rule
RESEGREGATION: 1877-1950s
- Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)--see USU 1300 Course Reader
- Segregated railway cars in Louisiana
- Stated that facilities can be separate, if they are equal
- Jim Crow Laws (1890-1910)
- Mandated segregated facilities
MODERN ERA: 1950-Present
- Brown v. Board of Education
- Issue: Do segregated facilities, even if equal, violate the Constitution?
- Contention was that segregation is a badge of inferiority
- Decision (1954) (9-0)--see USU 1300 Course Reader
- By Chief Justice Earl Warren
- Separate is inherently unequal
- Violates the 14th Amendment
Second decision (1955)
- Desegregation to proceed with “all deliberate speed”
- Symbolic, had little initial effect
- Violence in some areas
- Federal troops required to enforce segregation
- Busing of students
Martin Luther King
- Rosa Parks refusal to go to the back of the bus in Alabama
- King advocated non-violent protests
- Boycotts and sit-ins
- Birmingham march (1963)
- Violence occurred
- Extensive Media coverage
- City capitulates and desegregates many facilities
- March on Washington (1963)
- "I Have a Dream" speech
- Assassinated in 1968
- Civil Rights Act (1964)
- Strategy of Lyndon Johnson
- Take advantage of Kennedy death and being a southerner
- Act prohibited discrimination by businesses serving the public
Copyright 2008,
by the Contributing Authors.
Cite/attribute Resource.
factpetersen. (2007, October 29). Civil Rights Movement. Retrieved November 23, 2009, from Free Online Course Materials — USU OpenCourseWare Web site: http://ocw.usu.edu/university-studies/u-s-institutions/civil-rights-movement.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons License.
