Civil Rights Leadership in the 1960s (2024)

© 2019, Robert C. Eager for The RECONCILIATION EDUCATION PROJECT, Inc.

Module Contents (for purposes of navigation)

Activity I: Historical Activity – Major Civil Rights Developments in the 1950s

Activity II: Historical and Development Activity – Nonviolent Activism

Activity III: Historical Activity – Leadership of the Civil Rights Movement before 1967: Challenges and Successes

Activity IV: Historical Activity – The Long, Hot Summer of 1967 and the Kerner Commission

Activity V: Taking Informed Action

Appendix I: Documents

Appendix II: CCSS/C3 Links

Purpose

This module focuses on the strategies and methods used in the 1960s by African Americans to challenge Jim Crow segregation and to put equal rights and opportunities on the nation’s agenda. The Civil Rights Movement called into question the subordination of Blacks and other people of color based upon racist views that characterized white America after the Civil War. In the early 1960s, bold, often young, new leaders undertook nonviolent direct-action protests with strong support from African American religious organizations and students and their allies, often in the face of determined opposition and violence by Southern Whites especially. By 1965, the federal government responded by passing historic civil rights and voting rights legislation.

After these accomplishments, the challenges faced by the Civil Rights Movement became, if anything, greater, and its leaders increasingly espoused differing specific goals and strategies. Many especially pointed out the need to address substantial economic inequality between Whites and Blacks across the country. In the 1960s, despite the postwar economic boom for white Americans, African Americans suffered from poverty, poor education, lack of opportunity, and substandard living conditions, particularly in highly segregated urban centers resulting from the Great Migration. In 1967 especially, and in 1968 after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., inner city African Americans engaged in visceral and often destructive uprisings expressing their anger and deep frustration with their condition. By 1969, the election of Republican Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War pushed civil rights to the periphery of the national agenda.

The effects of the 1950s-1960s Civil Rights Movement extended well beyond African Americans, including: the legal and constitutional approaches by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the variety of nonviolent direct actions, and the use of television and media to reach a wider public with their message. Subsequent civil rights movements by farmworkers, women, Native Americans, and LGBTQ+ persons, among others, drew on the rich experience and successes of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.

Plan of Instruction

● Activity I: Historical Activity (one 50-minute class period) – Major Civil Rights Developmentsin the 1950s

o Students consider the major civil rights developments of the 1940s and 1950s.

● Activity II: Historical and Development Activity (one 50-minute class period) – Nonviolent Activism

o Students focus on actions taken by students in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

● Activity III: Historical Activity (two 50-minute class periods) – Leadership of the Civil Rights Movement before 1967: Challenges and Successes

o Students research civil rights leaders and organizations of the 1960s, comparing and contrasting their goals and strategies.

● Activity IV: Historical Activity (one 50-minute class period) – The Long, Hot Summer of 1967 and the Kerner Commission

o Students analyze the riots of 1967 and the response of the Kerner Commission.

● Activity V: Taking Informed Action (one 50-minute class period)

o Students write an op-ed article circa January 1969 on the topic: What is the most important civil rights goal for the 1970s and how should it be achieved?

● Extension Activitiesmay be found atwww.ownyourhistory.us.

Central Questions

● Was the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s a success?

● Why did the Civil Rights Movement appear strong in the early 1960s, only to seemingly become less effective by 1969?

● What were the most widely used strategies and tactics for advancing civil rights during the 1960s? How were they effective tools for activism?

● What were the effects of racism in American society and politics? To what extent did racism affect the goals and methods of both civil rights leaders and the opponents of civil rights expansion?

● How was the U. S. government involved in the Civil Rights Movement?

● To what extent was the Civil Rights Movement able to affect the conditions of Blacks concentrated in cities after the Great Migration?

● By 1970, had the extent and intensity of racism in the United States changed?

● What does equal rights mean?

● What is the difference between equal rights and equal opportunity?

● How did the various 20thcentury movements for equality (e.g., for women, Latinos and farmworkers, LGBTQ+ persons) in the United States build upon the accomplishments of the Civil Rights Movement, as well as one another?

Outcomes

By examining written and visual primary sources, students will step into the 1950s and 1960s and see the country and the issues of civil rights from perspectives of African Americans and their various leaders. They will examine the established laws, attitudes, and programs in the 1950s that had made them second-class citizens and consider the options, strategies, and goals considered by leaders at that time. They will gain insight into how the 1960s became the decade in which black Americans made more progress than at any time since the Civil War and Reconstruction. They will then consider how a wave of disorders and rioting arose out of the poverty, lack of opportunity, and substandard living conditions for the vast majority of African Americans, especially those in major cities. Finally, they will propose an action or program addressing a major problem or challenge for African Americans after the “Long Hot Summer” of 1967 and the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Appendices

● Appendix I: Documents

● Appendix II: Connections to California Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Science and The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards

Readings and Resources

Books and Articles

● Gillon, Stephen M. Separate and Unequal: The Kerner Commission and the Unraveling of American Liberalism. New York: Basic Books, 2018.

● Lewis, John, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell. March: Book Two. Marietta: Top Shelf, 2015.

● Terp, Gail. Nonviolent Resistance in the Civil Rights Movement: Stories of the Civil Rights Movement.Minneapolis: Abdo Publishing, 2016.

Online Resources

● Jaffe, Meryl. “Using Graphic Novels in Education: March: Book Two.” Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. February 11, 2015.http://cbldf.org/2015/02/using-graphic-novels-in-education-march-book-two/

● Janken, Kenneth R. “The Civil Rights Movement: 1919-1960s.” Freedom’s Story, TeacherServe©. National Humanities Center.http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/freedom/1917beyond/essays/crm.htm

ACTIVITY I: Historical Activity – Major Civil Rights Developments in the 1950s

Background:During the 1930s, despite the challenges posed by the Great Depression, African American leaders took steps to challenge the racism and subordination that characterized American life. While the Southern Jim Crow system was more overt and brutal, discrimination against African Americans occurred throughout American society. President Roosevelt and especially First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt supported some civil rights causes, but the formidable power of white Southerners in Congress (and the Democratic Party) blocked change and excluded Blacks from New Deal programs. Nevertheless, African American leaders and the small but growing Black middle class became increasingly impatient and developed strategies for change.

The World War II fight against Nazi racism and the postwar dominance of the United States on the world stage provided a stronger basis for change rooted in American values of equality and human rights. The U.S. system of explicit Jim Crow segregation was plainly inconsistent with those values. The 1940s strategy developed by Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF) to challenge legal segregation in court based on the 14thAmendment equal protection and due process clauses was consistent with postwar democratic values. That legal strategy also circumvented the Southern-dominated Congress, instead seeking to use the courts as a means of expanding legal protections.

A series of postwar developments added to the momentum for civil rights advances. The 1948 Democratic National Convention considered a bold civil rights stance for the platform. The resulting defection of Southern Democrats into the “Dixiecrat” party demonstrated opposition to change, but their departure did not impede the election of President Harry Truman. In 1954, the LDF challenge to school segregation culminated in the unanimous Brown v. Board of Education decision holding “separate but equal” segregation to be unconstitutional.

In 1955, the brutality of Southern Jim Crow was dramatically demonstrated by the murder in Mississippi of a 14-year old African American boy visiting from Chicago, Emmett Till. His family allowed circulation of photographs showing his badly disfigured face to demonstrate to the entire country the viciousness of Jim Crow.

Grassroots resistance emerged in the South, with the most dramatic manifestation being the year-long boycott of segregated city buses in 1956 in Montgomery, AL. This nonviolent protest also brought Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) to national prominence as a civil rights leader. The next year President Eisenhower sent National Guard troops to Little Rock, Arkansas to overcome opposition by state leaders and local citizens to the desegregation of the previously all-white high school by a group of courageous black students, as authorized by the Brown decision.

By the late 1950s, the momentum from these movements made civil rights increasingly a leading issue throughout the country and spurred the emergence of a significant and determined Civil Rights Movement.

Suggested Time Frame: One 50-minute class period.

Key Terms:A. Philip Randolph; Dixiecrat; Strom Thurmond; Thurgood Marshall; NAACP; Brown v. Board of Education; Little Rock Nine

Supporting Questions:

1. Why was there a Civil Rights Movement?

Before the Lesson:

1. Ensure that students have access to computers. Alternatively, the teacher will need to duplicate the materials.
2. As a background to the activity, review African American movements prior to the 1950s.

Procedures:

1. Explain to students that, during this module, they will be exploring the major themes of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States during the 20thcentury, with an emphasis on the 1960s. Help students understand that the Civil Rights Movement was a complex movement with diverse leaders and strategies.
2. Present the compelling question for this unit:

1. What were the most effective strategies and tactics for advancing civil rights and greater equality during the 1960s?

1. Introduce this activity’s focus: Civil rights developments in the 1940s and 1950s.
2. Divide students into groups of three. Have student groups select one of the key events that led to the 1960s Freedom Struggle:

1. Direct action: A. Philip Randolph and 1941 March on Washington
2. Elected government officials: 1948 Democratic Convention and the Dixiecrat reaction
3. Equal Protection court cases: Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP strategy culminating in Brown v. Board
4. On the ground in communities, e.g., school desegregation: Little Rock and massive resistance in the South
5. On the ground in communities: Montgomery bus boycott, emergence of MLK and nonviolent direct action

1. Before students access their primary source documents, hold a discussion regarding how historians use questions when analyzing primary sources:

1. Source the document: Who wrote this? When, where, why was it written? Is it reliable?
2. Contextualize the document: When and where was it created? What was happening that might influence the content of the document?
3. Corroborate with other documents: How does the content or point of view of this document compare to other documents regarding the same event?
4. Question the author: What is the author’s point of view? Is the author reliable? What evidence does the author provide to support their claims?

1. Have groups research their event by using Handout 1: Civil Rights in the 1940s and 1950s Research Guide.Review the questions students will be answering on Handout 1:

1. In what year(s) did this event take place?
2. Who was actively advocating change? Who opposed change, and why?
3. What were the major obstacles to change?
4. What were the goals of the various Civil Rights Movement activists? Were they calling for social, economic, or political change?
5. What tactics were used by activists in each organization taking part in the Civil Rights Movement?
6. What were the major achievements of the Civil Rights Movement at different points in time during the 1950s and 1960s? What were the principal effects of these achievements for subsequent events?
7. If you were a civil rights activist in the 1950s, what goals, strategy and tactics would you advocate, and why?

1. When students have finished, ask them to transfer their findings onto poster paper. Posters should include key information and may include illustrations.
2. Have student groups make brief presentations on their topic.
3. When finished, ask the class to sort the events, placing the posters in chronological order. Consider leaving the posters up for the rest of the week, adding events as they are discussed and creating a visibly growing collaborative document that the class can continue to reference and consult.
4. Several minutes prior to dismissal, debrief this lesson: What were the key new facts learned? How did events build on each other? (reference specific key factors in the timeline)

Materials:

● Handout 1: Civil Rights in the 1940s and 1950s Research Guide

● Poster paper/markers

● Computers

Resources:

● Existing timeline of freedom struggle history for reference:

o https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhome.htm

● Handout 1 Research Topics:

o Direct action: A. Philip Randolph and 1941 March on Washington

▪ Document A: Excerpt from Randolph’s “Employment in the Defense Industry” speech to 32nd National Assembly of NAACP,https://www.dropbox.com/s/t57v78f4s3qhg04/randolph%20speech1.pdf?dl=0

o Elected government officials: 1948 Democratic Convention and the Dixiecrat reaction

▪ Document B: Excerpts from Hubert Humphrey’s Democratic Convention speech,https://americanrhetoric.com/speeches/huberthumphey1948dnc.html

▪ Document C: Excerpts from Strom Thurmond’s acceptance speech to run as a States Right Democrat,https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1373&context=strom

o Equal Protection court cases: Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP strategy culminating in Brown v. Board

▪ Document D: Excerpts from Thurgood Marshall’s Argument Before the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education,https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/1953-thurgood-marshall-argument-u-s-supreme-court-brown-v-board-education/

▪ Civil rights legacy of NAACP Legal Defense Fund, https://www.naacpldf.org/about-us/history/

o On the ground in communities, e.g., school desegregation: Little Rock and massive resistance in the South

▪ Associated Press feature on the Little Rock Nine,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ym8rdtq-KBE

▪ Document E: Elizabeth Eckford oral testimony on Little Rock,https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/her-own-words-elizabeth-eckford

o On the ground in communities: Montgomery bus boycott, emergence of MLK and nonviolent direct action

▪ Document F: Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Storyhttps://www.crmvet.org/docs/ms_for_comic.pdf

Handout 1: Civil Rights in the 1940s and 1950s Research Guide

As a group, research your assigned topic using the resources listed below. After completing the graphic organizer, transfer your findings to poster paper for your presentation.

Record your findings:

ACTIVITY II: Historical and Development Activity – Nonviolent Activism

Background. In 1960, college students from across the South helped to create a new attention to civil rights across the country. Nonviolent protests against segregation and discrimination had occurred earlier in the 1950s in cities such as Baltimore and Alexandria, VA, including some organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), a northern civil rights organization, but they were local and isolated. In early 1960, students primarily from historically Black colleges staged a wave of sit-ins to desegregate lunch counters in stores.

On February 1, 1960, students from North Carolina A&T College staged a sit-in at the Woolworth store lunch counter, which refused to serve African Americans. In the next eight days, students held sit-ins in nine other North Carolina cities. Within the next week, students sat-in at store lunch counters or restaurants in Portsmouth, VA, Rock Hill, SC, Nashville, TN, and Tallahassee, FL. The sit-in movement continued to spread; within the first six months of 1960, over 50 sit-ins were held in more than thirty cities in every Southern state.

The sit-ins uniformly reflected a commitment to nonviolent direct action. Even though threats and physical intimidation were common, the sit-in students came prepared not to respond. Over 1500 students were arrested.

The momentum from the sit-ins prompted CORE, as well as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), in 1961 to plan and organize a direct-action protest aimed at segregated interstate buses and bus terminals. Even though the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) had adopted (but did not implement) a policy against discrimination in interstate transportation and the U. S. Supreme Court held in Boynton v. Virginiain 1960 that segregated public buses were unconstitutional, interstate buses continued to operate segregated.

The Freedom Rides began in May 1961 and included groups of black and white travelers who bought bus tickets and boarded buses from Washington, D.C., to New Orleans. As the buses got deeper into the South, they became the object of violence: future SNCC chairman John Lewis was violently assaulted in Rock Hill, SC, and near Anniston, AL, a group of Ku Klux Klan members attacked and firebombed a Freedom Rider bus.

Over sixty additional Freedom Rides took place across the South throughout 1961, despite frequent violent attacks in the South and the criticism of President Kennedy that the protests were putting the country in a bad light around the world. Nevertheless, the success of the Freedom Riders was confirmed in November 1961 when the ICC implemented and enforced a rule that interstate bus and train passengers were permitted to sit wherever they pleased. Signs designating certain areas and facilities in terminals as "white" and "colored" were removed and waiting rooms and food counters began serving all customers, regardless of color.

Suggested Time Frame: One 50-minute class period.

Key Terms:sit-in; passive resistance; Freedom Rides

Supporting Questions:

1. What were the goals of the nonviolent protest activists in the Civil Rights Movement at this time?
2. Why did they believe nonviolence would be particularly effective in bringing about civil rights change in the 1950s and 1960s?
3. How effective do you think nonviolent protest is in bringing about change? Give examples.

Before the Lesson:

1. Ensure that links to the videos are working or download the videos ahead of time.

Procedures:

1. Review the poster timeline from Activity I with students and ask students to think about the Civil Rights Movement in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Ask them to reflect on the following questions:

1. Who were some notable leaders of the early Civil Rights Movement?
2. What legislative or social reforms did the movement secure?
3. What were their long-term objectives and goals?

1. Explain to students that this activity will focus on actions taken by students, circa 1959-1961, through short videos.

1. Tell students that they will be comparing Civil Rights Movement activities.
2. Explain that students will hear from civil rights leaders, activists, and allies about their experiences organizing and participating in nonviolent protests in the 1960s. The video clips document two of the most famous nonviolent protests from the civil rights era, the 1961 Freedom Rides and the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery march for voting rights. An optional third video covers the 1963 Woolworth’s lunch counter sit-in.

1. Ask students to think about the following questions during the videos. Write the questions on the board and have students jot down their answers during the video:

1. What factors led these young people to participate in these protests?
2. What were the immediate goals of these two groups of activists?
3. How do the activists describe “nonviolence?”
4. How would you describe the activists who participated in these protests? (i.e. young, older, students, religious figures, male, female, African American, White, Northern, Southern, etc.)
5. What was the response by law enforcement and the public to these protests?

1. Show the videos:

1. “The Tactic”from Freedom Riders, PBS (also covers sit-ins)
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XST4lV7HnO8(3:50 min)

Selma march for voting rights: U.S. Rep. John Lewis’ Firsthand Account of Surviving “Bloody Sunday” | Oprah’s Master Class | OWN (3:40 minutes)

1. After the conclusion of the two clips, give students 4-5 minutes to share their answers with a peer and work together to complete any unanswered questions they might have.
2. Ask students to share their answers. Consider charting the activities in these videos on poster paper (as per Activity I), answering the guiding questions and adding the posters to the timeline from Activity I:

1. In what year(s) did this event take place?
2. Who was actively advocating change? Who opposed change, and why?
3. What were the major obstacles to change?
4. What were the goals of the various Civil Rights Movement activists at this time? Were they calling for social, economic, or political change?
5. What tactics were used by these activists?
6. What were the major achievements of the sit-ins and Freedom Rides? What were the principal effects of these achievements for subsequent events?
7. If you were a young civil rights activist in the early 1960s, what goals, strategy and tactics would you advocate, and why?

1. Gallery Walk/Poster Session

1. Tape multiple sheets of poster paper around the classroom. Write questions at the top of each poster, such as:

● Imagine you are one of the activists participating in either the Freedom Rides or Selma march (or the Woolworth’s lunch counter sit-in). What might you be feeling? (i.e. scared, nervous, angry)

● If you were at a meeting of nonviolent activists, what would you say to convince people at the meeting that these goals and actions were worth the extraordinary risk?

● Would you have participated in these protests knowing the danger?

1. For the next 5-10 minutes, have students do a “walk” around the classroom, writing their answers to the questions. Encourage students to be candid and forthcoming.
2. Emphasize to students that this is a conversation in writing. As such, they may write their own answers, or respond respectfully (in writing) to comments others have made.
3. At the end of class, debrief the activity by reading aloud some of the anonymous responses to the questions.

● Ask students what comments they found interesting or if there is any information they thought should be added.

● Perhaps poll the students to ask if they would have been willing to participate in any of the protest activities if they had lived at that time. Why or why not?

Materials:

● Poster paper; markers

Additional Resources:

● Optional:How A Lunch Counter Became an Iconic Civil Rights Moment,from Southern Foodways Alliance (closed captioning available)

ACTIVITY III: Historical Activity – Leadership of the Civil Rights Movement before 1967: Challenges and Successes

Background:Before the 1960s, there were three national African American civil rights organizations. The NAACP, which also sponsored the LDF, was the oldest and largest. It was joined by the National Urban League (NUL) organized in 1920 with the mission to “secure economic self-reliance, parity, power and civil rights." CORE was founded in 1942 centered on the principal of nonviolent action. They shared the goals of ending segregation and promoting equality and integration for African Americans in all aspects of American society.

The grassroots direct action against segregation in the Montgomery bus boycott, sit-ins, and Freedom Rides brought significant new organizations and leaders: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957 and in 1960 the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) led by John Lewis. They changed the face and direction of the efforts to challenge segregation and helped a strong Civil Rights Movement to coalesce in the early 1960s.

The attention of the country increasingly encompassed regular civil rights events and developments that were covered by national news and television media. In 1962, Dr. King launched major protests in Albany, GA. Also that year, a white riot took place at the University of Mississippi after a federal judge upheld the right of the first Black student, James Meredith, to enroll.

1963 was a very significant year for the movement. In April, Dr. King launched a series of nonviolent demonstrations in Birmingham in which hundreds of teens and children took part. Many, including Dr. King, were jailed. While in this jail, Dr. King wrote one of his most important messages, “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” In June, Alabama Governor George Wallace tried to block the doorway at the University of Alabama to prevent the enrollment of the first Black students, supported by the U.S. Justice Department. Then in September, four African American girls were killed in Birmingham in a Sunday church bombing.

The strength of the Civil Rights Movement increased as the SCLC, SNCC, NAACP, CORE and NUL combined to organize the massive and peaceful August 1963 March on Washington to call for, among other things, civil rights legislation. The March, which featured Dr. King’s now iconic “I Have A Dream Speech”, was covered live by national television networks. The March leaders subsequently met with President Kennedy in the White House. In 1964, after the Kennedy assassination, President Johnson signed the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964.

In 1964, thousands of white and black college students went to Mississippi for a concerted statewide voter registration campaign led by SNCC; three of these volunteers, two White and one Black, were murdered because they were civil rights workers. In 1965, the voter registration campaign in Selma, AL, was expanded to include a march from Selma to Montgomery, which was violently blocked by state police. President Johnson threw his support behind voting rights, proposing new legislation to a joint session of Congress broadcast by the national networks; it ended with Johnson invoking the name of the iconic song of the Movement, “We Shall Overcome!”

Even as this Civil Rights Movement was enjoying a national spotlight and historic legislation was enacted, many urban Black leaders were advocating different, and often more radical, paths for advancing African Americans. They emphasized Black culture, Black solidarity, and economic improvement and self-sufficiency. Most did not support integration with white America. Malcolm X, a Black Muslim, was an articulate and charismatic leader for this point of view before his assassination in 1965. In 1966, the new SNCC leader, Stokely Carmichael, advocated “Black Power,” as did the new Black Panther Party established in Oakland, CA, in 1966 by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton.

At that time, Dr. King tried to address some of the urban and economic problems highlighted by these leaders. He led protests in Chicago in 1966, and was supporting striking sanitation workers in Memphis when he was assassinated in 1968. At that time, the SCLC was leading organization of a Poor People’s March in Washington, D.C.

Suggested Time Frame: Two 50-minute class periods.

Key Terms:Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC); Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC); Southern Manifesto; Ella Baker; Fannie Lou Hamer; Bayard Rustin; Malcolm X; Black Power; Black Panthers; Black Nationalism; Congress of Racial Equality (CORE); National Urban League (NUL)

Supporting Questions:

1. How did civil rights groups in the 1960s build on one another?
2. How did each group deal with equal rights/equal opportunities?
3. What were the goals, strategies, and leadership styles of each group?
4. Which of these groups, in your opinion, was the most effective in advancing civil rights and why? Support your position.

Before the Lesson:

1. Ensure that students have access to computers and that links are working.

Procedures:

Day One:

1. Review Activities I and II.
2. Tell students they will be comparing Civil Rights leaders from the 1960s, focusing on their goals, strategies, and leadership styles.
3. Remind students of questions historians pose when analyzing sources:

1. Source the document: Who wrote this? When, where, why was it written? Is it reliable?
2. Contextualize the document: When and where was it created? What was happening that might influence the content of the document?
3. Corroborate with other documents: How does the content or point of view of this document compare to other documents regarding the same event?
4. Question the author: What is the author’s point of view? Is the author reliable? What evidence does the author provide to support their claims?

1. Research Activity:

1. Ask the students to number off 1 through 9. Assign each group a leader and affiliate organization from Research Guide 1: Civil Rights Leaders and Organizations of the 1960s.
2. Have students read about their assigned leader/organization through the linked documents individually.
3. After students have finished reading, have groups come together and complete Part A of Handout 2: Civil Rights Leaders and Organizations of the 1960s.

1. After each group has completed Part A of Handout 2, tell students that they will be sharing their findings with the class. Ask them to prepare a presentation covering their research, ensuring that each group member is responsible for part of the presentation.
2. At the end of class, summarize and debrief the lesson.

Day Two:

1. Review the research from Day One.
2. Have student groups present on each leader. As presentations are made, ask students to take notes in Part B of Handout 2.

1. Call students’ attention to the final section of Part C that asks each to decide what leader and approach they would most want to follow. Encourage them to have that question in mind, and if possible, take notes, as the presentations are made.

1. When presentations are complete, have students look at Part C of Handout 2. Ask students to reflect on the different leaders and organizations, asking:

1. How did each of these civil rights groups build on one another?
2. How does each group deal with equal rights/equal opportunities?
3. Which group(s) shared similar goals, strategies, or leadership styles?
4. Which group(s) had different goals, strategies, or leadership styles?
5. What leader and approach would you most want to follow, and why?

1. Lead a class discussion and ask students to share where they found intersections and commonalities, or differences, between civil rights leaders and organizations, and to the extent they can, the effectiveness of each leader and organization. Students should refer to Part C of Handout 2 during this discussion.
2. At the end of class, have students put themselves in 1970 and reflect on this:

1. Which of these groups, in your opinion, was the most effective in advancing civil rights, and why?

Materials:

● Research Guide 1: Civil Rights Leaders and Organizations of the 1960s

o Document G: “A Statement to the background and the North”, co-authored by King (1957)

o Document H: Two drafts of John Lewis’ background on Washington Speech (1963)

o Document I: “background Clock Will Not Be Turned Back” (1957)

o Document J: “Civil Rights Legacy” of NAACP LDF

o Document K: background New Jacobins and Full Emancipation (1964)

o Document L: Whitney Young and the National Urban League (1964)

o Document M: 1968 Economic Bill of Rights from the Poor People’s Campaign

o Document N: Excerpt from Malcolm X’s “Ballot or the Bullet” speech

o Document O: Los background Times article by a white journalist covering SNCC in 1966

o Document P: Excerpts from biography of SNCC mentor and organizer Ella Baker regarding goals of Black Power, reasons for its popularity, and effects on SNCC

o Document Q: Overview of Black Panther Party’s 10-Point Program

o Document R: List of BPP Community Programs

o Document S: History.com feature on BPP’s Free Breakfast for Children

● Handout 2: Civil Rights Leaders and Organizations of the 1960s.

Research Guide 1: Civil Rights Leaders and Organizations of the 1960s Research Guide

1: Martin Luther King, Jr., President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)

● Brief Bio viaNMAI: “In 1963, Martin Luther King was the most widely known civil rights leader in the country. Schoolchildren across America had heard of King’s work with the Montgomery bus boycott and witnessed the shocking images of dogs and fire hoses turned on children in Birmingham, Alabama. As president of SCLC, King moved quickly to sites of civil rights struggle and brought leadership experience and media attention to local campaigns. King and other religious leaders founded SCLC in 1957 as a leadership council. SCLC helped coordinate the nonviolent protests occurring across the nation by working with existing civil rights groups.”background should also include “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” and “I have a dream” speech. (Both called out in the standards.)

● Document G:“A Statement to the background and the North”,co-authored by King (1957)

2: John Lewis, Director of the Student background Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

o Brief Bio viaNMAI: “background youngest member of the Big Six [leaders of the Civil Rights Movement], Lewis represented SNCC and a new generation of freedom fighters. In the early 1960s, SNCC galvanized the nation with its direct action campaigns—from sit-ins to freedom rides to voter registration drives in the deep background. By the time of the march, Lewis had been arrested 24 times for his activism during nonviolent protests. SNCC activists were at the forefront of many of the protests across the background, challenging both white segregationists and traditional black organizations.”

o Document H:Two drafts of John Lewis’ background on Washington Speech(1963)

3: Roy Wilkins and NAACP/NAACP Legal Defense Fund [LDF]

● Brief Bio viaNMAI: “Roy Wilkins represented the NAACP, one of the oldest and largest civil rights organizations in the country. Co-founded in 1909 by W. E. B. Du Bois, the NAACP pursued the philosophy of “color blindness,” pressing for equal access to all aspects of American life. Committed to working through the court system and the legislative process, the NAACP carefully carved out spaces for African American inclusion. By 1963, the NAACP’s emphasis on working within “the system” represented a conservative alternative to the direct action of the newer organizations represented in the march’s coalition.”

● background on the NAACP Legal Defense Fund: “In the face of fierce and often violent “massive resistance” to public school desegregation, LDF was forced to sue hundreds of school districts across the country to vindicate Brown [v. background of Education]’s promise. It was not until LDF’s subsequent victories in cases such as Cooper v. Aaron (1958), Green v. County School background (1968), and Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg (1971), that the Supreme Court issued mandates that ultimately required all vestiges of desegregation to be eliminated “root and branch.””

● Document I:“background Clock Will Not Be Turned Back”(1957)

● Document J:“Civil Rights Legacy” of NAACP LDF, https://www.naacpldf.org/about-us/history/

4: James Farmer, National Director for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)

● Brief Bio viaNMAI: “James Farmer was a founding member and director of CORE, an interracial coalition created in 1941. CORE challenged the law by breaking the law, building upon Mahatma Gandhi’s tactics of nonviolent protest and passive resistance. Staging direct action protests from sit-ins to freedom rides, CORE pioneered the tactics used in freedom struggles across the background by the 1960s. As an elder of the Civil Rights Movement, Farmer continued to lead by example as CORE shifted from a focus on desegregation to voter registration drives by background 1963.”

● Document K:background New Jacobins and Full Emancipation(1964)

5: Whitney Young, Executive Director for the National Urban League (NUL)

● Brief Bio viaNMAI: “Young represented one of the oldest and largest civil rights organizations—the National Urban League. Founded in 1910, the NUL worked to document urban poverty and influence public policy through social surveys on housing, education, and nutrition. Young joined the league as a social scientist in 1941. He devoted his career to studying the conditions of urban life for African background as a dean at Atlanta University, the state president of the Massachusetts NAACP, and as the Executive Director of the NUL.”

● Document L: Whitney Young and the National Urban League (1964)

6: Poor People’s background

● Excerpt from later interview with MLK containing discussion of reparations, economic inequality, and his assessment of the difficulties of nonviolent resistance in the urban north, demonstrating the connection between these movements.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xsbt3a7K-8

● Document M:1968 Economic Bill of Rights from the Poor People’s Campaign,https://www.crmvet.org/docs/68ebr.htm

7: Malcolm X/Nation of Islam

● Document N:Excerpt from Malcolm X’s “Ballot or the Bullet” speech,https://www.dropbox.com/s/l3lyidv0j2tjq0p/Malcolm%20X_%20Ballot%20or%20Bullet.pdf?dl=0

● Video excerpt from Malcolm X interview on his perspective and goals upon returning from Saudi Arabia and the hajj Muslim pilgrimage,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuHYZdf-ad0

8: Black Power

● Document O:Los background Times article by a white journalist covering SNCC in 1966,https://www.dropbox.com/s/fshbw0rujin2zuk/Slow%20Pace%20of%20Progress.pdf?dl=0

● Document P:Excerpts from biography of SNCC mentor and organizer Ella Baker regarding goals of Black Power, reasons for its popularity, and effects on SNCC,https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PimmVoMU6ZmThFmlU0IZGWtmQFXoAn-ID2Kk4CxXjw8/edit?usp=sharing

● National Museum of African-American History and Culture story, video, and gallery on “Black Women in Power”,https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/collection/seeing-black-women-power

9: background Black Panthers

● Document Q:Overview of Black Panther Party’s 10-Point Program,https://www.ucpress.edu/blog/25139/the-black-panther-partys-ten-point-program/

● Document R:List of BPP Community Programs,https://web.archive.org/web/20150903042107/http://web.stanford.edu/group/blackpanthers/programs.shtml

● Document S:History.com feature on BPP’s Free Breakfast for Children,https://www.history.com/news/free-school-breakfast-black-panther-party

Handout 2: Civil Rights Leaders and Organizations of the 1960s

Part A: Research. Complete the research for your assigned leader/organization:

Part B: Civil Rights Leaders and Organizations Presentations. During the presentations, take notes on each leader and organization.

Part C: Comparing Civil Rights Leadership.Select three leaders/organizations of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, noting commonalities or differences.

ACTIVITY IV: Historical Activity – Long, Hot Summer of 1967 and the Kerner Commission

Background: Until about 1966, the Civil Rights Movement led by Dr. King and the other national Black organizations focused on ending segregation, changing racist attitudes, advancing equality under the law, and securing the vote. Because of the system of Jim Crow laws, the Movement’s attention was largely on the South. Protest concentrated on highlighting these inequalities and getting government responses to effect change.

At the same time, after the Great Migration, millions of African Americans increasingly lived in cities across the country and especially in the major cities outside the South. The economic, education, and housing conditions for African Americans and other minorities concentrated in urban America had not improved significantly despite the post-World War II economic boom. Indeed, by the 1960s, urban America presented a complex, largely unaddressed set of problems resulting from a myriad of decisions and practices by government agencies and the private sector. For the great majority of African Americans in cities, day-to-day life was characterized by low income and poverty, including underserved schools, limited job opportunities, and treatment by governmental agencies and police that was oppressive, demeaning, and often violent.

These conditions led to largely spontaneous uprisings in the 1960s in these Black and minority urban areas by unorganized residents reacting physically to conditions of deprivation and inequality and police violence. The outbreaks included widespread eruptions of rioting and destruction of property in their neighborhoods. The first of this wave of uprisings was in the Watts area of central Los Angeles in 1965. In the “long hot summer” of 1967, over 20 uprisings and disorders took place in cities across the country. This prompted President Johnson to appoint a study commission led by former Illinois Governor Otto Kerner to examine these uprisings and make recommendations. Additional rioting continued in 1968 in reaction to the assassination of Dr. King.

The 1968 Kerner Commission report is a detailed, thoughtful, and clear-eyed analysis of these urban disorders with a comprehensive and bold set of recommendations for addressing systemic racism. Nevertheless, the Report proved to be an inconsequential, because of the Vietnam War, the decision of President Johnson to leave national politics, and the election of Republican Richard Nixon in 1968 using a “Southern strategy” that successfully reached out to white Southerners for political support. Despite the historic accomplishments of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, the agenda of unfinished business in 1969 was very long and complex—and much of it remains before the country at the present time.

.

Suggested Time Frame: One 50-minute class period.

Key Terms:Voting Rights Act of 1965; Civil Right Acts of 1964, Civil Rights Act of 1968 (Fair Housing Act); Kerner Commission

Supporting Questions:

1. What caused rioting to break out in Newark and Detroit?
2. What were the results of the riots?
3. How did the riots reflect the concerns addressed by civil rights leaders of the 1960s?

Before the Lesson:

1. Ensure that students have access to computers and that links are working.
2. Have students read Document T: Overview of Civil Rights Bills of the 1960sfor homework the night before.

Procedures:

1. Review the leaders and organizations from Activity III.
2. Review Document T: Overview of Civil Rights Bills of the 1960s.
3. Introduce background information on the Long Hot Summer of 1967. Tell students that they will be considering the riots in Newark and Detroit.
4. Have students work in pairs. Distribute Document U: The Long, Hot Summer of 1967. Have one student read about Newark and the other about Detroit (Part A).
5. When students have finished, ask student pairs to discuss Newark and Detroit:

1. What caused the riot?
2. How long did it last?
3. What was the result?
4. Why, in your opinion and based on the evidence, did the riot occur?

1. When finished, ask students about the events in New Brunswick, NJ, in 1967 in Document U (Part B). Discuss with students:

1. What caused the riot?
2. How long did it last?
3. What was the result?
4. Why, in your opinion and based on the evidence, did it occur?
5. Why did New Brunswick have a different result?

1. Distribute Document V: Kerner Commission ReportFindings, discussing the background of the Kerner Commission.

1. Working with their partner, have students read and highlight the report, focusing on this question:

i.What were the major problems identified by the Kerner Commission as contributing to the civil disorders and urban uprisings of the late 1960s?

1. When completed, hold a class discussion:

1. What were some major problems identified by the Kerner Commission as contributing to the civil disorders and urban uprisings of the late 1960s?
2. Why did these factors persist despite the passage of the Civil and Voting Rights Acts in previous years?
3. What action plans and solutions might the groups we have studied in this module have suggested to solve these problems?
4. Brainstorm other potential responses to the problems identified in the commission report.
5. Consider writing proposals on the board or poster paper during the class discussion.

Materials:

● Document T: Civil Rights Bills of the 1960s

● Document U: The Long, Hot Summer of 1967

● Document V: Kerner Commission Report Findings

ACTIVITY V: Taking Informed Action

Background.The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s brought about historic accomplishments. Many goals left unachieved by Reconstruction after the Civil War were finally achieved. The social, economic, and political inequalities that characterized daily life for African Americans across the country received greater attention. The Movement won the support of Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, and Congress passed landmark civil rights and voting rights laws. The Democratic Party increasingly supported African American civil rights and advancement in its party platform. The Black middle class continued to grow and attractive educational and job opportunities for African Americans became increasingly available. Racism and negative stereotypes of Black Americans became increasingly unacceptable in the media. By the late 1960s, many Americans of all colors felt good that the country had made such progress.

At the same time, the new civil rights laws only reached some areas of American life. As a result, despite these laws, actions laws by governments at all levels and in the private sector still discriminated, either overtly or subtly, based on skin color.

Moreover, the daily lives of the vast majority of African Americans, whether in cities across the country or in the rural South, continued to be blighted by substantial economic inequality, substandard education, and inadequate housing. The urban uprisings in 1967 and 1968 brought national attention to these conditions, but also disturbed many Whites who had supported civil rights advancements earlier in the decade. And the destruction often increased economic difficulties in the inner cities.

While the 1960s civil rights laws did not have a significant dollar cost, programs to address these inner-city conditions would require substantial dollar investment and could only be enacted with strong political support across the country. By 1969, the cost and scope of the Vietnam War and growing opposition to it were dominating the country’s attention and decreasing resources to address domestic problems.

The 1960s was a decade of dramatic progress, but it ended with substantial unfinished business in the movement to advance equality for all Americans.

Suggested Time Frame: One 50-minute class period.

Key Terms:op-ed

Supporting Questions:

1. In what ways was the 1960s Civil Rights Movement successful, and why was it unable to make progress with other problems and goals?
2. What was the most important civil rights goal for the 1970s and how should it be achieved?

Before the Lesson:

1. Make sure that students have access to the materials from this module, including:

1. Handout 1: Civil Rights in the 1940s and 1950s
2. Handout 2: Civil Rights Leaders and Organizations of the 1960s
3. Document T: Overview of Civil Rights Bills of the 1960s
4. Document U: The Long, Hot Summer of 1967
5. Document V: Kerner Report

Procedures:

1. Briefly review with students the events and leadership presented in previous activities.
2. Have students hold a roundtable discussion on the central question:
3. In what ways was the 1960s Civil Rights Movement successful, and why was it unable to make progress with other problems and goals? Defend your answer.

1. What were the most significant accomplishments of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement? Defend your answer.
2. As of 1969, what is the most important civil rights goal for the 1970s and how should it be achieved?

1. Students write an op-ed article circa 1969 on the topic: What is the most important civil rights goal for the 1970s and how should it be achieved?
2. When students have had the opportunity to formulate and discuss their opinions, ask them to use Handout 3: Op-ed Templateto draft an op-ed article expressing their response to this question. Their response should include a summary of past events and proposed actions, if needed.
3. Consider having students publish their op-ed articles in the school newspaper or another community publication.

Materials:

● Handout 3: Op-ed Template

Handout 3: Op-Ed Template

NOTE: Put yourself in January 1969, after the assassination of Dr. King, the release of the Kerner Commission Report, the end of the Johnson presidency, and the election of Republican Richard Nixon. This Op-Ed will be published at the time of Nixon’s inauguration as President that month.

Adapted from The Op-Ed Project. https://www.theopedproject.org/oped-basics#structure

Appendix I: Documents

Document A: Excerpt from Randolph’s “Employment in the Defense Industry” speech to 32nd National Assembly of NAACP (1941)

“Dr. Maxwell, Dr. White, and Friends,

[...]

We are living in a great crisis. It is a world crisis. This crisis did not begin with this war and it will not disappear when this war ends. However, this war emphasizes, deepens, and extends the crisis. America became alarmed about the possibility of her involvement in the war and of a threat to her integrity. As a result of her fear, she has planned a vast program of defense. Millions of dollars are appropriated for the purpose of making defense effective. [...] Therefore, some months ago several Negro leaders went to Washington for the purpose of conferring with the President and other leaders of government to the end of seeking the participation and integration of Negroes in national defense. [...]

Although [Roosevelt] was quite definite in his own condemnation of discrimination, we did not get any jobs. [...] The burden of the talk was that this March on Washington must not be had. “It is too drastic. You are marching on your friends as much as your enemies.” We said, “Yes, we know we have friends in America, but they have not been able to get us any jobs, and consequently, we have got to do something definite and fundamental, culminating in action.” [...]

Walter White said to the President, “Mr. President, we have been getting the run-around everywhere we have gone seeking to get some consideration for Negroes in national defense.” [Roosevelt] said it was in his mind that it would be well to establish a board which would have the power to take action by means of making the necessary investigation and carrying out the means of redress. [...] The committee worked out a program to deal with this question of discrimination in national defense, and this program has taken the form of an executive order to provide that all contracts that are awarded by the government shall stipulate that all recipients in the defense industry shall be required to employ workers without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin. [...]

Now, I think that the most important and significant thing that has come out of this whole struggle is the lesson the Negro people have learned- that you possess power. [...] Leaders of anything have no power per se. They derive their power from the masses. The Negro has developed a mass movement, and the mass movement has had the effect of arousing the government in Washington. Washington was never as disturbed as it has been disturbed about this March of Negroes on Washington. That is why we have gotten this executive order from the President. [...]

In conclusion, let me bid you onward, forward, and upward. Your job to gain full citizenship is a big job, but it is well that it is a big job because big jobs require big efforts. Nothing little is going to get anything done today. It has got to be big. A hundred thousand Negroes in a March on Washington is a big thing and that is why it got big results. And so, my friends, we want the mobilized army to stay mobilized, because action will be required to carry out and complete the program.

I want to leave you with one verse of a poem that ought to reflect the spirit of the Negro in the world today, especially at this hour. It says,

“Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

“In the fell clutch of circ*mstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

“Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds and shall find me unafraid.

“It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul.”

This is the spirit of the Negro in this hour of tragedy and trial. With this spirit, no difficulty is too great to be overcome; no problem is too terrible to be solved. And so, with that spirit, I bid the thirty-second Annual Conference of the NAACP to march on, march on with the spirit of unconquerable struggle to achieve full and complete constitutional citizenship in America for the Negro people and for the preservation of democracy, liberty, and traditions for the country as a whole.”

SOURCE:https://www.dropbox.com/s/t57v78f4s3qhg04/randolph%20speech1.pdf?dl=0

Document B: Excerpts from Hubert Humphrey’s Democratic Convention speech (1948)

The Democrats held their 1948 national convention in Philadelphia. A narrow majority of delegates supported a strong civil rights plank in the party platform proposed by Mayor Hubert H. Humphrey of Minneapolis, Minnesota, and northern liberals. Some southern delegates opposed this plank and walked out of the convention. Some reconvened later under the States’ Right banner and nominated South Carolina Governor Strom Thurmond for president as the Dixiecrat candidate. The Dixiecrat candidate was expected to win the support of conservative southern Democrats, further lessening Truman’s chances of winning the election.

“Mr. Chairman, fellow Democrats, fellow Americans:

I realize that in speaking in behalf of the minority report on civil rights [a strong statement in favor of civil rights that was unacceptable to southern Democrats; the majority report proposal did not include such a civil rights plank] as presented by Congressman DeMiller of Wisconsin that I'm dealing with a charged issue -- with an issue which has been confused by emotionalism on all sides of the fence. I realize that there are here today friends and colleagues of mine, many of them, who feel just as deeply and keenly as I do about this issue and who are yet in complete disagreement with me. . . .

[W]e have a challenging task to do here -- because good conscience, decent morality, demands it -- I feel I must rise at this time to support a report -- the minority report -- a report that spells out our democracy, a report that the people of this country can and will understand, and a report that they will enthusiastically acclaim on the great issue of civil rights.

Now let me say this at the outset that this proposal is made for no single region. Our proposal is made for no single class, for no single racial or religious group in mind. All of the regions of this country, all of the states have shared in our precious heritage of American freedom. All the states and all the regions have seen at least some of the infringements of that freedom -- all people -- get this -- all people, white and black, all groups, all racial groups have been the victims at time[s] in this nation of -- let me say -- vicious discrimination. . . .

We have made progress -- we've made great progress in every part of this country. We’ve made great progress in the South; we’ve made it in the West, in the North, and in the East. But we must now focus the direction of that progress towards the -- towards the realization of a full program of civil rights to all. This convention must set out more specifically the direction in which our Party efforts are to go.

We can be proud that we can be guided by the courageous trail blazing of two great Democratic Presidents. We can be proud of the fact that our great and beloved immortal leader Franklin Roosevelt gave us guidance. And we be proud of the fact -- we can be proud of the fact that Harry Truman has had the courage to give to the people of America the new emancipation proclamation.

It seems to me -- It seems to me that the Democratic Party needs to to make definite pledges of the kinds suggested in the minority report, to maintain the trust and the confidence placed in it by the people of all races and all sections of this country. Sure, we’re here as Democrats. But my good friends, we’re here as Americans; we’re here as the believers in the principle and the ideology of democracy, and I firmly believe that as men concerned with our country’s future, we must specify in our platform the guarantees which we have mentioned in the minority report.

Yes, this is far more than a Party matter. Every citizen in this country has a stake in the emergence of the United States as a leader in the free world. That world is being challenged by the world of slavery. For us to play our part effectively, we must be in a morally sound position.

We can’t use a double standard -- There’s no room for double standards in American politics -- for measuring our own and other people’s policies. Our demands for democratic practices in other lands will be no more effective than the guarantee of those practices in our own country.

Friends, delegates, I do not believe that there can be any compromise on the guarantees of the civil rights which we have mentioned in the minority report. . .

My friends, to those who say that we are rushing this issue of civil rights, I say to them we are 172 years late. To those who say that this civil-rights program is an infringement on states’ rights, I say this: The time has arrived in America for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of states' rights and to walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights. People -- human beings -- this is the issue of the 20th century. People of all kinds -- all sorts of people -- and these people are looking to America for leadership, and they’re looking to America for precept and example.

My good friends, my fellow Democrats, I ask you for a calm consideration of our historic opportunity. Let us do forget the evil passions and the blindness of the past. In these times of world economic, political, and spiritual -- above all spiritual crisis, we cannot and we must not turn from the path so plainly before us. That path has already lead us through many valleys of the shadow of death. And now is the time to recall those who were left on that path of American freedom. . . .

My good friends, I ask my Party, I ask the Democratic Party, to march down the high road of progressive democracy. I ask this convention to say in unmistakable terms that we proudly hail, and we courageously support, our President and leader Harry Truman in his great fight for civil rights in America.”

SOURCE: Douglas B. Harris and Lonce H. Bailey, “’The Bright Sunshine of Human Rights: Hubert Humphrey’s Address to the Democratic National Convention, July 14, 1948,” in The Democratic Party: Documents Decoded.” Oxford: ABC-CLIO, 2014. pp. 77-80.

Document C: Excerpts from Strom Thurmond’s acceptance speech to run as a States Right Democrat

Address by J. Strom Thurmond, Governor of South Carolina, Accepting the States' Rights Democratic Nomination for President of the United States at Houston, Texas, 8 :55 P. M. CST, Aug. 11, 1948

My Fellow Americans: Destiny brings us to the great State of Texas on this battleground for freedom. We sound a call for a return to constitutional government in America.

The Democratic Convention in Philadelphia rejected a · resolution, offered by a distinguished Texan, to rededicate the Democratic Party to its time-honored and traditional principles of States' Rights, home rule and local self-government. That convention rejected that resolution and adopted in its place a program of mis-named Civil Rights, calling for a police state in this country. . . and giving us the "new Russian look." . . .

States Rights Americans resist this shameful betrayal of our national charter. States· Rights Americans stand beside the constitution of the United States with drawn sword. . . .

The preservation of the prerogatives of the people of a sovereign state, their right to deal exclusively with domestic problems, and the absolute and unqualified denial of a totalitarian state in the United States; these principles are just as vital as, and more intimately affect the welfare of every man, woman and child in America . . .

The proposed federal police state, directed from Washington, will force life in each hamlet in America to conform to a Washington pattern. Russia is ruled from Moscow.May God forbid that your state and my state, your county and my county, your and my city, your farm and my farm, shall ever be subjected to Washington Bureaucratic police rule. [emphasis in original] . . .

* * *

Every section of this nation, your section and my section, favors human rights. Everybody favors human rights. But it is a fraud on the American people to pretend that human rights can long endure without constitutional restraint on the power of government.

* * *

Now let us examine this so-called Civil Rights program which is so heartily supported by the three nominees of the Philadelphia conventions.

First is the Federal Anti-Poll Tax Bill. By this bill, Congress invades the power of the states to elect their own officials and would control elections within the states by taking this power from the people.

It is fundamental in the whole American system that, if liberty is to be retained in this country, the control of our elections must remain at home. . . .

There is pending in the Congress an Anti-lynching Bill. Of course, everyone is against lynching. The Reds, the Pinks and the subversives are making use of the horror which American people hold for this form of murder to try to change our system of government.

If the Anti-lynching Bill were enacted, the Congress would seize the power to punish for crimes committed within a state. . . .

Second-Separation of the Races. The people in a local community have the right to use the means and methods that will best promote harmonious relations. Some may determine that separation of the two races is the way to accomplish their purpose. This is a method employed to establish and maintain better race relations. In some states segregation is provided by law.

. . . Even in states where there are anti-segregation laws, the people voluntarily establish segregation; otherwise, there would be no Harlem in New York City, no Chinatown in San Francisco, no South Side in Chicago, and no similar segregated communities in Philadelphia, Detroit and other densely populated cities. . . .

The proposed federal Fair Employment Practices act. . . would make it unlawful to discriminate in matters of employment on account of "race, religion, color, national origin or ancestry." The proposed American FEPC was patterned after a Russian law written by Joseph Stalin about 1920, . . . [which] outlaws discrimination in matters of employment on account of "race, color or national origin."

* * *

Conventions that repudiate the people, and the rights of the people, should be repudiated by the people. States Rights Americans appeal to you to repudiate the radicalism, the rampant disregard of constitutional government advocated and approved at Philadelphia, by all three of the conventions, and to join with us in defense of the American way of life. . . .

With humility, with the knowledge that the greatness of the cause must overshadow all its servants, I accept the nomination for president, and promise an utter dedication to the limit of all power that is within me, under God and His mercy, to this cause of freedom in this land of ours.

Source:https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1373&context=strom

Document D: Excerpts from Thurgood Marshall’s Argument Before the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education (1953)

Many historians and legal scholars consider the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education to be one of the most important and far reaching pronouncements in the history of the Court. On December 8, 1953 Thurgood Marshall, the chief legal counsel of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) gave the argument for the plaintiffs which appears below.

“IT FOLLOWS THAT with education, this Court has made segregation and inequality equivalent concepts. They have equal rating, equal footing, and if segregation thus necessarily imports inequality, it makes no great difference whether we say that the Negro is wronged because he is segregated, or that he is wronged because he received unequal treatment…

There is no way you can repay lost school years.

These children in these cases are guaranteed by the states some twelve years of education in varying degrees, and this idea, if I understand it, to leave it to the states until they work it out-and I think that is a most ingenious argument- you leave it to the states, they say, and then they say that the states haven’t done anything about it in a hundred years, so for that reason this Court doesn’t touch it.

. . .

The duty of enforcing, the duty of following the Fourteenth Amendment, is placed upon the states. The duty of enforcing the Fourteenth Amendment is placed upon this Court, and the argument that they make over and over again to my mind is the same type of argument they charge us with making, the same argument Charles Sumner made. Possibly so.

And we hereby charge them with making the same argument that was made before the Civil War, the same argument that was made during the period between the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Plessy v. Ferguson case.

. . .

that this Court makes it clear to all of these states that in administering their governmental functions, at least those that are vital not to the life of the state alone, not to the country alone, but vital to the world in general, that little pet feelings of race, little pet feelings of custom-I got the feeling on hearing the discussion yesterday that when you put a white child in a school with a whole lot of colored children, the child would fall apart or something. Everybody knows that is not true.

Those same kids in Virginia and South Carolina-and I have seen them do it-they play in the streets together, they play on their farms together, they go down the road together, they separate to go to school, they come out of school and play ball together. They have to be separated in school.

There is some magic to it. You can have them voting together, you can have them not restricted because of law in the houses they live in. You can have them going to the same state university and the same college, but if they go to elementary and high school, the world will fall apart.

. . the Fourteenth Amendment was intended to deprive the states of power to enforce Black Codes or anything else like it.

We charge that they are Black Codes. They obviously are Black Codes if you read them. They haven’t denied that they are Black Codes, so if the Court wants to very narrowly decide this case, they can decide it on that point.

So whichever way it is done, the only way that this Court can decide this case in opposition to our position, is that there must be some reason which gives the state the right to make a classification that they can make in regard to nothing else in regard to Negroes, and we submit the only way to arrive at that decision is to find that for some reason Negroes are inferior to all other human beings.

. . .

The only thing can be is an inherent determination that the people who were formerly in slavery, regardless of anything else, shall be kept as near that stage as is possible, and now is the time, we submit, that this Court should make it clear that that is not what our Constitution stands for.

Document E: Elizabeth Eckford oral testimony on Little Rock School Desegregation in 1957

"I am Elizabeth Eckford. I am part of the group that became known as the Little Rock Nine. Prior to the [de]segregation of Central, there had been one high school for whites, Central High School; one high school for blacks, Dunbar. I expected that there may be something more available to me at Central that was not available at Dunbar; that there might be more courses I could pursue; that there were more options available. I was not prepared for what actually happened."

School photo of Elizabeth Eckford, 1957.

"I was more concerned about what I would wear, whether we could finish my dress in time...what I was wearing was that okay, would it look good. The night before when the governor went on television and announced that he had called out the Arkansas National Guard, I thought that he had done this to insure the protection of all the students. We did not have a telephone, so inadvertently we were not contacted to let us know that Daisy Bates of NAACP had arranged for some ministers to accompany the students in a group. And so, it was I that arrived alone."

"On the morning of September 4th, my mother was doing what she usually did. My mother was making sure everybody’s hair looked right and everybody had their lunch money and their notebooks and things. But she did finally get quiet and we had family prayer. I remember my father walking back and forth. My father worked at night and normally he would have been asleep at that time, but he was awake and he was walking back and forth chomping on cigar that wasn’t lit."

"I expected that I would go to school as before on a city bus. So, I walked a few blocks to the bus stop, got on the bus, and rode to within two blocks of the school. I got off the bus and I noticed along the street that there were many more cars than usual. And I remember hearing the murmur of a crowd. But, when I got to the corner where the school was, I was reassured seeing these soldiers circling the school grounds. And I saw students going to school. I saw the guards break ranks as students approached the sidewalks so that they could pass through to get to school. And I approached the guard at the corner as I had seen some other students do and they closed ranks. So, I thought; 'Maybe I am not supposed to enter at this point.' So, I walked further down the line of guards to where there was another sidewalk and I attempted to pass through there. But when I stepped up, they crossed rifles. And again I said to myself; 'So maybe I’m supposed to go down to where the main entrance is.' So, I walked toward the center of the street and when I got to about the middle and I approached the guard he directed me across the street into the crowd. It was only then that I realized that they were barring me, that I wouldn’t go to school."

Central High School, Little Rock, Arkansas, 1957.

"As I stepped out into the street, the people who had been across the street started surging forward behind me. So, I headed in the opposite direction to where there was another bus stop. Safety to me meant getting to that bus stop. It seemed like I sat there for a long time before the bus came. In the meantime, people were screaming behind me what I would have described as a crowd before, to my ears sounded like a mob."

Elizabeth Eckford waits at a bus stop on September 4, 1957.

SOURCE: Elizabeth Eckford, interviewed by Facing History and Ourselves, 1997.https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/her-own-words-elizabeth-eckford

Document F: Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story (1957)

SOURCE: “Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story,” (1957) Civil Rights Movement Veteranshttps://www.crmvet.org/docs/ms_for_comic.pdf

Document G: “A Statement to the South and the North”, co-authored by Martin Luther King, Jr. (1957)

“A Statement to the South and the Nation,”

Issued by the Southern Negro Leaders Conference on Transportation and Nonviolent Integration 10 January-11 January 1957 Atlanta, Ga.

At an 11 January press conference, the delegates gathered in Atlanta released the following manifesto. In it, the black leaders outline their telegram to federal officials and call upon white southerners to ‘realize that the treatment of Negroes is a basic spiritual problem. . . . Far too many have silently stood by as a violent minority stalks over the southland.” They encourage black Americans “to seek justice and reject all injustice,” and to dedicate themselves to the principle that “no matter how great the provocation. . . . Not one hair of one head of one white person shall be harmed. ” During the press conference King also read a telegram from Eleanor Roosevelt, who wrote that she was “deeply distressed by violence which has occurred” and “would suggest an appeal to the President since this is a Supreme Court order’”’ In addition to their wires to Eisenhower, Nixon, and Attorney General Brownell, the conference issued telegrams thanking the editor of the Montgomery Advertiser and the white clergymen of the Montgomery Ministerial Association for their statements on law and order in the wake of the recent bombings.

All over the world men are in revolt against social and political domination. The age old cry for freedom and human dignity takes on a significance never experienced before. For in a very real and impelling sense no man, no nation and no part of the universe is an island unto itself. . . .

Because America is one of the two most powerful nations on earth and, even more, because our power and our prestige are pledged to freedom and civil liberties for the individual and constitutional government for the nation, the unresolved problem of civil rights becomes the most crucial issue of our culture. This is so because the nation, in proclaiming freedom, shines as a beacon of hope for the oppressed of the world and yet denies even elementary democratic rights to its Negro minority. But beyond this moral embarrassment, all of the nation's institutions remain stunted and frustrated by the contradiction between what America practices and what America proclaims.

The church has the high task to provide the American people with moral leadership. . . .

Even the Congress of our land is shackled. It is unable to enact urgently needed social legislation. . . .

Thus the entire nation suffers because our democratic vitality is sapped by the civil rights issue. This is even more true of the South. In her unwillingness to accept the Negro as a human being, the South has chosen to remain undeveloped, poorly educated and emotionally warped.

Through recent Supreme Court decisions, declaring that discrimination based on race violates the Constitution, the issue has been joined. There is no turning back. The nation must now face the reality that America can never realize its vast economic, social and political potential until the struggle for civil rights has been decisively won.

We are convinced that the great majority of white Southerners are prepared to accept and abide by the Supreme Law of the Land. They, like us, want to be law abiding citizens. Yet a small but determined minority resorts to threats, bodily assaults, cross-burnings, bombing, shooting and open defiance of the law in an attempt to force us to retreat. . .

We advocate non-violence in words, thought and deed, we believe this spirit and this spirit alone can overcome the decades of mutual fear and suspicion that have infested and poisoned our Southern culture.

In this same spirit, we place the following concerns before white Southerners of goodwill: 1. We call upon white Southern Christians to realize that the treatment of Negroes is a basic spiritual problem. We believe that no legal approach can fully redeem or reconcile man. We urge them in Christ’s name to join the struggle for justice. . . .

As citizens and as representatives of equal rights movements all over the South, we cannot ignore the vital role that government could play in easing tensions and in helping Negroes secure their constitutional rights.

In recent years the Judicial Branch of government has behaved in a responsible manner. But not since Reconstruction days has the Congress passed any civil rights legislation. Since 1952, the Executive Branch has not clearly given direction to millions of confused citizens on questions relating to civil rights. . . .

We have made this statement, believing that the trials of the present are not in vain. For we are convinced that if Negroes of the South steadfastly hold to justice and non-violence in their struggle for freedom, a miracle will be wrought-from this period of intense social conflict and that a society based on justice and equality for all, will gradually emerge in the South. Then we shall all be emotionally relieved and freed to turn our energies to making America truly “The land of the free and the home of the brave.”

Document H: Two drafts of John Lewis’ March on Washington Speech (1963)

SOURCE:https://billmoyers.com/content/two-versions-of-john-lewis-speech/

Document I: “The Clock Will Not Be Turned Back” (1957)

In 1957 Roy Wilkins, Executive Secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), was next to Rev. Martin Luther King, the most recognized civil rights leader in the nation. In October of that year he addressed the Commonwealth Club of California five weeks after mobs in Little Rock, Arkansas, attempted to prevent nine black students from entering Central High School. The defiant governor, Orval Faubus, called on Arkansas National Guard troops to keep the students out, but President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent in federal troops to protect them. The school had been desegregated by a court order resulting from a 1954 landmark case, Brown v. Board of Education. Wilkins spoke on the crisis facing not only black Americans, but the future of the United States during the Cold War.

“It is no exaggeration, I think, to state that the situation presented by the resistance to the 1954 decision of the United States Supreme Court in the public school segregation cases is fully as grave as any which have come under the scrutiny and study of the Commonwealth Club….

Little Rock brought the desegregation crisis sharply to the attention of the American people and the world. Here at home, it awakened many citizens for the first time to the ugly realities of a challenge to the very unity of our nation. Abroad, dealt a stab in the back to American prestige as the leader f the free world and presented our totalitarian enemies with made-to-order propaganda for use among the very nations and peoples we need and must have on the side of democracy . . .

The world cannot understand nor long respect a nation in which a governor calls out troops to bar little children from school in defiance of the Supreme Court of the land, a nation in which mobs beat and kick and stone and spit upon those who happen not to be white. It asks: “Is this the vaunted democracy? Is this freedom, human dignity and equality of opportunity? Is this fair play? Is this better than Communism?” No, the assertion that Little Rock has damaged America abroad does not call for sneers. Our national security might well hang in the balance….

The Negro citizens of our common country, a country they have sweated to build and died to defend, are determined that the verdict at Appomattox will not be renounced, that the clock will not be turned back, that they shall enjoy what is’ justly theirs….

Their little children, begotten of parents of faith and courage, have shown by their fearlessness and their dignity that a people will not be denied their heritage. Complex as the problem is and hostile as the climate of opinion may be in certain areas, Negro Americans are determined to press for not only a beginning, but a middle and a final solution, in good faith and with American democratic speed.
The Negro position is clear. Three years of intimidation o the meanest and most brutal of levels have not broken the’ ranks or shaken their conviction.

What of the rest of our nation? It must make a decision for morality and legality and move in support of it, not merely for the good of the Negroes, but for the destiny of the nation itself.

Already I have indicated that this is a new and dangerous world. This cold war is a test of survival for the West. The Soviet sputnik, now silent and barely visible, casts a shadow not lightly to be brushed aside. Can we meet the challenge Moscow in the sciences and in war with a country divided upon race and color? Can we afford to deny to any boy girl the maximum of education, that education which mean the difference between democratic life and totalitarian death? …

To deny our ability to achieve a just solution within the framework of our Declaration of Independence and our Bill of Rights is to deny the genius of Americans. To reject our moral precepts is to renounce our partnership with God in bringing the kingdom of righteousness into being here on earth.

We may falter and stumble, but we cannot fail.”

SOURCE: Roy Wilkins, “The Clock Will Not be Turned Back” in American Heritage Book of Great American Speeches for Young People, ed. Suzanne McIntire. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2001.

Document J: “Civil Rights Legacy” of NAACP LDF

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) is the country’s first and foremost civil and human rights law firm. Founded in 1940 under the leadership of Thurgood Marshall, who subsequently became the first African-American U.S. Supreme Court Justice, LDF was launched at a time when the nation’s aspirations for equality and due process of law were stifled by widespread state-sponsored racial inequality. From that era to the present, LDF’s mission has always been transformative: to achieve racial justice, equality, and an inclusive society.

As the legal arm of the civil rights movement, LDF has a tradition of expert legal advocacy in the Supreme Court and other courts across the nation. LDF’s victories established the foundations for the civil rights that all Americans enjoy today. In its first two decades, LDF undertook a coordinated legal assault against officially enforced public school segregation. This campaign culminated in Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark Supreme Court decision in 1954 that has been described as “the most important American governmental act of any kind since the Emancipation Proclamation.” The Court’s unanimous decision overturned the “separate but equal” doctrine of legally sanctioned discrimination, widely known as Jim Crow.

In the face of fierce and often violent “massive resistance” to public school desegregation, LDF was forced to sue hundreds of school s across the country to vindicate Brown’s promise. . . .

LDF’s crusade against racial discrimination has not been limited to public education. As a result of LDF’s litigation in the 1940s-1960s, the Supreme Court overturned state-sanctioned segregation of public buildings, parks and recreation facilities, hospitals, and restaurants. Many of these victories resulted from LDF’s determined representation of civil rights movement leaders, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and countless grassroots activists who were arrested for participating in freedom rides, demonstrations, and marches to protest entrenched racial discrimination throughout the country. In Hamm v. City of Rock Hill (1964)6 for example, LDF persuaded the Supreme Court to dismiss all prosecutions of demonstrators who had participated in civil rights sit-ins.

Source:https://www.naacpldf.org/about-us/history/

Document K: The New Jacobins and Full Emancipation (1964)

Excerpt from James Farmer, "The New Jacobins and Full Emancipation”

“It remained for Birmingham and, before that, its dress rehearsal, Albany, Georgia, to learn from the Freedom Riders' mistakes, and launch massive demonstrations and jail-ins, wholly involving thousands, not hundreds, of Negroes — local citizens, not transients — and mobilizing the respective Negro communities in toto. A score of Birminghams followed the first. Birmingham thus set the stage for a full-scale revolt against segregation in this nation. Such a mass movement was possible because of the magic name of Martin Luther King, Jr. It was possible, in a more basic sense, because of an historical merger of two social forces.

What happened after World War II, or really after Montgomery, was a kind of wedding of two forces, both bred by the war: the means-oriented idealists of pacifistic turn of mind, for whom nonviolence was a total philosophy, a way of life, and the ends-oriented militants, the postwar angry young men who saw in direct action a weapon and viewed nonviolence as a tactic. . . .

The masses who now join the determined folks on picket lines and sit-ins and protest marches share only a new-found willingness to become individually physically involved and to risk suffering or jail for common' goals. The masses have no commitment to nonviolence, or to any other specific response to abuse beyond that dictated by the natural desire to be accepted by, and to conform to the code of, the militants whom they join in action. . . .

What is possible, as well as desirable, is an expeditious and thorough program of discipline — both internal and external. Internally, the need is for rapid expansion of training for nonviolence in the ranks — classes, institutes, workshops — in every city where the struggle is in process or in preparation. The external requirement calls for a specially trained cadre of monitors for every mass demonstration, . . .

The second problem in the new militants' struggle for full emancipation is more functional than tactical. There has occurred in the past few years a proliferation, though not a splintering, of direct action organizations of a nonviolent character. In addition to CORE, there is the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Dr. King, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and various unaffiliated local groups, jealous of their autonomy. Such established organizations as the NAACP are also engaging increasingly in direct action. Church groups, too, and professional associations which previously had confined their action to pronouncements, are now "taking to the streets."

All of this strengthens the movement immeasurably. But it also poses a problem. What coordination exists between the groups is largely accidental rather than the product of systematic planning. Nor is there sufficient coordination of programs within each organization.

The Jacobins' activities are opening up jobs previously closed to Negroes. They are cracking barriers in northern housing in a neck and neck race against spreading residential segregation. . . .

The responsibility of accelerating the Negro's march to equality does not rest with the Negro alone. This cannot be a sheer bootstrap operation. When a society has crippled some of its people, it has an obligation to provide requisite crutches. Industry has an obligation not merely to employ the best qualified person who happens to apply, but to seek qualified Negroes for nontraditional jobs, and if none can be found, to help train them. If two or more applicants with substantially equal qualifications should present themselves, and one of them is a Negro, then he should be given a measure of preference to compensate for the discrimination of centuries. Beyond that, a remedial education and training program of massive proportions needs to be launched. To accomplish more than a gesture, such a program will require billions of dollars — perhaps three billion a year for a five-year period. Anything less will be tokenism. The only source for funds in such amount is the Federal government.”

SOURCE: James Farmer, "The New Jacobins and Full Emancipation," in Robert A. Goldwin's 100 Years of Emancipation(Chicago: Rand McNally & Co., 1964). As reprinted from Black Protest: 350 Years of History, Documents, and Analyses, by Joanne Grant.

Document L: Whitney Young and the National Urban League (1964)

Draft Transcript of a Conversation with MR. WHITNEY YOUNG and Robert Penn Warren- April 13, 1964 (Vanderbilt University Libraries)

MR. WARREN: You were going to tell me about the history of the Urban League in relation to its present function, is that right?

MR. YOUNG: Yes. The role of the-- the importance of the Urban League, Mr. Warren, is only understood if one recognizes at the outset that the solution to the problem of race relations involves many courses of action, that this is not a monolithic problem and there needs to be, therefore, a variety of activities. The Urban League conceives of itself as working towards the same goal, and that it supplements and complements, the activities of all other organizations, that we are the organization that will give meaning to the slogans "Equal Opportunity" or "Freedom Now" in that first-class citizenship is more than the removal of barriers; it's more than the establishment of new laws, it's more than the right to go into a restaurant or into a neighborhood. Also involved is the necessity to have the resources in terms of qualification, in terms of economics, in order to take advantage of new opportunities. So the Urban League in this sense is the-- we are the social engineers, we are the strategists, we are the planners, we are the people who work at the level of policy-making, policy implementation, the highest echelons of the corporate community, the highest echelons of the governmental community - both at the federal, state and local level - the highest echelons of the labor movement. In terms of the-- providing them with the necessary facts, we do the research. We're the professional arm. . . .

We have some 525 full-time staff -- 350 of them are professional. people with their master's degrees and over-- working full time in some 65 communities around the country where 85 per cent of the urban Negro population lives. We have some 13 leagues in the South, and 52 in the North, all in urban cities each of these organizations, affiliates, like the National Board, must, under its constitution, be interracial, and increasingly the staff reflects that same philosophy. But the boards throughout the country are composed about 50-50 of responsible white and Negro citizens who meet on a monthly, even every other week basis, in order to discuss and to resolve some of the basic problems.

Besides that, first of all I think that neither white people nor Negro people have any monopoly on virtue or on vices. My analogy of this situation is that the present plight of Negro citizens-- and that plight is really a very serious one -- results not so much from historic ill will or good will, but actually what we've had in our society is about ten per cent of white Americans who have been actively concerned and who have been actively working toward integration, about ten per cent who have been actively resistant, who have worked to preserve the status quo, or to even send the Negro back to Africa. But about eighty per cent of white Americans have been largely indifferent. This has been active apathy, active indifference, so it hasn't been ill will or good will; it's been no will that is largely responsible. This is characteristic of Americans. We tend to focus on the pleasant . . . and to push in the subconscious that that is ugly and unpleasant, particularly if we feel some responsibility for it. So what's happened largely is that white Americans have ignored the Negro; they've not taken the Negro seriously, they've driven around the slums, . . .We have assumed up till now that good racial relations meant the absence of tension and conflict, and not the presence of justice and equal opportunity. I don't think that anybody can generalize about all whites being this or all Negroes being this. Obviously, now that we are confronted, many white people find themselves out of fear and insecurity and ignorance, identifying themselves more with the racists . . .

But I think, increasingly, white America, when it's confronted with the grim realities, . . . , with the threats to their way of life, with the inhumane kind of consequences that result from indifference in considering race relations as a spectator sport, will find themselves on the right side. But I'm not distressed by the unrest, by the tension, by the conflict I think this in many ways is healthy, because it's bringing the real attitudes and feelings to the surface where we can deal with them. It's like a boil. You make a decision about whether you put a Bandaid over it and act like it doesn't exist, or whether you lance it. Temporarily it doesn't look good, but this is the only way of getting at the roots and bringing about some change. Historically, Americans have only reacted to crisis, . . .

SOURCE:https://whospeaks.library.vanderbilt.edu/sites/default/files/RPW.Reel_.4.WhitneyYoung.pgs_.258-275.pdf

See also:Young’s March on Washington Speech (1963)

Whitney Young “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom; Part 7 of 17.” WGBH Media Library and Archives.http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/A_FDC80454052747988DEA7F89F4D23B9F

Document M: 1968 Economic Bill of Rights from the Poor People’s Campaign

In a January 1944 radio address to the nation, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt outlined an Economic Bill of Rights for the American people (see below). He died three months later, and it was never implemented. Twenty-four years later, the Poor Peoples Campaign organized by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and Dr. King picked up FDR's theme, presenting various versions of what an Economic Bill of Rights should contain and using the concept to educate the nation and its political leaders about the nature of poverty and the measures necessary to end it.

“Not long after Dr. King's assassination on April 4, 1968, the Committee of 100 presented the following version of the Economic Bill of Rights to President Johnson and Congress:

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, architects of the Poor People's Campaign, have outlined 5 requirements of the bill of economic & social rights that will set poverty on the road to extinction:

1. A meaningful job at a living wage for every employable citizen.

2. A secure and adequate income for all who cannot find jobs or for whom employment is inappropriate.

3. Access to land as a means to income and livelihood.

4. Access to capital as a means of full participation in the economic life of America.

5. Recognition by law of the right of people affected by government programs to play a truly significant role in determining how they are designed and carried out.

On June 5th, civil rights activist Bayard Rustin published in the New York Timesa version that focused on specific immediate legislative goals rather than broad principles:

SOURCE: “Economic Bill of Rights – Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Martin Luther King,” Civil Rights Movement Veterans. https://www.crmvet.org/docs/68ebr.htm

Document N: Excerpt from Malcolm X’s “Ballot or the Bullet” speech

Excerpt from Malcom X’s “Ballot or the Bullet” speech, delivered April 3,1964

“Mr. Moderator, . . . This afternoon we want to talk about the ballot or the bullet. The ballot or the bullet explains itself. But before we get into it, since this is the year of the ballot or the bullet, I would like to clarify some things that refer to me personally . . .

I’m a Muslim minister. And I don’t believe in fighting today in any one front, but on all fronts. In fact, I’m a black Nationalist Freedom Fighter. . . .

So today, though Islam is my religious philosophy, my political, economic, and social philosophy is Black Nationalism. . . .

The political philosophy of Black Nationalism only means that the black man should control the politics and the politicians in his own community. The time when white people can come in our community and get us to vote for them so that they can be our political leaders and tell us what to do and what not to do is long gone. By the same token, the time when that same white man, knowing that your eyes are too far open, can send another negro into the community and get you and me to support him so he can use him to lead us astray - those days are long gone too. . . . So the political philosophy of Black Nationalism only means that we will have to carry on a program, a political program, of re-education to open our people’s eyes, make us become more politically conscious, politically mature, and then whenever we get ready to cast our ballot that ballot, will be cast for a man of the community who has the good of the community of heart. The economic philosophy of Black Nationalism only means that we should own and operate and control the economy of our community. . . .

The white man is too intelligent to let someone else come and gain control of the economy of his community. But you will let anyone come in and take control of the economy of your community, control the housing, control the education, control the jobs, control the businesses, under the pre-text that you want to integrate. No, you outta your mind. The political, the economic philosophy of Black Nationalism only means that we have to become involved in a program of re-education to educate our people into the importance of knowing that when you spend your dollar out of the community in which you live, the community in which you spend your money becomes richer and richer; the community out which you take your money becomes poorer and poorer. And because these Negroes, who have been mislead, misguided, are breaking their necks to take their money and spend it with The Man, The Man is becoming richer and richer, and you’re becoming poorer and poorer. And then what happens? The community in which you live becomes a slum. It becomes a ghetto. The conditions become run down. . . .

So our people not only have to be re-educated to the importance of supporting black business, but the black man himself has to be made aware of the importance of going into business. And once you and I go into business, we own and operate at least the businesses in our community. What we will be doing is developing a situation wherein we will actually be able to create employment for the people in the community. . . .

We suffer political oppression, economic exploitation, and social degradation - all of them from the same enemy. The government has failed us; you can’t deny that. Anytime you live in the twentieth century, 1964, and you walkin' around here singing “We Shall Overcome,” the government has failed us. This is part of what’s wrong with you do too much singing. Today it’s time to stop singing and start swinging. You can’t sing up on freedom, but you can swing up on some freedom. . . .

Black nationalism is a self-help philosophy. . . . 'Cause if you are black you should be thinking black, and if you are black and you not thinking black at this late date, well I’m sorry for you. . . . As long as you gotta sit-down philosophy, you’ll have a sit-down thought pattern, . . . It’s not so good to refer to what you’re going to do as a sit-in. That right there castrates you.. . . Well you and I been sitting long enough, and it’s time today for us to start doing some standing, and some fighting to back that up. . . .

When a racial powder keg goes off, it doesn’t care who it knocks out the way. Understand this, it’s dangerous. And in 1964 this seems to be the year, because what can the white man use now to fool us after he put down that march on Washington? And you see all through that now. He tricked you, had you marching down to Washington. Yes, had you marching back and forth between the feet of a dead man named Lincoln and another dead man named George Washington singing “We Shall Overcome”. . . .So today, our people are disillusioned. They’ve become disenchanted. They’ve become dissatisfied, and in their frustrations they want action. . . .

I’m not a Republican, nor a Democrat, nor an American, and got sense enough to know it. I’m one of the 22 million black victims of the Democrats, one of the 22 million black victims of the Republicans, and one of the 22 million black victims of Americanism. . . . We don’t see any American dream; we’ve experienced only the American nightmare. We haven’t benefited from America’s democracy; we’ve only suffered from America’s hypocrisy. And the generation that’s coming up now can see it and are not afraid to say it. If you go to jail, so what? If you black, you were born in jail. If you black, you were born in jail, in the North as well as the South. . . .

This is why I say it’s the ballot or the bullet. It’s liberty or it’s death. It’s freedom for everybody or freedom for nobody. America today finds herself in a unique situation. Historically, revolutions are bloody. . . . You don’t have a revolution in which you love your enemy, and you don’t have a revolution in which you are begging the system of exploitation to integrate you into it. Revolutions overturn systems. Revolutions destroy systems. A revolution is bloody, but America is in a unique position. . . . But today this country can become involved in a revolution that won’t take bloodshed. All she’s got to do is give the black man in this country everything that’s due him, everything. . . .”

SOURCE: Mintz, S., & McNeil, S. (2018). “Malcolm X, ‘The Ballot or the Bullet.’” Digital History.http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtid=3&psid=3624

Document O: Los Angeles Times article by a white journalist covering SNCC in 1966

“Slow Pace of Progress Became Intolerable: The Evolution of SNCC’s Violence”

By Jack Nelson

[LA Times staff writer Jack Nelson covers Southern civil-rights activities from his headquarters in Atlanta]

We affirm the philosophical or religious ideal of non-violence as the foundation of our purpose, the presupposition of our faith, and the manner of our action. Love is the central motif of non-violence. Such love goes to the extreme; it remains loving and forgiving even in the midst of hostility. It matches the capacity of evil to influence suffering with an even more enduring capacity to absorb evil, all the while persisting in love. By appealing to the conscience and standing on the moral nature of human existence, non-violence nurtures the atmosphere in which reconciliation and justice become actual possibilities.

The above credo was adopted by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee when it was formed in Raleigh, N.C., in April, 1960. No one could have reasonably expected the young members of SNCC--the shock troops of the civil rights movement--to live by such lofty idealism.

Stokeley Carmichael unquestionably is right when he says it is an un-natural response for a man to love those who hate and brutalize him, to refrain from striking back.

And most SNCC members have not even made a pretense of loving racists or believing in a pure nonviolence espoused by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. But they did believe in nonviolence as a tactic . . .

Injury and death, indignity and humiliation were risked in the name of civil rights...

[John] Lewis is gone from SNCC now. And so is nonviolence. Idealism has been supplanted by nihilism.

The student committee is no longer a civil rights organization. If the words and actions of chairman Carmichael are to be taken at face value, SNCC is a band of agitators dedicated to disrupting this country in the belief that out of the chaos will come something better for the Negro.

The small-scale riot SNCC touched off in Atlanta last Tuesday was the most flagrant display to date of the organization’s new tactics, but even before that there had been abundant evidence that SNCC was pursuing a violent course bent on a large-scale Negro revolt.

Cases in Point

. . .

Carmichael has spoken publicly of creating chaos and of the need for Negroes to reduce the violence among themselves . . .

He has made Black Power, a slogan he popularized during the Mississippi Meredith March last June, sound like a battle cry.

But in criticizing SNCC one should consider both the context in which its new policies have evolved and the conditions which SNCC is protesting. Although there is no reasonable excuse for its anti-social behavior, there is an explanation which even its most severe critics should ponder.

Negroes still are largely confined to ghettos in urban areas of this country. Although there has been significant progress in segregation in many areas of the South, Negroes in most areas still are denied equal opportunities in jobs, education and housing.

While Congress still debates a civil rights bill that may well fail because of white objections to a fair housing section, Negroes continue to be largely excluded from juries in many areas of the South. The 1966 Bill includes a provision aimed at insuring equal jury duty for Negroes.

If the Fulton County grand jury follows through on police charges of the riot against Carmichael in connection with the Atlanta disturbance, he will be indicted by an all-white grand jury. Negroes comprise 30% of the county’s population.

More than 12 years have passed since the Supreme Court held that segregation in public schools is unconstitutional and results in inferior education for Negroes. Yet, even with the aid of the 1964 Civil Rights Bill, less than 4% of the Negro students in Deep South states are in desegregated schools and little progress has been made against de facto segregation in public schools across the country.

To Carmichael and his followers, the slow pace of Negro progress became intolerable. They decided the rejection of chaotic tactics was the same as surrendering their right to change an unjust social order.

Whites, Negroes Leave

The organization took on a racist color. Whites were purged and some Negroes, who could not stomach the new policies, left. They included John Lewis and finally, after the Atlanta riot, Julian Bond, the national communications director, who commented to two newsmen that he thought SNCC had gone “kind of crazy.” . . .

‘Changes Must Come’

“Major changes have to come in this country,” [Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen Jr.] said. “The Negro is a citizen of the United States, but he wasn’t for 100 years...We had a two-class society…

“The cities have got to help change the people. We keep getting more Negroes from rural areas where they have had no equal opportunities, where they were nothing but a slave in fact, even though they might be termed free. Segregation is nothing more than a stepchild of slavery.”

It is always easier to focus on one cause--SNCC in Atlanta, the Communists in Cleveland, Dr. King in Chicago, the Muslims and God knows who else in Watts.

But in every case of Negro riots, the rioters have been people confined to ghettos--the people Mayor Allen calls stepchildren of slavery.”

SOURCE: Jack Nelson, “Slow Pace of Progress Became Intolerable: The Evolution of SNCC’s Violence.” Los Angeles Times, Sept. 11, 1966.

Document P: Excerpts from biography of SNCC mentor and organizer Ella Baker regarding goals of Black Power, reasons for its popularity, and effects on SNCC, p. 348-349

“From the summer of 1966 until December of that year, SNCC was moving more and more toward a black nationalist position. [Stokeley] Carmichael had popularized the slogan "Black Power," but black power was not the same thing as black separatism. White and black antiracists could still work together in Carmichael's scenario, but whites needed to take up the task of working in white communities to combat racism there. As their roles became increasingly circ*mscribed and some slogans and attitudes turned explicitly antiwhite, many whites voluntarily left SNCC.

…

In Ella Baker's view, "black power" was a misunderstood and sometimes misappropriated term. When it was framed as self-determination, she could identify with the concept to some extent. Referring to Carmichael, Baker observed, "I've seen him make some very profound developments from this whole concept of black power. I've seen him do it at a level that there is nothing irritating about it for anybody who is willing to have sense enough to deal with the facts at all." Her concern about the excesses and reckless use of black power rhetoric can be partly attributed to the fact that "black power" became, in some cases, an empty slogan taken up by young people "who had not gone through any experiences or steps of thinking" that Carmichael had. For the inexperienced, it simply meant "give us what we are demanding now." But SNCC members who had marched, picketed, petitioned, and pleaded had, in Baker's view, earned the right to be impatient. They had also earned the consent of poor black southerners to speak in tandem with them and at times on their behalf.

Baker was supportive of intensified struggle, increased confrontation, and even sharper, more revolutionary rhetoric. She viewed explicitly antiwhite sentiments, however, as counterproductive, misguided, and shortsighted. She saw some SNCC members' use of the term "honky," for example, as unfortunate and born of frustration and anger rather than a calculated political gesture.

Baker compared the appeal of the new revolutionary rhetoric to the stale and unmoving demands and language of the more mainstream civil rights organizations and leaders at the time. Referring to a leaflet for "Solidarity Day," drafted by her friend Bayard Rustin, Baker confessed, "This doesn't touch me"; it "leaves me cold." She concluded: "I would think it would leave people who are closest to the activist movement, the younger people, even more chilled -- so, I don't think it's unnatural for them [young black activists in SNCC] to feel the need for the more revolutionary method." When she tried to explain to an interviewer in 1968 why she thought white liberals had such a hard time understanding the urgent demand for black power, she recited some lines of verse: "The frog beneath the harrow knows, where the nail point goes, while the butterfly upon the road, preaches contentment to the toad." In other words, those with privilege and insulation from certain abuses have the luxury to insist on patience and moderation. Those experiencing the painful results of injustice, and those who identify with them and try to see the world through their eyes, have a different perspective altogether. For most of her adult political life, Baker's perspective was that of the frog beneath the harrow.”

SOURCE: Barbara Ransby, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003.

Document Q: Overview of Black Panther Party’s 10-Point Program

First publicized in the second issue of the organization’s newspaper, Black Panther, on May 15, 1967, the platform and program, titled “What We Want Now! What We Believe,” was a set of guidelines written by Newton and Seale that emphasized the Party’s ideals and commitment to advancing a revolution that addressed the needs of the black community. It appeared in every succeeding issue of the newspaper.

“What We Want Now! What We Believe

To those poor souls who don’t know Black history, the beliefs and desires of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense may seem unreasonable. To Black people, the ten points covered are absolutely essential to survival. We have listened to the riot producing words “these things take time” for 400 years. The Black Panther Party knows what Black people want and need. Black unity and self-defense will make these demands a reality.

What We Want

1. We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our Black community.
2. We want full employment for our people.
3. We want an end to the robbery by the White man of our Black community.
4. We want decent housing, fit for shelter [of] human beings.
5. We want education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society. We want education that teaches us our true history and our role in the present day society.
6. We want all Black men to be exempt from military service.
7. We want an immediate end to police brutality and murder of Black people.
8. We want freedom for all Black men held in federal, state, county, and city prisons and jails.
9. We want all Black people when brought to trial to be tried in court by a jury of their peer group or people from their Black communities. As defined by the constitution of the United States. We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace.

What We Believe

1. We believe that Black people will not be free until we are able to determine our destiny.
2. We believe that the federal government is responsible and obligated to give every man employment or a guaranteed income. We believe that if the White American business men will not give full employment, then the means of production should be taken from the business men and placed in the community so that the people of the community can organize and employ all of its people and give a high standard of living.
3. We believe that this racist government has robbed us and now we are demanding the overdue debt of forty acres and two mules. Forty acres and two mules was promised 100 years ago as retribution for slave labor and mass murder of Black people….
4. We believe that if the White landlords will not give decent housing to our Black community, then the housing and the land should be made into cooperatives so that our community, with government aid, can build and make decent housing for its people.
5. We believe in an educational system that will give to our people a knowledge of self. If a man does not have knowledge of himself and his position in society and the world, then he has little chance to relate to anything else.
6. We believe that Black people should not be forced to fight in the military service to defend a racist government that does not protect us. We will not fight and kill other people of color in the world who, like Black people, are being victimized by the White racist government of America….
7. We believe we can end police brutality in our Black community by organizing Black self defense groups that are dedicated to defending our Black community from racist police oppression and brutality. The Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States gives us a right to bear arms. We therefore believe that all Black people should arm themselves for self defense.
8. We believe that all Black people should be released from the many jails and prisons because they have not received a fair and impartial trial.
9. We believe that the courts should follow the United States Constitution so that Black people will receive fair trials…To do this the court will be forced to select a jury from the Black community from which the Black defendant came. We have been, and are being tried by all White juries that have no understanding of the “average reasoning man” of the Black community….
10. … whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of people to alter or to abolish it…”

SOURCE: “The Black Panther’s Ten Point Program”, University of California Press Blog, 7 February 2019,https://www.ucpress.edu/blog/25139/the-black-panther-partys-ten-point-program/

Document R: List of BPP Community Programs

Black Panther Party Community Programs, 1966 - 1982

1. Alameda County Volunteer Bureau Work Site

2. Benefit Counseling

3. Black Student Alliance

4. Child Development Center

5. Consumer Education Classes

6. Community Facility Use

7. Community Health Classes

8. East Oakland CIL (Center for Independent Living) Branch

9. Community Pantry (Free Food Program)

10. Drug/Alcohol Abuse Awareness Program

11. Drama Classes

12. Disabled Persons Services/Transportation and Attendant

13. Drill Team

14. Employment Referral Service

15. Free Ambulance Program

16. Free Breakfast for Children Programs

17. Free Busing to Prisons Program

18. Free Clothing Program

19. Free Commissary for Prisoners Program

20. Free Dental Program

21. Free Employment Program

22. Free Food Program

23. Free Film Series

24. Free Furniture Program

25. Free Health Clinics

26. Free Housing Cooperative Program

27. Food Cooperative Program

28. Free Optometry Program

29. Community Forum

30. Free Pest Control Program

31. Free Plumbing and Maintenance Program

32. Free Shoe Program

33. GED Classes

34. Geriatric Health Center

35. GYN Clinic

36. Home SAFE Visits

37. Intercommunal Youth Institute (becomes OCS by 1975)

38. Junior and High School Tutorial Program

39. Legal Aid and Education

40. Legal Clinic/Workshops

41. Laney Experimental College Extension Site

42. Legal Referral Service(s)

43. Liberation Schools

44. Martial Arts Program

45. Nutrition Classes

46. Oakland Community Learning Center

47. Outreach Preventative Care

48. Program Development

49. Pediatric Clinic

50. police patrols

51. Seniors Against a Fearful Environment

52. SAFE Club

53. Sickle Cell Anemia Research Foundation

54. Son of Man Temple (becomes Community Forum by 1976)

55. Sports

56. Senior Switchboard

57. The Black Panther Newspaper

58. Teen Council

59. Teen Program

60. U.C. Berkeley Students Health Program

61. V.D. Preventative Screening & Counseling

62. Visiting Nurses Program

63. WIC (Women Infants, and Children) Program

64. Youth Diversion and Probation Site

65. Youth Training and Development

SOURCE:https://web.archive.org/web/20150903042107/http://web.stanford.edu/group/blackpanthers/programs.shtml

Document S: History.com feature on BPP’s Free Breakfast for Children

“In 1969, a group of children sat down to a free breakfast before school. On the menu: chocolate milk, eggs, meat, cereal and fresh oranges. The scene wouldn’t be out of place in a school cafeteria these days—but the federal government wasn’t providing the food. Instead, breakfast was served thanks to the Black Panther Party.

At the time, the militant black nationalist party was vilified in the news media and feared by those intimidated by its message of black power and its commitment to ending police brutality and the subjugation of black Americans. But for students eating breakfast, the Black Panthers’ politics were less interesting than the meals they were providing.

“The children, many of whom had never eaten breakfast before the Panthers started their program,” the Sun Reporter wrote, “think the Panthers are ‘groovy’ and ‘very nice’ for doing this for them.”

The program may have been groovy, but its purpose was to fuel revolution by encouraging black people’s survival. From 1969 through the early 1970s, the Black Panthers’ Free Breakfast for School Children Program fed tens of thousands of hungry kids. It was just one facet of a wealth of social programs created by the party—and it helped contribute to the existence of federal free breakfast programs today.

Brad Jones, member of the Philadelphia Black Panthers Organization, helping serve breakfast to youngsters. (Credit: Bill Ingraham/AP Photo)

When Black Panther Party founders Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale founded the party in 1966, their goal was to end police brutality in Oakland. But a faction of the Civil Rights Movement led by SNCC member Stokeley Carmichael began calling for the uplift and self-determination of African-Americans, and soon black power was part of their platform.

At first, the Black Panther Party primarily organized neighborhood police patrols that took advantage of open-carry laws, but over time its mandate expanded to include social programs, too.

Free Breakfast For School Children was one of the most effective. It began in January 1969 at an Episcopal church in Oakland, and within weeks it went from feeding a handful of kids to hundreds. The program was simple: party members and volunteers went to local grocery stores to solicit donations, consulted with nutritionists on healthful breakfast options for children, and prepared and served the food free of charge.

School officials immediately reported results in kids who had free breakfast before school. “The school principal came down and told us how different the children were,” Ruth Beckford, a parishioner who helped with the program, said later. “They weren’t falling asleep in class, they weren’t crying with stomach cramps.”

Soon, the program had been embraced by party outposts nationwide. At its peak, the Black Panther Party fed thousands of children per day in at least 45 programs. (Food wasn’t the only part of the BPP’s social programs; they expanded to cover everything from free medical clinics to community ambulance services and legal clinics.)

Though the USDA had piloted free breakfast efforts since the mid 1960s, the program only took off in the early 1970s—right around the time the Black Panthers’ programs were dismantled. In 1975, the School Breakfast Program was permanently authorized. Today, it helps feed over 14.57 million children before school—and without the radical actions of the Black Panthers, it may never have happened.

SOURCE: Erin Blakemore, “The Panthers’ popular breakfast programs put pressure on political leaders to feed children before school,” History.com,https://www.history.com/news/free-school-breakfast-black-panther-party?fbclid=IwAR3SBxn3MbkTK45t8Nb_MGNAtckJCfw_cKVkDR70lT9z-QwINS6_f9_iJtk

Document T: Overview of Civil Rights Bills of the 1960s

■ Civil Rights Act of 1964,https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-78/pdf/STATUTE-78-Pg241.pdf(complete)

● “Segregation on the grounds of race, religion or national origin was banned at all places of public accommodation, including courthouses, parks, restaurants, theaters, sports arenas and hotels.

The act also barred race, religious, national origin and gender discrimination by employers and labor unions, and created an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission with the power to file lawsuits on behalf of aggrieved workers.

Additionally, the act forbade the use of federal funds for any discriminatory program, authorized the Office of Education (now the Department of Education) to assist with school desegregation, gave extra clout to the Commission on Civil Rights, and prohibited the unequal application of voting requirements.” (via History.com)

■ Voting Rights Act of 1965,https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=100#

● “The legislation outlawed literacy tests and provided for the appointment of Federal examiners (with the power to register qualified citizens to vote) in those jurisdictions that were "covered" according to a formula provided in the statute. The use of poll taxes in national elections had been abolished by the 24th amendment to the Constitution; the Voting Rights Act directed the Attorney General to challenge the use of poll taxes in state and local elections. In Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections, 383 U.S. 663 (1966), the Supreme Court held Virginia's poll tax to be unconstitutional under the14th amendment.

■ Title VII (Fair Housing) of Civil Rights Act of 1968,https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-82/pdf/STATUTE-82-Pg73.pdf

● “It shall be unlawful (a) to refuse to sell or rent after the making of a bona fide offer [...] a dwelling to any person because of race, color, religion, or national origin, (b) to discriminate against any person in the terms, conditions, or privileges of sale or rental… (c) to make, print, or publish any notice, statement, or advertisem*nt with respect to the sale or rental of a dwelling that indicates and preference, limitation, or discrimination [...]”

Document U: The Long, Hot Summer of 1967 — Excerpts from the Kerner Commission Report

Part A: Newark and Detroit

The report contains profiles of a selection of the disorders that took place during the summer of 1967. These profiles are designed to indicate how the disorders happened, who participated in them, and how local officials, police forces, and the National Guard responded. Illustrative excerpts follow:

NEWARK

. . . It was decided to attempt to channel the energies of the people into a nonviolent protest. While Lofton promised the crowd that a full investigation would be made of the Smith incident, the other Negro leaders began urging those on the scene to form a line of march toward the city hall.

Some persons joined the line of march. Others milled about in the narrow street. From the dark grounds of the housing project came a barrage of rocks. Some of them fell among the crowd. Others hit persons in the line of march. Many smashed the windows of the police station. The rock throwing, it was believed, was the work of youngsters; approximately 2,500 children lived in the housing project.

Almost at the same time, an old car was set afire in a parking lot. The line of march began to disintegrate. The police, their heads protected by World War I-type helmets, sallied forth to disperse the crowd. A fire engine, arriving on the scene, was pelted with rocks. As police drove people away from the station, they scattered in all directions.

A few minutes later a nearby liquor store was broken into. Some persons, seeing a caravan of cabs appear at city hall to protest Smith's arrest, interpreted this as evidence that the disturbance had been organized, and generated rumors to that effect. However, only a few stores were looted. Within a short period of time, the disorder appeared to have run its course.

. . On Saturday, July 15, [Director of Police Dominick] Spina received a report of snipers in a housing project. When he arrived he saw approximately 100 National Guardsmen and police officers crouching behind vehicles, hiding in corners and lying on the ground around the edge of the courtyard.

Since everything appeared quiet and it was broad daylight, Spina walked directly down the middle of the street. Nothing happened. As he came to the last building of the complex, he heard a shot. All around him the troopers jumped, believing themselves to be under sniper fire. A moment later a young Guardsman ran from behind a building.

The Director of Police went over and asked him if he had fired the shot. The soldier said yes, he had fired to scare a man away from a window; that his orders were to keep everyone away from windows.

Spina said he told the soldier: "Do you know what you just did? You have now created a state of hysteria. Every Guardsman up and down this street and every state policeman and every city policeman that is present thinks that somebody just fired a shot and that it is probably a sniper."

A short time later more "gunshots" were heard. Investigating, Spina came upon a Puerto Rican sitting on a wall. In reply to a question as to whether he knew "where the firing is coming from?" the man said: "That's no firing. That's fireworks. If you look up to the fourth floor, you will see the people who are throwing down these cherry bombs."

By this time four truckloads of National Guardsmen had arrived and troopers and policemen were again crouched everywhere looking for a sniper. The Director of Police remained at the scene for three hours, and the only shot fired was the one by the Guardsman.

Nevertheless, at six o'clock that evening two columns of National Guardsmen and state troopers were directing mass fire at the Hayes Housing Project in response to what they believed were snipers. . . .

DETROIT

. . . A spirit of carefree nihilism was taking hold. To riot and destroy appeared more and more to become ends in themselves. Late Sunday afternoon it appeared to one observer that the young people were "dancing amidst the flames."

A Negro plainclothes officer was standing at an intersection when a man threw a Molotov co*cktail into a business establishment at the corner... In the heat of the afternoon, fanned by the 20 to 25 m.p.h. winds of both Sunday and Monday, the fire reached the home next door within minutes. As residents uselessly sprayed the flames with garden hoses, the fire jumped from roof to roof of adjacent two- and three-story buildings. Within the hour the entire block was in flames. The ninth house in the burning row belonged to the arsonist who had thrown the Molotov co*cktail. . . .

. . . Employed as a private guard, 55-year-old Julius L. Dorsey, a Negro, was standing in front of a market when accosted by two Negro men and a woman. They demanded he permit them to loot the market. He ignored their demands. They began to berate him. He asked a neighbor to call the police. As the argument grew more heated, Dorsey fired three shots from his pistol into the air.

The police radio reported: "Looters, they have rifles." A patrol car driven by a police officer and carrying three National Guardsmen arrived. As the looters fled, the law enforcement personnel opened fire. When the firing ceased, one person lay dead.

He was Julius L. Dorsey. . .

. . . As the riot alternately waxed and waned, one area of the ghetto remained insulated. On the northeast side the residents of some 150 square blocks inhabited by 21,000 persons had, in 1966, banded together in the Positive Neighborhood Action Committee (PNAC). With professional help from the Institute of Urban Dynamics, they had organized block clubs and made plans for the improvement of the neighborhood. . . .

When the riot broke out, the residents, through the block clubs, were able to organize quickly. Youngsters, agreeing to stay in the neighborhood, participated in detouring traffic. While many persons reportedly sympathized with the idea of a rebellion against the "system," only two small fires were set--one in an empty building.

. . . According to Lt. Gen. Throckmorton and Col. Bolling, the city, at this time, was saturated with fear. The National Guardsmen were afraid, the residents were afraid, and the police were afraid. Numerous persons, the majority of them Negroes, were being injured by gunshots of undetermined origin. The general and his staff felt that the major task of the troops was to reduce the fear and restore an air of normalcy.

In order to accomplish this, every effort was made to establish contact and rapport between the troops and the residents. The soldiers--20 percent of whom were Negro-- began helping to clean up the streets, collect garbage, and trace persons who had disappeared in the confusion. Residents in the neighborhoods responded with soup and sandwiches for the troops. In areas where the National Guard tried to establish rapport with the citizens, there was a smaller response.

Part B: New Brunswick

NEW BRUNSWICK

. . . A short time later, elements of the crowd--an older and rougher one than the night before--appeared in front of the police station. The participants wanted to see the mayor.

Mayor [Patricia] Sheehan went out onto the steps of the station. Using a bullhorn, she talked to the people and asked that she be given an opportunity to correct conditions. The crowd was boisterous. Some persons challenged the mayor. But, finally, the opinion, "She's new! Give her a chance!" prevailed.

A demand was issued by people in the crowd that all persons arrested the previous night be released. Told that this already had been done, the people were suspicious. They asked to be allowed to inspect the jail cells.

It was agreed to permit representatives of the people to look in the cells to satisfy themselves that everyone had been released. The crowd dispersed.

The New Brunswick riot had failed to materialize. . .

Source: Excerpts from the Kerner Commission Report from the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, formed in 1967 in response to multiple urban uprisings. (http://www.eisenhowerfoundation.org/docs/kerner.pdf)

Document V: Kerner Report Findings (excerpts)

It is time now to turn with all the purpose at our command to the major unfinished business of this nation. It is time to adopt strategies for action that will produce quick and visible progress. It is time to make good the promises of American democracy to all citizens-urban and rural, white and black, Spanish-surname, American Indian, and every minority group.

Our recommendations embrace three basic principles:

* To mount programs on a scale equal to the dimension of the problems:

* To aim these programs for high impact in the immediate future in order to close the gap between promise and performance;

* To undertake new initiatives and experiments that can change the system of failure and frustration that now dominates the ghetto and weakens our society.

These programs will require unprecedented levels of funding and performance, but they neither probe deeper nor demand more than the problems which called them forth. There can be no higher priority for national action and no higher claim on the nation's conscience.

[...]

PART 1- What Happened?

The "typical" riot did not take place. The disorders of 1967 were unusual, irregular, complex and unpredictable social processes. Like most human events, they did not unfold in an orderly sequence. However, an analysis of our survey information leads to some conclusions about the riot process.

In general:

* The civil disorders of 1967 involved Negroes acting against local symbols of white American society, authority and property in Negro neighborhoods--rather than against white persons.

* Disorder did not erupt as a result of a single "triggering" or "precipitating" incident. Instead, it was generated out of an increasingly disturbed social atmosphere, in which typically a series of tension-heightening incidents over a period of weeks or months became linked in the minds of many in the Negro community with a reservoir of underlying grievances. At some point in the mounting tension, a further incident-in itself often routine or trivial-became the breaking point and the tension spilled over into violence.

* "Prior" incidents, which increased tensions and ultimately led to violence, were police actions in almost half the cases; police actions were "final" incidents before the outbreak of violence in 12 of the 24 surveyed disorders.

* What the rioters appeared to be seeking was fuller participation in the social order and the material benefits enjoyed by the majority of American citizens. Rather than rejecting the American system, they were anxious to obtain a place for themselves in it.

* The proportion of Negroes in local government was substantially smaller than the Negro proportion of population. Only three of the 20 cities studied had more than one Negro legislator; none had ever had a Negro mayor or city manager. In only four cities did Negroes hold other important policy-making positions or serve as heads of municipal departments. [...]

The major goal is the creation of a true union--a single society and a single American identity. Toward that goal, we propose the following objectives for national action:

* Opening up opportunities to those who are restricted by racial segregation and discrimination, and eliminating all barriers to their choice of jobs, education and housing.

* Removing the frustration of powerlessness among the disadvantaged by providing the means for them to deal with the problems that affect their own lives and by increasing the capacity of our public and private institutions to respond to these problems.

* Increasing communication across racial lines to destroy stereotypes, to halt polarization, end distrust and hostility, and create common ground for efforts toward public order and social justice.

Source: Excerpts from the Kerner Commission Report from the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, formed in 1967 in response to multiple urban uprisings. (http://www.eisenhowerfoundation.org/docs/kerner.pdf)

Appendix II: Connections to California Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Science and The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards

STANDARDS