"But Would You Want to Live Next to One?": The Modern Civil Rights Movement, Part 2

I. The Drive for Political Rights

A. Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)--founded in Chicago in 1941 as a bi-racial group; among the founding members was the man who would become the first national director, James Farmer. CORE in the 1940s worked to desegregate facilities in the North, although following a Supreme Court decision, CORE pioneered the earliest challenges to desegregate interstate travel in the upper South by the late  1940s.

1. The Importance of Brown--by the early 1950s, CORE had lost much of its momentum--but was revitalized by the Brown decision.

2. Non-violent resistance--CORE in particular was influenced by the inter-faith pacifist group  Fellowship of Reconciliation, which advocated the ideals espoused by Mohandas Gandhi. Although the resistance was non-violent, it provoked a great deal of violence from police and often from white observers. By provoking violence out of proportion to the "crime" (protesting a perceived injustice), greater moral weight is brought to bear to the point of the protest.

a. Eventually, the slow pace of chain, and the extreme violence brought to bear against the protestors, led many to abandon non-violence in favor of "an eye for an eye" (see MLK v. Malcolm X). This became especially prevalent with the rise of black nationalist groups like the Black Panthers.

3. Freedom Rides--CORE organized, and CORE and SNCC together provided volunteers, to ride integrated buses south to provoke southern officials to arrest them for violating local segregation laws, and force the Federal government to enforce the Supreme Court decision that declared these remaining Jim Crow laws unconstitutional.


*B. Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)--founded at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina in 1960 in response number of sit-ins around the South in response to the Woolworth's sit-in, to coordinate all of those protests.

1. Voter registration drive--SNCC volunteers organized voter registration drives around the South, which again provoked hostility from local and state governments in the South

2. Albany Movement--voter drives and civil rights agitation had been ongoing in Albany, GA, for the better part of a decade by 1962. The police chief in Albany, Laurie Pritchett, proved to be the movement's greatest foe, however. Pritchett maintained discipline among his officers, so they did not beat protesters, and he dispersed those he arrested to other counties in southwestern Georgia, which allowed him to arrest all the protesters he wanted. Albany was one of the great setbacks of the modern Civil Rights Movement

3. Birmingham

a. The reaction to the senseless violence in Birmingham--and a new wave of violence and racial hatred in St. Augustine, FL while the Civil Rights Bill was being debated in the Senate.

4. The March from Selma, Alabama--on Sunday evening, March 7, 1965, many Americans were settling in the watch the movie The Judgment at Nuremberg, which was to be shown with limited commercial interruptions ...


when that broadcast was interrupted with newsfilm rushed back from Selma, Alabama ...


a. Voting Rights Act--passed, again, in part as a horrified reaction to events witnessed on the family television.

II. The White Backlash

A. Rise of Black Nationalism--inspired in part by frustrations with the slow pace of change, and in part by the pride of what had been achieved, "black pride" and "black power" became the new buzzwords for many younger activists.

1. Black empowerment--again, the result of several different forces. African Americans now made up the majority of both CORE and SNCC, which was natural because African American rights were what was being fought for. What seemed the inordinate attention paid to the plight of whites involved in the movement was galling.

a. Sexual politics--involvement in the Civil Rights Movement was "consciousness raising" for a number of people involved--both the development of the New Left and Women's Liberation (and later, Gay Liberation) were directly tied to the involvement of many in the Civil Rights Movement. The mutual sexual attraction between black males and white females in the movement created tensions, as well--particularly when someone like Stokely Carmichael made an ill-considered off-the-cuff statement like when asked on what he thought the position of women should be in the movement, and he replied "On their backs."

b. Black Panthers--in response to police repression in a number of northern cities--especially Oakland, where the group originated, the Black Panthers started as a "self-defense" group--but the end result was greater repression, especially for Black Panther members.

B. George C. Wallace--"the most influential loser of 20th century politics" according to his biographer, historian Dan T. Carter. Wallace, a protege of former Alabama governor "Big Jim" Fulsom, a racial moderate by Alabama standards, lost his first race for the governorship by being race-baited; he then vowed (it seems likely) to never be "out-[n-worded]" again.

1. 1962 Gubernatorial primary--was able to "out-[n-word]" opponent John Pattinson (an avowed racist and segregationist), pledging in his inauguration "Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever." He was unable to fully deep that pledge, although he did briefly "stand in the schoolhouse door" before stepping aside and permitting the registration of the first black students at the University of Alabama.

2. 1964 US Presidential primary--Wallaces surprising strength in some of the primaries in that year--he garnered a third of the vote in Wisconsin, Maryland, and Indiana--signaled the beginning of the white backlash. Particularly to a former presidential candidate who was sitting out this election in California--Richard Milhouse Nixon, who then began plotting his "Southern Strategy."

a. Wallace ran as an "outsider," and considerably toned down his rhetoric, not promising the continuation of segregation, but instead vilifying "pointy-headed intellectuals" and "limousine liberals," expressing concern over the growth of crime. His pugnacious put-downs of protesters (especially in his 1968 presidential campaign as an independent) also delighted followers.

C. The Long, Hot Summers of the 1960s

1. Watts Riot 1965--just weeks after the passage of the sweeping Voting Rights Act, South Central Los Angeles and Watts exploded in a riot, after rumors of police mistreatment of a black prisoner. Six days, and millions of dollars in property damage later, the rioting was finally quelled.

2. Hough Riot 1966--took place in Cleveland when a racist bar owner in the city declined to serve a black customer, who had just bought a bottle of wine, a glass of water. Cleveland police arrived to "protect property," fueling the crowds anger.

3. Detroit 1967--sparked by a raid on an after-hours party at an illegal bar, years of resentment over police treatment of blacks in the city, combined with the declining economic opportunities in the city (industrial fight had preceded white flight--and both preceded the riot).

D. Death of Martin Luther King, Jr.

1. Memphis "I Am a Man" Sanitation Strike--King, in the years following the passage of the Voting Rights Act, concluded there would be no civil justice for African Americans until there was economic justice--thus the Poor People's Campaign

2. "Early morning, April 4"--James Earl Ray, who had been stalking King for months, ends King's life at the Algiers Motel in Memphis.

*LATE UPDATE--Friday, April 16 was the 50th Anniversary of the founding of SNCC. Clicking on the link provided will take you to a story NPR did on the celebration--including audio.