4. Key Individuals  and Events of the Movement USA

Activity 1 - Origins of the US Civil Rights Movement 

Copy the information in bold in your workbooks 

Up until the 1950s African Americans faced discrimination in all aspects of their lives – they had to use separate entrances to buildings, separate areas to go the cinemas, theatre, restaurants, buses and there were areas that were ‘white only’ including : schools, hospitals, housing, swimming pools and even cemeteries.

They had to endure name calling, racist policies and attitudes due to the Jim Crow laws that enforced segregation between blacks and whites in transport, public facilities and even outlawed marriage between the two groups. There was violence, lynchings, mob violence – there was a denial of their civil rights and political/social freedoms of African Americans in USA society.

Injustice and racism were just some of the reasons for the Civil Rights Movement which peaked in the 1960s – a program of protest against the racist policies that denied people their civil rights. They used a variety of methods: court cases, civil disobedience, boycotts, marches, sit ins, freedom rides, petitions, rallies etc

Activity 4 - Case study on US Civil Rights - Source Analysis

SEPARATE BUT EQUAL IN THE EDUCATION SYSTEM

In the case Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, the United States Supreme Court upheld the legality of segregation on the basis of the principle ‘separate but equal’. Laws known as the Jim Crow Laws enforced this segregation and the unequal distribution of the nation’s resources that accompanied it. In the mid nineteenth century, African American children attended schools that were lacking toilets, running water and even desks. Local education authorities only purchased new books for the white students in their districts. In Alabama in 1949, the state’s expenditure on African American students amounted to 27 per cent of its expenditure on white students.

Source A: 

In 1957, when nine African American students attempted to attend Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, they had to endure threats and attempted violence from racist crowds lining the streets that led to the school. The pro-segregation governor of Arkansas, Faubus, sent in the Arkansas Guard to ‘preserve order.’

SOURCE B: Extract from 14-year-old Elizabeth Eckford, one of the nine students, describing her attempts to reach Central High School.

SOURCE C: A photograph showing President Eisenhower’s National Guard escorting the nine students into Central High School at Little Rock, Arkansas, on 27 September 1957.