HIST 221 Lecture Notes - Lecture 28: Medgar Evers, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Black Nationalism
19 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Civil Rights and the Federal Government
Supreme Court desegregation orders, slow federal response, activism and
pressure, Civil Rights Act of 1957
First Civil Rights legislation since construction and sets a pattern on
civil rights
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JFK admin as reactive
More people brought into policy making, but from the top of the
movement (MLK leadership and SCLC leaders)
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Worries about loosing South
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Activism
Sit-ins in 1960 - 65 cities, 12 states, 50,000 part
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Endorsed by MLK
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James Meredith integrates UM (Ole Miss)
JFK deploys the national guard due to huge riots
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Assassination of NAACP's Medgar Evers
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Mainstream media does not cover the Civil Rights movement in depth
Trying to create normalcy
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1963, March on Washington: "For Jobs and Freedom"
MLK's famous speech "I have a dream"
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Official program
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Economy and wealth played a role in the march
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Organized to highlight "the economic subordination of the Negro" and
advance a "broad and fundamental program for economic justice" official
demand included:
Reduction in Congressional seats in states that disenfranchised their
blacks
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School desegregation by the end of the year
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Raise in minimum wage
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Blocking of federal funding to discriminatory housing projects
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End to employment discrimination
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Forced Kennedy administration to cooperate
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People said not to ask for too much and don’t make it about money
because they thought that it could affect politics
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Young people have a large roll in the conference because they threaten to
walk out and not support their leadership if their voices were not
included
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Helped to catalyse movement and show it was a politically mobilizing
force
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Represented a shift to include civil rights in democratic party platforms
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Kennedy assassinated in November 1963
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Election
Lyndon Johnson
Member of House during late 30s, Senate majority leader in 50s
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Master bargainer
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Legislative agenda: Civil Rights, economic inequality ("unconditional war
on poverty in America")
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Bring into law Civil Rights agenda
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Freedom Summer of '64
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Voting registration
Murdered activists
Bombings of black churches, assassinations by members of
White Citizens Council
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All-white juries, few convictions
§
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Large amount of violence and resistance to voter registration, 3
people helping with voter registration are murdered - FBI charges
some people but no one is convicted because they aren't brought
to trial by the federal government
State governments are all male and all white juries who find
the people "not guilty" of their crimes
§
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1964 DNC (August)
All white MS delegation
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Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (offer alternative to all white
electors)
Send electors to the Democratic National Convention who
refuse to make voter registration part of Mississippi's
platform (not the MFDP)
§
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Fannie Lou Hamer
Youngest of 20 children
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She was a sharecropper
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She had a tumour and went to go to get the tumour removed
and they decided to tie her tubes without telling her which is
a human rights violation
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She is jailed and faces sexual abuse for her voter rights
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Her testimony is televised - it is cut out for announcement for
LBJ to give a press conference about nothing (make sure
America didn't see challenge to American politics)
Bad image for LBJ administration □
Democratic party refuses to seat all white panel and
allow them to vote in electoral college
□
§
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Increasing appeal of black power and black nationalism
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Segregation and police violence in North cities
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Malcom X
Minister and spokesman for NOI
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Black Muslim mosques and organizations
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Global consciousness - domestic imperialism and wider history of
colonialism
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Stokely Carmichael
SNCC, "black power"
"you need a civil rights bill, not me"
§
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Legislation
Civil Rights Act of 1964
July, bipartisan support
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Government guarantees of Reconstruction Amendments
Voting rights, public accommodations, school desegregation,
non-discrimination in federally assisted programs (EEOC)
§
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Followed by 1965 Voting Rights Act
Enforcement of 15th Amendment (protections about race and sex)
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Election of 1964
LBJ vs. Barry Goldwater
Goldwater:
Opposition to Civil Rights Act
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Dismantling of New Deal State (privatization of TVA)
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Stronger anti-communism abroad
§
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Huge victory for LBJ?
Protest candidates in the South
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Rightward move of Republican
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Rightward move of Sunbelt
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Ronald Reagan "A Time for Choosing" speech
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LBJ's Great Society
Johnson's speech at Umich - flurry of legislation (Congress passes 84/87)
Emphasis on poverty and racial injustice
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Doubled federal aid to poor
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Medicare and medicaid
1964 - 44% sen no converage
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Funded by DC, run by states
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Expansions on unemployment benefits, rise in minimum wage
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Lecture 28 -What Makes a Great Society?
Monday, March 19, 2018
9:36 AM
