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Civil Rights Movement in America in the 1950s
"The civil rights…
Civil Rights Movement in America in the 1950s
"The civil rights movement in America, starting as a promising movement in the 1950s, but ended up being a movement of promises in the 1960s."
Background - Pre 1950s
1920s
Politics
Ku Klux Klan: a white supremacy movement that used violence to intimidate African Americans, prevalent particularly in the south.
Faced by such intimidation, many African Americans left the rural south and moved to cities in Northern USA.
Eg: 1930, James Cameron, aged 16, arrested with two other African American men on suspicion of the murder of a white man and the rape of a white woman. A mob arrived to lynch them without trial and Cameron's two friends were killed.
WEB Dubois founded the National Association for Advancement of Coloured People. In 1919, 300 branches, 90000 members. They campaigned to end racial segregation laws and to have laws passed against lynching. Did not make much headway, but number of lynchings decreases.
Marcus Garvey - founded Universal Negro Improvement Association, urging African Americans to be proud of their race and colour.
Economy
Black capitalism, a movement that encouraged African Americans to set up businesses. In Chicago, they ran a successful boycott of the city's chain stores, protesting that they would not shop unless the stores hired African Americans. By 1930, almost all the shops in the South Side belt where African Americans lived had black employees.
From WW2
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In the workplace:
-wages doubled to $1000, but still 50% of what the whites earned
-Philip Rudolph threatened mass March of 50.000 people to Washington to protest
Govt reaction:
President signed exec order 8802 which aimed to stop discrimination in the workplace
However, reality was still one of bigotry( 300 white workers walked out after black workers got upgraded)
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Black Nationalism
Nation of Islam
Headed by Elijah Muhammad. The Nation of Islam attracted figures such as boxer Cassins Clay aka Mohammed Ali. Another follower of the Nation of Islam was Malcolm X. He was bitterly critical of Martin Luther King's methods, and believed that the civil rights movement held back black people. He wanted to see black Americans rise up and create their own separate black state in the USA, by force if necessary.
Black Panthers
A political party and also a small private army. They had around 2000 members. They believed that black Americans should arm themselves and force the whites to give them equal rights.
Government oppression initially contributed to the party's growth, as killings and arrests of Panthers increased its support among Black Americans
SNCC
Became more radical when black student Stokely Carmichael was elected chairman in 1966. He set out the radical view of black power and was even critical of Martin Luther King
Black Power Movement
Emerged in 1966 under the leadership of Stokeley Carmichael. The movement encouraged robust self-defense and self-determination.
Agenda included: arming all blacks; exemption of all blacks from military service; release of all black prisoners; payment of reparations for black exploitation; social help for poor blacks
Methods: Arson, beating & murders
Race riots
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The radical black nationalists instigated riots to express frustration. Thus American cities suffered a wave of race riots from 1965 to 1967, mostly because of poor relations between police and the blacks. Most cities were divided amongst race lines, as blacks felt that they were not receiving the same protection from crimes as whites.
Most serious riots: Watts area in Los Angeles (August 1965), Detroit (July 1967)