History 261 Week 12A: Civil Rights Movement (March 27)

I. "American Dilemma"

II. "Negro Revolution"

III. Black Nationalism

I. "American Dilemma"

1. American Creed

              **"Long Civil Rights Movement"

**"Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed" (King, Letter from Birmingham Jail, 1963)

**"A dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed" (King, March on Washington, 1063)

              **Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton, Black Power (1967)

              **"Some believe that there is a conflict between the so-called American Creed and American practices. The Creed is supposed to contain considerations of equality and liberty and justice"

              **"The fact is, of course, that these are simply words which were not even originally intended to have applicability to black people. . . . There is no 'American dilemma'"

2. American Dilemma?

              **Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy (1944)

              **Fair-Housing and Fair-Employment Campaigns (1940s-60s)

              **Truman Commission, To Secure These Rights (1947)

              **Eliminate Jim Crow Laws

              **Make FEPC permanent (failed)

              **Abolish racial covenants (Supreme Court, 1948)

              **Desegregate armed forces (Truman executive order, 1948)

3. Legal Campaigns for Desegregation

              **NAACP: Federal housing policy = "monumental program of segregation" (1951)

              **"The eradication of any type of segregated housing must be our first goal" (1953)

              **Unsuccessful lawsuit against Levitt Corporation and Federal Housing Administration (1955)

              **Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

              **"Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal"

              **Mob violence at Levittown + Little Rock (1957)

              **University of Mississippi (1962)

              **University of Alabama (1963)

II. "Negro Revolution"

1. Nonviolent Direct Action

                           **Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-56)

                           **Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)

                           **Sit-In Movement (1960)

                           **Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

                           **Freedom Rides (1961)

                           **Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)

                           **Birmingham (1963)

2. "National Problem"

              **Martin Luther King, Jr., "Walk to Freedom" speech in Detroit (June 23, 1963)

              **"We've got to see that the problem of racial injustice is a national problem. . . . I have a dream this afternoon--right here in Detroit a Negro will be able to buy a house or rent a house anywhere their money will carry them. They will be able to get a job."

              **March on Washington (1963)

              **Opposed by 63% of white Americans

              **"A nation that has done something special against the Negro for hundreds of years must now do something special for the Negro" (King, 1964)

              **Civil Rights Act of 1964

              **Outlaws racial discrimination in public schools

              **Bans private discrimination in employment + accommodations

              **Freedom Summer (1964)

              **Selma (1965)

              **Voting Rights Act of 1965

3. Urban Crisis

              **California repeals fair-housing law (1964)

              **War on Poverty (1964)

              **Watts (1965)

              **Chicago fair-housing movement (1966)

              **Failure to achieve federal open-housing legislation until 1968

              **King: "Now we are dealing with issues that cannot be solved without the nation spending billions of dollars and undergoing a radical redistribution of economic power . . . basic structural changes in the architecture of American society" (1966)

              **King: "The problem of racism, the problem of economic exploitation, and the problem of war are all tied together. These are the triple evils that are interrelated" (Where Do We Go From Here? 1967)

III. Black Nationalism (Alternative Civil Rights Movement)

1. Marcus Garvey

              **United Negro Improvement Association (1914)

              **Colonization

              **Harlem

              **Gender politics

              **Afrocentrism and Third World liberation in Cold War

2. Early Socialist and Communist Visions

              **Colored Socialist Club (Harlem, 1911)

              **African Blood Brotherhood (1918)

              **Communist Party

              **Scottsboro Trials

              **American Negro Labor Congress

              **League of Struggle for Negro Rights

3. Modern Civil Rights Era

              **Mainstream organizations and civil disobedience

              **"Radical" movements

              **Assault on imperialism

              **Robert Williams (1957)

              **Monroe, North Carolina

              **"Black people must meet violence with violence"

              **"America is a house on fire-Freedom Now! Or let it burn, let it burn. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition."

              **Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM, 1962))

              **Third World Liberation

              **Urban Class Politics

              **Alabama Black Liberation Front

              **Malcolm X

              **Black Panther Party for Self-Defense

              **Oakland, CA (1966)

              **Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale

              **Cuban and Chinese Revolutions

              **Stokely Carmichael and SNCC (1966-Black Power)

4. Working-Class Resistance

              **Public space

              **Everyday protesters

              **Multiple "black communities"

              **Rethinking "the political"

              **Civil rights in context of global capitalism and Cold War internationalism