The document summarizes the history of racial conflict and the civil rights movement in the USA. It describes how Jim Crow laws legalized racial segregation and discrimination. It also discusses the founding of the NAACP to promote civil rights and some of its early legal victories. Key events of the civil rights movement discussed include the Montgomery Bus Boycott sparked by Rosa Parks' arrest, the desegregation of Little Rock High School amid violent protests, and the wider protests and campaign for voting rights in the 1960s led by Martin Luther King Jr. and others. The movement faced resistance and backlash, and the assassinations of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. led to the rise of more militant black nationalist groups advocating "
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Racial conflict in the USA
1. USA and the Wider World
• Racial Conflict in the USA
2. Jim Crow Laws
1. Name given to segregation laws introduced
in the Southern states in the 19th
and 20th
centuries
2. “Jim Crow” was a slave character that
displayed all the stereotypes of African
Americans – ignorant and clumsy and
thankful to his white master.
3. Stereotyping of African Americans caused
huge resentment in USA during the civil
rights era
4. National Association for the
Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP)
1. Founded in 1909
2. In 1913 NAACP criticises President Wilson
for introducing segregation into the Federal
Government and refusing to condemn
lynching.
3. In 1930 NAACP stop John Parker’s
appointment to Supreme Court – Parker
favours racial laws
4. Nearly one millions blacks fought in WW2 in
segregated units commanded by white
officers
5. National Association for the
Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP)
1. WW2 leads to changing attitudes – fighting
fascism and racism – demands for change
2. Supreme Court bans segregated buses and
trains that cross state lines in 1946
3. Truman bans discrimination in Federal
Government in 1948
4. In 1954 NAACP wins court case that bans
segregation in schools
5. Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955
6. Montgomery Bus Boycott
1. December 1955 – Rosa Parks arrested after
she refuses to give her seat to a white
passenger on a segregated bus.
2. The black community boycott the city’s buses
3. Martin Luther King becomes leader of the
protest movement
4. King and others were arrested for organising a
boycott
5. Car-pooling, taxis brought people to work, many
walk
7. Montgomery Bus Boycott
6. Bus companies in financial trouble – shop sales
dropped as black people stayed at home
7. State court bans segregation on buses
8. Boycott lifted in December 1956
9. Buses shot at, churches bombed
10. Montgomery Bus Boycott leads to a wider
movement for civil rights
11. Martin Luther King catapulted into the national
leadership of the Civil Rights Movement
8. Little Rock High School 1957
1. After school desegregation nine black students
due to attend Little Rock High School
2. Arkansas Governor Faubus orders 270 National
Guard troops to the school to ‘maintain law and
order’
3. National Guard prevent black students
attending school
4. Students refused entry and abused by a large
crowd of protesting white people
9. Little Rock High School 1957
5. On 23 Sept the nine students get into the school
through delivery entrance
6. Widespread rioting and attacks on black people
7. President deploys US army
8. Troops stay for a year
9. Faubus shuts schools to prevent de-
segregation
10. De-segregation implemented in Little Rock in
1960
10. The Civil Rights Movement
1. Protests organised throughout the South
2. Black voting rights campaign launched in 1963
3. Mass protests in Birmingham, Alabama – a KKK
stronghold
4. Chief of Police, ‘Bull’ O’Connor orders use of
watercannon, police dogs and electric cattle
prods to attack children taking part in the
protests. Hundreds arrested
11. The Civil Rights Movement
5. National Television broadcast the attacks on the
protestors winning widespread support for civil
rights movement
6. President Kennedy sent officials to negotiate
with the city authorities
7. Protestors granted most of their demands
8. Kennedy introduces Civil Rights Bill – delayed
by Congress.
9. Passed in 1964 under Lyndon B Johnson's
Presidency
12. Black Militancy
1. Rejection of civil rights movement as being
dominated by white liberals
2. Stokely Carmichael – blacks need to control
civil rights movement – ‘Black Power’ slogan
3. Malcolm X spokesman Black Muslims promoted
black nationalism –
4. Malcolm X assassinated 1965
5. Black Panthers established as paramilitary
group in 1966
13. Black Militancy
6. ML King begins to focus on poverty in black
ghettoes
7. Begins to raise economic issues – economic
equality along with political and social equality
6. Rioting in many northern cities in 1966/67
7. King assassinated in April 1968 provoked
widespread rioting
8. Black Power salute at Mexico 1968 Olympics –
iconic symbol
14. Outcomes
1. Laws changed but discrimination still existed
2. New black middle-class emerged
3. “Affirmative Action” introduced – blacks get
preferential treatment in jobs and training
4. As the civil rights movement ended black areas
become haven for poverty, drugs and crime
5. In 1980’s twice as many blacks as whites
unemployed
6. President Reagan cuts welfare programmes driving
blacks into even more poverty
7. In 1990 Blacks make up 12% of population mainly
crowded into ghettoes in the North-east, Mid-west
and Pacific Coast