PEOPLE’S DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF ALGERIA

MINISTRY OF HIGHER EDUCATION AND SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

UNIVERSITY OF GHARDAIA ‫جامعة غرداية‬

FACULTY OF LETTERS AND LANGUAGES ‫كلية اآلداب و اللغات‬
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH ‫قسم اللغة اإلنجليزية‬

Module: Civilizations of the Language Level & Semester: L3 (Gs 1+2+3)/ (S6)
Teacher: Ms. ALLAOUI Academic Year: 2024/2025

Early to Mid-20th Century United States

Lecture (7): The American Civil Rights Movement

 Introduction
“How should we punish Hitler?" A reporter asked a young American black girl towards the end of the Second World
War. "Paint him black and bring him over here," was her bitter reply. It was the result of being treated as a second-class
human being— of being told no, you cannot attend this school, have this job, live in this house, sit on this park bench. And
the reason? Because your skin is black.

The official term for all this was segregation— that is separating blacks from the rest of the community and refusing them
many of the rights enjoyed by other people. This systematic practice, that prevailed most notably in the South, was fueld by
the idea of racism; an ideological belief based on hatred, fear, and ignorance that positioned white people as superior to
African Americans and other minorities.

African Americans had been fighting against racial discrimination since the 17th century. However, progress was slow
until after World War II. As the 1950s began, African Americans, still segregated in the South by law from Whites in schools
and in most public facilities, began a tide of protest against these deeply rooted attitudes of racism and discrimination. The
camapaign for equal civil rights grew and gained momentum in the 1960s. Though the campaign, that came to be known as
the Civil Rights Movement, could not overcome all the obstacles, it achieved some great and long-lasting successes.

Pre-Civil Rights America: The Segregation System

The racism that existed in the United States in the 1950s was born hundreds of years earlier with the institution of slavery.
For over two hundred years, slavery had been a dominant social and economic force in the South. Then in 1865, toward the
end of the Civil War (1861–1865), the 13th Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution abolished slavery. In 1868 the 14th Amendment
promised equal rights to all citizens. But these new laws did not erase
more than 200 years of racial hatred and prejudice toward black
people.

After the war southern states responded by passing the black

codes and the Jim Crow laws. These laws separated black people
from white. Blacks had to sit in the backs of buses and trains. Blacks
had to use separate facilities that were usually old and run-down.
Many businesses refused to serve them. While Congress advanced the
civil rights of African Americans, the Supreme Court reversed many
civil rights African Americans had gained during Reconstruction. In a
1
landmark case in 1896, Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court upheld a Louisiana law segregating African Americans from
whites in railroad cars, stating that no civil rights were violated because the accommodations were “separate but equal.”

Through the systematic segregation, that was backed up by the Jim Crow, African Americans were intimidated. In
Mississippi in 1875, white people shot African-American voters. During that same period, the right of African Americans to
vote was denied legally when states made them take special “tests” or charged them poll taxes.

While racial discrimination was especially intense in the South, blacks settling
in the North were often resented by whites. Lynchings occurred in the Midwest,
and race riots erupted in Chicago in 1919 and Tulsa in 1921. On the PBS website
“The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow,” writer Tsahai Tafari explains:

“Racial inequality was not unique to the South. It was the norm across the
nation, and other regions of the United States saw similar violence and state-
sanctioned discrimination. Though Jim Crow and its specific laws and
practices occurred in the South, the system thrived because it was sanctioned
by the national government. The actions—or, more frequently, inactions—
of the three branches of the federal government were essential in defining
the lifespan of Jim Crow.”

African Americans had little choice but to accept the status quo. By the mid-1950s blacks and whites attended different
schools, churches, theaters, restaurants, and even public parks. They used separate bathrooms and water fountains and rode
on segregated buses and trains. While a set of strict rules governed the behavior of African Americans, confrontations between
blacks and whites were not uncommon. And always present was an underlying threat of violence.

2
Seeds of Resistance: The Movement Emerges
African Americans knew that even a minor act of defiance could come at great cost. But always, a courageous few would
stand up for themselves and their community against injustice. Some fought in the courts, others in the halls of government;
still others sought to engage the hearts and minds of their neighbors. From their example, others drew strength.

In 1908, several black and white leaders came together in New York to discuss proposals for an organization that would
advocate the civil and political rights of African Americans. The result was the National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People (NAACP). In 1910, in the face of intensifying adversity, the NAACP began its legacy of fighting legal
battles addressing social injustice.

Much of the NAACP’s efforts focused on overturning the Jim Crow laws. The NAACP also focused on voting rights. In
1915 the Supreme Court outlawed the use of grandfather clauses in voting legislation. The NAACP had achieved several
important victories, but progress was slow. Jim Crow laws had been passed not just by states, but by local governments as
well. For every Jim Crow law that it succeeded in overturning, hundreds more remained.

An important legal turning point came in 1954, however. In 1950 more than eleven
thousand school districts, including most of the school districts in the Deep South, were
segregated. In theory, the districts were meeting the separate but equal standard; in reality,
they were anything but equal. In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, a team of
NAACP lawyers led by Thurgood
Marshall argued that segregation of Black
children in public schools was
unconstitutional because it violated the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of
“equal protection of the laws.” In May 1954, the Supreme Court agreed
with Marshall and overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision.

The Court’s decision called on school authorities to make plans for

integrating—bringing races together—in public schools. The Court also
ordered that integration was to be carried out “with all deliberate speed”—
as fast as reasonably possible.

Some schools opposed desegregation. In September 1957, black

children tried to enroll at the previously all white high school in Little Rock,
Arkansas. An angry mob gathered to prevent them. President Eisenhower
sent troops to enforce the Supreme Court decision of 1954 and the children were admitted. So began a long struggle for equal
rights in education. It was still going on more than thirty years later.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott

On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, recalled her confrontation with the
Alabama, Rosa Parks got on a bus. Jim bus driver, “When he saw me still
Crow laws said black passengers had to sit sitting, he asked if I was going to
in the back. If the bus filled up, they had to stand up and I said, ‘No, I’m not.
give up their seats to white passengers. ’And he said, ‘Well, if you don’t
That day, a white passenger needed a seat. stand up, I’m going to have to call
The driver told Parks to get up. Parks the police and have you arrested.’ I
said, ‘You may do that.”

3
Mrs. Parks was arrested. But the black people of Montgomery supported her and the NAACP helped them to persuade a
judge to release her from jail. Then they started a campaign to end segregation on buses. Led by a young clergyman named
Martin Luther King Jr., they began to stop using, or boycott the city's bus services. The boycott went on for a year. Finally,
in November 1956, the Supreme Court declared that segregation on public buses was unconstitutional. Montgomery’s public
transport system was desegregated.

The Struggle Intensifies

As the years went on, the civil rights movement transitioned gradually from a series of isolated incidents to a nationwide
system of solidarity. Civil rights leaders came together in 1957 to form an organization that would employ the nonviolent
tactics of the Montgomery bus boycott in other parts of the South. Martin Luther King Jr., Fred Shuttlesworth, and Ralph
Abernathy were among the first leaders of the group that called itself the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
(SCLC). King called his brand of nonviolent resistance “soul force.” He based his ideas on the teachings of several people.
Within a few months, the group had established an office in Atlanta and expanded its mission beyond bus segregation to
include other Jim Crow laws and racist practices.

One of their successes came in 1960. In February 1960, college students in Greensboro, North Carolina, started the sit-in
movement after being refused service at a Whites-only lunch counter. To call attention to the injustice of segregated facilities,
students would deliberately invite arrest by sitting in restricted areas. In the 1960s, African Americans used sit-ins to integrate
restaurants, hotels, libraries, pools, and transportation throughout the South. Within a few months, young activists, including
23-year-old John Lewis, organized the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to promote voting rights
and to end segregation. The results of the boycotts, sit-ins, freedom rides, court rulings, and government responses to
pressure marked a turning point in the civil rights movement.

A climax of the Civil Rights movement came in 1963. On a hot

August day 200,000 people, black and white, took part in a mass
demonstration in Washington to demand full racial equality. In a
moving and dramatic speech, Martin Luther King told millions of
Americans watching their televisions all over the country:
"I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of
former slaves and the sons of former slave holders will be able to sit
down together at the table of brorherhood. I have a dream that my four
little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged
by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

Congress was reluctant to act on civil rights issues. However, ordinary people throughout America were joining the civil
rights movement. They traveled from all parts of the country to support African Americans in the South. As this grassroots
movement intensified its protests, politicians were forced to get involved. Progress was slow, however. In the 1960s, a
growing impatience among many African Americans would be manifested in violent confrontations in the streets.

Racial Violence Errupts

Black Americans were becoming increasingly impatient at their lack of progress towards real equality—especially
economic equality. In the hot summers of the mid 1960s this impatience boiled over into violence.

Birmingham, Alabama was among the most segregated cities in the nation. In the summer of 1961, leaders of the SCLC
saw Birmingham as an opportunity. The group’s leaders hoped that a mix of nonviolent boycotts, sit-ins, and demonstrations
would provoke a strong response from city leaders, which would in turn ignite public interest. The SCLC recruited children
to join the Birmingham marches. Birmingham’s jails overflowed with more than six hundred children, the youngest just six
years old.

Recognizing that the arrests were not having the desired impact, Eugene Connor, Public Safety Commissioner, ordered
the fire department to use fire hoses to disperse the children. The full force of the water pressure sent children flying head 4
over heels, knocked teens to their knees, and plastered adults against the walls of buildings. When the demonstrators began
to throw rocks at the police, Connor called out the city’s police dogs. One of the German shepherds bit a man on the leg;
another dog knocked over a seven year-old.

National TV news stations caught it all on camera: the fire hoses, the police clubs, and the dogs. The brutality of the police
stood in sharp contrast to the nonviolent actions of the activists. One picture seemed to sum up the horror of the events in
Birmingham: Newspapers across America ran the story with a photograph showing a police dog attacking an unarmed fifteen-
year-old named Walter Gadsden.

On Sunday, September 15, 1963, another deafening blast ripped through Birmingham’s Church. The church had been
used as a gathering spot for demonstrators, but Sundays were reserved for worship services. On that Sunday, a bomb planted
by KKK members killed four girls, ages eleven to fourteen. The African American community was shocked by the murders,
but many whites dissociated themselves from the violence.

By this time John Kennedy was President. He sympathized with the blacks and worked on a plan to ensure that all
Americans, of any race, would receive equal treatment. Kennedy sent his scheme to Congress to be made into a law. He was
assassinated before this could happen. But his successor, Lyndon Johnson made getting the law passed one of his first aims.

In 1964 the Civil Rights Act became the law of the land. Many Americans hoped that its passing would mark the
beginning of a new age of racial harmony and friendship in the United States. They were disappointed. The racial difficulties
of the United States were too deep-rooted to be solved by simple alterations in the law or by demonstrations and marches.
Changes were needed in human attitudes and in underlying economic conditions.

A voting rights march from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital of Montgomery in March 1965 was met with beatings
and tear gas. Among those severely injured on “Bloody Sunday” was SNCC organizer John Lewis. He became known as
the "conscience of Congress" for his leadership on civil rights as a member of the House of Representatives.

Televised pictures of the violence proved a turning point in the civil rights movement. The national outrage prompted
Johnson to send federal troops to protect King and other marchers in another attempt to petition the state government. As a
result, Congress passed the powerful Voting Rights Act of 1965. The act ended literacy tests and provided federal registrars

5
in areas where African Americans had been kept from voting since Reconstruction. The impact was most dramatic in the
Deep South.
A Movement Divided: Internal Tensions and Contrasts
As the pace of change grew slow, many African Americans grew tired and bitter over white attacks. In the face of such
adversity, a growing number of civil rights leaders believed that it was time for the African American community to take a
stronger stance.

In this atmosphere arose Malcolm X, a member of the Nation of Islam (or Black Muslim), an organization that called
for the establishment of a separate nation for black Americans under the leadership of
Elijah Muhammad. Malcolm X was among the most vocal advocates of a more militant
approach. Articulate and intelligent, Malcolm X gained a huge following and became
spokesperson for the Nation of Islam. As spokesperson, he taught that black people were
superior to whites and other races and advocated the separation of blacks and whites in
the United States.

Malcolm X was also a vocal critic of the tactics of the mainstream civil rights
movement and of King. He rallied blacks to fight racism, “by any means necessary” and
advocated self-defense—using Black violence to counter White violence. Malcolm X told
young people working in Mississippi: “I don’t think it is fair to tell our people to be
nonviolent unless someone is out there making the Klan and … these other groups also
be nonviolent. . . . You get freedom by letting your enemy know that you’ll do anything
to get your freedom; then you’ll get it. It’s the only way you’ll get it.”

King believed peaceful protest was an effective tool. Malcolm X believed nonviolent protests taught blacks to be
defenseless. While King fought for integration, Malcolm X fought for blacks to live separately and govern themselves.
Malcolm X’s revolutionary stand against injustice united blacks all over the world—and created enemies. His message
frightened white society. Some people in the black community thought violence would damage the progress made through
peaceful protests.

Although Malcolm X publicly broke with the Nation of Islam years later,
he continued to be sought as a speaker and many African Americans
believed that he better expressed their sense of anger and frustration than
did those who preached a path of nonviolence. Yet, his radically militant
views changed over time. During his pilgrimage to Mecca, he saw
Muslims of all races treat each other as equals. This trip was
transformational as he began to see Islam as a unifying force across
races, emphasizing universal brotherhood.

His lengthy trip to many other countries including Egypt, Nigeria,

Algeria, Ghana, Lebanon, Sudan, France, and the UK made him envision
a world where all races could live together in peace. Instead of racial
separation, he started to call for “a society in which there could exist honest black-white brotherhood.” In 1964 Malcolm
X said he wanted to find ways to work with other civil rights leaders. He said, “Dr. King wants the same thing I want—
freedom!”

But he had little time to spread his new message. On February 21, 1965, as the 39-year-old Malcolm stepped to the podium
to speak to a group of African Americans in Harlem, three men rushed from the crowd and shot him 23 times. The assassins
were members of the Nation of Islam; the assassination was believed to be in response to his criticism of Elijah Muhammad.
Malcolm already knew his life was in danger. Although silenced by gunmen, he is a continuing inspiration for many
Americans.

Other African America leaders embraced more radical approaches. Stokely Carmichael, a Howard University student
who had taken part in the 1961 Freedom Rides, became disenchanted with the slow progress of the civil rights movement.
6
When he was once arrested in Greenwood, Mississippi, during a march, he showed up later with his face swollen from a
beating. He electrified the crowd that day by arguing: “This is the twenty-seventh time I have been arrested—and I ain’t
going to jail no more! The only way we’re gonna stop them white men from whippin’ us is to take over. We been saying
freedom for six years—and we ain’t got nothin’. What we gonna start now is BLACK POWER.” Carmichael refused to
compromise. He urged the movement’s leaders to stop recruiting whites and to focus on developing African American
pride.

Another development demonstrated the growing radicalism of some segments of the African American community. In
Oakland, California, in October 1966, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale founded a political party known as the Black
Panthers to fight police brutality in the ghetto. The party advocated self-sufficiency for African American communities, as
well as full employment and decent housing. Members maintained that African Americans should be exempt from military
service because an unfair number of black youths had been drafted to serve in Vietnam.

Shortly after the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the arrest of a young black motorist by White police in the
black neighborhood of Watts in Los Angeles sparked a six-day race riot that killed 34 people and destroyed more than 700
buildings.

For the following few summers through 1968, the Watts riot was followed by others—in Chicago, Detroit, New York,
Washington. A government inquiry blamed lack of jobs for the riots. But many believed the causes went deeper. When one
black leader was asked about the violence he replied: "If a man's standing on your toe and you've petitioned, begged,
pleaded, done everything possible and he still won't move- you've got to push him off."

By the mid-1960s, the issue of civil rights had spread far beyond de jure segregation practiced under the law in the South.
It now included the de facto segregation and discrimination caused by racist attitudes in the North and West. In April 1968,
the nation went into shock over the news that King had been shot and killed by a White sniper while standing on a motel
balcony in Memphis, Tennessee. Massive riots erupted in 168 cities across the country, leaving at least 46 people dead.

Conclusion :
The people of the civil rights movement raised their voices to demand their rights. Slowly the nation began to change.
Changes did not come easily, but they did come. People began thinking differently about discrimination.

Despite all struggles, the movement inspired other groups to seek more rights, including women, Hispanics, Native
Americans, and people with disabilities. Asian Americans led a “yellow power” movement in the 1960s and 1970s, focusing
on ending discrimination and promoting the inclusion of ethnic studies in college curriculums.

Opportunities for African-Americans increased. By 1985 more than 5,000 of the 50,000 elected officials in the United
States were black. This number included the mayors of such large cities as Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, and
Washington. In 2008, Barack Obama was elected president of the United States, the first African American to hold the
nation’s highest political office. Obama’s election can, in many ways, be considered the ultimate legacy of the civil rights
movement. It demonstrated just how far the United States has come since the era of Jim Crow laws.

In just fifty years, the nation has transitioned from keeping African Americans on the bottom of the social order to electing
an African American to what some say is the most powerful position in the world. The laws that once separated black and
white Americans no longer exist. Overt barriers to education have been shattered as well. Above all, Obama’s election showed
that the wall of racial discrimination that once separated blacks from economic and political power has crumbled.

Today, African Americans and whites interact in ways that could have only been imagined before the civil rights
movement. In many respects, Dr. King’s dream has been realized—yet much remains to be done. Issues of racial inequality,
police brutality, and systematic discrimination still prevail in that country to this day giving rise to many new contemporary

7
movements like the Black Lives Matter campaign and other.
 Works Cited
► Bjornlund, Lydia. Understanding American History: The Civil Rights Movement.

Referencepoint Press, 2013.

► Dallek, Robert, et al. American History. Evanston, Il, Mcdougal Littell, 2007.

► Goldfield, David R, et al. The American Journey: A History of the United States. brief 6th ed.,

Hoboken, New Jersey, Pearson Education, 2010.

► McDougal, Holt. The Americans: Reconstruction through the 20th Century. Evanston, Ill.,

Mcdougal Littell - Houghton Mifflin, 2006.

► Mortensen, Lori. Voices of the Civil Rights Movement. Capstone Press, 2015.

► Newman, John J, and John M Schmalbach. United States History. 4th ed., Logan, Ia,

Perfection Learning, 2021.

► O'Callaghan, Denis Brynley. An Illustrated History of the USA. Longman, 2011.