Civil Rights Movement

CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

Context: just as the Jim Crow South was an American aspect of global economic and racial imperialism, the U.S. civil rights movement was part of a global struggle for the liberation of colonized, marginalized and segregated peoples. As W. E. B. DuBois said in 1901, “The color line belts the word.”

I. Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896: the legal foundation for American apartheid.

II. Smith v. Albright

III. Harry Truman

IV. Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma.

V. 1950, Swett v. Painter

VI. 1954, Brown v. Topeka Board of Education

VII. Eisenhower

VIII. 1955, Emmett Till

IX., 1955 Montgomery bus boycott

            A. Rosa Parks

            B. Martin Luther King

                        1. Dexter Avenue Baptist Church

                        2.. Southern Christian Leadership Conference

            C. 1956, SCOTUS rules segregated buses unconstitutional

X. Little Rock High School

            A. Orville Faubus

            B. Jim Johnson

            C. Melba Patillo

            D. Eisenhower and 101^st Airborn

XI. Peripheral South (Atlanta, Tampa, Charlotte, Houston)

XII. 1960, Sit-ins

            A. Greensboro, N.C. Woolworth’s

XIII. Freedom riders

            A. 1946 court ruling on interstate travel

            B. May 1961, riders board buses in Washington, D.C.

                        1. Anniston, Alabama

                        2. Birmingham

XIV. Birmingham campaign

            A. MLK

            B. BullConnor

            C. George Wallace

            D. John F. Kennedy

XV. Summer 1963, “I have a dream . . . “

XVI. September 1963, 16^th St. Baptist Church

XVII. November 1963, JFK assassinated

            A. Lyndon Baines Johnson

            B. Selma march

                        1. “Judgment at Nuremburg”

            C. 1964, Civil Rights Act

            D. 1965, Voting Rights Act

XVIII. Losing the South

            George Wallace, 1972