The USA, 1945-75 (for AQA)

36 Pages·2013·2.92 MB·English

AQA GCSE
Modern World History
Race Relations in the USA
1945–1968
Focus
By 1945 the USA was the world’s most powerful and important country. What
happened there affected people the world over. In this depth study you are going to
examine life inside the USA after 1945, in particular the issues of civil rights and race
relations.
uu Part 1analyses the reasons for the anti-Communist Red Scare of the 1950sand
specifically the phenomenon of McCarthyism.
uu Part 2investigates the achievements of the movement for black civil rights
through the 1950s – focusing on the campaign for integrated education and the
Montgomery bus boycott.
uu Part 3continues the story of the black civil rights movement through the 1960s
and 1970sand compares the roles of key individuals, Martin Luther King and
Malcom X, and the contributions of three American Presidents, Kennedy,
Johnson and Nixon.
uu There was more to the civil rights movement than just the campaign for black
civil rights. Part 4considers the methods and achievements of three other
groups campaigning for civil rights: Hispanic Americans, Native Americans and
the women’s movement.
This chapter covers
uu Race Relations in the USA 1945–1968Unit 2 Depth Study
It is designed for use alongside this book:
which you can order from http://www.hoddereducation.co.uk
Permission is given to download and make copies of this resource for students in your own institution only. It may be loaded to a VLE
or to student computers but may not be passed on beyond the purchasing institution. Any other use is strictly prohibited.
ry Part 1 Why was there a Red Scare in the
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Hi USA in the 1950s?
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The USA emerged from the Second World War as the most powerful nation on earth. Its enemies were
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r defeated and its allies were exhausted. You might think that the USA would be brimming with
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d Focus Task confidence and yet in the years after the war the USA was gripped by fear and suspicion of
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Communism, a phase which became known as the Red Scare. American fear of Communism went
E Why was there a Red Scare in the
S USA? back a long way: the USA was democratic, capitalist and largely Christian. Communists in contrast
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believed in a single-party state, centralized control of all industry and atheism. With such different
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1 Draw your own diagram like this with
beliefs anti-Communism was a fact of life in the USA. What is surprising is how strong the anti-
‘The Red Scare’ in the centre.
Communist feeling proved to be in the 1950s. Why did this happen? There were two main factors:
• the international situation – and particularly the tense relationship with the USSR during the Cold
War
• internal political developments in the USA – and the activities of Senator Joseph McCarthy.
The Red Scare
The international situation
Key developments in the Cold War, 1945–50.
• The capitalist USA and the Communist USSR had fought the Second World War as allies – putting
2 Write extra phrases insidethe cloud
aside their different beliefs to beat the common enemy of fascism. However, even before the war was
to summarise the key features of the
over, they had started to argue about what should happen in Europe after the war.
Red Scare. For example:
McCarthyism; or fear of Communist • The USSR had made huge territorial gains at the end of the war, moving its frontier hundreds of
spies. kilometres westwards into Europe.
3 Outsidethe cloud add another ring
• All the countries of eastern Europe – Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania
of labels to summarise all the
and Bulgaria – had come under the control of Moscow by 1948, and all had either elected
different factors which caused the
Red Scare, for example: Communist governments or had Communist governments imposed on them. There was a division
◆ Cold War tensions across the continent between Communist countries and capitalist countries, which Winston
◆ Rivalry between political parties Churchill called an ‘Iron Curtain’.
◆ Politicians trying to raise their own
• The USA tried to halt this Communist expansion. In 1947 US President Truman proclaimed the
profile
4 For each factor explain howit Truman Doctrine, promising help to any country trying to resist the Soviet advance. The US offered
contributed to the Red Scare. Marshall Aid – billions of dollars to help revive the war-damaged economies of western Europe so
that they could resist Communism.
• It seemed that the USSR was determined to advance further westwards in 1948 when they cut all
supply routes into west Berlin. Only an extraordinary fifteen-month airlift of supplies prevented the
city from being starved out.
• In 1949 NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) was formed, a military alliance against the
perceived Soviet threat.
SOURCE 1
• In spite of these developments, 1949 was a bad year for the USA in this struggle. First the USSR
Now in 1949 all of China fell to the developed its own atomic bomb. The US monopoly of this fearsome weapon was broken, with
Communists. We saw red almost unthinkable possible consequences.
everywhere. And the Russians got the bomb. • Then in the same year China was taken over by Chinese Communists led by Mao Zedong. A new
Communist nation of 500 million people had emerged. Worse still, Mao’s victory had been won
We leaped from what we knew to what we
against opponents who had been massively aided by the USA.
dreaded to think. Somehow, somewhere,
• Communism was also advancing in Malaya, Indonesia, Burma and the Philippines.
possibly right here at home, we were being
• In 1950, Communist North Korea invaded South Korea. The USA got United Nations support for a
betrayed. Who gave the Russians the secret
successful counter-attack, until Communist China sent support to North Korea. Soon the USA was
of the A-bomb? Who lost China to the
bogged down in the Korean War which was to last until 1953.
Communists? Suspicions fell on fertile
ground.
Extract from the commentary of a 1984
American TV documentary called A Walk
Through The Twentieth Century with Bill
Myers. Myers was (and still is) a
distinguished political journalist.
2
Internal political developments
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Meanwhile in response to these developments, and feeding off them, a number of things had S
A
happened in the USA. , 1
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The Federal Bureau of Investigation –
The House Un-American Activities 7
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The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had a strongly anti- Committee : L
a
Communist director, J Edgar Hoover. He had been a driving force n
d
behind the Red Scare that happened after the Russian Revolution. In From the 1930s, the US Congress had a House Un-American Activities o
1947 President Truman let him set up the Federal Employee Loyalty Committee (HUAC). It had the right to investigate anyone who was f F
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suspected of doing anything un-American. Un-American mostly meant e
Program. This allowed Hoover’s FBI loyalty boards to investigate e
Communist! To start with, the committee was hardly noticed. But in d
government employees to see if they were current or former members o
1947 it became big news. m
of the Communist Party. From 1947 to 1950, around 3 million were ?
The FBI had evidence that a number of prominent Hollywood
investigated. Nobody was charged with spying. But 212 staff were
writers, producers and directors were members of the Communist
identified as ‘security risks’ (that is, Communist sympathisers) and
Party. HUAC called them to be questioned by the committee. They were
were forced out of their jobs.
not government employees. It was not illegal to be a Communist in a
free democratic country such as the USA. So when the Hollywood Ten,
as they became known, appeared before the committee, they refused to
answer any questions. Every time they were asked the standard
The Hiss case
question: ‘Are you now or have you ever been a member of the
Communist Party?’, they pleaded the First Amendment of the US
In 1948 a man called Whittaker Chambers faced the HUAC. He
Constitution (which guaranteed all Americans freedom to believe what
admitted to having been a Communist in the 1930s. He also said that
they wanted) and said that the HUAC did not even have the right to ask
Alger Hiss had been a member of his group. Hiss was a high-ranking
the question.
member of the US State Department. Hiss accused Chambers of lying
They were each jailed for one year for contempt of court because
and Truman dismissed the case. However, a young politician called
they refused to answer questions. Hollywood studios ‘blacklisted’ the
Richard Nixon (a member of the HUAC) decided to pursue the case. He
ten, and most of them never worked again in Hollywood. Because the
found convincing evidence that Hiss did know Chambers, and
film industry was the highest profile industry in the country, HUAC was
debatable evidence that Hiss had passed information to the USSR
suddenly catapulted into front-page news. Now everyone had heard
during the war. Hiss was never tried for spying, but he was convicted of
of it.
perjury in 1950 and spent nearly five years in prison.
It is still not known whether Hiss was guilty of passing secrets
or not.
The Rosenbergs
The Soviet Union developed its own atomic bomb in 1949. This was
much sooner than expected. The USA had been sure it would take
Soviet scientists four more years. The US government strongly
suspected that spies had passed its atomic secrets to the USSR. In 1950
a German-born British physicist, Klaus Fuchs, was convicted of passing
US and British atomic secrets to the USSR.
The McCarran Act
The investigation into Fuchs also led to suspicions against Julius
The Hiss and Rosenberg cases helped to lead to the Internal Security Rosenberg and his wife Ethel. At their trial in March 1951 they denied
Act of 1950. This was usually known as the McCarran Act because it all the charges against them. But they were found guilty and sentenced
was pushed through by Nevada Senator Pat McCarran. President to death. They were executed in June 1953.
Truman opposed it because he claimed it would make a mockery of The evidence that convicted the Rosenbergs appeared to be flimsy.
the USA’s Bill of Rights. Congress defeated his opposition by voting 80 However, historians today believe that the Rosenbergs were guilty. They
per cent in favour of the Act. The main measures were: now know of coded telegrams between the Rosenbergs and Soviet
• All Communist organisations had to be registered (including finger agents that began in 1944. The telegrams were eventually published
printing of members) with the US government. in 1995.
• No Communist could carry a US passport or work in the defence
industries.
1 Write a sentence for each of the following, explaining its role in the Red
• The Act even allowed for the setting up of detention camps in
Scare:
emergency situations.
• Federal Employee Loyalty Program • McCarran Act
• HUAC • J Edgar Hoover
• Hiss Case • Richard Nixon
• Rosenbergs
3
y Hysteria
r 1 After Democrat Adlai Stevenson had made a
o
t speech in the 1952 presidential election
s How did the people of the USA react to this Red Scare? Most of the evidence suggests that they lapped it
Hi campaign, a woman praised him: ‘You have
d captured the vote of every thinking person in up. Some were hysterically anti-Communist themselves and welcomed every exposé as another victory
orl America.’ Stevenson is said to have replied, for American values. Even those who were not violently anti-Communist got caught up in the drama
W ‘Thank you, Ma’am, but we need a majority!’ of it all. Interrogations were filmed and photographed. Just to appear before HUAC could ruin a
n What do you think he meant by this?
r career. ‘Suspects’ were asked to ‘name names’. If they did not tell, they were suspected of being a
e 2 Compare Sources 2 and 3. Which was made
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o by supporters of the HUAC and which by its Communist. If they did, then those they named were in turn, investigated.
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opponents? Explain your choice carefully. Politicians on both sides could also see the vote winning potential of it all. To win elections they
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S Refer to details in the source. must be seen to be tough on Communism. Into this steaming atmosphere stepped a ruthless and
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G ambitious young Republican Senator called Joseph McCarthy.
McCarthyism
In 1950 McCarthy was in search of a headline. He got it! He claimed that he had a list of over 200
Communists in the State Department. He had not found these Communists himself. His 200
Communists were from the official report from the FBI’s loyalty board investigations. He claimed
there were card-carrying Communists in the government. This was also based on FBI reports. In fact,
35 of the 57 had been cleared and the other 22 were still being investigated.
McCarthy confessed that he was amazed by the amount of publicity his comments generated, but
he was determined to use his new-found prominence. Democrat Senator Millard Tydings declared
that the charges lacked foundation. McCarthy simply attacked Tydings for being un-American.
With elections just around the corner, Republican senators backed McCarthy and in the 1952 US
Senate elections the Republicans reaped the benefits. They won many seats. Tydings himself lost his
seat to a McCarthy supporter.
McCarthy was on a roll. After the election, President Eisenhower appointed him as head of a White
House committee to investigate Communist activities in the government. Throughout 1952 and 1953
McCarthy extended his own investigations and turned his committee into a weapon to increase his
own personal power and terrify others. His methods mainly involved false accusations and bullying.
He targeted high-profile figures and accused anyone who criticised him of being a Communist.
SOURCE 2 SOURCE 3
‘Investigate them? Heck that’s mah posse’ – a cartoon by
Bill Mauldin from 1946. A posse is a group of men
gathered together to hunt down a criminal. Maudlin
served as a GU during the war and had been wounded.
This cartoon was kept in an FBI file as evidence of un-
American attitudes. An American cartoon from the early 1950’s.
4
SOURCE 4 T
Activity h
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Looking for an issue that would get him re-elected, he seized on the fears of millions, and U
1 Read Source 4. It should be fairly clear S
that Bill Myers was not an admirer of launched the squalid campaign that became known as McCarthyism. Its tactic: reckless and A
McCarthy! How does the tone and undocumented accusation against government employees. Intimidation bred audacity , 1
9
language of Source 4 demonstrate this? and audacity fed upon itself. McCarthy soon had the celebrity he sought. The stage was his 4
5
2 Does Source 5 prove that Americans –
alone to command. 7
were anti-Communist in the 1950s? Use 5
dkneotawilsle fdrogme t toh ee xspoluairnc ey oaunrd aynosuwre or.wn An extract from the commentary of a 1984 American TV documentary called A Walk : La
Through The Twentieth Century with Bill Myers(see Source 1). n
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The ‘witch hunts’ d
Focus Task o
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McCarthy claimed that General George Marshall (the American general most admired by Winston ?
What was McCarthyism?
Churchill and the author of the Marshall Plan which gave US economic aid to Europe after the
1 Under each of the following Second World War – see Chapter 4 ) was at the centre of a gigantic conspiracy against the USA.
‘headings’ try to sum up this aspect
President Eisenhower did virtually nothing to protect his great friend Marshall from these accusations
of McCarthyism in just 25 words
because he did not want to clash with McCarthy.
using the information on pages 4–5.
We have started the first one for you. Thousands of others found their lives and careers ruined by the witch hunt. False accusations led
◆ Beliefs – Anti-Communism. to their being ‘blacklisted’ which meant that they could not work. Over 100 university lecturers were
McCarthy believed that the Soviet
fired as universities came under pressure from McCarthy. The HUAC ‘blacklisted’ 324 Hollywood
Union wanted to damage
personalities. Studio bosses such as Walt Disney, Jack Warner and Louis Mayer supported the HUAC
America. He also believed that . . .
◆ Methods and refused to employ anyone who was suspected of having Communist sympathies. They also did
◆ Motives their bit to raise the temperature further by producing science-fiction films such as Invasion of the
2 Now try to pare it down still further –
Body Snatchers, which fed the hysteria by introducing the threat of alien invaders – which was
summarise McCarthyism in just 25
clearly supposed to represent the Communist threat to the USA.
words!
SOURCE 5
Focus Task
Why did people support
McCarthyism?
Support for McCarthy depended on four
things.
N
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NIST BELIEFS THY’s REPUTA REST
FEAR OMMU McCAR A INTE
C DI
NTI- ME
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Which of these do you think was the
strongest leg of McCarthy’s stool? Add
notes to your own diagram to show
how this contributed to support for
McCarthy. Include examples and
evidence from these pages. Senator McCarthy gives a press conference.
5
y The return of Captain America
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s Captain America was a comic book superhero. He was created in 1941 to fight the Nazis. At the end of
Hi
d the war Marvel comics ‘killed him off’. He crashed while flying an experimental plane. However, in
orl the era of the Red Scare, Marvel comics sensed the public mood and they bought back Captain
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America in 1953 – as ‘Captain America, Commie Smasher’. The story now ran that he did not
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cartoons are a good source of evidence about the public mood at a particular time because lots of
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S Activity people bought these comics; they were as popular in this period as computer games are today.
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Imagine you work for Marvel Comics in the SOURCE 6
late 1940s or early 1950s. You are putting
the idea to your boss that it would be a
good idea to bring back Captain America.
Prepare a short report or presentation
explaining:
• why you think this would be popular
• what the new Captain America will do
(including the enemies he will fight).
You can research Captain America on the
internet – but don’t go into too much detail
and forget you are doing History!
SOURCE 7 Captain America in action, 1944.
The technique apparently used by Senator
McCarthy against me is apparently typical.
He first announced at a press conference Did anyone oppose McCarthy?
that he had discovered the top Russian agent
They certainly did. Many senators spoke up against him, including the Republican Senator Ralph
in the United States. At first he withheld my
Flanders from Vermont. Quality newspapers such as the Washington Post, New York Timesand
name, but later, after the drama of his
Milwaukee Journalproduced sensible and balanced reporting that damaged McCarthy’s credibility.
announcement was intensified by delay, he
As Source 8 shows, some (although certainly not all) very big names from Hollywood protested at the
then whispered my name to a group of
treatment of actors, writers and producers.
newspaper reporters with full knowledge
Another significant opponent of McCarthy’s was also one of his victims – the university professor
that my name would be bandied about by
Owen Lattimore. He was an expert on China and East Asia and had been the top adviser to President
rumour and gossip and eventually Truman when China fell to the Communists in 1949. This made him a target for McCarthy. Lattimore
published. I say to you that this was was questioned by the HUAC for 12 days and gave as good as he got. McCarthy’s ally Senator Pat
unworthy of a Senator or an American. McCarran had Lattimore investigated for perjury (which means lying to the court while under oath).
The FBI carried out five investigations on Lattimore until a federal judge finally threw out all the
Professor Owen Lattimore at the HUAC
charges against him in June 1955.
hearings in 1952.
6
In 1952 one of America’s leading playwrights, Arthur Miller, wrote his most famous play, The T
h
Crucible, which was nominally about the witch-hunts in the early days of the United States but all e
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his audiences knew that he was using his play as a way of condemning the methods used by
S
McCarthy in the anti-Communist witch hunts. A
Probably the most influential opponent of McCarthy was the TV journalist Ed Murrow. On 20 , 1
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October 1953 Murrow broadcast a programme which criticised the methods used by the US Air Force 5
–
to investigate one of its servicemen. On 9 March 1954 Murrow broadcast an entire episode of his show 7
5
See It Nowattacking McCarthy. It used footage of McCarthy and his own actions to condemn him. : L
Murrow’s broadcast is generally seen as one of the most influential and damaging attacks on an
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McCarthy and an important factor in his decline. o
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SOURCE 8 re
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We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is m
not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not ?

walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we
dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from
fearful men.
An extract from Ed Murrow’s See It Nowbroadcast attacking McCarthy, March 1954.
Activity
Imagine the publishers of this book have
received a letter complaining about Source 4 The decline of McCarthyism
on page 4 (Bill Myers) because it is very one
sided. The letter writer wants the source Despite these opponents it was four years before McCarthy finally ran out of steam. The turning point
removed. Discuss what you would do if you was when he began to attack the army. He claimed there were Communist sympathisers in high
were the publisher and then write an email
command in the army. His accusations seemed increasingly ridiculous. In televised hearings
or letter explaining your decision. You will
McCarthy was steadily humiliated by the lawyer representing the army, Joseph Welch. At one point,
be able to do this best after you have read
pages 5–7. McCarthy reminded Welch that he had an employee in his law firm who had belonged to an
organization that had been accused of Communist sympathies. The court burst into applause for
Welch when he replied ‘Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of
Focus Task
decency?’
McCarthy lost all credibility and was finished as a political force. A motion of censure was passed
Why did McCarthyism decline?
by the Congress against him. There was still strong anti-Communist feeling in the USA – that had not
Go back to the ‘stool diagram’ that you
disappeared – but the methods used by McCarthy were discredited and the man himself began to be
drew from the Focus Task on page 5.
seen as a liability. Some people said McCarthyism was doing as much damage to America as the
supposed Communist spies could ever do. President Eisenhower who supported and promoted
McCarthy now made the joke that McCarthyism has become McCarthywasm!
McCarthy himself had become an alcoholic. He died of liver disease three years later, in 1957, at
the age of 48.
N
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FEAR OMMUNIST BELIEFS McCARTHY’s REPUTATI A INTEREST TMpMfuuccnbhCCdlaaiaesrrmhtthh eeldyynei tsNtwmagale t nAihaotmayncs eat ihrylmi acS daetoas na,n f avdh anauMldrugd eesst sc ri fmewoCsresp rehaeadic s vtttr ihoooternly ah n Atfeeomyderd. e ih Frtsiioegcmw ahs t Aausmcndhdyeo rMAoimclc aCsentaru irpdctoahelnnyiitt sishcm.i iTsa thanosers y ado. norI n cheu xi1sma9tom9er4nip attl hnem eso ehfUn haStvio ogewn obveeedernnment
ANTI-C MEDI pHroewpaevreerd, tion d2e0f0e4n dA mMecrCiacartnh yh iisnt oarniayn w Taeyd. MMoosrtg aagnr epeudb wliisthhe dth ae bvioeowks coafl lBeidll RMeydesr.s H (es eaer gSuouedrc teh 4a)t.
America did face a real threat from Soviet spies in the late 1940s and early 1950s. But he also argued
that McCarthy’s actions made it more difficult to catch these spies because he was so incompetent.
Discuss:
Even this view was controversial, because still today writing anything which appears to support
1 Which of the legs do you think were
the first to give way? McCarthy opens up deep wounds.
2 Why did these legs give way?
3 Which legs did not give way?
4 Why did those legs stay strong?
Now use the discussion to write your
own paragraph(s) explaining the reasons
for the decline of McCarthyism.
7
y
r Part 2 How successful was the struggle
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Hi for black civil rights in the 1950s?
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r Background
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E In the 1920s and 1930s vicious racial prejudice had been common in American life. The Second
S World War challenged this to some extent, although in other respects it made matters worse.
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SOURCE 1 SOURCE 2
A sign erected to prevent black people moving into a government
housing project, Detroit, 1942.
An American propaganda poster from 1943.
If you take Source 2 at face value then it looks like the USA began to appreciate its black citizens.
Around 1 million black Americans served in the armed forces in the Second World War. Black units
distinguished themselves in Europe at the Battle of the Bulge (1944) and in the Pacific in the Battle
of Iwo Jima (1945). There was also large-scale migration of black Americans (over 400,000) to the
USA’s industrial centres to help with the war effort. On average, these Americans doubled their wages
1 Explain the message of Source 2.
2 Search the internet for other US posters from to about $1,000 per year.
the Second World War. Use the search terms Against these positive developments was a lot of evidence that longstanding prejudices had not
‘USA posters World War 2’. What proportion
been rooted out. It was not until 1944 that the US marines allowed black soldiers into combat. Up to
are like Source 2?
that point, they had only been used for transporting supplies, or as cooks and labourers (they were
3 Do you think Source 1 was a more accurate
reflection of the reality of life in the USA than often referred to as mules). Many black women served in the armed forces as nurses, but they were
Source 2? Explain your answer. only allowed to tend black soldiers. By the end of the war, only 58 black sailors had risen to officer
rank in the US Navy. Black sailors were assigned to the dangerous job of loading ammunition on to
ships bound for the war zones.
8
On the home front it was a similar story. Black workers generally earned half what white workers T
h
earned. In June 1941, President Roosevelt ordered employers on defence work to end discrimination. e
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But it took more than executive orders to change attitudes. In 1942, at the Packard electronics
S
company, 3,000 white workers walked out when three black workers had their jobs upgraded as a A
result of the order (and the management walked out too). There were race riots in 47 cities during , 1
9
4
the war, the worst of which was in Detroit during June–July 1943. 5
–
The advances made in the Second World War encouraged black Americans to try to win greater 7
5
equality. However, in the 1950s racism was still an everyday experience for black people, particularly : L
in the southern states of the USA: an
d
• Many Southern and border states enforced the so-called ‘Jim Crow’ laws (see Source 3), each one o
f F
in slightly different ways and to different extents. These laws segregated everyday facilities such as r
e
parks, buses and schools. NB: the USA has a ‘federal’ structure which means that some laws are e
d
made by central government and apply to the whole country, while others are made by the states o
m
themselves and only apply in that state. ?

• Black Americans had officially been given the right to vote early in the century, but in some states
Focus Task
various practices were used to prevent them from voting – most commonly, the threat of violence.
What was the state of black civil In Mississippi, for example, black people who tried to register to vote faced intimidation or even
rights in America in 1950? lynching. Only five per cent of the black population in Mississippi was registered to vote.
• Law officers (police) not only failed to stop attacks on black people, they frequently took part in
Design a leaflet to be sent to the
government setting out the grievances them. White juries almost always acquitted whites accused of killing blacks.
of the black people in the southern • Black Americans faced official and legal discrimination in areas such as employment and
states of the USA. You could refer to the
education. In the South, white teachers earned 30 per cent more than black teachers.
contribution of black Americans to the
• The best universities were closed to blacks. In 1958, a black teacher called Clemson King was
US war effort in the Second World War.
committed to a mental asylum for applying to the University of Mississippi.
SOURCE 3
N
WEST
VIRGINIA
VIRGINIA
TENNESSEE
Greensboro
MISSOURI
Nashville NORTH CAROLINA
ARKANSAS Atlanta
SOUTH CAROLINA
Little Rock Birmingham
Selma GEORGIA
Jackson Montgomery
TEXAS
FLORIDA
ALABAMA
MISSISSIPPI
0 500 km LOUISIANA
Scal e
The main ‘Jim Crow’ states (coloured orange) in the 1950s, and the sites of some civil rights protests,
1950–70.
9
y The civil rights movement
r Activity
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Hi On pages 10–27 you are going to study the main events in the Civil rights are the rights you have as a citizen of a country. In a fair country, every
rld civil rights campaign. You will see that campaigners used a citizen should have equal civil rights. The US Constitution was supposed to
o range of methods and tackled a wide range of issues. Make
W guarantee that all people were treated equally – they should all be allowed to vote
your own copy of the chart below and complete it as you
n work through the chapter. If you come across other methods in elections, to be educated, to travel freely, to earn a living. Yet the USA was clearly
r
e
d add extra rows to your chart. failing many of its black citizens.
o
M Example and Score out There were many campaigners working to win equal civil rights for black
E Method of campaigning issue it was of 5 and/or Americans, but there was also a powerful minority resisting them. Some whites
S
C used to tackle comment believed that giving civil rights to black people was a grave danger to their way of
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life. They would fight it every inch of the way.
1 Court case/ legal challenge
In the 1950s the civil rights movement became a powerful and effective
political force. Over the next four pages you are going to investigate how this
2 Non-violent direct action
happened and what the movement achieved in the 1950s.
3 Empowering ordinary
people
The struggle for equal education: a legal
4 Marches and
demonstrations challenge
5 Violent protest
For decades, it had been legal in the USA for states to have separate schools for
black and white children. The states argue that separate education did not mean
unequal if the schools for white children and the schools for black children were
equally well equipped. However, the truth was that schools for black children were
almost always less well equipped.
SOURCE 4
Brown v Board of Education of Topeka, 1954
In September 1952 the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured
People (NAACP) brought a court case against the Board of Education in Topeka,
Kansas. The case was about a girl called Linda Brown who had to travel several
kilometres and cross a dangerous rail track to get to school, rather than attend a
whites-only school nearby. This was not the only example of inequality in education
but the civil rights campaigners chose it as a ‘test case’ to see whether the Supreme
Court would allow states to continue to segregate schools. They knew that if they
won this case, then the whole principle of ‘separate but equal’ would come
tumbling down.
In May 1954 Chief Justice Earl Warren finally announced in favour of Brown
and the NAACP. Warren stated that segregated education could not be considered
equal. It created a feeling of inferiority for black students and that meant that all
segregated school systems were unequal ones. He ordered the southern states to set
up integrated schools ‘with all deliberate speed’.
Little Rock, Arkansas
Integration was met with bitter resistance in some states. Arkansas was one
One of the black students at Little Rock, 15-year-old
example. Three years later it had done very little to integrate its schools. In 1957 the
Elizabeth Eckford, trying to ignore the abuse of the
1,000-strong crowd. Forty years later the woman yelling at Supreme Court ordered the Governor of Arkansas, Orval Faubus, to let nine black
Eckford publicly apologised for her actions. students attend a white school in Little Rock (see map Source 3). Faubus ordered
his state troops to prevent the black students from attending school. He claimed that
this was because he could not guarantee their safety. Faubus only backed down
when President Eisenhower sent federal troops to protect the students and make sure
that they could join the school. The troops stayed for six weeks.
James Meredith and ‘Ole Miss’
What about higher education? Universities in the southern states of the USA were also segregated,
including the famous ‘Ole Miss’ – Mississippi State University. In 1962 James Meredith, a black
student, won his appeal to overturn the decision to exclude him from the university. Mississippi state
and university officials objected, so President Kennedy’s brother, Robert, the US Attorney-General, sent
in federal marshals. Violence erupted, two marshals were killed and 160 people were wounded, but
Meredith entered ‘Ole Miss’. The Bob Dylan song ‘Oxford Town’ celebrates this breakthrough.
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