April 11: Challenges to the Status Quo: The Black Freedom Movement

Required reading:

· Give Me Liberty, 963-994

· Mississippi Violence

· MLK Letter from Birmingham Jail

· Voices of Freedom, 216-224

Questions: What caused the civil rights movement of the late 1950s and 1960s? What were the reasons for the backlash against it? How did students and young people contribute to the movement,? How does James Baldwin explain the militancy of the young protestors? How does Martin Luther King justify the need for protest and confrontation? What are his key points (be able to list these) ? What do you think of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society Programs? How does Johnson connect

Recommended:

Documents:

Background documents

• Racial Confrontation at a Newly Integrated Southern High School

• An Analysis of the Racial Situation in the South in 1960 as Civil Rights Activism Increased
• “Digest Of Jim-Crow Laws Affecting Passengers in Interstate Travel”
• Testimony from an African-American Taxpayer Unable to Vote in Alabama
• President Dwight D. Eisenhower“s 1957 Address on Little Rock, Arkansas
• Black and White Fathers in Atlanta Try to Explain Race Relations to Their Sons, 1955
• “The Negro in the North”: South African Novelist Alan Paton Dissects the Racial Situation Beyond the South
• Letters to the Editor about Alan Paton’s 1954 Article “The Negro in America Today”
• "The Bottom of the Economic Totem Pole": African American Women in the Workplace
• “I Wasn’t Interested In Living In The United States If I Wasn’t Going To Be In The Movement:” Jack O’Dell on Civil Rights Organizing

Civil Rights Movement

· Excerpt from Charles Payne, I’ve Got the Light of Freedom – on the role of activists at the local level—the best treatment of the subject

· Greensboro Sit-ins website

· Oral Histories of the Freedom Riders

· Hear John Lewis describe his experience on the Freedom Rides

o “The First Freedom Ride:” Bayard Rustin On His Work With CORE

o Greensboro Sit-ins website

o Oral Histories of the Freedom Riders

o Hear John Lewis describe his experience on the Freedom Rides

o Photos of the Freedom Rides

o Freedom Ride 2001 –songs and other good links

o Sit-ins, Freedom Rides Exhibition

o 1963 Woolworth Sit-In – violence continues

o Introduction to Civil Rights Movement , including links to narrative of Sit-ins and Freedom Rides

· Photos of the Freedom Rides

· Sit-ins, Freedom Rides Exhibition

· Introduction to Civil Rights Movement , including links to narrative of Sit-ins and Freedom Rides

· 1960s Chronology

· Timeline of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Movement http://www.ibiblio.org/sncc/timeline.html

• Selected dates in Civil Rights History Timeline : http://www.sitins.com/timeline.htm

· Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee - http://www.ibiblio.org/sncc/index.html

· ” Fannie Lou Hamer On The Mississippi Voter Registration Campaign

• Hollis Watkins Describes Police Intimidation in the Voter Registration Campaign

· Dynamics Of Idealism: Volunteers For Civil Rights 1965-1982

· “And This Happened in Los Angeles:” Malcolm X Describes Police Brutality Against Members of the Nation of Islam

· “And We Shall Overcome”: President Lyndon B.Johnson’s Special Message to Congress

· “The Act Has Not Failed”: A Call to Extend the Voting Rights Act of 1965

· Black Panther Party Platform and Program, 1966 Another link

• “And We Shall Overcome”: President Lyndon B.Johnson’s Special Message to Congress
• “The Act Has Not Failed”: A Call to Extend the Voting Rights Act of 1965
• Martin Luther King Papers Project – chronologies, speeches, sermons, documents, lesson plans, liberation curriculum; one of my favorites is Drum Major Instinct (see sermons link)
• MLK Letter from Birmingham Jail
• Abbreviated version of Letter from a Birmingham Jail http://www.triadntr.net/~rdavis/mlkbirm.htm
• Voices of the Civil Rights Era - http://webcorp.com/civilrights/voices.htm
• Malcolm X: A Research Site –links to speeches, chronology; see especially for evidence on the transformation that took place after he traveled to Mecca

Photographic essay on the civil rights movement http://www.abbeville.com/civilrights/index.asp

Tiered Welfare State and the “Great Society”

· Excerpt from The Other America

· My outline on Great Society/Welfare State

· Excerpt from The Color of Welfare

· Women on Welfare by Johnnie Tillmon

· "The Bottom of the Economic Totem Pole": African American Women in the Workplace

· What was great about the Great Society? By Joseph Califano

· Standard of Living Increases in the 1960s

General Civil Rights Movement Links

· · Civil Rights in Mississippi Digital Archive 125 oral histories, including those who opposed the movement

· Remembering Jim Crow

· Historic Places of the Civil Rights Movement

· The National Civil Rights Museum, with an on-line tour

· Voices of the Civil Rights Era

· Malcolm X: A Research Site

· Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee

· Timeline of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Movement http://www.ibiblio.org/sncc/timeline.html

· Selected dates in Civil Rights History Timeline : http://www.sitins.com/timeline.htm

· African American Labor History Links – terrific link to numerous articles

· Martin Luther King

· Martin Luther King Papers Project

· Major Speeches of Martin Luther King Jr

1968:

· · Poor People’s Movement

· · We Remember—website about the 1968 Memphis garbage workers strike

· · King's last speech in Memphis (Mountaintop speech)

· · See what's become of the Lorraine Motel: The National Civil Rights Museum, with an on-line tour.