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916 C

HAPTER 29

Terms & Names

MAIN IDEA

One American's Story

The Triumphs

of a Crusade

WHY IT MATTERS NOW

In 1961, James Peck, a white civil rights activist, joined other CORE

members on a historic bus trip across the South. The two-bus trip would

test the Supreme Court decisions banning segregated seating on interstate

bus routes and segregated facilities in bus terminals. Peck and other

freedom riders hoped to provoke a violent reaction that would

convince the Kennedy administration to enforce the law. The

violence was not long in coming.

At the Alabama state line, white racists got on Bus One car-

rying chains, brass knuckles, and pistols. They brutally beat

African-American riders and white activists who tried to

intervene. Still the riders managed to go on. Then on May 4,

1961—Mother’s Day—the bus pulled into the Birmingham

bus terminal. James Peck saw a hostile mob waiting, some

holding iron bars.

A PERSONAL VOICE JAMES PECK

“ I looked at them and then I looked at Charles Person, who

had been designated as my team mate. . . . When I looked at him, he

responded by saying simply, ‘Let’s go.’ As we entered the white waiting

room, . . . we were grabbed bodily and pushed toward the alleyway . . . and

out of sight of onlookers in the waiting room, six of them started swinging

at me with ﬁsts and pipes. Five others attacked Person a few feet ahead.

”

—Freedom Ride

The ride of Bus One had ended, but Bus Two continued southward on

a journey that would shock the Kennedy administration into action.

Riding for Freedom

In Anniston, Alabama, about 200 angry whites attacked Bus Two. The mob followed

the activists out of town. When one of the tires blew, they smashed a window and

tossed in a ﬁre bomb. The freedom riders spilled out just before the bus exploded.

•freedom riders

•James Meredith

•Civil Rights Act

of 1964

•Freedom Summer

•Fannie Lou Hamer

•Voting Rights Act

of 1965

Civil rights activists broke

through racial barriers. Their

activism prompted landmark

legislation.

Activism pushed the federal gov-

ernment to end segregation and

ensure voting rights for African

Americans.

▼

Three days after being

beaten unconscious in

Birmingham, freedom

rider James Peck demon-

strates in New York City

to pressure national bus

companies to support

desegregation.

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Page 1 of 7

NEW VOLUNTEERS

The bus com-

panies refused to carry the CORE

freedom riders any farther. Even

though the determined volunteers

did not want to give up, they

ended their ride. However, CORE

director James Farmer announced

that a group of SNCC volunteers in

Nashville were ready to pick up

where the others had left off.

When a new band of freedom

riders rode into Birmingham,

policemen pulled them from the

bus, beat them, and drove them into Tennessee. Deﬁantly, they returned to the

Birmingham bus terminal. Their bus driver, however, feared for his life and refused

to transport them. In protest, they occupied the whites-only waiting room at the ter-

minal for eighteen hours until a solution was reached. After an angry phone call

from U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy, bus company ofﬁcials convinced the

driver to proceed. The riders set out for Montgomery on May 20.

ARRIVAL OF FEDERAL MARSHALS

Although Alabama ofﬁcials had promised

Kennedy that the riders would be protected, a mob of whites—many carrying bats

and lead pipes—fell upon the riders when they arrived in Montgomery. John

Doer, a Justice Department ofﬁcial on the scene, called the attorney general to

report what was happening. “A bunch of men led by a guy with a bleeding face

are beating [the passengers]. There are no cops. It’s terrible. There’s

not a cop in sight. People are yelling. ‘Get ‘em, get ‘em.’ It’s awful.”

The violence provoked exactly the response the freedom riders

wanted. Newspapers throughout the nation and abroad denounced

the beatings.

President Kennedy arranged to give the freedom riders direct sup-

port. The Justice Department sent 400 U.S. marshals to protect the rid-

ers on the last part of their journey to Jackson, Mississippi. In addition, the attorney

general and the Interstate Commerce Commission banned segregation in all inter-

state travel facilities, including waiting rooms, restrooms, and lunch counters.

Standing Firm

With the integration of interstate travel facilities under way, some civil rights

workers turned their attention to integrating some Southern schools and pushing

the movement into additional Southern towns. At each turn they encountered

opposition and often violence.

INTEGRATING OLE MISS

In September 1962, Air Force veteran James Meredith

won a federal court case that allowed him to enroll in the all-white University of

Mississippi, nicknamed Ole Miss. But when Meredith arrived on campus, he faced

Governor Ross Barnett, who refused to let him register as a student.

President Kennedy ordered federal marshals to escort Meredith to the regis-

trar’s ofﬁce. Barnett responded with a heated radio appeal: “I call on every

Mississippian to keep his faith and courage. We will never surrender.” The broad-

cast turned out white demonstrators by the thousands.

On the night of September 30, riots broke out on campus, resulting in two

deaths. It took thousands of soldiers, 200 arrests, and 15 hours to stop the rioters.

In the months that followed, federal ofﬁcials accompanied Meredith to class and

protected his parents from nightriders who shot up their house.

Civil Rights 917

▼

In May 1967, a

mob ﬁrebombed

this bus of free-

dom riders out-

side Anniston,

Alabama, and

attacked passen-

gers as they tried

to escape.

“ We will continue

our journey one way

or another. . . . We

are prepared to die.”

JIM ZWERG, FREEDOM RIDER

MAIN IDEA

Analyzing

Issues

What did the

freedom riders

hope to achieve?

A. Answer

They hoped to

call attention to

the South’s

refusal to aban-

don segregation

so as to pres-

sure the federal

government to

enforce the

Supreme Court’s

desegregation

rulings.

p0916-922aspe-0829s2 10/17/02 9:21 AM Page 917

Page 2 of 7

HEADING INTO BIRMINGHAM

The trouble continued in Alabama. Birmingham, a

city known for its strict enforcement of total segregation in public life, also had a

reputation for racial violence, including 18 bombings from 1957 to 1963.

Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, head of the Alabama Christian Movement for

Human Rights and secretary of the SCLC, decided something had to be done

about Birmingham and that it would be the ideal place to test the power of non-

violence. He invited Martin Luther King, Jr., and the SCLC to help desegregate

the city. On April 3, 1963, King ﬂew into Birmingham to hold a planning meet-

ing with members of the African-American community. “This is the most segre-

gated city in America,” he said. “We have to stick together if we ever want to

change its ways.”

After days of demonstrations led by Shuttlesworth and others, King and a

small band of marchers were ﬁnally arrested during a demonstration on Good

Friday, April 12th. While in jail, King wrote an open letter to white religious lead-

ers who felt he was pushing too fast.

A P

ERSONAL VOICE MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

“ I guess it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation

to say, ‘Wait.’ But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and

fathers at whim; when you have seen hate-ﬁlled policemen curse, kick, brutalize

and even kill your black brothers and sisters; . . . when you see the vast majority

of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in the air-tight cage of poverty;

. . . when you have to concoct an answer for a ﬁve-year-old son asking: . . .

‘Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?’ . . . then you will

understand why we ﬁnd it difﬁcult to wait.

”

—“Letter from a Birmingham Jail”

On April 20, King posted bail and began planning more demonstrations. On

May 2, more than a thousand African-American children marched in Birmingham;

Police commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor’s men arrested 959 of them. On May 3, a

second “children’s crusade” came face to face with a helmeted police force. Police

swept the marchers off their feet with high-pressure ﬁre hoses, set attack dogs on

them, and clubbed those who fell. TV cameras captured all of it, and millions of

viewers heard the children screaming.

Continued protests, an economic boycott, and negative media coverage ﬁnally

convinced Birmingham ofﬁcials to end segregation. This stunning civil rights vic-

tory inspired African Americans across the nation. It also convinced President

Kennedy that only a new civil rights act could end racial violence and satisfy the

demands of African Americans—and many whites—for racial justice.

918 C

HAPTER 29

▼

News photos and

television cover-

age of police dogs

in Birmingham

attacking African

Americans

shocked the

nation.

B. Answer

Days of demon-

strations; arrest

of King and oth-

ers; King’s

“Letter from a

Birmingham

Jail”; more

demonstrations

met by arrests

and police vio-

lence; economic

boycott.

MAIN IDEA

Chronological

Order

What events

led to desegrega-

tion in

Birmingham?

p0916-922aspe-0829s2 10/17/02 9:21 AM Page 918

Page 3 of 7

History Through

Civil Rights 919

SKILLBUILDER

Interpreting Visual Sources

What do the signs tell you about African Americans’ struggle

for civil rights?

What kind of treatment do you suppose these men had

experienced? Why do you think so?

SEE SKILLBUILDER HANDBOOK, PAGE R23.

Withers had to be careful about his involvement in groups like the NAACP and COME

(Community On the Move for Equality), for he had a wife and children to support. He

went to several meetings a night, sometimes taking pictures, other times offering a

suggestion. “I always had FBI agents looking over my shoulder and wanting to ques-

tion me. I never tried to learn any high-powered secrets.”

Withers in 1992

Withers in 1950

▼

ERNEST WITHERS

Born in Memphis in 1922, photographer Ernest Withers believed

that if the struggle for equality could be shown to people, things

would change. Armed with only a camera, he braved violent

crowds to capture the heated racism during the Montgomer y

bus boycott, the desegregation of Central High in Little Rock,

and the 1968 Memphis sanitation workers strike (below) led by

Martin Luther King, Jr. The night before the Memphis march,

Withers had helped make some of the signs he photographed.

“ G. C. Brown printed those ‘I AM A MAN’ signs right

over there. . . . I had a car and it was snowing, so we

went and rented the saw and came back that night and

cut the sticks.

”

▼

p0916-922aspe-0829s2 10/17/02 9:21 AM Page 919

Page 4 of 7

KENNEDY TAKES A STAND

On June 11, 1963, the president sent

troops to force Governor George Wallace to honor a court order

desegregating the University of Alabama. That evening, Kennedy

asked the nation: “Are we to say to the world—and much more

importantly, to each other—that this is the land of the free, except

for the Negroes?” He demanded that Congress pass a civil rights bill.

A tragic event just hours after Kennedy’s speech highlighted the racial tension

in much of the South. Shortly after midnight, a sniper murdered Medgar Evers,

NAACP ﬁeld secretary and World War II veteran. Police soon arrested a white

supremacist, Byron de la Beckwith, but he was released after two trials resulted in

hung juries. His release brought a new militancy to African Americans. Many

demanded, “Freedom now!”

Marching to Washington

The civil rights bill that President Kennedy sent to Congress guaranteed equal access

to all public accommodations and gave the U.S. attorney general the power to ﬁle

school desegregation suits. To persuade Congress to pass the bill, two veteran orga-

nizers—labor leader A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin of the SCLC—summoned

Americans to a march on Washington, D.C.

THE DREAM OF EQUALITY

On August 28, 1963, more than

250,000 people—including about 75,000 whites—converged on

the nation’s capital. They assembled on the grassy lawn of the

Washington Monument and marched to the Lincoln Memorial.

There, people listened to speakers demand the immediate pas-

sage of the civil rights bill.

When Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., appeared, the crowd

exploded in applause. In his now famous speech, “I Have a

Dream,” he appealed for peace and racial harmony.

A PERSONAL

VOICE MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

“ I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live

out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be

self-evident; that all men are created equal.’ . . . 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 con-

tent of their character. . . . I have a dream that one day the

state of Alabama . . . will be transformed into a situation where

little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with

little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters

and brothers.

”

—“I Have a Dream”

MORE VIOLENCE

Two weeks after King’s historic speech, four

young Birmingham girls were killed when a rider in a car hurled a

bomb through their church window. Two more African Americans

died in the unrest that followed.

Two months later, an assassin shot and killed John F.

Kennedy. His successor, President Lyndon B. Johnson, pledged to

carry on Kennedy’s work. On July 2, 1964, Johnson signed the

Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited discrimination

because of race, religion, national origin, and gender. It gave all cit-

izens the right to enter libraries, parks, washrooms, restaurants,

theaters, and other public accommodations.

920 C

HAPTER 29

Background

Beckwith was ﬁnal-

ly convicted in

1994, after the

case was

reopened based

on new evidence.

“ I say, Segregation now!

Segregation tomorrow!

Segregation forever!”

GEORGE WALLACE,

ALABAMA GOVERNOR, 1963

C. Answer

To spur passage

of the civil rights

bill.

MAIN IDEA

Analyzing

Events

Why did civil

rights organizers

ask their support-

ers to march on

Washington?

Civll Rights Acts of

the 1950s and 1960s

CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1957

• Established federal Commission on

Civil Rights

• Established a Civil Rights Division in

the Justice Department to enforce

civil rights laws

• Enlarged federal power to protect

voting rights

CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1964

• Banned most discrimination in

employment and in public accommo-

dations

• Enlarged federal power to protect

voting rights and speed up school

desegregation

• Established Equal Employment

Opportunity Commission to ensure

fair treatment in employment

VOTING RIGHTS ACT OF 1965

• Eliminated voter literacy tests

• Enabled federal examiners to

CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1968

• Prohibited discrimination in the sale

or rental of most housing

• Strengthened antilynching laws

• Made it a crime to harm civil rights

workers

SKILLBUILDER

Interpreting Charts

Which law do you think beneﬁted the

most people? Explain your choice.

p0916-922aspe-0829s2 10/17/02 9:21 AM Page 920

Page 5 of 7

Civil Rights 921

Fighting for Voting Rights

Meanwhile, the right of all African Americans to vote remained elusive. In 1964,

CORE and SNCC workers in the South began registering as many African

Americans as they could to vote. They hoped their campaign would receive nation-

al publicity, which would in turn inﬂuence Congress to pass a voting rights act.

Focused in Mississippi, the project became known as Freedom Summer.

FREEDOM SUMMER

To fortify the project, civil rights groups recruited college

students and trained them in nonviolent resistance. Thousands of student volun-

teers—mostly white, about one-third female—went into Mississippi to help register

voters. For some, the job proved deadly. In June of 1964, three civil rights workers

disappeared in Neshoba County, Mississippi. Investigators later learned that

Klansmen and local police had murdered the men, two of whom were white.

Through the summer, the racial beatings and murders continued, along with the

burning of businesses, homes, and churches.

A NEW POLITICAL PARTY

African Americans needed a voice in the political

arena if sweeping change was to occur. In order to gain a seat in Mississippi’s all-

white Democratic Party, SNCC organized the Mississippi Freedom Democratic

Party (MFDP). Fannie Lou Hamer, the daughter of Mississippi sharecroppers,

would be their voice at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. In a televised

speech that shocked the convention and viewers nationwide, Hamer described

how she was jailed for registering to vote in 1962, and how police forced other

prisoners to beat her.

A P

ERSONAL VOICE FANNIE LOU HAMER

“ The ﬁrst [prisoner] began to beat [me], and I was beat by the ﬁrst until he was

exhausted. . . . The second [prisoner] began to beat. . . . I began to scream and

one white man got up and began to beat me in my head and tell me to ‘hush.’ . . .

All of this on account we want to register, to become ﬁrst-class citizens, and if

the Freedom Democratic Party is not seated now, I question America.

”

—quoted in The Civil Rights Movement: An Eyewitness History

In response to Hamer’s speech, telegrams and telephone calls poured in to the

convention in support of seating the MFDP delegates. President Johnson feared

losing the Southern white vote if the Democrats sided with the MFDP, so his

administration pressured civil rights leaders to convince the MFDP to accept a

compromise. The Democrats would give 2 of Mississippi’s 68 seats to the MFDP,

with a promise to ban discrimination at the 1968 convention.

When Hamer learned of the compromise, she said, “We didn’t come all this way

for no two seats.” The MFDP and supporters in SNCC felt that the leaders had

betrayed them.

In the summer

of 1964, college

students volun-

teered to go to

Mississippi to

help register that

state’s African-

American voters.

▼

D. Answer

They hoped to

call attention to

the lack of vot-

ing rights in seg-

regationist

strongholds and

to promote pas-

sage of a feder-

al voting rights

act.

MAIN IDEA

Developing

Historical

Perspective

Why did young

people in SNCC

and the MFDP feel

betrayed by some

civil rights lead-

ers?

E. Answer

Because the

leaders agreed

to a compromise

with the

Johnson admin-

istration that

kept most MFDP

delegates from

the Democratic

convention.

MAIN IDEA

Analyzing

Motives

Why did civil

rights groups orga-

nize Freedom

Summer?

p0916-922aspe-0829s2 10/17/02 9:21 AM Page 921

Page 6 of 7

922 C

HAPTER 29

MAIN IDEA

2. TAKING NOTES

In a graphic like the one shown, list

the steps that African Americans

took to desegregate buses and

schools from 1962 to 1965.

CRITICAL THINKING

3. ANALYZING ISSUES

What assumptions and beliefs do you

think guided the ﬁerce opposition to

the civil rights movement in the

South? Support your answer with

evidence from the text. Think About:

• the social and political structure

of the South

• Mississippi governor Ross

Barnett’s comment during his

radio address

• the actions of police and some

white Southerners

4. ANALYZING PRIMARY SOURCES

Just after the Civil Rights Act of

1964 was passed, white Alabama

governor George Wallace said,

“ It is ironical that this event

occurs as we approach the cele-

bration of Independence Day. On

that day we won our freedom. On

this day we have largely lost it.

”

What do you think Wallace meant by

his statement?

MAIN IDEA

Comparing

In what ways

was the civil rights

campaign in

Selma similar to

the one in

Birmingham?

F. Answer

In Both cam-

paigns, civil

rights workers

encountered a

violent

response, and in

both cases, TV

coverage of that

violence helped

force the federal

government to

intervene.

1962

1963

1964

1965

•freedom riders

•James Meredith

•Civil Rights Act of 1964

•Freedom Summer

•Fannie Lou Hamer

•Voting Rights Act of 1965

1. TERMS & NAMES For each term or name, write a sentence explaining its signiﬁcance.

THE SELMA CAMPAIGN

At the start of 1965, the SCLC

conducted a major voting rights campaign in Selma, Alabama,

where SNCC had been working for two years to register voters.

By the end of 1965, more than 2,000 African Americans had

been arrested in SCLC demonstrations. After a demonstrator

named Jimmy Lee Jackson was shot and killed, King respond-

ed by announcing a 50-mile protest march from Selma to

Montgomery, the state capital. On March 7, 1965, about 600

protesters set out for Montgomery.

That night, mayhem broke out. Television cameras cap-

tured the scene. The rest of the nation watched in horror as

police swung whips and clubs, and clouds of tear gas swirled

around fallen marchers. Demonstrators poured into Selma by

the hundreds. Ten days later, President Johnson presented

Congress with a new voting rights act and asked for its swift

passage.

On March 21, 3,000 marchers again set out for

Montgomery, this time with federal protection. Soon the

number grew to an army of 25,000.

VOTING RIGHTS ACT OF 1965

That summer, Congress

ﬁnally passed Johnson’s Voting Rights Act of 1965. The

act eliminated the so-called literacy tests that had disquali-

ﬁed many voters. It also stated that federal examiners could

enroll voters who had been denied suffrage by local ofﬁcials.

In Selma, the proportion of African Americans registered to

vote rose from 10 percent in 1964 to 60 percent in 1968.

Overall the percentage of registered African-American voters

in the South tripled.

Although the Voting Rights Act marked a major civil

rights victory, some felt that the law did not go far enough.

Centuries of discrimination had produced social and eco-

nomic inequalities. Anger over these inequalities led to a

series of violent disturbances in the cities of the North.

HISTORICAL

TWENTY-FOURTH

AMENDMENT—BARRING

POLL TAXES

On January 24, 1964, South

Dakota became the 38th state

to ratify the Twenty-fourth

Amendment to the Constitution.

The key clause in the amendment

reads: “The right of citizens of

the United States to vote in any

primary or other election . . .

shall not be denied or abridged

by the United States or any State

by reason of failure to pay any

poll tax or other tax.”

Poll taxes were often used to

keep poor African Americans from

voting. Although most states had

already abolished their poll taxes

by 1964, ﬁve Southern states—

Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi,

Texas, and Virginia—still had such

laws on the books. By making

these laws unconstitutional, the

Twenty-fourth Amendment gave

the vote to millions who had been

disqualiﬁed because of poverty.

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