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Summary IEB Grade 12 History: US Civil Society Protests
A complete summary of the US Civil Society Protests.
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Unit 1: What were the reasons and the origins of the Civil Rights Movement in the USA➔ The Civil Rights Movement needs to be understood in the context of the introduction on
slavery in the US and its abolition during the American Civil War
➔ Slavery was abolished in the Northern states, yet when US President Abraham Lincoln
wanted to do the same in the Southern states, he was met with resistance as slaves
were seen as vital to the cotton plantation economy
➔ Most of these Southern states declared their independence and seceded to form the
Confederate States of America in 1861 (with their own flag and government)
➔ The Northern states (who called themselves the Union) considered it a rebellion, and
engaged with the Southern states in a bloody civil war, until the Unionist forces
eventually defeated the Confederate forces in the South
➔ In 1862 - Lincoln made his famous Emancipation Proclamation, where he declared
slavery illegal and announced the abolition of slavery as the official aim of the Unionist
forces
➔ 19 November, 1963 - Lincoln delivers his famous Gettysburg Address, declaring all
American's to be equal
➔ Yet after the American Civil War, segregation became the effective policy of the US,
especially in the Southern states
The Ku Klux Klan (KKK)
● Some white Americans resented, particularly in the South, the freeing of slaves.
● They were determined to use terror tactics to keep black Americans suppressed
○ They wore white sheets and white conical hats to hide their identity and lynched
black people with the intention of spreading terror
● They called themselves the Ku Klux Klan (KKK)
● The KKK was a fiercely racist, segregationist group
● IN 1865 - The KKK was formed in Tennessee and grew very popular
○ The KKK died down in the late 1870s under heavy government suppression
● In 1915 - The KKK re-emerged in Georgia as a more professional organisation and
spread into major cities
● The KKK was anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant, and attacked white people
who were sympathetic to black Americans
● The KKK introduced a strange practice of burning crosses as a Christian symbol and as
a call to war
● The KKK died down again in the 1930s, but revived in isolated groups in the American
South during the 1950s to oppose the Civil Rights Movement
● The most important such group was the White Knights of the KKK, led by Robert Shelton
,Jim Crows Laws
● States in the American South passed the Jim Crow Laws. These laws were aiming at
ensuring segregation between black and white Americans
○ The term "Jim Crow" was an insulting term for black people, derived from a
minstrel song called "Jump Jim Crow"
● In 1896 - the Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v Ferguson that separate but equal facilities
for black and white people were both legal and constitutional
○ This was a landmark court case that was heard in 1896.
○ Homer Plessy, a black man, was arrested for sitting in a "white" railway carriage
in Louisiana
○ Plesy argued that the 14th Amendment guaranteed equal rights to all US citizens
○ The Supreme Court felt that as long as the "black" car was equal to the "white"
car in all aspects, his rights had not been violated
● This became an influential case which enabled the Southern states to pass hundreds of
segregation laws or "Jim Crow Laws" in the years that followed
The Formation of NAACP in 1909
● 12 February, 1909 - The National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People
(NAACP) was founded by William du Bois, Ida B Wells and Henry Moscowitz
● The NAACP was a multiracial organisation, founded to promote black equality
● The NAACP used moderate forms of protest such as deputations, petitions, letters to the
government and marches
● The NAACP's members came from middle class, educated backgrounds
○ Their numbers were boosted by returning black American soldiers who had
fought for democracy during WW2, yet had only been treated with contempt by
most white Americans upon their return
● In Britain, black Americans were amazed at the lack of segregation. Back in the US,
these same soldiers had to accept inferior, separate facilities and had to show deference
to white Americans
● The NAACP also challenged segregation laws in the courts and was responsible for the
famous Brown V Board of Education decision in 1954
○ The NAACP also supported a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama that sparked
the arrest of Rosa Parks in 1955
○ The NAACP played a role in many other famous protests and events that formed
the Civil Rights Movement
● Black soldiers were embittered when they returned to the US and faced discriminatory
policies after risking their lives for the country
○ Black American soldiers started calling for a Double V campaign: victory in the
war, and victory at home by ending segregation
, Origins of the CRM
● In 1954 - the US Supreme Court made a landmark decision in Brown V the Board of
Education, Kansas declaring that separation in public services was unconstitutional
○ This crucial court ruling marked a new, intensified phase in the Civil Rights
Movement as whites resisted its implementation
● In 1955 - The brutal muder of Emmet Till further stimulated the movement. People
around the country and the world were horrified by the racist and brutalistic nature of his
murder.
○ Some see the Emmet Till case as being the event that sparked off the activist
Civil Rights Movement in the US
The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
● March 1942 - James L farmer formed the Congress of Racial Equality in Chicago
● CORE planned to change racist attitudes and end segregation using passive resistance
● CORE was largely made up of white university students
● CORE organized the first Freedom Ride of the Civil Rights Movement
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