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Period: to
1950-1969
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JFK Civil Rights
While campaigning for the presidency in 1960, John F. Kennedy had promised to support civil rights. Civil rights leaders such as NAACP executive director Roy Wilkins urged Kennedy to support civil rights legislation after taking office. However, Kennedy knew he needed the support of Southern senators to get other programs through Congress and any new civil rights legislation would anger them. -
African Amerans in the workforce
In 1960 only 15 percent of African Americans held professional, managerial, or clerical jobs, compared to 44 percent of whites. The average income of African American families was only 55 percent of that of the average income for white families. Almost half of African Americans lived in poverty, with an unemployment rate typically twice that of whites. -
Woolworth’s sit-in
On February 1, 1960, the four friends entered the nearby Woolworth’s department store. They purchased school supplies and then sat at the whites-only lunch counter and ordered coffee. When they were refused service, Blair asked, “I beg your pardon, but you just served us at [the checkout] counter. Why can’t we be served at the counter here?” The students stayed at the counter until it closed. -
Freedom Riders
In early May 1961, teams of African American and white volunteers who became known as Freedom Riders boarded several southbound interstate buses. Buses were met by angry white mobs in Anniston, Birmingham, and Montgomery, Alabama. The mobs slit bus tires and threw rocks at the windows. In Anniston, someone threw a firebomb into one bus. Fortunately, no one was killed. -
Fannie Lou Hamer
SNCC organizer and sharecropper Fannie Lou Hamer was evicted from her farm after registering to vote. Police arrested her in Mississippi as she was returning from a voter registration workshop in 1963. They beat her while she was in jail. She still went on to help organize the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and challenged the legality of the state’s segregated Democratic Party at the 1964 national convention. -
The Watt’s Riot
Just five days after President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, a riot erupted in Watts, an African American neighborhood, allegations of police brutality served as the catalyst for this uprising. It lasted for six days and required more than 14,000 members of the National Guard and 1,500 law officers to restore order. In Detroit, burning, looting, and conflicts with police and the National Guard resulted in 43 deaths and more than 1,000 wounded in 1967. -
Malcolm X: 1964 - early 1965
By 1964, Malcolm X had broken with the Black Muslims. Discouraged by scandals involving the Nation of Islam’s leader, he went to the Muslim holy city of Makkah (Mecca) in Saudi Arabia. After seeing Muslims from many races worshipping together, he no longer promoted separatism. After Malcolm X broke with the Nation of Islam, he continued to criticize the organization. Because of this, organization members shot and killed him in February 1965. -
African American’s in the workforce pt. 2
In 1965 approximately 70 percent of African Americans lived in large cities. Even if African Americans had been allowed to move into white neighborhoods, many were stuck in low-paying jobs with little chance of advancement.