d restaurants.
The 1954 U.S. Supreme Court landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education had proved the spark for change. The ruling directly struck down segregation in public schools. But the historic ruling also closed the door on the “separate-but-equal” doctrine supporting Jim Crow laws.
Black activists sought to extend the Brown ruling and racial reform to other aspects of life. In 1955 Rosa Parks, a secretary for the NAACP, was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama for refusing to give her seat on a city bus to a white man as required by city law. This incident led to the rise of a young 27-year old preacher, Martin Luther King, Jr. King preached nonviolent, civil disobedience tactics. This strategy contrasted to both the Ku Klux Klan’s violent terrorism and the NAACP’s quiet legal approach.
King founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957 to provide leadership to the movement. But white resistance to racial equality led to years of conflict. Highly publicized confrontations followed in 1957 at Little Rock, Arkansas, and in 1962 at the University of Mississippi.
The high point of the civil rights movement came on August 28, 1963 when 250,000 thousand persons marched on Washington, DC. They urged the federal government to support desegregation and protect black voting rights. King gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, preaching nonviolent action. Congress responded with passage of the sweeping Civil Rights Act of 1964, prohibiting discrimination in public places. This action came almost three decades after President Roosevelt had issued his limited order addressing discrimination in federal office buildings.
White violence, including assassination of a NAACP leader and murders of civil rights activists, followed. Mounted police using tear gas, dogs, and clubs attacked black protest marches in the South. Urban riots across the country in 1965 called attention to the plight of blacks. In reaction Congress added the Voting Rights Act in 1965 expanding voting rights of blacks.
King, who had received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 for his leadership role in the movement, was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee in 1968. Race riots erupted in the following week in 125 cities, as black America’s most effective leader was gone. Congress passed the Fair Housing Act, banning racial discrimination in most housing, six days after King’s assassination. This bill corrected the housing discrimination that persisted from the New Deal’s housing programs. However, with its leader gone and unity no longer evident, the civil rights movement’s national thrust faded. The movement had altered the fundamental relationship between state and federal governments and compelled the federal courts to more effectively protect constitutional civil liberties. The federal role in civil rights issues begun in the 1930s was further expanded. Many others soon benefited from the movement’s gains in social justice, including women, the disabled, and other victims of discrimination who had little voice in the 1930s.
Will Alexander (1884-1956)
A white Methodist minister in Tennessee, Alexander became increasingly concerned with rural black poverty. He left the ministry to become executive director of the Commission on Interracial Cooperation in 1919. He then became president of Dillard University in New Orleans in 1930. In 1935 Alexander was appointed assistant administrator of the New Deal’s Resettlement Administration to give aid to poor farmers. When the agency became part of the new Farm Security Administration, Roosevelt appointed Alexander to lead the new agency. Alexander left the agency in 1940.
Marian Anderson (1897-1993)
Anderson was a world famous black American contralto singer. In 1925, early in her career, she appeared with the New York Philharmonic orchestra. Anderson traveled throughout Europe in the early 1930s, earning great praise for her performances. She became recognized as one of the world’s top opera singers. In 1935 she returned to the United States to perform at Carnegie Hall in New York City. In March of 1939