Watch the "Crash Course" on "Civil Rights and the 1950s," which provides a general overview of the domestic context of America in the 1950s, and then provides a more in depth look at the beginning of the Civil Rights movement. Use the questions below as a guide to the Civil Rights and the 1950s Crash Course.
Reasons for the Civil Rights Movement:
Read the sections below to answer why the Civil Rights movement occurred when it did?
(In other words, why did the Civil Rights movement emerge on the national stage and begin to make national gains in the 1950s, and grow larger and more prominent in the 1960s?)
1. Cold War's role:
Review the section on "Race and the Cold War." (You do not need to complete the Sources section)
James H. Meriwether, “‘Worth a Lot of Negro Votes’: Black Voters, Africa, and the 1960 Presidential Campaign,” Journal of American History, 95 (Dec. 2008), 737–63., Available through Teaching the JAH, December 2008, OAH Archives,
http://archive.oah.org/special-issues/teaching/2008_12/ex1.html
As suggested in the article, the critics of the Civil Rights movement attempted to make it seem that their opponents (Civil Rights activists such as Martin Luther King Jr.) were Communists. The mood of America was dominated by fear of Communism, especially during the Second Red Scare. King, and many of the most prominent Civil Rights leaders, were not Communists, yet that did not stop the accusations. The FBI even investigated King and other Civil Rights leaders because the head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, believed that King was a Communist because he sought racial equality (of opportunity). Nonetheless, the US Cold War rhetoric (how the US used to speak of the Cold War) was that it was a battled between democracy versus tyranny or democracy versus communism. If the U.S. was presenting itself as the example of democracy, the Soviet Union could easily point to elements of American law and society that went against democracy. Indeed, the Soviets pointed to Jim Crow laws (racial segregation) in the U.S. as evidence that the U.S. was not really a country that promoted freedom and liberty. The discrimination and violence against black Americans and laws restricting black Americans from being able to vote seemed contradictory to what the U.S. was saying. To combat such criticism, the U.S. government felt began, although slowly, to support policies that held racial equality as a goal (such as the Brown v Board case).
2. Labor Unions' role:
The strength of the unions, particular some of the integrated unions in the North, contributed to the growth and strength of the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s and the 1960s. Labor unions were particularly strong in the United States after WWII, largely in part to the era of the New Deal and to the Democratic Party's support for labor unions. It should be noted that Eisenhower, the only Republican president since before FDR and until Richard Nixon, had largely supported the legacy of the New Deal and support for unions.
Listen to or read the transcript for the following NPR interview (4minutes and 32 seconds) on the role of unions in the growth of the Civil Rights movement. (Note that not all unions supported the Civil Rights movement.)
Thomas Sugrue, Interviewed by Robert Siegel, "Labor Movement Was Critical Ally To Civil Rights Movement," All Things Considered, NPR, August 27, 2003. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=216191855
3. T.V.
The Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, and its successes, also occurred when it did because of the advent of television, which was becoming more and more common throughout America during the 1950s and 1960s. The tactics of the Civil Rights movement, particularly King's non-violent civil disobedience required that people, especially those outside of the South, witness white violence against civil right's activists, both white and black. The situation in Southern communities, although accepted on a local level through agreement and through terror, seem outrageous to those outside of the South. The beatings and murders of civil rights activists by white supremacists contributed to a shift in sentiment in America as a number of Americans came to sympathize with the situation of African-Americans.
In the next lesson, we will view a documentary on the Sixties. While watching the video, consider the significance that TV made in broadcasting the situation of the segregated communities to a broader world. How would viewing the images and videos of the Civil Rights struggle have persuaded a number of Americans that segregation was morally wrong? Non-violent civil disobedience worked because it allowed King to gain the moral high-ground and convinced people that his quest was a moral one, while that of segregationists who resorted to violence was immoral. Would non-violent civil disobedience have worked if no one was looking?