Chapter 21 Section 1

Civil Rights Continued

Martin Luther King, Jr.

1. MLK was named for Martin Luther, the founder of the Protestant branch of Christianity. He was middle class and decided at age 18 that he wanted to be a minister. Eventually, he got a Ph.D. in religion from Boston University.

2. King organized Southern ministers to discuss nonviolent integration.

3. He was president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, (SCLC).

a. Their goal was to “carry on nonviolent crusades against the evils of second-class citizenship.”

b. They used black churches as bases to stage protests from, throughout the South.

4. Nonviolent resistance - the act of peacefully demonstrating for a change in policy, without fighting authorities.

a. Quiet sit-ins were disrupted by whites who jeered and spit at them.

b. “Don’t ever let anyone pull you so low as to hate them.”

c. MLK was inspired by A. Philip Randolph, who was the first to try to organize mass demonstrations.

d. Mohandas Gandhi and his four steps of nonviolence also inspired MLK:

1. Investigation - looks into a situation and gathers the facts

2. Negotiation - with the party responsible for segregation

3. Publicity - after failing to negotiate, others should be aware

of the situation and what the activists intend to do

4. Demonstration - a march or protest

5. Gandhi used these practices to help India gain independence from England.

C. A Season of Sit-ins

1. African American freshmen at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College started a sit in that grew from 4 demonstrators to about 300, by the fifth day of protest

2. The group Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) helps to begin the sit-ins.

a. Sit in – white and black protestors who sat down together at segregated places, peacefully, quietly, and who refused to leave.

3. By 1960, college and high school students in 78 communities had staged sit-ins and over 2,000 protesters had been arrested.

4. There were “kneel ins” to integrate churches, “play ins” for playgrounds, “read-ins” in libraries, “wade ins” at beaches, and “sleep-ins” in motel lobbies.

a. Television showed the ugly face of racism as whites beat, yelled at, and poured food on the protestors who refused to fight back.

b. Managers of lunch counters raised the price of food, called the police, and removed counter seats, rather than have blacks and whites sit together.

c. By late 1960, lunch counters were desegregated in 48 cities and 11 states.

d. Enduring arrests, beatings, suspensions from school, tear gas, and fire hoses, protestors were trying to convince the country that blacks and whites needed equal treatment.

5. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was created to organize the growing number of college students who protested.

a. Many students felt called to protest, because they believed that Brown vs. Board of Education was being implemented too slowly.

b. Students had a lot to lose by protesting: scholarships lost, expulsion from school, and the threat of physical harm.

c. Yet many teens and college students could afford to be arrested, because their parents were of middle class background, and could bail them out of jail if needed.

6. “Jail not bail,” was a slogan to inspire people to refuse to pay bail when arrested for protesting, so that the burden of supporting the arrested protesters was placed onto the police and local officials.

7. SNCC was following the theory of civil disobedience - nonviolently breaking an unjust law as part of an organized effort to get that law changed.

a. Henry David Thoreau spent a night in jail in 1846 for refusing to pay a poll tax as a protest against slavery.

b. MLK said, “We will not hate you, but we cannot obey your unjust laws . . . we will soon wear you down by our capacity to suffer. And in winning our freedom, we will appeal to your heart and conscience that we will win you in the process.”

8. Many students postponed or dropped out of college to work for the movement full-time.

a. In 1961, there were 16 SNCC “field secretaries.”

b. By 1964, there were 150.

c. They were only paid $10 a week from SNCC, and many of these students had to board with members of the African American community.

d. These workers faced harassment and even physical threats.