USII.26

 media type="custom" key="29582655" align="right" =Describe the accomplishments of the Civil Rights Movement=

Topics on the Page

 * ** 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act **
 * ** Growth of the African American middle class, increased political power, and declining rates of African American poverty **
 * ** Integration of Professional Sports **
 * ** African Americans and Professional Baseball **
 * ** African American First in Other Sports **
 * ** African Americans and Professional Football **
 * ** Lesson plan about the Washington Redskins and racist names for sports teams **
 * ** African Americans and Golf **
 * **Women during the Civil Rights Movement**
 * Historical Biography page for **Shirley Chisholm, African American Politician and Presidential Candidate**
 * **Special Topic Page on The Latino Civil Rights Movement**

// **Focus Question: What were lasting accomplishments of the Civil Rights Movement?** //

Interactive Historical Timeline for milestones in African American history beginning in 1619.


 * A Salute to Black History from Lawson State Community College in Alabama features pictures and images of famous African Americans from U. S. History.
 * See also the trailer for Many Rivers To Cross: The African Americans narrated by Henry Louis Gates (2013).

====**13 Civil Rights Picture Books for Kids**====

1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act
The Civil Rights Act of 1957 was a first step in ensuring voting rights for African Americans. It established a Civil Rights Division in the Department of Justice.
 * Civil Rights Acts**

First brought about by President Kennedy, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 stated that:
 * all children, regardless of race, should be able to attend the same schools
 * no segregation in public places or the workforce would be allowed
 * the unequal requirements for voter registration were null and void

The Freedom Summer of 1964, video, audio and photos. During Freedom Summer, many Northern, black and white, male and female college students into Mississippi to challenge that state's brutal segregation policies and to help blacks register to vote and get an education. The students were met with intimidation and violence from members of the KKK. The most famous case being the murders of Mickey Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman. Click here to find out more.

See what a program called Freedom Schools (based off of the 1964 program Freedom Summer) is doing to help African American and Latino students with their literacy skills, leadership skills, and cultural knowledge. Click here to hear an interview with author Bruce Watson about his book Freedom Summer that documents the efforts of hundreds of American college students.

President Kennedy was assassinated before the bill could be presented before the House and the Senate, but President Johnson continued to push the bill. It passed in the House in February and then in the Senate in July. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 not only was intended to end racial discrimination but also declared that discrimination based on sex was illegal as well.

Click [|here] for a video about the Civil Rights and the 1950s for a summary of the events that led up to the Civil Rights Movement and the events of the 1960s.
 * Click here for a video from the History Channel showing Robert F. Kennedy addressing a crowd of supporters at his campaign rally after just hearing the news that Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated that day, April 4th,1968.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 stated that:
 * Voting Rights Act of 1965**
 * The literacy tests used to determine whether blacks could vote in the United States were null and void. Click here to take the Alabama Literacy Test from 1965 that was used to restrict African Americans from voting.

The Jim Crow Laws that were established after Reconstruction were successful in continuing discrimination against blacks by making them pass literacy tests in order to practice their right to vote. Even though legally, through the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, blacks were granted the right to vote after the Civil War, southern whites often engaged in violent activities that discouraged blacks from voting.

The Jim Crow Laws and the literacy tests were forms of **disenfranchisement**.
 * Disenfranchisement is the taking away of civil or electoral privileges.
 * This term is often used in association with the situation existing before the Civil Rights Movement.



A lesson plan on the Jim Crow era. A lesson plan on the Alabama Literacy Test.
 * Click here for a lesson plan about the Civil Rights Movement that focuses on how ordinary men and women struggled for their beliefs beyond the most famous names involved with the movement.

Growth of the African American middle class, increased political power, and declining rates of African American poverty
It is undeniable that racism still exists today in many places in American society. However, the strides made during the Civil Rights movement have greatly advance the situation of African Americans.
 * Thanks in part to the anti-discrimination laws passed during the Civil Rights movement, the African American middle class began to grow during the 1960s.
 * The rate of blacks graduating from high school and college jumped immediately following this period, which also led to better paying jobs being held by black Americans.
 * While still disproportionately high, the poverty rate for African Americans also dropped after this period.
 * Blacks have also becoming increasingly visible in the political sphere, holding many more politically powerful positions that prior to the Civil Rights movement.

Click here to read an analysis of the growth of the black middle class from Dateline.

Click here for a lesson plan on the election of Barack Obama, the first African-American President. This lesson focuses on the relation of the Civil Rights Movement to his election.

Click here for a timeline of African Americans and women in politics

African Americans in Congress by the Numbers from the Washington Post.

**[[image:Rotating_globe-small.gif]]Integration of Professional Sports**
The integration of sports in America created a framework for changing racial attitudes toward people of color. Click here for a brief overview from ESPN

For a perspective, see the essay [|"Why Sports History is American History]" by Mark Naison


 * African Americans and Integration of Professional Baseball**

See also Historic Baseball Resources from the Library of Congress.

"Southern League": Birmingham Barons Break Racial Divide, from NPR describes how in 1964 the Barons became the first integrated professional sports team in Alabama.

Jackie Robinson broke baseball's "color barrier" in 1947 as in this video from the History Channel. Robinson became the first publicly acknowledged African American to play in the MLB since 1884 when Moses Fleetwood Walker last played for the Toledo Mudhens. Robinson, prior to signing with the Dodgers, had had a tryout with the Boston Red Sox as did another Hall Of Fame player Willie Mays. Boston however would sign neither and would be the last team to integrate when Elijah "Pumpsie" Green joined the team in 1957.

See also, Jackie Robinson Integrates Major League Baseball (1947) from the PBS website, //The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow//. Jackie Robinson Letter to President Dwight Eisenhower, May 3, 1958



Negro Leagues History from the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri.

See also the following about Latinos and Baseball
 * The History of Latinos in Major League Baseball provides a basic overview.
 * Arriba Baseball: Latin America's Rich Tradition is an interactive map showing players from each country.
 * The Forgotten All-Star Game describes the only Latino All-Star held in 1963 in the last game at the Polo Grounds in New York City.


 * African American Firsts from Other Sports**
 * **Willie O'Ree** became the first black person to play in the National Hockey league in 1957, suiting up for the Boston Bruins in a game against the Montreal Canadiens. O'Ree did all this while being 95% blind in his right eye. However he would not be in the NHL for very long and would never play in it again after 1960 and it would be another 14 years for another black person to play in the NHL. In fact O'Ree was Canadian so an African-American did not play in the NHL until 1977.
 * **Arthur Ashe** was the first African American male to win the U.S. Open (1968) and Wimbledon (1975) Tennis Titles as well as the first African American male to play on the American Davis Cup team (1963). **Althea Gibson** was the first African American woman to win Wimbledon in 1957 and 1958.
 * **Earl Lloyd, Chuck Cooper, and Nat "Sweetwater" Clifton** entered the National Basketball Association (NBA) in 1950. In a weird string of events, Cooper was the first African American drafted (Celtics 2nd round 1950), Clifton, of Harlem Globetrotters fame, was the first African American to sign a contract with a NBA team (NY Knicks) and Earl Lloyd was the first to play in a game due to the Washington Capitols schedule starting a day before Boston and four days before New York.

For more, see [|Forgotten Four: The Integration of Pro Football] (official trailer on YouTube)
 * African Americans and Professional Football**
 * ** Kenny Washington ** was the first African American to sign a contract with a National Football League team in 1946. Click here to read his story. and to learn about segregation and integration in professional football.


 * //Showdown: JFK and the Integration of the Washington Redskins. //**Thomas G. Smith, Beacon Press, 2011 details how the Washington Redskins became the last team to integrate African American players. The Washington Redskins became the last NFL team to integrate its roster in 1962.
 * Read the history in Civil Rights on the Girdiron by Thomas G. Smith based on his book // Showdown: JFK and the Integration of the Washington Redskins //, Beacon Books, 2011.
 * See book review, [|The Racist Redskins] by Michael Tomasky, November 10, 2011
 * [|See Fifty Years Ago, Last Outpost of Segregation in NFL Fell], //New York Times//, October 6, 2012
 * [|U.S. Patent Office Cancels Redskins Trademark Registration, Says Name is Disparaging], The Washington Post, June 18, 2014
 * [|Judge Upholds Redskins Trademark Cancellation Decision], SBNation, July 8, 2015
 * Redskins, Rock Band Battle Government in Trademark Fight

[|The 2,128 Native American Mascots People Are Not Talking Abou]t from //FiveThirtyEight Sports//, September 2, 2014


 * [|California Racial Mascots Act]. California has banned schools in the state from using "redskins" as a name for sports teams.
 * [|Lanham Act] (Trademark Act of 1946) as amended by Trademark Act of 1988

**African Americans and Golf**

Uneven Fairways is a documentary from the Golf Channel about the struggles of African Americans to integrate the professional golf tour. See the trailer on Vimeo here.

See also When the Fairways Weren't Fair from ESPN (February 11, 2009). The article includes text from the PGA charter banning Black players.

Timeline of African American Achievements in Golf from PGA.com

Redemption for Negro League Players. Story of 16 year old student working to connect old Negro League Teammates and even getting some their pensions from Major League Baseball. Click here for the story.

For information about African American basketball teams in New York from 1900 to the 1950s, see The Black Fives from the New York Historical Society.
 * See also How the Black Fives led to Racial Integration in Basketball. (*Lloyd was the first African-American to play in an NBA game.)





** Women during the Civil Rights Movement **
 * Click here for an article from the Library of Congress about the involvement of women in the Civil Rights Movement.
 * Click here to read an NBC News article that discusses the key roles women had during the Civil Rights Movement that has often been overlooked by historians.

Click here for a Democracy Now! YouTube video about Gloria Richardson, a civil rights pioneer and the co-founder of the Cambridge Nonviolent Action Committee in Maryland, which fought to desegregate public institutions like schools and hospitals. Although Richardson was on the event program for the March on Washington, when she stood to speak, she only had a chance to say hello before the microphone was seized from her and she was silenced.


 * Works Cited**

Civil Rights Act-1964. Retrieved May 3, 2007, from Our Documents Web site: http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=97 Educators and Students: The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Retrieved May 3, 2007, from The National Archives Web site: http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/civil-rights-act/

Alabama Literacy Test circa 1965. Retrieved May 3, 2007, from Alabama Literacy Test Web site: http://kpearson.project.tcnj.edu/interactive/imm_files/test.html

Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution. Retrieved May 3, 2007, from NPS.gov Web site: http://www.nps.gov/archive/malu/documents/amend14.htm

Fifteenth Amendment to the US Constitution. Retrieved May 3, 2007, from NPS.gov Web site: http://www.nps.gov/archive/malu/documents/amend15.htm http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/disenfranchise