Source A

White racism is essentially responsible for the explosive mixture which has been accumulating in our cities since the end of World War II...

What white Americans have never fully understood – but what the Black can never forget – is that white society is deeply implicated in the ghetto.  White institutions created it, white institutions maintain it, and white society condones it.

Conclusion of the Kerner Report (1968).

The Fight for Equality, 1965-75

The key events, which are moret than you need to know for GCSE, are listed below (green for legal achievements/ red for opposition, black for actions). 
If you click on the on the orange arrows (u) I have provided explanatory accounts of what happened. 

  

• 1959: Malcolm X: The Hate that Hate Produced
  • Malcolm X was a member of the Black nationalist group Nation of Islam, which demanded a separate Black American state in the southern USA.  He branded Martin Luther King a ‘fool’, and argued that white policies left Black Americans with no alternative but violence  – "any means necessary".  Most of all, he forced America’s Black leaders to turn their attention away from civil rights and to seek instead social and economic improvements. 
  • After a 1959 TV documentary – The Hate that Hate Produced – Malcolm X became famous, and a role model for angry young Black people.  In 1964, he was suspended from NoI after appearing to welcome the assassination of President Kennedy, and in 1965 he was assassinated by a NoI gunman.
• 1962: Black is Beautiful
  • The ‘Black is Beautiful’ movement can trace roots back to the Harlem Renaissance.  Its initial intention was to counter the prejudice that only European women are beautiful.  In 1962, the African Jazz-Art Society & Studios group put on a fashion show of ‘Grandassa Models’ – Black women who had chosen to move away from Western beauty standards
  • Until the mid-1960s, most Blacks dressed like whites, even straightening their hair; now they started to wear their hair in an ‘afro’ or in dreadlocks, and wore dashikis, African textiles and bright colours
  • In the late 1960s the movement widened into an empowering of Black Identity.  They abandoned the term 'Negro' for 'Afro-American'.  In 1968, Black musician James Brown sang: Say It Loud – I'm Black and I'm Proud.  Poet Maya Angelou’s autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969) explored her journey of self-discovery as a Black woman.
• 1964: CORE ‘freedom houses’
  • For Blacks living in the cities of the north, poverty, unemployment, deprivation and poor housing were rife.  In Chicago’s ghettos, some 70% of Black youths were unemployed.  Only 32% of ghetto children finished high school.
  • After 1964, CORE workers rented ‘freedom houses’ in the northern ghettos, from which they distributed information on education, employment, health and housing.  In 1966 the SNCC mounted the Atlanta Project, which cleared waste areas, and persuaded local African Americans to vote in elections.
• 1965: Watts Riots and more... 
  • In 1965, the arrest by police of a Black drunk-driver sparked riots in the Los Angeles Watts area.  Between 1964 and 1968 there were 238 riots in more than 200 US cities.  They resulted in 250 deaths (many from police shootings), and billions of dollars-worth of damage.
• 1965: Deacons of Defense
  • The first Deacons Chapter was founded in Bogalusa, Louisiana, on the day of Malcolm X’s assassination.  Deacons protected civil rights groups with armed force against KKK violence, and threatened to kill any white who burned a cross. 
• 1966: Black Power
  • In 1966 SNCC chose Stokely Carmichael as their leader, and expelled all their white members.  Carmichael rejected non-violence and advocated ‘Black Power’.  Next year, his successor H. ‘Rap’ Brown encouraged poor Black people to seize white shops – directly causing a number of ghetto riots later that year. 
  • Also in 1966, the radical Floyd McKissick took over CORE, which expelled its white members in 1968.  McKissick too rejected non-violence.
• 1966: Black Panthers
  • Huey Newton formed the Black Panther Party in 1966 as a response to police brutality in the Watts Riots.  At its height it had 5,000 members. 
  • The Party had a Ten-Point Program, including ‘Land, Bread, Housing, Education, Clothing, Justice and Peace’.  In Los Angeles, it set up health clinics, an ambulance and gave free breakfasts to ghetto children. 
  • The organisation made links with Communist freedom fighters all over the world.  It also attacked the police.  Black Panther patrols would shadow police patrols, and – if they started harassing Black Americans – would help the Blacks.  In response, California decided that it would recruit policemen in proportion to the size of the Black and white population in the state. 
• 1966: Meredith March
  • James Meredith was a civil rights activist.  President Kennedy had sent soldiers to enforce his right to attend the racially segregated University of Mississippi.
  • In 1966 he planned a ‘March Against Fear’ to highlight racism in the South.  He had intended to do the march on his own, but had been shot and wounded on the second day, so other Black activists joined him.  On the march, SNCC members sang: ‘Oh what fun it is to blast / a trooper man away’, and Stokely Carmichael used it as a platform to preach ‘Black Power’.
• 1967: Where Do We Go From Here?
  • In 1966, Martin Luther King had gone to live in Chicago, but found that he was out-of-touch, rejected and unable to help.  He had joined the Meredith march, but had argued with Carmichael and was concerned at his rejection of non-violence and white supporters. 
  • King withdrew for a time to reflect, and in 1967 published Where Do We Go From Here?  He still opposed violence, arguing that it would damage the movement, not progress it.  But he realised that legal reforms alone were not enough.  The cause of Black anger and rioting was poverty, and the only solution was to “abolish it directly by a … 'guaranteed income'”.  He also began to campaign against the Vietnam War.
• 1968: Kerner Report
  • The official report into the riots of 1964-8 concluded that the cause of the Black riots was “white racism … pervasive discrimination and segregation" and named the police as an aggravating factor.  It called for an end to de facto segregation, and for job-creation, better housing, better welfare, and the diversification of the police and media. 
  • After this, the US government realised that it had to take action, as well as just make statements.
• 1968: Fair Housing
  • The 1968 Civil Rights Act banned discrimination in housing, and was designed to allow Black Americans, if they wished, to move into areas where white Americans lived.
• 1969: 'Black Capitalism'
  • President Nixon set up the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) to fund and help minority-run businesses.  Government assistance to Black-owned business enterprises more than doubled.  Federal purchases increased from $13 million to $142 million from 1969 to 1971.  By 1974, two-thirds of the 100 largest Black enterprises had been started during the Nixon administration.
• 1969: 'Affirmative Action'
  • President Johnson had required government contractors to take 'affirmative action' to employ and treat ethnic minority workers fairly, but plans had stalled in the courts; the Nixon administration implemented the ‘Philadelphia Plan’, which set and applied guidelines and quotas.
• 1971: Swann v Charlotte-Mecklenberg
  • The Civil Rights Act of 1964 had outlawed segregated schooling, but local Boards, especially in the South, dragged their feet to integrate schools.  President Nixon set up a taskforce to enforce integration, and in 1971 the Supreme Court approved the controversial policies of bussing and compensatory education to achieve this. 
  • In 1968, only 70% of Black children attended desegregated schools; 1972, 92% did.  A drawback to this was that the educational attainment of Black students was often worse in integrated than in all-Black schools.
• 1972: Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
  • The Civil Rights Act of 1964 had set up the EEOC with the power to investigate workforce discrimination.  Nixon gave it power to enforce the law , quadrupled its staff and doubled its funding to enable it to do so.

  

Consider:

1.  Using this and the previous webpage, compile a table of all the Civil Rights legislation (i.e.  events in green), detailing the Intention in one column, and the Impact in another:

Measure	Intention	Impact

 

    Repeat for the different Civil Rights leaders, detailing the Achievements in one column, and the Impact in another:

	Achievements	Impact
Martin Luther King
Malcolm X
Stokesly Carmichael
Huey Newton

 

    Finally, repeat for the five Presidents, detailing their Aspirations in one column, and the Impact in another:

	Aspirations	Impact
Truman
Eisenhower
Kennedy
Johnson
Nixon

 

2.  Use the information from your answers to Question 1 to prepare plans for how you would write 'On-the-one-hand/ On-the-other-hand/ Assessment' esays which asked you to compare the importance of 'A' against 'B'.

3.  Finally, debate: "The Civil Rights activists did not win civil rights for African Americans; the US government gave African Americans their civil rights".

    

How different was MLK to the Black Power leaders?

VERY

1. They advocated violence (v. MLK was non-violent).
2. Black Power and expelled white members (v. MLK wanted ‘striped power’ and had white supporters).
3. They were nationalist (NoI) or wanted social action (v. MLK initially concentrated on civil rights).
4. CORE ‘freedom houses’/ SNCC Atlanta Project (v. King was not welcomed or successful in Chicago.
5. King clashed with Carmichael on the Meredith March.
6. Malcolm X called King a ‘fool’ (MLK called NoI a ‘hate group’).

 

NOT SO MUCH

1. MLK was horrified by the deprivation in Watts.
2. MLK went to live in Chicago in 1966.
3. Where do we go from here? advocated affirmative social action.
4. King opposed the Vietnam War.
5. King was non-retaliation, but he provoked violence (e.g. Birmingham/ Selma)