Consequences of the Civil Rights Movement

Following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Jr., on November

22,
1963, Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson mournfully assumed the role of
the
nation's leader. Johnson, a former senator from Texas, served as the Senate
Democratic Leader for most of his congressional career. His political role
model
was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Johnson openly followed Roosevelt's
push for
social welfare reform.
Johnson's social reform philosophy was based around his "Great Society"
initiative. The initiative included measures to tackle poverty and increase
the
quality of medical care in America. In 1962, public support for Johnson's
anti-poverty program was solidified when Michael Harrington published his
book
The Other America. Harrington reported that 20 percent of America's
populationand nearly 40 percent of the black populationlived in poverty.
Many
Americans, who lived in relative prosperity, were startled by Harrington's
findings.
Months after assuming the presidency, Johnson entered the 1964 election
race to
seek the office based on his own platform. Johnson won a landslide victory
against Republican candidate Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona. Voters,
fond of
the Kennedy legacy and the promise of a Great Society, championed
Johnson as a
man who could lead the nation during troubled times.
As Johnson ran for president, legislators worked in support of poor
Americans.
In January 1964, Congress ratified the Twenty-Fourth Amendment, which
abolished
any form of payment, usually called a poll tax, as a prerequisite for voting in
federal elections. The Amendment was aimed at ending voting
discrimination
against impoverished Americans, specifically southern blacks who were
often too
poor to pay a tax to vote.
With Johnson's support, Congress passed Kennedy's Civil Rights Bill during
the
summer of 1964. Johnson, a skilled legislator who intimately understood the
politics of Congress, argued that passing Kennedy's civil rights legislation
"for which he fought so long" would be a fitting tribute to the fallen
president's legacy. Johnson's appeal led to a groundswell of bi-partisan
support
and allowed him to break a Senate filibuster and pass the legislation.
The sweeping legislation ushered in a new era for the civil rights movement.
For
the first time in America's history, hotels and restaurants could not
discriminate against blacks, employers had to end job discrimination based
on

race, and the federal government could sue school systems that refused to
desegregate. By allowing the federal government to sue, private citizens no
longer suffered the burden of having to litigate civil rights violations.
To enforce the Civil Rights Bill of 1964, the federal government formed the
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The commission
banned all
discrimination based on race, religion, gender, and national origin in an act
that became known as Title VII. Following passage of the Civil Rights Bill and
the establishment of the EEOC, most businesses in the south immediately
desegregated.
Despite the sweeping reforms that emerged from the Civil Rights Bill of
1964,
the legislation did not address the issue of voting. In 1965, civil rights
activist Martin Luther King, Jr., announced a campaign to enroll three million
black voters. Selma, Alabama was selected as the focal point of the voting
drive. The lack of registered black voters in the city, only 383 of the
community's nearly 15,000 black citizens, illustrated the need for change.
Civil rights leaders announced a 50-mile protest march from Selma to
Montgomery,
Alabama's capital. As protestors marched outside of Selma, state troopers
quickly and violently dispersed the group with teargas and whips. The
protestors
fought back by taking their case to court, and a federal judge allowed the
march
to continue. To ensure a peaceful march, Johnson provided National
Guardsmen and
Military Police to protect the marchers.
In response to the violence in Selma, Johnson urged Congress to
immediately pass
the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The resulting law ensured that all citizens had
the right to vote and authorized the Attorney General to dispatch hundreds
of
federal examiners to register voters in the south. The law made literacy
tests
illegal if fewer than 50 percent of all voting-age citizens were registered to
vote, and outlawed other archaic voter requirements, including a well-known
Mississippi law. The Mississippi law required that all prospective black voters
have their names published in the paper for two consecutive weeks before
registering to vote, virtually ensuring economic reprisals for those who
wanted
to register.
By the end of 1965, government reform seemed to be working as
approximately
250,000 African Americans were newly registered voters. During the next
three
years, more than 700,000 blacks would exert political influence by
registering
to vote. For the first time since Reconstruction, blacks were moving back to
the
south, organized and ready to make a political difference.
Affirmative Action and Forced Busing
As blacks benefited from new voting rights and school desegregation, the
workplace remained a hostile environment for some. Many businesses
openly

flaunted hiring policies that excluded blacks or confined them to menial

jobs.
To make the workplace more equitable, President Lyndon Baines Johnson
issued an
executive order in 1965 requiring that all federal contractors implement
"affirmative action" hiring practices towards women and minorities. This
meant
that many large businesses that held contracts with the government were
forced
to increase the number of females and minorities in their organizations. In
1967, Johnson backed up his resolve toward civil rights by appointing
Thurgood
Marshall as the first African American to the Supreme Court.
Johnson's executive order was intended to protect individuals from
discrimination, but there were no metrics by which to measure the success
of his
order. When Richard Nixon took office following Johnson's term, affirmative
action measures were extended to protect other under-represented groups.
Nixon's
Philadelphia Plan of 1969 required that construction-trade unions that
worked on
federal contracts establish goals and timetables for hiring minorities. Unlike
Johnson's order, Nixon's Philadelphia Plan included specific, measurable
standards by which to judge the plan's success.
Soon after it was enacted, the Philadelphia Plan's measures were extended
to
include all organizations that worked on federal contracts. As a result,
thousands of employers had to meet quotas or set aside a specific number
of
contracts for minorities. Similarly, colleges and universities that received
federal funds were required to admit a certain number of minority
applicants.
Fearful of losing jobs and educational opportunities, critics of affirmative
action began to view the program as "reverse discrimination." Critics
attacked
the program because it was implemented by judicial mandate and executive
order
and not by a vote of the people. Critics charged that their rights had been
violated because affirmative action placed more emphasis on race or gender
than
on ability or achievement.
Taking center stage in the civil rights movement along with affirmative
action
was the desegregation of schools. Although the government had begun a
policy of
forced desegregation in the 1950's, many schools remained segregated. In
1969, a
unanimous Supreme Court declared an immediate end to all school
segregation when
it ruled in the case of Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education.
The Supreme Court forced the issue of school desegregation again when it
ruled
in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education (1971). The Court
ruled

that school systems must begin busing students to schools outside of

all-minority neighborhoods to achieve integration. Many middle class
suburban
whites opposed forced busing, believing that busing students would destroy
neighborhood schools. Major protests were held in Boston and Denver, and
angry
parents in Pontiac, Michigan, firebombed buses in an attempt to draw
attention
to the issue.
Nixon, an opponent of forced desegregation, asked Congress to impose a
moratorium on all busing orders by federal courts. Although the House of
Representatives passed Nixon's measure, a Senate filibuster blocked his
anti-busing bill.
Opponents of busing won a limited victory in 1974 when the Supreme Court
ruled
in Milliken v. Bradley. The Court's opinion said that Detroit could not bus
students from inner-city schools to suburban areas because doing so would
require students to move across school district lines. As a result, suburban
school districts were exempted from participating in desegregation, and
many
whites moved their families to suburbs where their children would not have
to
participate in forced busing.
Many historians view the civil rights movement that took place between
1954 and
1968 as the second Reconstruction. The gains made toward equality during
this
period in American history continue to encourage new generations. Many
minority
groups, including Native Americans, Hispanics, gays, and women look to the
civil
rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s as a blueprint for their own efforts
to
gain equality.
Rise of Black Power
The civil rights movement continued to make progress during the 1960s
through
the controversial implementation of forced busing and affirmative action
measures. Most people viewed Martin Luther King, Jr., as the principle leader
of
the movement. King maintained a large following who supported his
promotion of
non-violent protest. King hoped to integrate all neglected and oppressed
peoples
into American society and to ensure the same equality for everyone.
King's methods and ideas were not without opposition. Some in the black
community questioned the merits of a racially integrated society. Others
started
to think that King's ideas were becoming outdated and obsolete, an opinion
especially popular with the younger generation. Inspired by the actions of
Marcus Garvey during the 1920s Harlem Renaissance, black separatist
groups began
to form out of frustration with the slow moving progress toward civil rights.

The goals of each separatist organization varied, with objectives ranging

from a
return to Africa campaign to the occupation of an exclusive land area in the
United States set aside by the government.
The change in attitude in favor of direct action against inequality was
demonstrated during the August 1965 Watts riots. Just five days after
President
Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law, a massive riot broke out in
Watts, a black neighborhood in Los Angeles. Outraged by police brutality
against
African Americans, black citizens violently lashed out in protestburning
and
looting hundreds of buildings. The riot lasted nearly a week, and by the end
34
people, mostly African Americans, were dead and over 1,000 were injured.
The
Watts incident foreshadowed a long string of riots the following summer in
1966.
Cleveland and Chicago suffered from an outbreak of racial riots, along with
40
other cities across the nation. In the summer of 1967, the city of Detroit had
to use federal troops and national guardsmen to control the violence, which
even
included the use of tanks in the cities' urban streets.
Concerned about the riots, President Johnson ordered the formation of an
exploratory commission to help identify the reasons for the riots and any
possible solutions that could help resolve the violence. Johnson appointed
Governor Otto Kerner of Illinois to lead the commission. The Kerner
Commission
concluded that the fundamental cause behind the riots was the profound
frustration of inner-city blacks due to white racism, which was preventing
access to quality jobs, forcing blacks into urban slums, and depriving them
of
hope for a better future.
City leaders and white investors were doing too little to address the
concerns
of the African American community in urban environments, specifically the
downward spiral of economic hardship and violence inherent in ghetto and
slum
areas. Kerner realized that the living conditions in these neighborhoods were
in
most cases unbearable and the dissatisfaction within these communities
had
reached its boiling point. The commission's recommendations to prevent
further
rioting included the need for a stronger public response to the issues
concerning the black community and an increase in the quality of
communication
among all races.
These findings did little to resolve the issues that led to the riots, and in
some instances only added to the rhetoric of black separatist groups. For
some,
the riots further polarized American communities across racial lines. The

attitudes that led to the disturbances during the summers between 1965
and 1967
had been long in the making. Prominent black separatists like Malcolm X
had been
advocating a drastic departure from King's methods for a number of years.
Born Malcolm Little, Malcolm X changed his surname to protest his "lost
African
identity in white America." Malcolm X was greatly influenced by the militant
black separatist Elijah Muhammad, the Black Muslim leader and founder of
the
Nation of Islam. Like King, Malcolm X was a charismatic speaker and an
inspiring
leader. For most of his turbulent career, his message was that of "black
power,"
black separatism, and the need to fight against the "blue-eyed white devils."
To
achieve his goals and to further African American rights, Malcolm X did not
shy
away from the use of violence, stating that the objectives must be attained
by
"any means necessary." He felt that nonviolent tactics would only encourage
violence from white authorities.
Near the end of his life, Malcolm X began to change his perspective on race
relations toward a more tempered attitude. In 1964 he broke off relations
with
the Nation of Islam and started his own organization devoted to seeking to
unite
all nonwhite people in the world and to seek methods for achieving racial
harmony. His desertion from the Nation of Islam greatly upset the
organization,
and on February 21, 1965, he was assassinated by three members of the
Nation of
Islam in Harlem, while he was giving a speech on racial harmony.
Other organizations were also following a separatist agenda. By the mid1960s
the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which had been
affiliated
with King for a long time, became a militant organization focused on
opposing
integration and interracial cooperation. Led by Stokely Carmichael, a West
Indian who had grown up in Harlem, the organization called for black power
and
hoped to end nonviolent tactics toward race relations. Before joining the
SNCC,
Carmichael had worked tirelessly in the south for black rights. Carmichael,
who
drew much negative attention from Southerners because of his cause, spent
time
in several southern jails, often because of trumped-up charges by southern
officials.
In 1967, Carmichael left the SNCC to join the Black Panthers, an organization
of
revolutionaries founded in Oakland, California. Huey Newton and Eldridge
Cleaver

led the group, which often resorted to extreme measures to promote their
cause
in northern and western U.S. cities. The Black Panthers, who openly carried
weapons on city streets, were responsible for numerous bombings and
killings of
policemen and of African Americans who opposed the militant leaders'
agenda.
Martin Luther King, Jr., abhorred the militant tactics of the SNCC and Black
Panthers, believing that violence would not lead to equality. In April of 1968,
the 39-year-old King visited Memphis, Tennessee to fight for increased
wages for
local trash collectors. On April 4, while King stood on a hotel balcony with
friends, James Earl Ray assassinated the inspirational leader. King's
assassination sparked massive riots in neighborhoods across America
resulting in
40 deaths. As a devastated nation watched, Americans expressed palpable
grief at
the loss of the great leader whose work was far from complete.