African Americans 1953-1960

Question 1

Why was white flight an issue?

Answer 1

White flight to suburbs meant that city centres would often be abandoned and left with a majority of African Americans. As the money left the area, things such as public services like bin disposals would decrease and the segregation of black and white Americans would be prominent.

Question 2

How did Malcolm X become famous in America?

Answer 2

He starred in a TV documentary in 1959 called The Hate That Hate Produced which covered the Nation of Islam and intended to terrify white people

Question 3

Who did the media cast Malcolm X to be?

Answer 3

The antihesis of Martin Luther King Jr and the spokemand for black people in the North

Question 4

What factors played a role in the Civil Rights Movement starting to gain momentum?

Answer 4

• court victories for the NAACP against Plessy v Ferguson
• Emergence of figureheads like King
• Role of the media as TV became more popular

Question 5

How did the growth of television affect the civil rights movement?

Answer 5

Over half of US households owned a TV by 1955 and could see firsthand the realities of segregation, particularly in the Brown v Board of Education case

Question 6

How was there difference in the segregation of schools in the North and South?

Answer 6

Schools in the North were de facto segregated throuugh the economic inequalities that led to ghettos, but schools in the South were de jure segregated by Jim Crow Laws and the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson ruling.

Question 7

Who was the Chief Justice for the 1954 Brown v Board of Education ruling?

Answer 7

Earl Warren

Question 8

Who headed the NAACP’s legal team for the 1954 Brown v Board of Education ruling?

Answer 8

Thurgood Marshall

Question 9

What did Eisenhower late say about appointing Warren as Chief Justice?

Answer 9

It was “the biggest damned-fool mistake I ever made”

Question 10

What was the conclusion of the 1954 Brown v Board of Education Supreme Court?

Answer 10

Segregated schools were psychologically harmful to black children

Question 11

What did the Brown ruling do?

Answer 11

It removed all consitutional sanction for segregation

Question 12

How was the Brown ruling limited?

Answer 12

The Supreme Court set no date for completion and the Supreme Court had no powers of enforcement

Question 12

What was the white backlash like to the Brown ruling?

Answer 12

White Citizen’s Councils were formed and by 1956 boasted around 250,000 members. The KKK was revitalised and started to grow in membership and brutality

Question 13

What was the Southern Manifesto?

Answer 13

A document drawn up and signed by 101 Dixiecrat Congressmen which threatened pto use “all lawful means” to oppose the Supreme Court’s decision on the grounds of infringing states’s rights

Question 14

What was Eisenhower’s reaction to the murder of Emmett Till and what accusation did this lead to?

Answer 14

He tried as far as possible to avoid commenting on any events, including Emmett Till, and this led to accusations that he was against segregation

Question 15

Who was Autherine Lucy?

Answer 15

A student who was expelled by the University of Alabama in 1956, despite the NAACP having won a court case the year before to secure her place

Question 16

When was Brown 2 and what did it say?

Answer 16

1955, it ruled that schools should desegregate with “all deliberate speed”

Question 17

Explain the Little Rock Crisis.

Answer 17

• In 1957, Central High School in Little Rock was due to accept its first nine black students
• The Governor of Arkansas, Orval Faubus, encouraged opposition to the NAACP’s organised entry of the ‘little rock nine’
• Protestors came out and tried to block the students from entering the school. Faubus even mobilised the National Guard to turn the students away
• The scenes played out on national television and Eisenhower was forced to federalise the National Guard and send soldiers to escort the students to school

Question 18

How did Orval Faubus campaign against Eisenhower’s involvement in Little Rock?

Answer 18

He closed off all the public schools in Little Rock for the following year. He claimed that the city had to assert its rights against federal decisions and this became known as the “Lost Year”

Question 19

Explain the events of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Answer 19

In 1955, an NAACP acitvisit, Rosa Parks, was arrested for sitting in the white section of a city bus and a boycott was organised from this. A new minister, Martin Luther King Jr was asked to lead the boycott and succeeded in prolonging it past the planned single day to 381 days in which black citizens walked or shared cars rather than use the buses

Question 20

How was Faubus shown to be respected for his opposition to desegregation?

Answer 20

He was re-elected as Governor four times and was voted one of the ten most admired men in America in 1958

Question 21

What was the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott based off?

Answer 21

A much shorter boycott in Baton Rouge, Louisiana 1953

Question 22

How much damage did the bus boycott do to the bus company?

Answer 22

Costed the bus company 80% of their profits

Question 23

What case did the NAACP take to the Supreme Court whilst the Bus Boycott continued?

Answer 23

1956 Browder vs Gayle which the court ruled that bus segregation was unconstitutional

Question 24

How was the bus boycott actually quite limited?

Answer 24

Eisenhower largely ignored it and it only slightly influenced the two meagre civil rights acts of 1957 and 1960

Question 25

What did Eisenhower introduce in the later years of his presidency and why?

Answer 25

Two civil rights acts aimed at increasing black voter registration in the South

Question 26

How many of Mississippis 900,000 African-Americans were able to vote?

Answer 26

7000

Question 27

Who worked hard on the 1957 civil rights bill and why?

Answer 27

Nixon, after being encouraged by MLK and a man who said he didn’t know what it was like to be free as he was from Alabama

Question 28

What undermined the 1957 civil rightes bill?

Answer 28

Dixiecrats, in Congressional Committees and Strom Thurmonds filibuster of over 24 hours to obstruct the bill

Question 29

How many more black voters were there in the South by 1960?

Answer 29

3%

Question 30

What are Congressional Committees?

Answer 30

Committees that examine bills that are passing through Conrgess and debate and revise their terms

Question 31

What motivated Eisenhower’s second civil rights act?

Answer 31

His concern about his legacy and increasing worry about sporadic violence in the Deep South, with bombings of black schools, homes and churches

Question 32

How could Eisenhower be argued to have started singificant change in the long term for African Americans?

Answer 32

He started a precedent which would be taken on by Kennedy and Johnson

Question 33

How was there still a long way to go for African Americans by the end of Eisenhower’s reign?

Answer 33

• King admitted that the SCLC had achieved little in its first two years
• 56 per cent of black citiznes live below the poverty line, only 18 per cent for white citizens
• NAACP leader Wilkins said that Eisenhower’s legislation was a ‘small crumb from Congress’
• Tensions in the cities were ratcheted up by police and lack of education anf opportunity