Rights Revolution of the Sixties

M.L. King family 1966
M.L. King family 1997

Civil Rights

Greensboro 1960
James Meredith grimaces in pain as he pulls himself across Highway 51 in Hernando, Miss. after being shot during a voting rights march, June 6, 1966. Meredith, who defied segregation to enroll at the University of Mississippi in 1962, completed the march from Memphis, Tenn., to Jackson, Miss., after treatment of his wounds.
Miss Idaho was finalist 1964
Birmingham 1964
Ollie's Barbecue 1964
Man of the Year Jan. 3, 1964
Harlem riot 1964
Harlem 1964
Malcolm X 1964
  • Early civil rights movements
  • 1960 - Feb. 1 - Four black college students ask for service at a whites-only F. W. Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro NC sparking the sit-in movement, which rapidly spreads to all the southern states. Four A&T College students (in News & Recordphoto from left: Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, Billy Smith and Clarence Henderson, sit down at the all-white lunch counter of F.W. Woolworth Co. Feb. 2, 1960 in Greensboro, N.C. The four appeared the day after McNeil and McCain and two others started a sit-in protest. The incident helped energize the American civil rights movement. By May, Nashville TN students stage the biggest, best-organized sit-in demonstrations and eventually win legal integration of lunch counters throughout the city. See Greensboro Sit-Ins: Launch of a Civil Rights Movement
  • 1960 - April 15-17 - The Temporary Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (later SNCC) is established at an SCLC meeting in Raleigh, North Carolina.
  • 1960 - October 19-27 - Jailed for an Atlanta sit-in, King is aided by presidential candidate John F. Kennedy; King's support for Kennedy is a factor in his election.
  • Our World: Up Against the Wall 1961 documentary
  • 1961 - May 4 - The first "Freedom Riders" leave Washington, D.C., aboard two buses in an attempt to desegregate southern bus terminals. Most of the riders are college students recruited by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). On May 14  Freedom Riders are beaten by mobs outside Anniston, Alabama, and at the Anniston and Birmingham Trailways terminals. On May 20 Freedom Riders are beaten by a mob at a Montgomery bus terminal. Federal marshals are sent in. May 24-26 Freedom Riders travel from Montgomery to Jackson, Mississippi, escorted by National Guardsmen. In Jackson they are arrested and sent to jail.
  • 1961 - July - In McComb, Mississippi, near the Louisiana border, Robert Moses establishes the first SNCC voter-registration outpost, a model for future efforts.
  • 1961 - August a SNCC national conference selects Albany GA to be the site of an intensive antidiscrimination and voting rights drive. In November the first demonstrations are held in Albany and a coalition of black organizations, the Albany Movement, is formed.
  • 1962 - September - James Meredith became the first black to study at the University of Mississippi, after federal troops put down rioting; Meredith attended his first class on October 1. See Integrating Ole Miss
  • 1963 - Apr. 3 began Project C in Birmingham, a comprehensive attack on the city's discriminatory practices. On April 12 King is arrested in Birmingham for violating an injunction against demonstrations. Phase III of Project C May 2-7 puts thousands of trained protesters on Birmingham's streets. The Commissioner of Public Safety, Bull Connor, stages brutal attacks with police dogs and water cannons, which become an international scandal. After King and Shuttlesworth announce an accord with white city leaders in Birmingham May 10, King's motel room is bombed; black rioting ensues.
  • 1963 - June 11 - Governor George Wallace made his "stand in the schoolhouse door," an unsuccessful gesture to block integration of the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa. President Kennedy went on television with an impassioned civil rights speech.
  • 1963 - June 12    Mississippi NAACP leader Medgar Evers is murdered outside his Jackson home by Byron de la Beckwith, who is not convicted until his third trial, in 1994, the subject of the 1996 Rob Reiner film Ghosts of Mississippi with James Woods as Beckwith and Alec Baldwin as Assistant D.A. Bobby DeLaughter.
  • 1963 - Aug. 28 March on Washington led by A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin brought together 250,000 people for the biggest protest assembly in the United States to date.
  • 1963 - Sep. 15    Four black schoolgirls are murdered in the dynamiting of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham.
  • 1964 - June - The Mississippi Freedom Summer Project organized by The Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), a network of civil rights groups that included CORE and SNCC to register black voters during what becomes known as the Freedom Summer. It also sends delegates to the Democratic National Convention to protest‹and attempt to unseat‹the official all-white Mississippi contingent. brought hundreds of volunteers into the state to aid voter-registration campaigns and set up "freedom schools." On June 21  three Freedom Summer workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner are murdered in Neshoba County, Mississippi. Attorney General Robert Kennedy and President Lyndon B. Johnson order an intensive search for their bodies and their assailants. On Aug. 4    The bodies were found and 20 men, some of them police, were eventually charged with conspiracy to murder; seven were convicted. The incident was protrayed in the 1988 Alan Parker film Mississippi Burning with Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe as the FBI agents given credit for solving the case.
  • 1964 - July 2 - The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited discrimination in voting, public accommodations, and employment, passed by Congress with help from Republican Everett Dirksen and Democrat Hubert Humphrey. The 24th amendment that outlawed the poll tax in federal elections was ratified in 1964. The Supreme Court overturned all poll taxes in 1966.
  • 1964 - August 22-26 - COFO sent delegates of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) to the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City to contest the all-white Mississippi state delegation. After Fannie Lou Hamer's televised speech, President Johnson proposed a compromise seating, but it is rejected by the MFDP.
  • 1964 - Dec.10 - King is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
  • 1965 - Jan. - the voter-registration drive began in Selma, Alabama. Hundreds of demonstrators were arrested by Sheriff Jim Clark. On Feb. 18 in Marion, near Selma, protester Jimmie Lee Jackson was shot dead by a state trooper.
  • 1965 - Feb. 21 Malcolm X was assassinated by Black Muslim gunmen at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem. Three followers of Louis Farrakhan were convicted of the murder in 1966. Spike Lee dramatized the life story of the Muslim leader in his 1992 film Malcolm X with Denzel Washington as Malcolm.
  • 1965 - Mar. 7 was "Bloody Sunday" when the first Selma march was beaten back at Edmund Pettus Bridge by state troopers and Sheriff Clark's deputies. The nation was outraged by photographs and TV images of the attack. King called for clergymen from across the nation to join a second march. On "Turnaround Tuesday" Mar. 9 King led the second Selma march over the Pettus Bridge and then back to Selma. That evening Rev. James Reeb was clubbed to death. LBJ spoke in person to Congress March 15: "we shall overcome." Under the protection of a federalized National Guard, the Selma to Montgomery march went  to the state capitol March 21-25, where a rally of 50,000 people was held.
  • 1965 - Aug. 6    The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was signed into law. It banned voter examinations and provided for federal registrars to be sent to recalcitrant counties. It prompted a huge rise in black registration.

    • Black Muslims

    Harlem 1967
    Back Panthers 1969
  • Black Muslims founded 1930, then led by Elija Mohammed,
  • Malcolm X (Little) broke with Elijah 1963, wrote his Autobiography 1965 = greatest problem was capitalism that oppressed all underprivileged and need for socialism; critical of white power structure keeping blacks in ghettos, affirmed blackness and self-defense; fight racism "by any means necessary"; racial purity, female chastity, self-help, hard work, own businesses, anti-Semitic
  • Malcolm X , killed Feb. 21, 1965, by Louis Farrakhan
  • Muslims included Cassius Clay (Mohammed Ali), Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul Jabar), Jim Brown

    • Black Power

  • Stokely Carmichael elected head of SNCC 1966 ("we shall overrun") following injury of James Meredith on Miss. march from Memphis June 6, 1966
  • was joined by MLK and CORE's McKissick but Carmichael opp'd whites in the march
  • 15,000 reached Jackson, Miss. June 26 with new slogan of "Black Power" = reject integration; accept violence
  • "not a systematic doctrine but a cry of rage" - not from reason but from wretched experience - blacks felt shame of race - believed that nonviolence was psychically destructive - U.S. ghettos same as African colonies under Ep. rule (analogy of Franz Fanon)
  • H. Rap Brown was a lieutenant of Carmichael - became SNCC leader 1967 and urged blacks to "get your guns" - started riots and fires in Cambridge, Md., and Dayton, Ohio
  • Black Panthers founded in Oakland 1966 - Huey Newton, Bobby Seale - Marxist, kept weapons, opposed "welfare colonialism", Eldrdge Cleaver fled country, raid in Chicago Dec. 1969

    • Long Hot Summers - 1965-8

  • 1964 - Harlem 144 injured; Rochester 4 killed and 100s injured
  • 1965 Watts Aug. 11-17 for 6 days
  • 1966 Chicago, San Francisco, Atlanta
  • 1967 worst - Detroit 43 dead, 2000 wounded, 5000 fires; Newark 26 dead
  • 1968 MLK shot in Memphis April 4 at Lorraine Motel
  • rage ag. consumer culture; "things go better with Coke" using gasoline, acc. to Julius Lester; "it was all caused by the commercials" - "looting can be just as much an act of politics as it is a desire for goods, acc. to Paul Jacobs - an expression of hatred for lack of representation in society

    • Watts

  • 34 dead, 4000 arrested, 14,000 Natl Grd, 1600 police, $35m property damage
  • wide streets with tiney bungalows, ranked 1st in U.S. by Urban League for blacks, had 9 public swimming pools
  • many newcomers - from 75,000 to 650,000 since 1940 - 3 times whites
  • no strong institutions, church, family, schools
  • LA freeways, nearby Hollywood movies, rising expectations
  • gangs such as Little Egyptians, Gladiators were intrinsic part of life
  • Police Chief William H. Parker - "tough" cop, no community relations, Watts known as "duck pond" where police could stop anyone; one study showed 90% juveniles arrested never had charges filed
  • riot was a protest ag. indignity, a cry of rage (James Baldwin Fire Next Time of 1962)
  • Paul Williams at 16 f. SCFIW (Student Committee for the Improvement of Watts)
  • 1960-64, unemployment rose 20%, illiteracy at 50%, 2000 per month from South, churches weakened by welfare system, failure to build a strong community
  • time of change in North, not stagnation like South
  • 90% Watts blacks had TVs - saw Selma, students at Berkeley in '64
  • Malcolm X visited Watts 1964, wrote column in LA's black newspaper Herald Dispatch, emph'd black pride rather than self-hatred: "The worst crime of the white man has been to teach us to hate ourselves" - feel helpless; spoke contempt for pacifist Christianity
  • Watts rioters yelled "long live Malcolm X" and "just like Selma"
  • Selma encouraged Watts blacks - protest could succeed
  • fed antipoverty money held up in dispute with mayor Sam Yorty: "there was no poverty program in Watts before the riot"
  • California legislature passed Rumford Bill 1964 to prohibit housing discrimination but Prop 14 passed 2-1 repealing the bill - caused much black resentment
  • 1st day, Aug. 11, Wed. - policeman Lee Minikus arrested Marquette Frye for drunk driving at 116th and Avalon - crowd - "burn, baby, burn" (slogan of LA disc jockey Magnificent Montague)
  • 2nd day, Thurs - Parker refused to resegregate police so only blacks in Watts
  • 3rd day, Fri the 13th - worst day - Parker called for National Guard but admin errors for 12 hours - police lost control of the streets - mob seemed deliberate - no residences burned, few schools or churches or public bldgs, only white-owned businesses (unlike Harlem black-vs.-black riot of '64); "it was like revenge"
  • 4th day, Sat. - satellite riots in Pasadena, Long Beach, San Diego - police began to use more force - 20+ killed
  • 5th day, Sun. - still curfew and National Guard
  • 6th day, Mon.
  • 7th day, Tues - curfew ended and Guard left on Wed., Aug. 18
  • McCone Commission (John McCone) said was "senseless" (wrong - did not probe for real basic causes) and that only 10,000 blacks particip. (but actually 30-80,000) and only black member Rev. James Edward Jones wrote dissent that it was not a "riot" but a "protest" by people not allowed to participate in mainstream of society
  • Kerner Commission of March 1968 blamed white racisim - deeper causes to riots
  • few social programs came to Watts afterwards - King's nonviolence won greater successes, but Watts caused black pride: "we won b/c we made the whole world pay attention to us"
  • represented failure of liberal optimism of inclusionist society, progress thru legislation

    • Hispanic Rights

  • Cesar Chavez like ML King - worked within the system with white allies like Robert Kennedy and Gov. Edmund G. Brown, Sr.
  • founded National Farm Workers in 1963 - subsequent strikes by migrant farm laborers gave rise to word "Chicano"
  • stereotypes = Frito Bandito on TV and Leo Carrillo bowing sombrero to John Wayne in movies
  • radicals were different: bilingual education, community control in cities, use of Pocho dialect, reject individualism for brotherhood (work for the betterment of the people rather than oneself), keep own values and culture = "La Raza"
  • earlier foundations since 1930's: educator George Sanchez at Univ of Texas dev'd bilingualism in New Mexico schools; activist communist labor leader Emma Tenayuca, Congress of Spanish-Speaking People
  • Henry Gonzalez elected to Congress from San Antonio 1961
  • Joseph Montoya of New Mexico to Senate
  • Jose Gutierrez "kill the gringo" in Texas - f. La Raza Unida political party after 1969
  • El Tigre (Reis Lopez Tijerina), preacher, f. Fed Alliance of Land Grants
  • Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales in Denver 1966 f. Crusade for Justice
  • news reporter Ruben Salazar killed 1970 in demonstration by National Chicano Moratorium Committee (Brown Berets of David Sanchez)

    • Native Americans

  • Puyallup fish-ins of 1964 opposed Washington state court decisions limiting fishing rights
  • Navajo opposed Peabody Coal Co. mining in 1969
  • Alcatraz occupied 1969
  • AIM founded by George Mitchell and Dennis Banks 1968, seized town of Wounded Knee 1973

    • Women's Liberation

  • "The women's movement was by far the largest and most influential of all the social movements of the early 1970s."
  • Betty Friedan wrote The Feminine Mystique 1963, started NOW 1966
  • Ms. magazine 1971, consciousness-raising groups "served as springboards for action."
  • petitions and class-action lawsuits to win equal jobs, opposed demeaning labels such as "chicks" and kept own surnames, reform health education and start independent clinics
  • "The feminist challenge to traditional sex roles also encouraged the growth of the gay and lesbian rights movement."

    • Gay Pride

  • riot at the Stonewall Inn 1969 caused rise of "Gay Power"

    • Revised 4/24/03 | Sixties links | Sixties chapter | Civil Rights | articles