Ìrìnkánkán àwọn Ẹ̀tọ́ Aráàlú ọmọ Áfríkà Amẹ́ríkà (1955–1968)
Ìrìnkánkán àwọn Ẹ̀tọ́ Aráàlú ọmọ Áfríkà Amẹ́ríkà (1955–1968) ("African-American Civil Rights Movement" (1955–1968)) le tọ́ka sí àwọn ìrìnkánkán àwùjọ ní Orílẹ̀-èdè Amẹ́ríkà tó fẹ́ fi òfin de ìwà ẹlẹ́yàmẹ́yà sí àwọn adúláwọ̀ ará Amẹ́ríkà kí ó sì dá ẹ̀tọ́ ìdìbò padà fún wọn. Àyọkà yìí dálé apá ìrìnkánkán tó wáyé láàrin ọdún 1955 àti 1968, àgàgà ní Gúúsù. Ìjádewá ìrìnkánkan Black Power, tó bẹ̀rẹ̀ láti 1966 dé 1975, jẹ́ kí àwọn ìfojúsùn Ìrìnkánkán àwọn Ẹ̀tọ́ Aráàlú ó fẹ̀ si látí ṣàkọ́mọ́ iyì ẹ̀yà, ìtọ́ ará-ẹni olókòwò àti olóṣèlú, àti òmìnira lọ́wọ́ ìṣẹ̀gà àwọn aláwọ̀funfun ará Amẹ́ríkà.
Ìrìnkánkán náà jẹ́ dídámọ̀ pẹ̀lú ìwọ́de nínlá ìkọ̀yà aráàlú. Láàrin 1955 àti 1968, ìwọ́de aláìníjàgídíjàgan àti àìgbọràn aráàlú fa rògbòdìyàn láàrin àwọn alákitiyan àti àwọn aláṣe ìjọba. Àwọn ìjọba àpapọ̀, ìpínlẹ̀ àti ìbílẹ̀, àwọn ilé ìṣòwò, àti àwùjọ jẹ́ pípọndandan láti kojú àwọn ìwọ́de wọ̀nyí tí wọ́n tọ́kasí àwọn àìbánidọ́gba tó únkojú àwọn ọmọ Áfríkà Amẹ́ríkà. Àwọn irú ìfarakọ̀ àti/tábí àìgbọràn aráàlú ní bọikọ́tì bíi ti Bọikọ́tì Ọkọ̀-akérò Montgomery (1955–1956) tó yọrí sí rere ní Alabama; "ìjókòódè" bíi ti ìjọ́kòó Greensboro (1960) ni North Carolina; ìwọ́de, bíi ti àwọn ìwọ́de láti Selma lọ sí Montgomery (1965) ni Alabama; àti orísirísi ọ̀pọ̀ akitiyan aláìníjàgídíjàgan.
Àyọrí aṣòfin tó wáyé nígbà Ìrìnkánkán àwọn Ẹ̀tọ́ Aráàlú yí ni ìṣọdòfin Ìṣe Òfin àwọn Ẹ̀tọ́ Aráàlú 1964, tó fòfin de ìṣojúsáájú nítorí "ẹ̀yà, àwọ̀, ẹ̀sìn, tàbí orílẹ̀-èdè" ní ẹnu ìṣẹ́ àti ní ilé ìgboro; Ìṣe Òfin àwọn Ẹ̀tọ́ Ìdìbò 1965, tó ṣèdápadà àti ìdáàbòbò àwọn ẹ̀tọ́ ìdìbò; Ìṣe Òfin Ìkórawọ̀lú àti Ìjẹ́ọmọọrílẹ̀-èdè 1965, tó sí ọ̀nà ìwọlé sí Amẹ́ríkà fún àwọn ará orílè-èdè yíokù lẹ́yín àwọn tí wọ́n wá láti Europe; àti Ìṣe Òfin Ilé Ẹlẹ́tọ̀ọ́ 1968, tó fòfin de ìṣojúsáájú nínú títà tàbí yíyá ilé. Àwọn ọmọ Áfríkà Amẹ́ríkà padà sí ọ̀ṣèlú nú gúúsù, bẹ́ẹ̀sìni ní káàkiri orílẹ̀-èdè àwọn ọ̀dọ́ ní ìwúrí láti ṣàtúnṣe.
Lẹ́yìn tí àríyànjiyàn ìdìbòyàn 1876 ti fa òpin sí Àtúnkọ́, àwọn Aláwọ̀funfun ní Gúúsù gba agbára olóṣèlú ibẹ̀, lẹ́yìn tí wọ́n ti ṣe ìdẹ̀rùbà àti fa jàgídíjàgan nínú àwọn ìdìbòyàn. Díẹ̀díẹ̀ wọ́n bẹ̀rẹ̀ sí ní gba àwọn ẹ̀tọ́ àwọn ọmọ Áfríkà Amẹ́ríkà kúrò ní ọwọ́ wọn ní àwọn ìpínlẹ̀ Apágúúsù láti 1890 di 1908 èyí sì jẹ́ bẹ́ẹ̀ títí tí òfin àwọn ẹ̀tọ́ aráàlú ọmọorílẹ̀-èdè wáyé ní àrin ọ̀rúndún 1960. Fún ọdún tó pọ̀ ju 60 ọdún lọ, fún àpẹrẹ, àwọn adúláwọ̀ ní Gúúsù kò ní ẹ̀tọ́ láti dìbòyan ẹnìkankan láti ṣojú fún wọn ní Ilé Aṣòfin tàbí nínú ìjọba ìbílẹ̀.
During this period, the white-dominated Democratic Party regained political control over the South. The Republican Party—the "party of Lincoln"—which had been the party that most blacks belonged to, shrank to insignificance as black voter registration was suppressed. By the early 20th century, almost all elected officials in the South were Democrats.
During the same time as African Americans were being disfranchised, white Democrats imposed racial segregation by law. Violence against blacks increased. The system of overt, state-sanctioned racial discrimination and oppression that emerged out of the post-Reconstruction South became known as the "Jim Crow" system. It remained virtually intact into the early 1950s. Thus, the early 20th century is a period often referred to as the "nadir of American race relations". While problems and civil rights violations were most intense in the South, social tensions affected African Americans in other regions as well.
Characteristics of the post-Reconstruction period:
African Americans and other racial minorities rejected this regime. They resisted it in numerous ways and sought better opportunities through lawsuits, new organizations, political redress, and labor organizing ("see" the African-American Civil Rights Movement (1896–1954)). The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded in 1909. It fought to end race discrimination through litigation, education, and lobbying efforts. Its crowning achievement was its legal victory in the Supreme Court decision "Brown v. Board of Education" (1954) that rejected separate white and colored school systems and by implication overturned the "separate but equal" doctrine established in "Plessy v. Ferguson".
The situation for blacks outside the South was somewhat better (in most states they could vote and have their children educated, though they still faced discrimination in housing and jobs). From 1910 to 1970, African Americans sought better lives by migrating north and west. A total of nearly seven million blacks left the South in what was known as the Great Migration.
Invigorated by the victory of "Brown" and frustrated by the lack of immediate practical effect, private citizens increasingly rejected gradualist, legalistic approaches as the primary tool to bring about desegregation. They were faced with "massive resistance" in the South by proponents of racial segregation and voter suppression. In defiance, African Americans adopted a combined strategy of direct action with nonviolent resistance known as civil disobedience, giving rise to the African-American Civil Rights Movement of 1955–1968.
The strategy of public education, legislative lobbying, and litigation that had typified the Civil Rights Movement during the first half of the 20th Century broadened after "Brown" to a strategy that emphasized "direct action"—primarily boycotts, sit-ins, Freedom Rides, marches and similar tactics that relied on mass mobilization, nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience. This mass action approach typified the movement from 1960 to 1968.
Churches, the centers of their communities, local grassroots organizations, fraternal societies, and black-owned businesses, mobilized volunteers to participate in broad-based actions. This was a more direct and potentially more rapid means of creating change than the traditional approach of mounting court challenges.
In 1952, the Regional Council of Negro Leadership (RCNL), led by T. R. M. Howard, a black surgeon, entrepreneur, and planter, organized a successful boycott of gas stations in Mississippi that refused to provide restrooms for blacks. Through the RCNL, Howard led campaigns to expose brutality by the Mississippi state highway patrol and to encourage blacks to make deposits in the black-owned Tri-State Bank of Nashville which, in turn, gave loans to civil rights activists who were victims of a "credit squeeze" by the White Citizens' Councils.
The Montgomery Improvement Association—created to lead the Montgomery Bus Boycott managed to keep the boycott going for over a year until a federal court order required Montgomery to desegregate its buses. The success in Montgomery made its leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. a nationally known figure. It also inspired other bus boycotts, such as the highly successful Tallahassee, Florida, boycott of 1956–1957.
In 1957 Dr. King and Rev. John Duffy, the leaders of the Montgomery Improvement Association, joined with other church leaders who had led similar boycott efforts, such as Rev. C. K. Steele of Tallahassee and Rev. T. J. Jemison of Baton Rouge; and other activists such as Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, Ella Baker, A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin and Stanley Levison, to form the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The SCLC, with its headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, did not attempt to create a network of chapters as the NAACP did. It offered training and leadership assistance for local efforts to fight segregation. The headquarters organization raised funds, mostly from Northern sources, to support such campaigns. It made non-violence both its central tenet and its primary method of confronting racism.
In 1959, Septima Clarke, Bernice Robinson, and Esau Jenkins, with the help of the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee, began the first Citizenship Schools in South Carolina's Sea Islands. They taught literacy to enable blacks to pass voting tests. The program was an enormous success and tripled the number of black voters on Johns Island. SCLC took over the program and duplicated its results elsewhere.
Spring 1951 was the year in which great turmoil was felt amongst Black students in reference to Virginia state's educational system. At the time in Prince Edward County, Moton High School was segregated and students had decided to take matters into their own hands to fight against two things: the overpopulated school premises and the unsuitable conditions in their school. This particular behavior coming from Black people in the South was most likely unexpected and inappropriate as White people had expectations for Blacks to act in a subordinate manner. Moreover, some local leaders of the NAACP had tried to persuade the students to back down from their protest against the Jim Crow laws of school segregation. When the students did not accept the NAACP's demands, the NAACP automatically joined them in their battle against school segregation. This became one of the five cases that made up what is known today as "Brown v. Board of Education".
On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision regarding the case called "Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas", in which the plaintiffs charged that the education of black children in separate public schools from their white counterparts was unconstitutional. The opinion of the Court stated that the "segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law; for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the Negro group."
The lawyers from the NAACP had to gather some plausible evidence in order to win the case of Brown vs. Education. Their way of addressing the issue of school segregation was to enumerate several arguments. One of them pertained to having an exposure to interracial contact in a school environment. It was said that it would, in turn, help to prevent children to live with the pressures that society exerts in regards to race. Therefore, having a better chance of living in democracy. In addition, another was in reference to the emphasis of how "'education’ comprehends the entire process of developing and training the mental, physical and moral powers and capabilities of human beings”. In Goluboff's book, it has been stated that the goals of the NAACP was to bring to the Court’s awareness the fact that African American children were the victims of the legalization of school segregation and were not guaranteed a bright future. Without having the opportunity to be exposed to other cultures, it impedes on how Black children will function later on as adults trying to live a normal life.
The Court ruled that both Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which had established the segregationist, "separate but equal" standard in general, and Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education (1899), which had applied that standard to schools, were unconstitutional. The following year, in the case known as "Brown v. Board of Education", the Court ordered segregation to be phased out over time, "with all deliberate speed". Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954) did not overturn Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). Plessy v. Ferguson was segregation based on transportation. Brown v. Board of Education dealt with segregation in education. Brown v. Board of Education did set in motion the future overturning of 'separate but equal'.
On May 18, 1954 Greensboro became the first city in the South to publicly announce that it would abide by the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education ruling which declared racial segregation in the nation’s public schools unconstitutional. ‘It is unthinkable,’ remarked School Board Superintendent Benjamin Smith, ‘that we will try to [override] the laws of the United States.’ In agreement with Smith’s position, the school board voted six to one to support the court’s ruling. This positive reception for Brown, together with the appointment of African American Dr. David Jones to the school board in 1953, convinced numerous white and black citizens that Greensboro was heading in a forward direction and would likely emerge as a leader in school integration. Integration in Greensboro occurred rather peacefully compared to that of other Southern states such as Alabama, Arkansas, and Virginia where “massive resistance” took hold.
On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks (the "mother of the Civil Rights Movement") refused to give up her seat on a public bus to make room for a white passenger. She was secretary of the Montgomery NAACP chapter and had recently returned from a meeting at the Highlander Center in Tennessee where nonviolent civil disobedience as a strategy had been discussed. Parks was arrested, tried, and convicted for disorderly conduct and violating a local ordinance. After word of this incident reached the black community, 50 African-American leaders gathered and organized the Montgomery Bus Boycott to demand a more humane bus transportation system. However, after many reforms were rejected, the NAACP, led by E.D. Nixon, pushed for full desegregation of public buses. With the support of most of Montgomery's 50,000 African Americans, the boycott lasted for 381 days until the local ordinance segregating African-Americans and whites on public buses was lifted. Ninety percent of African Americans in Montgomery partook in the boycotts, which reduced bus revenue by 80% until a federal court ordered Montgomery's buses desegregated in November 1956, and the boycott ended.
A young Baptist minister named Martin Luther King, Jr. was president of the Montgomery Improvement Association, the organization that directed the boycott. The protest made King a national figure. His eloquent appeals to Christian brotherhood and American idealism created a positive impression on people both inside and outside the South.
Little Rock, Arkansas, was in a relatively progressive Southern state. A crisis erupted, however, when Governor of Arkansas Orval Faubus called out the National Guard on September 4 to prevent entry to the nine African-American students who had sued for the right to attend an integrated school, Little Rock Central High School. The nine students had been chosen to attend Central High because of their excellent grades. On the first day of school, only one of the nine students showed up because she did not receive the phone call about the danger of going to school. She was harassed by white protesters outside the school, and the police had to take her away in a patrol car to protect her. Afterward, the nine students had to carpool to school and be escorted by military personnel in jeeps.
Faubus was not a proclaimed segregationist. The Arkansas Democratic Party, which then controlled politics in the state, put significant pressure on Faubus after he had indicated he would investigate bringing Arkansas into compliance with the "Brown" decision. Faubus then took his stand against integration and against the Federal court order that required it.
Faubus' order received the attention of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was determined to enforce the orders of the Federal courts. Critics had charged he was lukewarm, at best, on the goal of desegregation of public schools. Eisenhower federalized the National Guard and ordered them to return to their barracks. Eisenhower then deployed elements of the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock to protect the students.
The students were able to attend high school. They had to pass through a gauntlet of spitting, jeering whites to arrive at school on their first day, and to put up with harassment from fellow students for the rest of the year. Although federal troops escorted the students between classes, the students were still teased and even attacked by white students when the soldiers were not around. One of the Little Rock Nine, Minnijean Brown, was suspended for spilling a bowl of chili on the head of a white student who was harassing her in the school lunch line. Later, she was expelled for verbally abusing a white female student.
Only one of the Little Rock Nine, Ernest Green, got the chance to graduate; after the 1957–58 school year was over, the Little Rock school system decided to shut public schools completely rather than continue to integrate. Other school systems across the South followed suit.
The Civil Rights Movement received an infusion of energy with a student sit-in at a Woolworth's store in Greensboro, North Carolina. On February 1, 1960, four students Ezell A. Blair, Jr. (now known as Jibreel Khazan), David Richmond, Joseph McNeil, and Franklin McCain from North Carolina Agricultural & Technical College, an all-black college, sat down at the segregated lunch counter to protest Woolworth's policy of excluding African Americans. The four students purchased small items in other parts of the store and kept their receipts, then sat down at the lunch counter and asked to be served. After being denied service, they produced their receipts and asked why their money was good everywhere else at the store, but not at the lunch counter. These protesters were encouraged to dress professionally, to sit quietly, and to occupy every other stool so that potential white sympathizers could join in. The sit-in soon inspired other sit-ins in Richmond, Virginia; Nashville, Tennessee; and Atlanta, Georgia.
As students across the south began to "sit-in" at the lunch counters of a few of their local stores, local authority figures sometimes used brute force to physically escort the demonstrators from the lunch facilities.
The "sit-in" technique was not new—as far back as 1939, African-American attorney Samuel Wilbert Tucker organized a sit-in at the then-segregated Alexandria, Virginia library. In 1960 the technique succeeded in bringing national attention to the movement. The success of the Greensboro sit-in led to a rash of student campaigns throughout the South. Probably the best organized, most highly disciplined, the most immediately effective of these was in Nashville, Tennessee.
On March 9, 1960 an Atlanta University Center group of students released An Appeal for Human Rights as a full page advertisement in newspapers, including the "Atlanta Constitution", "Atlanta Journal", and "Atlanta Daily World". This student group, known as the Committee on the Appeal for Human Rights (COAHR), initiated the Atlanta Student Movement and began to lead in Atlanta with sit-ins starting on March 15, 1960.
By the end of 1960, the sit-ins had spread to every southern and border state and even to Nevada, Illinois, and Ohio.
Demonstrators focused not only on lunch counters but also on parks, beaches, libraries, theaters, museums, and other public places. Upon being arrested, student demonstrators made "jail-no-bail" pledges, to call attention to their cause and to reverse the cost of protest, thereby saddling their jailers with the financial burden of prison space and food.
In April, 1960 activists who had led these sit-ins held a conference at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina that led to the formation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). SNCC took these tactics of nonviolent confrontation further, to the freedom rides.