Segregation in housing was a problem across the United States. Many African Americans could not get mortgages to buy houses. Realtors would not sell black people houses in the suburbs, where white people lived. They also would not rent apartments in white areas. Until the 1950s, the federal government did nothing about this.
When he was elected in 1913, President Woodrow Wilson made government offices segregated. He believed that segregation was best for everyone.
Black people fought in both World War I and World War II. However, the military was segregated, and they were not given the same opportunities as white soldiers. After activism from black veterans, President Harry Truman de-segregated the military in 1948.
African Americans tried to fight back against discrimination in many ways. They formed new groups and tried to form labor unions. They tried to use the courts to get justice. For example, in 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was created. It fought to end race discrimination through lawsuits, education, and lobbying.
However, eventually, many African Americans became frustrated and began to dislike the idea of using slow, legal strategies to achieve desegregation. Instead, African American activists decided to use a combination of protests, nonviolence, and civil disobedience. This is how the Civil Rights Movement of 1954-1968 began.
Schools in the South, and some other parts of the country, had been segregated since 1896. In that year, the Supreme Court had ruled in "Plessy v. Ferguson" that segregation was legal, as long as things were "separate but equal."
In 1951, thirteen black parents filed a class action lawsuit against the Board of Education in Topeka, Kansas. In the lawsuit, the parents argued that the black and white schools were not "separate but equal." They said the black school was much worse than the white one.
The lawsuit eventually went to the United States Supreme Court. After years of work, Thurgood Marshall and a team of other NAACP lawyers won the case. The Supreme Court ruled that segregated schools were illegal. All nine Supreme Court judges agreed.
In their decision, the Court said:
"We conclude that, in ... public education, the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal."
This was the Civil Rights Movement's first major victory. However, "Brown" did not reverse "Plessy v. Ferguson." Brown made segregation in schools illegal. But segregation in all other places was still legal.
Civil rights leaders focused on Montgomery, Alabama, because the segregation there was so extreme. On December 1, 1955, local black leader Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a public bus to make room for a white passenger. Parks and was a civil rights activist and NAACP member; she had just returned from a training on nonviolent civil disobedience. She was arrested.
African-Americans gathered and organized the Montgomery Bus Boycott. They decided they would not ride on the buses again until they were treated the same as whites. Under segregation, blacks could not sit in front of whites - they had to sit in the back of the bus. Also, if a white person told a black person to move so they could sit down, the black person had to.
Most of Montgomery's 50,000 African Americans took part in the boycott. It lasted for 381 days and almost bankrupt the bus system. Meanwhile, the NAACP had been working on a lawsuit about segregation on buses. In 1956, they won the case, and the Supreme Court ordered Alabama to de-segregate its buses. The boycott ended with a victory.
In 1957, the NAACP had signed up nine African American students (called the "Little Rock Nine") to go to Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Before this, only whites were allowed at the school. However, the Little Rock School Board had agreed to follow the Supreme Court's decision in "Brown v. Board of Education" and de-segregate its schools.
Then came the black students' first day of school. The Governor of Arkansas called out soldiers from the Arkansas National Guard to prevent the black students from even entering the school. This was against a Supreme Court ruling, so President Dwight D. Eisenhower got involved. He took control of the Arkansas National Guard and ordered them to leave the school. Then he sent soldiers from the United States Army to protect the students. This was an important civil rights victory. It meant the federal government was willing to get involved and force states to end segregation in schools.
Unfortunately, the Little Rock Nine were treated very badly by many of the white students at the school. At the end of the school year, Little Rock Central High School closed so it would not have to allow black students the next year. Other schools across the South did the same thing.
Between 1958 and 1960, activists used sit-ins to protest segregation at lunch counters (small restaurants inside stores). They would sit at the lunch counter and politely ask to buy some food. When they were told to leave, they would continue to sit quietly at the counter. Often they would stay until the lunch counter closed. Groups of activists would keep coming back to sit in at the same places until those places agreed to serve African Americans at their lunch counters.
In 1958, the NAACP organized the first sit-in in Wichita, Kansas. They sat in at a lunch counter in a store called Dockum's Drug Store. After three weeks, they got the store to de-segregate. Not long after, all of the Dockum Drug Stores in Kansas were de-segregated. Next, students in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma led a successful sit-in at another drug store.
In 1960, college students (including some white students) began to sit in at a Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. After a while, they began to sit in at other lunch counters. In the stores that held these lunch counters, sales dropped by one-third. These stores de-segregated to avoid continuing to lose money. After five months of sit-ins, the Woolworth's in Greensboro also de-segregated its lunch counter. Newspapers all over the country wrote about the Greensboro sit-ins. Soon, people started sitting in across the South.
A few days after the Greensboro students started their sit-in, students in Nashville, Tennessee began their own sit-ins. They chose stores in the part of Nashville that had the most businesses. Before starting their sit-ins, they decided they would not be violent, no matter what. They wrote out rules, which activists in other cities began to use also. Their rules said:
"Do not [hit] back or curse if abused. ... Do not block entrances to stores outside [or] the aisles inside. [Be polite] and friendly at all times. Do sit straight; always face the counter. ... Do refer information seekers to your leader in a polite manner. Remember the teachings of Jesus, Gandhi, Martin Luther King. Love and nonviolence is the way."
Many of the Nashville students were attacked and abused by groups of white people; arrested; and even beaten by police. However, the students were always nonviolent. Their protests, and the attacks on them, brought more newspaper stories and attention. It also showed how the activists were truly nonviolent. After three months of sit-ins, all of the lunch counters in Nashville's downtown department stores were de-segregated.
Soon, there were sit-ins all over the country. Sit-ins even happened in Nevada, and in northern states like Ohio. Over 70,000 people, black and white, took part in sit-ins. They used sit-ins to protest all kinds of segregated places - not just lunch counters, but also beaches, parks, museums, libraries, swimming pools, and other public places.