PART ONE: First Things First: Beginnings in History, to 500 B

CHAPTER

27

Walking into Freedom Land:
The Civil Rights Movement

1941–1973

CHAPTER OUTLINE usually held low-wage menial jobs. Poll
taxes, literacy tests, and intimidation had
The following annotated chapter outline will help chiseled the proportion of eligible black
you review the major topics covered in this chapter. voters to 20 percent, giving whites
disproportionate power.
I. The Emerging Civil Rights Struggle, 5. In the North, racial segregation in
1941–1957 everyday life was less acute but equally
A. Life Under Jim Crow tangible. Northern segregation took the
1. Racial segregation and economic form of a spatial system in which whites
exploitation defined the lives of the increasingly lived in suburbs or on the
majority of African Americans in the outskirts of cities, while African
postwar decades. Americans were concentrated in
2. Numbering 15 million in 1950, African downtown neighborhoods.
Americans were approximately 10 percent 6. There was greater freedom for African
of the U.S. population, but in the South, Americans in the North and West than in
they constituted between 30 and 50 the South. Blacks could vote, participate
percent of the population of several states, in politics, and, at least after the early
such as South Carolina and Mississippi. 1960s, enjoy equal access to public
3. Segregation, commonly known as Jim accommodations. However, poverty and
Crow, prevailed in every aspect of racial discrimination were also deeply
southern life. In southern states, where entrenched in the North and West.
two-thirds of all African Americans lived B. Origins of the Civil Rights Movement
in 1950, blacks could not eat in restaurants 1. A series of factors came together in the
patronized by whites or use the same middle of the twentieth century to make a
waiting rooms at bus stations. broad and unique movement possible.
4. Economic and political structures further 2. An important influence was World War II.
marginalized and disempowered black In the war against fascism, the Allies
citizens. African Americans could not sought to discredit racist Nazi ideology.
work for local or state government and

CHAPTER 27 • WALKING INTO FREEDOM LAND: THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

Committed to an antiracist ideology c. On the home front, activists pushed
abroad, Americans increasingly two strategies. A. Philip Randolph,
condemned all forms of racism, even whose Brotherhood of Sleeping Car
those at home. Porters was the most prominent black
3. The Cold War placed added pressure on trade union, called for a march on
U.S. officials. To inspire other nations in Washington in early 1941, planning to
the global standoff with the Soviet Union, protest for equal opportunity in war
Truman advocated that the United States jobs.
establish true democracy.
4. Among the most consequential factors d. To avoid a divisive protest, FDR
was the growth of the urban black middle issued Executive Order 8802,
class. Historically small, the black middle prohibiting racial discrimination in
class experienced robust growth after defense industries, and Randolph
World War II. Its ranks produced most of agreed to cancel the march. The
the civil rights leaders. resulting Fair Employment Practices
5. Churches, for centuries a sanctuary for Commission (FEPC) was weak, but it
black Americans, were especially set an important precedent: federal
important. So were African American action in support of civil rights.
college students—part of the largest
expansion of college enrollment in U.S. 2. The Double V Campaign
history— who joined the movement, a. A second strategy was the “Double V
adding new energy and fresh ideas. Campaign,” a patriotic racial slogan
6. Labor leaders were generally more that spread like wildfire through black
equality-minded than the rank and file, but communities across the country.
trade unions such as the United Auto African Americans would demonstrate
Workers, the United Steelworkers, and the their love of country by fighting the
Communications Workers of America, Axis powers. But they would also
among many others, were reliable allies at demand, peacefully but emphatically,
the national level. the defeat of racism at home.
7. The new medium of television played a b. Those efforts met considerable
crucial role. When television networks resistance. In war industries, factories
covered early desegregation struggles, periodically shut down in Chicago,
such as the 1957 integration of Little Rock Baltimore, Philadelphia, and other
High School, Americans across the cities because of “hate strikes”: the
country saw the violence of white refusal of white workers to labor
supremacy firsthand. alongside black workers.
C. World War II: The Beginnings c. Race riots were one manifestation of
1. Executive Order 8802 white resistance to change. On a hot
a. During the war fought for basic human summer day in Detroit, whites from the
city’s ethnic neighborhoods taunted
freedoms “to make the world safe for and beat African Americans in a local
democracy,” America was far from park. Three days of rioting ensued in
ready to extend full equality to its own which thirty-four people were killed,
black citizens. twenty-five of them black. Federal
b. Black workers faced discrimination in troops were called in to restore order.
wartime employment, and more than a d. Despite and because of such incidents,
million black troops served in a generation was spurred into action
segregated units commanded by during the war years. One of the first
whites. bus boycotts occurred in New York
City in 1941, and the Congress of
Racial Equality (CORE) emerged in

CHAPTER 27 • WALKING INTO FREEDOM LAND: THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

Chicago in 1942. African American b. McCarthyism and the hunt for
veterans used the GI Bill after the war subversives at home held the civil
to push against segregation. rights movement back. Civil rights
D. Cold War Civil Rights opponents charged that racial
1. Civil Rights and the New Deal Coalition integration was “communistic,” and the
a. Symbolic victories, such as Jackie NAACP was banned in many southern
Robinson breaking the color line in states as an “anti-American”
baseball and northern liberals organization.
becoming allies of civil rights
advocates, propelled many African c. Black Americans who spoke favorably
Americans into action. of the Soviet Union, such as the actor
b. African American leaders also had and singer Paul Robeson, or had been
hopes for President Truman. Although “fellow travelers” in the 1930s, such as
capable of racist language, Truman the pacifist Bayard Rustin, were
supported civil rights on moral persecuted by the House Un-American
grounds. He understood, moreover, the Activities Committee.
growing importance of the black vote
in key northern states, a fact driven d. The fate of people like Robeson
home by his surprise 1948 victory. showed that the Cold War could work
c. Lacking support in Congress for civil against the civil rights cause just as
rights legislation, Truman turned to easily as for it.
executive action. In 1946, he appointed
a Presidential Committee on Civil E. Mexican Americans and Japanese Americans
Rights, whose 1947 report called for 1. In the Southwest, from Texas to
robust federal action on behalf of civil California, Mexican immigrants and
rights. In 1948, under pressure from A. Mexican Americans endured a “caste”
Philip Randolph’s Committee Against system not unlike the Jim Crow South.
Jim Crow in Military Service, Truman 2. Labor activism in the 1930s and 1940s,
signed an executive order especially in Congress of Industrial
desegregating the armed forces as well Organizations (CIO) unions with large
as employment in federal agencies. numbers of Mexican Americans,
d. Truman’s boldness upset southern improved wages and working conditions
Democrats who, under the leadership in some industries and produced a new
of Strom Thurmond, created the States’ generation of leaders.
Rights Democratic Party, popularly 3. Additionally, more than 400,000 Mexican
known as the Dixiecrats, for the 1948 Americans served in World War II.
election. Having fought for their country, many
2. Race and Anticommunism returned to the United States, determined
a. The Cold War struggle between the to challenge their second-class citizenship.
United States and the Soviet Union 4. A new Mexican American middle class
shaped postwar civil rights in both began to take shape in major cities such as
positive and negative terms. The Soviet Los Angeles, San Antonio, El Paso, and
Union routinely used American racism Chicago, which, like the African
as a means of discrediting the United American middle class, provided leaders
States abroad. The worry about and resources to the cause.
America’s tarnished image 5. In Texas and California, Mexican
strengthened the hand of civil rights Americans created new civil rights
leaders. organizations in the postwar years. In
1948, World War II veterans and activists
in Corpus Christi, Texas, founded the
American GI Forum; in California,
activists established the Community

CHAPTER 27 • WALKING INTO FREEDOM LAND: THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

Services Organization to protest the poor black populations passed similar
treatment of Mexican American soldiers legislation, despite the creation of
and veterans, but both groups soon alliances with trade unions and liberal
broadened their scope to encompass organizations.
political and economic justice. c. In the meantime, however, NAACP
6. Activists also pushed for legal change. In lawyers Thurgood Marshall, Charles
1947, five Mexican American fathers in Hamilton Houston, and William Hastie
California sued a local school district for had been preparing the legal ground in
placing their children in separate a series of test cases challenging racial
“Mexican” schools. Although Mendez v. discrimination.
Westminster School District never made it d. Marshall, the great-grandson of slaves,
to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Ninth graduated from Lincoln University in
Circuit Court ruled such segregation Philadelphia and Howard University.
unconstitutional, laying the legal Marshall would argue most of the
groundwork for broader challenges to NAACP’s landmark cases and become
racial inequality. the first African American appointed to
7. In another significant legal victory, the the Supreme Court in 1967.
Supreme Court ruled in 1954—just two e. Legal challenges gradually led to
weeks before the landmark Brown v. success: the Supreme Court ruled in
Board of Education decision—that Smith v. Allwright (1944) that all-white
Mexican Americans constituted a “distinct primaries were unconstitutional and in
class” that could claim protection from McLaurin v. Oklahoma (1950) that
discrimination. universities could not segregate black
8. Also on the West Coast, Japanese students from others on campus.
Americans accelerated their legal Although little change in daily life
challenge to discrimination. Undeterred by occurred as a result of these cases, they
rulings in the Hirabayashi (1943) and nevertheless began to crack the system
Korematsu (1944) cases upholding of segregation.
wartime imprisonment (see Chapter 24), 2. Brown v. Board of Education
the Japanese American Citizens League a. A landmark civil rights case, the
(JACL) filed lawsuits in the late 1940s to Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
regain property lost during the war. decision involved Linda Brown, a
9. These efforts by Mexican and Japanese black pupil in Topeka, Kansas, who
Americans enlarged the scope of civil had been forced to attend a distant
rights beyond demands by African segregated school rather than the
Americans and laid the foundation for a nearby white elementary school. The
broader notion of racial equality in the NAACP’s chief counsel, Thurgood
postwar years. Marshall, argued that such segregation,
F. Fighting for Equality Before the Law mandated by the Topeka Board of
1. Thurgood Marshall Education, was unconstitutional
a. With southern Democrats determined because it denied Linda Brown the
“equal protection of the laws”
to block civil rights legislation in guaranteed by the Fourteenth
Congress, activists looked toward Amendment.
northern state legislatures and federal b. The unanimous decision overturned the
courts for recourse. “separate but equal” doctrine of Plessy
b. The first fair employment laws had v. Ferguson and declared simply that
come in New York and New Jersey in integration should proceed “with all
1945, but it would take another decade deliberate speed.”
before other states with significant

CHAPTER 27 • WALKING INTO FREEDOM LAND: THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

c. Southerners, however, called for Emmett Till, was murdered for flirting
“massive resistance.” The “Southern with a white woman in a Mississippi
Manifesto,” signed in 1956 by 101 store. Photos of Till’s mutilated body
members of Congress, denounced the in Jet magazine brought national
Brown decision as “a clear abuse of attention to the heinous crime.
judicial power” and encouraged their c. An all-white jury finding the murderers
constituents to defy it. That year, half a innocent galvanized an entire
million southerners joined White generation of African Americans into
Citizens’ Councils dedicated to action.
blocking school integration. Some d. On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a
whites revived the old tactics of seamstress and civil rights activist in
violence and intimidation, swelling the Montgomery, Alabama, refused to give
ranks of the Ku Klux Klan to levels not up her seat on a city bus to a white
seen since the 1920s. man. She was arrested and charged
with violating a local segregation
d. President Eisenhower accepted the ordinance.
Brown decision as the law of the land, e. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., the
but he thought it was a mistake and recently appointed pastor of
was not happy about committing Montgomery’s Dexter Street Baptist
federal power to enforce it. Church, who embraced the teachings
of Mahatma Gandhi, endorsed a plan
6. A crisis in Little Rock, Arkansas, finally proposed by a local black women’s
forced his hand. In September 1957, nine organization to boycott Montgomery’s
black students attempted to enroll at the bus system until it was integrated.
all-white Central High School. Governor f. For 381 days, Montgomery’s African
Orval Faubus called out the National Americans formed car pools or walked
Guard to bar them. Then the mob took to work. Although the transit company
over. Every day, the nine students had to neared bankruptcy owing to empty
run a gauntlet of angry whites chanting busses and downtown stores lost
“Go back to the jungle.” As the vicious business, only a Supreme Court
scenes played out on television night after decision declaring bus segregation
night, Eisenhower finally acted. He sent unconstitutional convinced the city of
1,000 federal troops to Little Rock and Montgomery to comply.
nationalized the Arkansas National Guard, g. The Montgomery bus boycott
ordering them to protect the black catapulted King to national
students. Eisenhower thus became the first prominence. In 1957, along with the
president since Reconstruction to use Reverend Ralph Abernathy, he
federal troops to enforce the rights of founded the Southern Christian
blacks. Leadership Conference (SCLC), based
in Atlanta. The black church, long the
II. Forging a Protest Movement, 1955–1965 center of African American social and
A. Nonviolent Direct Action cultural life, now lent its moral and
1. Montgomery Bus Boycott organizational strength to the civil
a. Southern resistance to Brown rendered rights movement.
the decision unenforceable in practice 2. Greensboro Sit-Ins
and inspired activists to forge a unique a. The battle for civil rights entered a new
protest movement. phase in Greensboro, North Carolina,
b. Brown had been the law of the land for on February 1, 1960, when four black
barely a year when a single act of college students took seats at the
violence struck at the heart of black
America. A fourteen-year-old African
American young man from Chicago,

CHAPTER 27 • WALKING INTO FREEDOM LAND: THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

whites-only lunch counter at the local was firebombed. Despite the violence,
Woolworth’s. They were determined to state authorities refused to intervene.
“sit in” until they were served. c. Although President Kennedy remained
b. Although they were arrested and had to cautious on supporting civil rights,
endure taunting pelting with food and beatings shown on the nightly news
other debris, the sit-in tactic worked— forced Attorney General Robert
the Woolworth’s lunch counter was Kennedy to send federal marshals to
desegregated—and sit-ins quickly Alabama to restore order.
spread to other southern cities. d. Civil rights activists thus learned the
3. Ella Baker and SNCC value of nonviolent protest that
a. After the Woolworth’s lunch counter provoked violent white resistance.
sit-in, the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference and Ella Baker
helped to organize the Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
(SNCC) in 1960 to facilitate sit-ins by
blacks demanding an end to
segregation.
b. Students launched sit-ins in 126 cities
across the Upper South, from North
Carolina into Virginia, Maryland, and
Tennessee, drawing African American
and white college students into the
movement in unprecedented numbers.
c. SNCC quickly emerged as the most
important student protest organization
in the country and inspired a
generation of students on college
campuses across the nation.
d. Baker, a New Deal advocate and
NAACP activist, advocated
participatory democracy and grass
roots activism by ordinary people. Her
protégés included future civil rights
leaders such as Stokely Carmichael,
Anne Moody, John Lewis, and Diane
Nash.
4. Freedom Rides
a. In 1961, the Congress of Racial
Equality organized a series of what
were called Freedom Rides on
interstate bus lines in the South, aimed
to call attention to violations of recent
Supreme Court rulings against
segregation in interstate commerce.
b. The young black and white activists
were attacked by white mobs, and
outside Anniston, Alabama, one bus

CHAPTER 27 • WALKING INTO FREEDOM LAND: THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

B. Legislating Civil Rights, 1963–1965 evidenced an emerging rift within the
1. The Battle for Birmingham movement.
a. When thousands of black d. Southern senators blocked the civil
demonstrators, organized by Martin rights legislation, and there was an
Luther King Jr., marched to picket outbreak of violence by white
Birmingham, Alabama’s department extremists; four black Sunday school
stores, television cameras captured the students were killed when a
severe methods used against them by Birmingham, Alabama, church was
Eugene “Bull” Connor, the city’s bombed.
public safety commissioner. e. On assuming the presidency, Lyndon
b. King, while serving a jail sentence for Johnson made passing a civil rights bill
leading the march, penned his “Letter a priority.
from Birmingham Jail,” justifying f. In June 1964, Congress approved the
nonviolent direct action as necessary to most far-reaching civil rights law since
create a crisis that will awaken Reconstruction. The keystone of the
Americans to the reality of segregation Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title VII,
and inspire legislative action. outlawed discrimination in
c. President Kennedy responded to the employment on the basis of race,
incident on June 11, 1963, when he religion, national origin, and sex.
went on television to promise major Another section guaranteed equal
legislation banning discrimination in access to public accommodations and
public accommodations and schools.
empowering the Justice Department to 3. Freedom Summer
enforce desegregation. a. The Civil Rights Act had not addressed
d. Black leaders hailed Kennedy’s speech black voting rights. In 1964, black
as the “Second Emancipation organizations mounted a major
Proclamation,” yet on the evening of campaign in Mississippi. Known as
the address, Medgar Evers, the Freedom Summer, the effort drew
president of the Mississippi chapter of several thousand volunteers from
the NAACP, was shot and killed. across the country, including nearly
2. The March on Washington and the Civil one thousand white college students
Rights Act from the North.
a. To rouse the conscience of the nation b. They established freedom schools for
and to marshal support for Kennedy’s black children and conducted a major
bill, civil rights leaders launched a voter registration drive. So determined
massive civil rights March on was the opposition that only about
Washington in 1963. twelve hundred black voters were
b. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech and registered that summer, at a cost of
the sight of blacks and whites four murdered civil rights workers and
marching together did more than thirty-seven black churches bombed or
anything else to make the civil rights burned.
movement acceptable to white c. The murders strengthened the resolve
Americans; it also marked the high of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic
point of the civil rights movement and Party (MFDP), which had been
confirmed King’s position as the founded during Freedom Summer.
leading speaker for the black cause. Banned from the “whites only”
c. Young militant activists, including Mississippi Democratic Party, MFDP
John Lewis of the SNCC, who hoped leaders were determined to attend the
to present more provocative speeches, 1964 Democratic National Convention

CHAPTER 27 • WALKING INTO FREEDOM LAND: THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

as the legitimate representatives of rights movement and made African
their state. American equality a cornerstone of
d. Inspired by Fannie Lou Hamer, a new “rights” liberalism.
former sharecropper turned civil rights e. But over the next generation, between
activist, the MFDP challenged the most the 1960s and the 1980s, southern
powerful figures in the Democratic whites and many conservative northern
Party. When party officials seated the whites would respond by switching to
white Mississippi delegation and the Republican Party.
refused to recognize the MFDP, civil III. Beyond Civil Rights, 1966–1973
rights activists left convinced that the A. Black Nationalism
Democratic Party would not change. 1. Malcolm X
4. Selma and the Voting Rights Act a. Black leaders and representatives of
a. In March 1965, James Bevel of the other nonwhite communities
SCLC called for a march from Selma, increasingly realized that if white
Alabama, to the state capital in people remained in charge of the
Montgomery to protest the murder of a country’s major social and political
voting-rights activist. As soon as the institutions, laws and marches would
six hundred marchers left Selma, not eliminate widespread poverty and
crossing over the Edmund Pettus economic inequality for minority
Bridge, mounted state troopers groups.
attacked them with tear gas and clubs. b. The philosophy of black nationalism
The scene was shown on national signified many things in the 1960s. It
television that night and became could mean anything from pride in
known as Bloody Sunday. Calling the one’s community to total separatism,
episode “an American tragedy,” from building African American-
President Johnson went back to owned businesses to wearing dashikis
Congress. to honor African traditions.
b. The Voting Rights Act of 1965, which c. In the early 1960s, the leading
passed on August 6, outlawed the exponent of black nationalism was the
literacy tests and other devices that Nation of Islam, which fused a
prevented blacks from registering to rejection of Christianity with a strong
vote and authorized the attorney philosophy of self-improvement. Black
general to send federal examiners to Muslims, as they were known, adhered
register voters in any county where to a strict code of personal behavior;
registration was less than 50 percent. men were recognizable by their dark
c. In the South, the results were stunning. suits, white shirts, and ties, women by
In 1960, only 20 percent of blacks had their long dresses and head coverings.
been registered to vote; by 1971, d. The most charismatic Black Muslim
registration reached 62 percent. The was Malcolm X (the X stood for his
number of black elected officials also African family name, lost under
increased rapidly from 1,400 in 1970 slavery). A spellbinding speaker,
to 4,900 in 1980. Malcolm preached a philosophy of
d. Something else would never go back militant separatism, although he
either: the liberal New Deal coalition. advocated violence only for self-
By the second half of the 1960s, the defense. Hostile to mainstream civil
liberal wing of the Democratic Party rights organizations, he caustically
had won its battle with the referred to the 1963 March on
conservative, segregationist wing. Washington as the “Farce on
Democrats had embraced the civil Washington.”

CHAPTER 27 • WALKING INTO FREEDOM LAND: THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

e. In 1964, after a power struggle with inherited disease with a high incidence
founder Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm among African Americans, were
broke with the Nation of Islam. While especially popular.
he remained a black nationalist, he c. The Panther’s radicalism and belief in
moderated his antiwhite views and armed self-defense overshadowed
began to talk of a class struggle uniting these positive programs and instead
poor whites and blacks. contributed to violent clashes with
police.
f. On February 21, 1965, Malcolm X was 4. Young Lords
assassinated while delivering a speech a. Among those inspired by the Black
in Harlem. Three Black Muslims were Panthers were Puerto Ricans in New
later convicted of his murder. York. Their vehicle was the Young
Lords Organization (YLO), later
2. Black Power renamed the Young Lords Party. Like
a. A more secular brand of black the Black Panthers, YLO activists
nationalism emerged in 1966 when sought self-determination for Puerto
SNCC and CORE activists, following Ricans, both those in the United States
the lead of Stokely Carmichael, began and those on the island in the
to call for black self-reliance under the Caribbean.
banner of Black Power. b. YLO activists also focused on
b. Spurred by the Black Power slogan, improving neighborhood conditions
African American activists turned their and increasing access to health care.
attention to the poverty and social Although YLO achieved limited
injustice faced by so many black success, their community organizing
people. Black organizers set up day awakened community consciousness
care centers, ran job training programs, and produced future leaders.
and worked to improve housing and 5. The New Urban Politics
health in the inner cities. a. Black Power also inspired African
c. In some instances, the attention to Americans to work within the political
racial pride led African Americans to system. By the mid-1960s, black
reject white society and to pursue more residents neared 50 percent of the
authentic cultural forms. In addition to population in several major American
focusing on economic disadvantage, cities—such as Detroit, Atlanta,
Black Power emphasized black pride Cleveland, and Washington, D.C.
and self-determination. b. The 1972 National Black Political
Convention brought together radicals,
3. Black Panther Party liberals, and moderates; delegates
a. One of the most radical nationalist issued the National Black Political
groups was the Black Panther Party, Agenda, which called for community
founded in Oakland, California, in control over schools in black
1966 by two college students, Huey neighborhoods, national health
Newton and Bobby Seale. A militant insurance, and the elimination of the
self-defense organization dedicated to death penalty.
protecting African Americans from c. By the end of the century, black
police violence, the Panthers took their elected officials had become
cue from the slain Malcolm X. commonplace in major American
b. The Panthers’ organization spread to cities. There were forty-seven African
other cities in the late 1960s, where American big-city mayors by the
members undertook a wide range of 1990s, and blacks had led most of the
community-organizing projects. Their
free breakfast program for children and
testing for sickle-cell anemia, an

CHAPTER 27 • WALKING INTO FREEDOM LAND: THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

nation’s most prominent cities: New by predominantly black sanitation
York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta, workers. There, on April 4, 1968, he was
Detroit, Philadelphia and Washington, assassinated by escaped convict James
D.C. Earl Ray. King’s death set off a further
B. Poverty and Urban Violence round of urban rioting, with major
1. The first “long hot summer” began in July violence breaking out in more than a
1964 in New York City when police shot hundred cities.
a black criminal suspect in Harlem. Angry 8. Although the civil rights movement had
youths looted and rioted there for a week. brought about real tangible changes, by
Over the next four years, the volatile issue 1968 the fight over civil rights had also
of police brutality set off riots in dozens of divided the country. Democrats were
cities. losing credibility as citizens became more
2. In August 1965, the arrest of a young concerned about maintenance of law and
black motorist in the Watts section of Los order and other national concerns.
Angeles sparked six days of rioting that C. Rise of the Chicano Movement
left thirty-four people dead. 1. Mexican Americans had something of a
3. The riots of 1967, however, were the most counterpart to Martin Luther King: Cesar
serious, engulfing twenty-two cities in Chavez. He and Dolores Huerta had
July and August. Forty-three people were worked for the Community Service
killed in Detroit alone, nearly all of them Organization (CSO), a California group
black, and $50 million worth of property founded in the 1950s to promote Mexican
was destroyed. President Johnson called in political participation and civil rights.
the National Guard and U.S. Army troops, Leaving that organization in 1962, Chavez
many of them having just returned from concentrated on the agricultural region
Vietnam, to restore order. around Delano, California. With Huerta,
4. President Johnson and Martin Luther King he organized the United Farm Workers
Jr. realized that legislation and speeches (UFW), a union for migrant workers.
had not addressed the poverty and 2. A 1965 grape pickers’ strike led the UFW
deprivation of cities. to call a nationwide boycott of table
5. Following the gut-wrenching riots of grapes, bringing Chavez huge publicity
1967, Johnson appointed a presidential and backing from the AFL-CIO. Chavez
commission, headed by Illinois governor staged a hunger strike in 1968, which
Otto Kerner, to investigate the causes of ended dramatically after twenty-eight days
the violence. Released in 1968, the Kerner with Senator Robert F. Kennedy at his
Commission Report was a searing look at side to break the fast. Victory came in
race in America. 1970 when California grape growers
6. Stirred by turmoil in the cities, and seeing signed contracts recognizing the UFW.
the limitations of his civil rights 3. Mexican Americans shared some civil
achievements, Martin Luther King began rights concerns with African Americans—
to confront the deep-seated problems of especially access to jobs—but they also
poverty and racism facing American had unique concerns: the status of the
blacks. He began to criticize President Spanish language in schools, for instance,
Johnson and Congress for prioritizing the and immigration policy.
war in Vietnam over ending poverty at 4. Mexican Americans had been politically
home, and he planned a massive Poor active since the 1940s, aiming to surmount
People’s Campaign to fight economic the poverty, language barriers, and
injustice. discrimination that obstructed political
7. To advance that cause, King went to involvement.
Memphis, Tennessee, to support a strike

CHAPTER 27 • WALKING INTO FREEDOM LAND: THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

5. Those efforts began to pay off in the 3. The NIYC had substantial influence
1960s, when the Mexican American within tribal communities, but two other
Political Association (MAPA) mobilized organizations, the militant Indians of All
support for John F. Kennedy and worked Tribes (IAT) and American Indian
successfully with other organizations to Movement (AIM), attracted more
elect Mexican American candidates to attention in the larger society. These
Congress. groups embraced the concept of Red
Power, and beginning in 1968 they staged
6. Two other organizations, the Mexican escalating protests to draw attention to
American Legal Defense Fund (MALDF) Indian concerns. In 1969, members of
and the Southwest Voter Registration and Indians of All Tribes occupied the
Education Project, carried the fight against deserted federal penitentiary on Alcatraz
discrimination to Washington, D.C., and Island in San Francisco Bay.
mobilized Mexican Americans into an
increasingly powerful voting bloc. 4. In 1972, AIM members joined the Trail of
Broken Treaties, a march sponsored by a
7. Younger Mexican Americans grew number of Indian groups. When AIM
impatient with civil rights groups such as activists seized the headquarters of the
MAPA and MALDEF, however. The hated Bureau of Indian Affairs in
barrios of Los Angeles and other western Washington, D.C., and ransacked the
cities produced the militant Brown Berets, building, older tribal leaders denounced
modeled on the Black Panthers. them.

8. Rejecting the assimilationist approach of 5. However, AIM managed to focus national
their elders, fifteen hundred Mexican media attention on Native American
American students met in Denver in 1969 issues with a siege at Wounded Knee,
to hammer out a new political and cultural South Dakota, in February 1973. The site
agenda. They proclaimed a new term, of the infamous 1890 massacre of the
Chicano, to replace Mexican American, Sioux, Wounded Knee was situated on the
and later organized a political party, La Pine Ridge reservation, where young AIM
Raza Unida (The United Race), to activists had cultivated ties to sympathetic
promote Chicano interests. elders. For more than two months, AIM
members occupied a small collection of
D. The American Indian Movement buildings, surrounded by a cordon of FBI
1. Numbering nearly 800,000 in the 1960s, agents and U.S. marshals. Several gun
native people were exceedingly diverse, battles left two dead, and the siege was
divided by language, tribal history, region, finally brought to a negotiated end.
and degree of integration into American
life. As a group, they shared a staggering
unemployment rate—ten times the
national average—and were the worst off
in housing, disease rates, and access to
education.
2. In the 1960s, the prevailing spirit of
protest swept through Indian communities.
Young militants challenged their elders in
the National Congress of American
Indians. Beginning in 1960, the National
Indian Youth Council (NIYC), under the
slogan “For a Greater Indian America,”
promoted the ideal of all Native
Americans as a single ethnic group.