Civil rights movement

== History ==
{{Main|History of civil rights in the United States}}
{{For timeline|Timeline of the civil rights movement}}
{{Further|Civil rights movement (1865–1896)|Civil rights movement (1896–1954)}}

=== ''Brown v. Board of Education'', 1954 ===
{{Main|Brown v. Board of Education}}

In the spring of 1951, black students in [[Virginia]] protested their unequal status in the state's segregated educational system. Students at [[R.R. Moton High School|Moton High School]] protested the overcrowded conditions and failing facility.<ref name="autogenerated55">Klarman, Michael J., ''Brown v. Board of Education and the Civil Rights Movement'' : abridged edition of ''From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality'', Oxford; New York : Oxford University Press, 2007, p. 55.</ref> 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 budge, the NAACP joined their battle against school segregation. The NAACP proceeded with five cases challenging the school systems; these were later combined under what is known today as ''Brown v. Board of Education''.<ref name="autogenerated55" /> Under the leadership of [[Walter Reuther]], the [[United Auto Workers]] donated $75,000 to help pay for the NAACP's efforts at the Supreme Court.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Boyle|first=Kevin|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mt4ZDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA120|title=The UAW and the Heyday of American Liberalism, 1945–1968|date=1995|publisher=Cornell University Press|isbn=978-1-5017-1327-9|page=121|language=en}}</ref>
[[File:Warren Supreme Court.jpg|thumb|In 1954, the [[U.S. Supreme Court]] under Chief Justice [[Earl Warren]] ruled unanimously that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional.]]
On May 17, 1954, the [[Supreme Court of the United States|U.S. Supreme Court]] under Chief Justice [[Earl Warren]] ruled unanimously in ''[[Brown v. Board of Education]] of Topeka, Kansas'', that mandating, or even permitting, [[School segregation in the United States|public schools to be segregated]] by race was [[Constitutionality|unconstitutional]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/347us483|title=Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1)|website=Oyez|language=en|access-date=October 3, 2019}}</ref> [[Chief Justice of the United States|Chief Justice]] Warren wrote in the court majority opinion that<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1">{{Cite web|url=https://americanhistory.si.edu/brown/history/5-decision/courts-decision.html|title=The Court's Decision – Separate Is Not Equal|website=americanhistory.si.edu|access-date=October 3, 2019}}</ref>

{{blockquote|quote=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.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.civilrights.org/education/brown/brown.html |title=Brown v. Board of Education (Kansas) |website=The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights |access-date=March 28, 2016  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160325194202/http://www.civilrights.org/education/brown/brown.html |archive-date=March 25, 2016 }}</ref>|sign=|source=}}

The lawyers from the NAACP had to gather plausible evidence in order to win the case of ''Brown vs. Board of Education''. Their method of addressing the issue of school segregation was to enumerate several arguments. One pertained to having exposure to interracial contact in a school environment. It was argued that interracial contact would, in turn, help prepare children to live with the pressures that society exerts in regard to race and thereby afford them a better chance of living in a democracy. In addition, another argument emphasized how "'education' comprehends the entire process of developing and training the mental, physical and moral powers and capabilities of human beings".<ref>Risa L. Goluboff, ''The Lost Promise of Civil Rights'', Harvard University Press, MA: Cambridge, 2007, pp. 249–251</ref>

[[Risa Goluboff]] wrote that the NAACP's intention was to show the Courts that African American children were the victims of school segregation and their futures were at risk. The Court ruled that both ''[[Plessy v. Ferguson]]'' (1896), which had established the "separate but equal" standard in general, and ''[[Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education]]'' (1899), which had applied that standard to schools, was unconstitutional.

The federal government filed a [[friend of the court brief]] in the case urging the justices to consider the effect that segregation had on America's image in the [[Cold War]]. Secretary of State [[Dean Acheson]] was quoted in the brief stating that ''"The United States is under constant attack in the foreign press, over the foreign radio, and in such international bodies as the United Nations because of various practices of discrimination in this country."''<ref name="amphilsoc.org">{{Cite web|url=http://www.amphilsoc.org/sites/default/files/proceedings/480405.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150501080744/http://www.amphilsoc.org/sites/default/files/proceedings/480405.pdf  |title=Antonly Lester, "Brown v. Board of Education Overseas" ''Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society'' Vol. 148, No. 4, December 2004|archive-date=May 1, 2015}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.history.ucsb.edu/courses/tempdownload.php?attach_id=5781|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141207210755/http://www.history.ucsb.edu/courses/tempdownload.php?attach_id=5781  |title=Mary L Dudziak "Brown as a Cold War Case" ''Journal of American History'', June 2004|archive-date=December 7, 2014}}</ref>

The following year, in the case known as ''Brown II'', the Court ordered segregation to be phased out over time, "with all deliberate speed".<ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis54.htm#1954bvbe ''Brown v Board of Education'' Decision] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080605222536/http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis54.htm#1954bvbe |date=June 5, 2008 }}&nbsp;– Civil Rights Movement Archive</ref> ''[[Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas]]'' (1954) did not overturn ''[[Plessy v. Ferguson]]'' (1896). ''[[Plessy v. Ferguson]]'' was segregation in transportation modes. ''[[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'.

[[File:Integration.jpg|thumb|upright=1.15|School integration, Barnard School, [[Washington, D.C.]], 1955]]

On May 18, 1954, [[Greensboro, North Carolina]], became the first city in the South to publicly announce that it would abide by the Supreme Court's ''Brown v. Board of Education'' ruling. "It is unthinkable,' remarked School Board Superintendent Benjamin Smith, 'that we will try to [override] the laws of the United States."<ref name="deseg" /> This positive reception for Brown, together with the appointment of African American David Jones to the school board in 1953, convinced numerous white and black citizens that Greensboro was heading in a progressive direction. Integration in Greensboro occurred rather peacefully compared to the process in Southern states such as Alabama, [[Arkansas]], and Virginia where "[[massive resistance]]" was practiced by top officials and throughout the states. In Virginia, some counties closed their public schools rather than integrate, and many white [[Christianity|Christian]] private schools were founded to accommodate students who used to go to public schools. Even in Greensboro, much local resistance to desegregation continued, and in 1969, the federal government found the city was not in compliance with the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Transition to a fully integrated school system did not begin until 1971.<ref name="deseg">{{cite web |url=http://library.uncg.edu/dp/crg/topicalessays/schooldeseginteg.aspx |title=Civil Rights Greensboro |access-date=July 29, 2016 |archive-date=May 15, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140515045050/http://library.uncg.edu/dp/crg/topicalessays/schooldeseginteg.aspx}}</ref>

Many Northern cities also had [[Racial segregation#United States|de facto segregation]] policies, which resulted in a vast gulf in educational resources between black and white communities. In [[Harlem (Manhattan)|Harlem]], New York, for example, neither a single new school was built since the turn of the century, nor did a single nursery school exist&nbsp;– even as the [[Second Great Migration (African American)|Second Great Migration]] was causing overcrowding. Existing schools tended to be dilapidated and staffed with inexperienced teachers. ''Brown'' helped stimulate activism among [[New York City]] parents like [[Mae Mallory]] who, with the support of the NAACP, initiated a successful lawsuit against the city and state on ''Brown''{{'s}} principles. Mallory and thousands of other parents bolstered the pressure of the lawsuit with a school boycott in 1959. During the boycott, some of the first [[freedom schools]] of the period were established. The city responded to the campaign by permitting more open transfers to high-quality, historically white schools. (New York's African-American community, and Northern desegregation activists generally, now found themselves contending with the problem of [[white flight]], however.)<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AkPnRoKK-XYC&pg=PA54 |title=Power, Protest, and the Public Schools: Jewish and African American Struggles in New York City |first=Melissa F. |last=Weiner |date=2010 |publisher=Rutgers University Press |isbn=978-0-8135-4772-5}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| url = http://hisofblackamfall2014.voices.wooster.edu/files/2014/08/Adina_Back_Exposing_the_Whole_Segregation_Myth3.pdf| title = Adina Back "Exposing the Whole Segregation Myth: The Harlem Nine and New York City Schools" in ''Freedom north: Black freedom struggles outside the South, 1940–1980'', Jeanne Theoharis, Komozi Woodard, eds.(Palgrave Macmillan, 2003) pp. 65–91}}</ref>

=== Emmett Till's murder, 1955 ===
{{Main|Emmett Till}}

[[File:Emmett Till's funeral - mourners.jpg|thumb|190px|[[Emmett Till]]'s mother Mamie (middle) at her son's funeral in 1955. He was killed by white men after a white woman accused him of offending her in her family's grocery store.]]
[[Emmett Till]], a 14-year-old African American from Chicago, visited his relatives in [[Money, Mississippi]], for the summer. He allegedly had an interaction with a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, in a small grocery store that violated the norms of Mississippi culture, and Bryant's husband Roy and his half-brother J. W. Milam brutally murdered young Emmett Till. They beat and mutilated him before shooting him in the head and sinking his body in the&nbsp;[[Tallahatchie River]]. Three days later, Till's body was discovered and retrieved from the river. After Emmett's mother, [[Mamie Till]],<ref>{{Citation|title=American Experience; The Murder of Emmett Till; Interview with Mamie Till Mobley, mother of Emmett Till|url=http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-707wm14m9k|language=en|access-date=June 10, 2020}}</ref> came to identify the remains of her son, she decided she wanted to "let the people see what I have seen".<ref name="timephoto"/> Till's mother then had his body taken back to Chicago where she had it displayed in an open casket during the funeral services where many thousands of visitors arrived to show their respects.<ref name="timephoto"/> A later publication of an image at the funeral in ''[[Jet (magazine)|Jet]]'' is credited as a crucial moment in the civil rights era for displaying in vivid detail the violent racism that was being directed at black people in America.<ref name="Weller"/><ref name="timephoto">{{Cite web |url=http://100photos.time.com/photos/emmett-till-david-jackson |title=How The Horrific Photograph Of Emmett Till Helped Energize The Civil Rights Movement |website=100 Photographs {{!}} The Most Influential Images of All Time|access-date=July 3, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170706123149/http://100photos.time.com/photos/emmett-till-david-jackson|archive-date=July 6, 2017|url-status=live}}</ref> In a column for ''[[The Atlantic]]'', Vann R. Newkirk wrote: "The trial of his killers became a pageant illuminating the tyranny of [[white supremacy]]".<ref name="Atlantic" /> The state of Mississippi tried two defendants, but they were speedily acquitted by an [[all-white jury]].<ref>Whitfield, Stephen (1991). ''A Death in the Delta: The story of Emmett Till''. pp 41–42. JHU Press. {{ISBN?}}</ref>

"Emmett's murder," historian Tim Tyson writes, "would never have become a watershed historical moment without Mamie finding the strength to make her private grief a public matter."<ref name="USA TODAY">{{Cite news |url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2017/01/30/the-blood-of-emmett-till-timothy-b-tyson-book-review/97058060/ |title='The Blood of Emmett Till' remembers a horrific crime |work=USA Today |access-date=July 3, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170807054440/https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2017/01/30/the-blood-of-emmett-till-timothy-b-tyson-book-review/97058060/ |archive-date=August 7, 2017 |url-status=live }}</ref> The visceral response to his mother's decision to have an open-casket funeral mobilized the black community throughout the U.S.<ref name="Atlantic" /> The murder and resulting trial ended up markedly impacting the views of several young black activists.<ref name="USA TODAY" /> [[Joyce Ladner]] referred to such activists as the "Emmett Till generation."<ref name="USA TODAY" /> One hundred days after Emmett Till's murder, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus in Montgomery, Alabama.<ref name="haas"/> Parks later informed Till's mother that her decision to stay in her seat was guided by the image she still vividly recalled of Till's brutalized remains.<ref name="haas">{{Cite book |title=The Assassination of Fred Hampton |last=Haas |first=Jeffrey |publisher=Chicago Review Press |year=2011 |isbn=978-1-56976-709-2 |location=Chicago |page=17}}</ref> The glass topped casket that was used for Till's Chicago funeral was found in a cemetery garage in 2009. Till had been reburied in a different casket after being exhumed in 2005.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://cnnwire.blogs.cnn.com/2009/07/10/authorities-discover-original-casket-of-emmett-till|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090913122859/http://cnnwire.blogs.cnn.com/2009/07/10/authorities-discover-original-casket-of-emmett-till/|archive-date=September 13, 2009|title=Authorities discover original casket of Emmett Till|date=September 13, 2009|work=archive.is|access-date=September 30, 2018}}</ref> Till's family decided to donate the original casket to the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American Culture and History, where it is now on display.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/emmett-tills-casket-goes-to-the-smithsonian-144696940/|title=Emmett Till's Casket Goes to the Smithsonian|last=Callard|first=Abby|work=Smithsonian|access-date=September 30, 2018|language=en}}</ref> In 2007, Bryant said that she had fabricated the most sensational part of her story in 1955.<ref name="Weller">{{cite magazine |last=Weller |first=Sheila |title=How Author Timothy Tyson Found the Woman at the Center of the Emmett Till Case |magazine=Vanity Fair |date=January 26, 2017 |url=http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/01/how-author-timothy-tyson-found-the-woman-at-the-center-of-the-emmett-till-case}}</ref><ref name=TysonNotes>{{cite book |first=Timothy B. |last=Tyson |author-link=Timothy Tyson |title=The Blood of Emmett Till |year=2017 |publisher=Simon & Schuster |location=New York |isbn=978-1-4767-1486-8 |page=221 |quote=Carolyn Bryant Donham, interview with the author, Raleigh, NC, September 8, 2008.}}</ref>

=== Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycott, 1955–1956 ===
{{Main|Rosa Parks|Montgomery bus boycott}}

[[File:Rosa Parks being fingerprinted by Deputy Sheriff D.H. Lackey after being arrested for refusing to give up her seat for a white passenger on a segregated municipal bus in Montgomery, Alabama.jpg|thumb|[[Rosa Parks]] being fingerprinted after being arrested for not giving up her seat on a bus to a white person.]]

On December 1, 1955, nine months after a 15-year-old high school student, [[Claudette Colvin]], refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a public bus in Montgomery, Alabama, and was arrested, [[Rosa Parks]] did the same thing. Parks soon became the symbol of the resulting Montgomery bus boycott and received national publicity. She was later hailed as the "mother of the civil rights movement".<ref>J. Mills Thornton III, "Challenge and Response in the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955–1956." ''Alabama Review'' 67.1 (2014): 40–112.</ref>

Parks was secretary of the Montgomery NAACP chapter and had recently returned from a meeting at the [[Highlander Research and Education Center|Highlander Folk School]] in Tennessee where nonviolence as a strategy was taught by [[Myles Horton]] and others. After Parks' arrest, African Americans gathered and organized the Montgomery bus boycott to demand a bus system in which passengers would be treated equally.<ref name="ReferenceA">{{cite book |last1=Chafe |first1=William Henry |title=The Unfinished Journey: America since World War II |date=2003 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-515049-0 |url=https://archive.org/details/unfinishedjourne0000chaf|url-access=registration }}</ref> The organization was led by Jo Ann Robinson, a member of the Women's Political Council who had been waiting for the opportunity to boycott the bus system. Following Rosa Parks' arrest, Jo Ann Robinson mimeographed 52,500 leaflets calling for a boycott. They were distributed around the city and helped gather the attention of civil rights leaders. After the city rejected many of its suggested reforms, the NAACP, led by [[Edgar Nixon|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 repealed. Ninety percent of African Americans in Montgomery partook in the boycotts, which reduced bus revenue significantly, as they comprised the majority of the riders. This movement also sparked riots leading up to the [[1956 Sugar Bowl]].<ref>{{Cite news | last = Thamel | first = Pete |author-link=Pete Thamel | title = Grier Integrated a Game and Earned the World's Respect | newspaper = New York Times | date = January 1, 2006 | url = https://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/01/sports/ncaafootball/01grier.html | access-date=April 15, 2009 }}</ref> In November 1956, the United States Supreme Court upheld a district court ruling in the case of ''[[Browder v. Gayle]]'' and ordered Montgomery's buses desegregated, ending the boycott.<ref name="ReferenceA" />

Local leaders established the Montgomery Improvement Association to focus their efforts. [[Martin Luther King Jr.]] was elected President of this organization. The lengthy protest attracted national attention for him and the city. His eloquent appeals to Christian brotherhood and American idealism created a positive impression on people both inside and outside the South.<ref name="Robinson 1986" />

===Little Rock Nine, 1957===
{{Main|Little Rock Nine}}

[[File:Little Rock integration protest.jpg|thumb|left|White parents rally against integrating Little Rock's schools in August 1959.]]

The Little Rock Nine were a group of nine students who attended segregated black high schools in [[Little Rock, Arkansas|Little Rock]], the capital of the state of Arkansas.  They each volunteered when the NAACP and the national civil rights movement obtained federal court orders to integrate the prestigious [[Little Rock Central High School]] in September, 1957. The Nine faced intense harassment and threats of  violence from white parents and students, as well as organized white supremacy groups.  The enraged opposition emphasized miscegenation as the threat to white society. [[Governor of Arkansas|Arkansas Governor]], [[Orval Faubus]], claiming his only goal was to preserve the peace, deployed the Arkansas National Guard to prevent the black students from entering the school. Faubus defied federal court orders, whereupon President Dwight D. Eisenhower intervened. He federalized the Arkansas National Guard and sent them home. Then he sent in an elite Army unit to escort the students to school and protect them between classes  during the 1957–58 school year. In class, however, the Nine were teased and ridiculed every day. In the city compromise efforts all failed and political tensions continued to fester. A year later in September 1958 the Supreme Court ruled that all the city's high schools had to be integrated immediately. Governor Faubus and the legislature responded by immediately shutting down all the public high schools in the city for the entire 1958–1959 school year, despite the harm it did to all the students. The decision to integrate the school was a landmark event in the civil rights movement, and the students' bravery and determination in the face of violent opposition is remembered as a key moment in American history. The city and state were entangled in very expensive legal disputes for decades, while suffering a reputation for hatred and obstruction.<ref>Karen Anderson, "The Little Rock school desegregation crisis: Moderation and social conflict." ''Journal of Southern History'' 70.3 (2004): 603–636 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/27648479 online].</ref><ref>Elizabeth Jacoway, ''Turn away thy son: Little Rock, the crisis that shocked the nation'' (Simon and Schuster, 2007).{{ISBN?}}{{page needed|date=August 2023}}</ref>

=== Method of nonviolence and nonviolence training ===
During the time period considered to be the "African-American civil rights" era, the predominant use of protest was nonviolent, or peaceful.<ref name=Erikson>{{cite book |last1=Erikson |first1=Erik |title=Gandhi's Truth: On the Origins of Militant Nonviolence |date=1969 |publisher=Norton |location=New York City |isbn=978-0-393-31034-4 |page=[https://archive.org/details/gandhistruth00erik_0/page/415 415] |url=https://archive.org/details/gandhistruth00erik_0/page/415 }}</ref> Often referred to as pacifism, the method of nonviolence is considered to be an attempt to impact society positively. Although acts of racial discrimination have occurred historically throughout the United States, perhaps the most violent regions have been in the former Confederate states. During the 1950s and 1960s, the nonviolent protesting of the civil rights movement caused definite tension, which gained national attention.

In order to prepare for protests physically and psychologically, demonstrators received training in nonviolence. According to former civil rights activist Bruce Hartford, there are two main components of nonviolence training. There is the philosophical method, which involves understanding the method of nonviolence and why it is considered useful, and there is the tactical method, which ultimately teaches demonstrators "how to be a protestor{{mdash}}how to sit-in, how to picket, how to defend yourself against attack, giving training on how to remain cool when people are screaming racist insults into your face and pouring stuff on you and hitting you" (Civil Rights Movement Archive). The philosophical basis of the practice of nonviolence in the American civil rights movement was largely inspired by [[Mahatma Gandhi]]'s [[Non-cooperation movement (1919–22)|"non-cooperation" policies]] during his involvement in the [[Indian independence movement]], which were intended to gain attention so that the public would either "intervene in advance" or "provide public pressure in support of the action to be taken" (Erikson, 415). As Hartford explains it, philosophical nonviolence training aims to "shape the individual person's attitude and mental response to crises and violence" (Civil Rights Movement Archive). Hartford and activists like him, who trained in tactical nonviolence, considered it necessary in order to ensure physical safety, instill discipline, teach demonstrators how to demonstrate, and form mutual confidence among demonstrators (Civil Rights Movement Archive).<ref name=Erikson /><ref>{{cite web |title=Civil Rights Movement |url=http://www.crmvet.org/info/nv3.htm |website=Civil Rights Movement Archive|access-date=May 18, 2015}}</ref>

For many, the concept of nonviolent protest was a way of life, a culture. However, not everyone agreed with this notion. James Forman, former [[Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee|SNCC]] (and later Black Panther) member, and nonviolence trainer was among those who did not. In his autobiography, ''The Making of Black Revolutionaries'', Forman revealed his perspective on the method of nonviolence as "strictly a tactic, not a way of life without limitations." Similarly, [[Bob Moses (activist)|Bob Moses]], who was also an active member of [[Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee|SNCC]], felt that the method of nonviolence was practical. When interviewed by author Robert Penn Warren, Moses said "There's no question that he ([[Martin Luther King Jr.]]) had a great deal of influence with the masses. But I don't think it's in the direction of love. It's in a practical direction … ." (Who Speaks for the Negro? Warren).<ref>{{cite web |title=Bruce Hartford (full interview) |url=https://vimeo.com/17532881 |via=Vimeo |access-date=May 18, 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Forman |first1=James |title=The Making of Black Revolutionaries |url=https://archive.org/details/makingofblackrev00form |url-access=registration |date=1972 |publisher=Macmillan |location=New York |isbn=978-0-940880-10-8}}</ref>

According to a 2020 study in the ''American Political Science Review'', nonviolent civil rights protests boosted vote shares for the Democratic party in presidential elections in nearby counties, but violent protests substantially boosted white support for Republicans in counties near to the violent protests.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Wasow|first=Omar|date=2020|title=Agenda Seeding: How 1960s Black Protests Moved Elites, Public Opinion and Voting|journal=American Political Science Review|language=en|volume=114|issue=3|pages=638–659|doi=10.1017/S000305542000009X|issn=0003-0554|doi-access=free}}</ref>

=== Sit-ins, 1958–1960 ===
{{See also|Greensboro sit-ins|Nashville sit-ins|Sit-in movement}}

In July 1958, the [[NAACP Youth Council]] sponsored sit-ins at the lunch counter of a [[Dockum Drug Store sit-in|Dockum Drug Store]] in downtown [[Wichita, Kansas]]. After three weeks, the movement successfully got the store to change its policy of segregated seating, and soon afterward all Dockum stores in Kansas were desegregated. This movement was quickly followed in the same year by a [[Katz Drug Store sit-in|student sit-in at a Katz Drug Store]] in [[Oklahoma City]] led by [[Clara Luper]], which also was successful.<ref>[https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6355095 "Kansas Sit-In Gets Its Due at Last"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180421030703/https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6355095 |date=April 21, 2018 }}; NPR; October 21, 2006</ref>

[[File:Civil Rights protesters and Woolworth's Sit-In, Durham, NC, 10 February 1960. From the N&O Negative Collection, State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC. Photos taken by The News & (24495308926).jpg|thumb|Student sit-in at Woolworth in [[Durham, North Carolina]] on February 10, 1960.]]

Mostly black students from area colleges led a sit-in at a [[F. W. Woolworth Company|Woolworth]]'s store in [[Greensboro, North Carolina]].<ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis60.htm#1960greensboro First Southern Sit-in, Greensboro NC] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070306200430/http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis60.htm#1960greensboro |date=March 6, 2007 }}&nbsp;– Civil Rights Movement Archive</ref> On February 1, 1960, four students, [[Ezell A. Blair Jr.]], David Richmond, [[Joseph McNeil]], and [[Franklin McCain]] from [[North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University|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 from being served food there.<ref name="chafe">{{Cite book |last=Chafe |first=William Henry |title=Civilities and civil rights: Greensboro, North Carolina, and the Black struggle for freedom |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1980 |location=New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/civilitiescivilr00chaf/page/81 81] |url=https://archive.org/details/civilitiescivilr00chaf |url-access=registration |isbn=978-0-19-502625-2}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://library.uncg.edu/dp/crg/topicalessays/busdesegsitins.aspx |title=Civil Rights Greensboro |access-date=July 29, 2016 |archive-date=June 30, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140630033454/http://library.uncg.edu/dp/crg/topicalessays/busdesegsitins.aspx}}</ref>

The protesters had been encouraged to dress professionally, to sit quietly, and to occupy every other stool so that potential white sympathizers could join in. The Greensboro sit-in was quickly followed by other sit-ins in [[Richmond, Virginia]];<ref>{{cite web |title=60 years ago, the Richmond 34 were arrested during a sit-in at the Thalhimers lunch counter |url=https://www.richmond.com/from-the-archives/years-ago-the-richmond-were-arrested-during-a-sit-in/collection_6680a266-17e4-5c38-b6e9-5efb6aa69852.html |website=Richmond Times-Dispatch |access-date=February 20, 2020 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |url=http://southernspaces.org/2008/rising |title=Rising Up |journal=Southern Spaces |first=Stations, Community |last=I |date=January 1, 2008 |volume=2008 |access-date=July 29, 2016 |doi=10.18737/M7HP4M|doi-access=free }}</ref> [[Nashville, Tennessee]]; and Atlanta, Georgia.<ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis60.htm#1960atlanta Atlanta Sit-ins] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070306200430/http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis60.htm#1960atlanta |date=March 6, 2007 }}&nbsp;– Civil Rights Archive</ref><ref name="Atlanta Sit-Ins">[http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-3615 "Atlanta Sit-Ins"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130117053611/http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-3615 |date=January 17, 2013 }}, ''The New Georgia Encyclopedia''</ref> The most immediately effective of these was in Nashville, where hundreds of well organized and highly disciplined college students [[Nashville sit-ins|conducted sit-ins]] in coordination with a boycott campaign.<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Nashville Way: Racial Etiquette and the Struggle for Social Justice in a Southern City |first=Benjamin |last=Houston |year=2012 |location=Athens |publisher=University of Georgia Press |isbn=978-0-8203-4326-6}}</ref><ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis60.htm#1960nsm Nashville Student Movement] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070306200430/http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis60.htm#1960nsm |date=March 6, 2007 }}&nbsp;– Civil Rights Movement Archive</ref>
As students across the south began to "sit-in" at the lunch counters of local stores, police and other officials sometimes used brutal force to physically escort the demonstrators from the lunch facilities.

The "sit-in" technique was not new{{mdash}}as far back as 1939, African-American attorney [[Samuel Wilbert Tucker]] organized a sit-in at the then-segregated [[Alexandria, Virginia]], library.<ref>{{cite web |title=America's First Sit-Down Strike: The 1939 Alexandria Library Sit-In |url=http://oha.alexandriava.gov/bhrc/lessons/bh-lesson2_reading2.html |publisher=City of Alexandria |access-date=February 11, 2010  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100528015924/http://oha.alexandriava.gov/bhrc/lessons/bh-lesson2_reading2.html |archive-date=May 28, 2010 }}</ref> In 1960 the technique succeeded in bringing national attention to the movement.<ref name="davis">{{Cite book |last=Davis |first=Townsend |title=Weary Feet, Rested Souls: A Guided History of the Civil Rights Movement |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |year=1998 |location=New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/wearyfeetresteds00town/page/311 311] |url=https://archive.org/details/wearyfeetresteds00town |url-access=registration |isbn=978-0-393-04592-5}}</ref>
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''.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-3615 |title=Atlanta Sit-ins |access-date=July 29, 2016 |archive-date=January 17, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130117053611/http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-3615}}</ref> Known as the [[Committee on Appeal for Human Rights]] (COAHR), the group initiated the [[Atlanta Student Movement]] and began to lead sit-ins starting on March 15, 1960.<ref name="Atlanta Sit-Ins" /><ref>[http://www.atlantahighered.org/civilrights/essay_detail.asp?phase=3 Students Begin to Lead] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160113134157/http://www.atlantahighered.org/civilrights/essay_detail.asp?phase=3 |date=January 13, 2016 }}&nbsp;– The New Georgia Encyclopedia{{snd}}Atlanta Sit-Ins</ref> By the end of 1960, the process of sit-ins had spread to every southern and [[Border states (American Civil War)|border state]], and even to facilities in [[Nevada]], [[Illinois]], and [[Ohio]] that discriminated against blacks.

Demonstrators focused not only on lunch counters but also on parks, beaches, libraries, theaters, museums, and other public facilities. In April 1960 activists who had led these sit-ins were invited by SCLC activist [[Ella Baker]] to hold a conference at [[Shaw University]], a [[historically black university]] in [[Raleigh, North Carolina]]. This conference led to the formation of the [[Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee]] (SNCC).<ref name="carson">{{Cite book |last=Carson |first=Clayborne |title=In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1981 |location=Cambridge |page=311 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Fm9v7KKj_UQC |isbn=978-0-674-44727-1}}</ref> SNCC took these tactics of nonviolent confrontation further, and organized the freedom rides. As the constitution protected interstate commerce, they decided to challenge segregation on interstate buses and in public bus facilities by putting interracial teams on them, to travel from the North through the segregated South.<ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis60.htm#1960sncc Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Founded] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070306200430/http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis60.htm#1960sncc |date=March 6, 2007 }}&nbsp;– Civil Rights Movement Archive</ref>

=== Freedom Rides, 1961 ===
{{Main|Freedom Rider|Anniston and Birmingham bus attacks}}

Freedom Rides were journeys by civil rights activists on interstate buses into the segregated southern United States to test the United States Supreme Court decision ''[[Boynton v. Virginia]]'' (1960), which ruled that segregation was unconstitutional for passengers engaged in interstate travel. Organized by [[Congress of Racial Equality|CORE]], the first Freedom Ride of the 1960s left Washington D.C. on May 4, 1961, and was scheduled to arrive in New Orleans on May 17.<ref name="Freedom Rides">[http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis61.htm#1961frides Freedom Rides] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100707051408/http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis61.htm#1961frides |date=July 7, 2010 }}&nbsp;– Civil Rights Movement Archive</ref>

During the first and subsequent Freedom Rides, activists traveled through the [[Deep South]] to integrate seating patterns on buses and desegregate bus terminals, including restrooms and water fountains. That proved to be a dangerous mission. In [[Anniston, Alabama]], one bus [[Anniston and Birmingham bus attacks|was firebombed]], forcing its passengers to flee for their lives.<ref name="Arsenault">{{cite book |last=Arsenault |first=Raymond |title=Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice |url=https://archive.org/details/freedomriders1960000arse |url-access=registration |publisher=Oxford Press |year=2006}}</ref>

[[File:Freedom Riders attacked.jpg|thumb|A mob beats Freedom Riders in Birmingham. This picture was reclaimed by the FBI from a local journalist who also was beaten and whose camera was smashed.]]

In [[Birmingham, Alabama]], an [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] informant reported that Public Safety Commissioner [[Eugene "Bull" Connor]] gave Ku Klux Klan members fifteen minutes to attack an incoming group of freedom riders before having police "protect" them. The riders were severely beaten "until it looked like a bulldog had got a hold of them." [[James Peck (pacifist)|James Peck]], a white activist, was beaten so badly that he required fifty stitches to his head.<ref name="Arsenault" />

In a similar occurrence in Montgomery, Alabama, the Freedom Riders followed in the footsteps of Rosa Parks and rode an integrated Greyhound bus from Birmingham. Although they were protesting interstate bus segregation in peace, they were met with violence in Montgomery as a large, white mob attacked them for their activism. They caused an enormous, 2-hour long riot which resulted in 22 injuries, five of whom were hospitalized.<ref>Black Protest (1961)</ref>

Mob violence in Anniston and Birmingham temporarily halted the rides. SNCC activists from Nashville brought in new riders to continue the journey from Birmingham to New Orleans. In [[Montgomery, Alabama]], at the [[Greyhound Bus Station (Montgomery, Alabama)|Greyhound Bus Station]], a mob charged another busload of riders, knocking [[John Lewis]]<ref>{{Citation|title=American Experience; Freedom Riders; Interview with John Lewis, 1 of 3|url=http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-tx3513w36f|language=en|access-date=June 10, 2020}}</ref> unconscious with a crate and smashing ''[[Life (magazine)|Life]]'' photographer [[Don Urbrock]] in the face with his own camera. A dozen men surrounded [[James Zwerg]],<ref>{{Citation|title=American Experience; Freedom Riders; Interview with Jim Zwerg, 1 of 4|url=http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-x639z91k99|language=en|access-date=June 10, 2020}}</ref> a white student from [[Fisk University]], and beat him in the face with a suitcase, knocking out his teeth.<ref name="Arsenault" />

On May 24, 1961, the freedom riders continued their rides into [[Jackson, Mississippi]], where they were arrested for "breaching the peace" by using "white only" facilities. New Freedom Rides were organized by many different organizations and continued to flow into the South. As riders arrived in Jackson, they were arrested. By the end of summer, more than 300 had been jailed in Mississippi.<ref name="Freedom Rides" />

{{blockquote|quote=… When the weary Riders arrive in Jackson and attempt to use "white only" restrooms and lunch counters they are immediately arrested for Breach of Peace and Refusal to Obey an Officer. Says Mississippi Governor [[Ross Barnett]] in defense of segregation: "The Negro is different because God made him different to punish him." From lockup, the Riders announce "Jail No Bail"{{mdash}}they will not pay fines for unconstitutional arrests and illegal convictions{{mdash}}and by staying in jail they keep the issue alive. Each prisoner will remain in jail for 39 days, the maximum time they can serve without losing their right to appeal the unconstitutionality of their arrests, trials, and convictions. After 39 days, they file an appeal and post bond...<ref name=westwind>{{cite web |last=Hartford |first=Bruce Hartford |title=Arrests in Jackson MS |url=http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis61.htm |work=The Civil Rights Movement Archive|access-date=October 21, 2011}}</ref>}}

The jailed freedom riders were treated harshly, crammed into tiny, filthy cells and sporadically beaten. In Jackson, some male prisoners were forced to do hard labor in {{convert|100|°F|°C|abbr=on}} heat. Others were transferred to the [[Mississippi State Penitentiary]] at Parchman, where they were treated to harsh conditions. Sometimes the men were suspended by "wrist breakers" from the walls. Typically, the windows of their cells were shut tight on hot days, making it hard for them to breathe.

Public sympathy and support for the freedom riders led [[John F. Kennedy]]'s administration to order the [[Interstate Commerce Commission]] (ICC) to issue a new desegregation order. When the new ICC rule took effect on November 1, 1961, passengers were permitted to sit wherever they chose on the bus; "white" and "colored" signs came down in the terminals; separate drinking fountains, toilets, and waiting rooms were consolidated; and lunch counters began serving people regardless of skin color.

The student movement involved such celebrated figures as John Lewis, a single-minded activist; [[James Lawson (American activist)|James Lawson]],<ref>{{Citation|title=American Experience; Freedom Riders; Interview with James Lawson, 1 of 4|url=http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-4746q1tc99|language=en|access-date=June 10, 2020}}</ref> the revered "guru" of nonviolent theory and tactics; [[Diane Nash]],<ref>{{Citation|title=American Experience; Freedom Riders; Interview with Diane Nash, 1 of 3|url=http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-2f7jq0tn9b|language=en|access-date=June 10, 2020}}</ref> an articulate and intrepid public champion of justice; [[Bob Moses (activist)|Bob Moses]], pioneer of voting registration in Mississippi; and [[James Bevel]], a fiery preacher and charismatic organizer, strategist, and facilitator. Other prominent student activists included [[Dion Diamond]],<ref>{{Citation|title=American Experience; Freedom Riders; Interview with Dion Diamond, 1 of 2|url=http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-4b2x34nj5n|language=en|access-date=June 10, 2020}}</ref> [[Charles McDew]], [[Bernard Lafayette]],<ref>{{Citation|title=American Experience; Freedom Riders; Interview with Bernard Lafayette, Jr., 1 of 3|url=http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-dn3zs2m89m|language=en|access-date=June 10, 2020}}</ref> [[Charles Jones (activist)|Charles Jones]], [[Lonnie C. King Jr.|Lonnie King]], [[Julian Bond]],<ref>{{Citation|title=American Experience; Freedom Riders; Interview with Julian Bond, 1 of 2|url=http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-0000000v8c|language=en|access-date=June 10, 2020}}</ref> [[Hosea Williams]], and [[Stokely Carmichael]].

=== Voter registration organizing ===
After the Freedom Rides, local black leaders in Mississippi such as [[Amzie Moore]], [[Aaron Henry (politician)|Aaron Henry]], [[Medgar Evers]], and others asked SNCC to help register black voters and to build community organizations that could win a share of political power in the state. Since Mississippi ratified its new constitution in 1890 with provisions such as poll taxes, residency requirements, and literacy tests, it made registration more complicated and stripped blacks from voter rolls and voting. Also, violence at the time of elections had earlier suppressed black voting.

By the mid-20th century, preventing blacks from voting had become an essential part of the culture of white supremacy. In June and July 1959, members of the black community in Fayette County, TN formed the [[Fayette County Civic and Welfare League]] to spur voting. At the time, there were 16,927 blacks in the county, yet only 17 of them had voted in the previous seven years. Within a year, some 1,400 blacks had registered, and the white community responded with harsh economic reprisals. Using registration rolls, the White Citizens Council circulated a blacklist of all registered black voters, allowing banks, local stores, and gas stations to conspire to deny registered black voters essential services. What's more, sharecropping blacks who registered to vote were getting evicted from their homes. All in all, the number of evictions came to 257 families, many of whom were forced to live in a makeshift Tent City for well over a year. Finally, in December 1960, the Justice Department invoked its powers authorized by the Civil Rights Act of 1957 to file a suit against seventy parties accused of violating the civil rights of black Fayette County citizens.<ref>Our Portion of Hell: Fayette County, Tennessee, an Oral History of the Struggle For Civil Rights by Robert Hamburger (New York; Links Books, 1973)</ref> In the following year the first voter registration project in [[McComb, Mississippi|McComb]] and the surrounding counties in the Southwest corner of the state. Their efforts were met with violent repression from state and local lawmen, the [[White Citizens' Council]], and the Ku Klux Klan. Activists were beaten, there were hundreds of arrests of local citizens, and the voting activist Herbert Lee was murdered.<ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis61.htm#1961mccomb Voter Registration & Direct-action in McComb MS] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100707051408/http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis61.htm#1961mccomb |date=July 7, 2010 }}&nbsp;– Civil Rights Movement Archive</ref>

White opposition to black voter registration was so intense in Mississippi that Freedom Movement activists concluded that all of the state's civil rights organizations had to unite in a coordinated effort to have any chance of success. In February 1962, representatives of SNCC, CORE, and the NAACP formed the [[Council of Federated Organizations]] (COFO). At a subsequent meeting in August, SCLC became part of COFO.<ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis62.htm#1962cofo Council of Federated Organizations Formed in Mississippi] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061004011259/http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis62.htm#1962cofo |date=October 4, 2006 }}&nbsp;– Civil Rights Movement Archive</ref>

In the Spring of 1962, with funds from the [[Voter Education Project]], SNCC/COFO began voter registration organizing in the Mississippi Delta area around [[Greenwood, Mississippi|Greenwood]], and the areas surrounding [[Hattiesburg, Mississippi|Hattiesburg]], [[Laurel, Mississippi|Laurel]], and [[Holly Springs, Mississippi|Holly Springs]]. As in McComb, their efforts were met with fierce opposition{{mdash}}arrests, beatings, shootings, arson, and murder. Registrars used the [[literacy test]] to keep blacks off the voting roles by creating standards that even highly educated people could not meet. In addition, employers fired blacks who tried to register, and landlords evicted them from their rental homes.<ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis62.htm Mississippi Voter Registration – Greenwood] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061004011259/http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis62.htm |date=October 4, 2006 }}&nbsp;– Civil Rights Movement Archive</ref> Despite these actions, over the following years, the black voter registration campaign spread across the state.

Similar voter registration campaigns{{mdash}}with similar responses{{mdash}}were begun by SNCC, CORE, and SCLC in [[Louisiana]], [[Alabama]], southwest [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]], and [[South Carolina]]. By 1963, voter registration campaigns in the South were as integral to the Freedom Movement as desegregation efforts. After the passage of the [[Civil Rights Act of 1964]],<ref name="cra64" /> protecting and facilitating voter registration despite state barriers became the main effort of the movement. It resulted in the passage of the [[Voting Rights Act]] of 1965, which had provisions to enforce the constitutional right to vote for all citizens.

=== Integration of Mississippi universities, 1956–1965 ===
{{Further|Ole Miss riot of 1962}}
Beginning in 1956, [[Clyde Kennard]], a black [[Korean War]]-veteran, wanted to enroll at Mississippi Southern College (now the [[University of Southern Mississippi]]) at [[Hattiesburg]] under the [[G.I. Bill]]. [[William David McCain]], the college president, used the [[Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission]], in order to prevent his enrollment by appealing to local black leaders and the segregationist state political establishment.<ref>{{cite web |last1=handeyside |first1=Hugh |title=What Have We Learned from the Spies of Mississippi? |url=https://www.aclu.org/blog/speakeasy/what-have-we-learned-spies-mississippi |website=American Civil Liberty Union |date=February 13, 2014 |publisher=ACLU National Security Project |access-date=May 6, 2015}}</ref>

The state-funded organization tried to counter the civil rights movement by positively portraying segregationist policies. More significantly, it collected data on activists, harassed them legally, and used economic boycotts against them by threatening their jobs (or causing them to lose their jobs) to try to suppress their work.

Kennard was twice arrested on trumped-up charges, and eventually convicted and sentenced to seven years in the state prison.<ref name="Kennard" /> After three years at [[hard labor]], Kennard was paroled by [[Governor of Mississippi|Mississippi Governor]] [[Ross Barnett]]. Journalists had investigated his case and publicized the state's mistreatment of his [[colon cancer]].<ref name="Kennard" />

McCain's role in Kennard's arrests and convictions is unknown.<ref name="Funding">William H. Tucker, ''The Funding of Scientific Racism: Wickliffe Draper and the Pioneer Fund'', University of Illinois Press (May 30, 2007), pp 165–66.</ref><ref name="Confederacy">''Neo-Confederacy: A Critical Introduction'', Edited by Euan Hague, Heidi Beirich, Edward H. Sebesta, University of Texas Press (2008) pp. 284–285 {{ISBN?}}</ref><ref name="report">{{cite web |url=http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=135 |title=A House Divided |publisher=Southern Poverty Law Center |access-date=October 30, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100202111430/http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=135 |archive-date=February 2, 2010 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Evers">Jennie Brown, ''Medgar Evers'', Holloway House Publishing, 1994, pp. 128–132</ref> While trying to prevent Kennard's enrollment, McCain made a speech in Chicago, with his travel sponsored by the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission. He described the blacks' seeking to desegregate Southern schools as "imports" from the North. (Kennard was a native and resident of Hattiesburg.) McCain said:
<blockquote>We insist that educationally and socially, we maintain a [[Racial segregation in the United States|segregated]] society...In all fairness, I admit that we are not encouraging Negro voting...The Negroes prefer that control of the government remain in the white man's hands.<ref name="Funding" /><ref name="report" /><ref name="Evers" /></blockquote>

Note: Mississippi had passed a new constitution in 1890 that effectively [[Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era|disfranchised]] most blacks by changing electoral and voter registration requirements; although it deprived them of constitutional rights authorized under post-Civil War amendments, it survived [[U.S. Supreme Court]] challenges at the time. It was not until after the passage of the 1965 [[Voting Rights Act]] that most blacks in Mississippi and other southern states gained federal protection to enforce the constitutional right of citizens to vote.

[[File:James Meredith OleMiss.jpg|thumb|[[James Meredith]] walking to class accompanied by a U.S. Marshal and a Justice Department official.]]

In September 1962, [[James Meredith]] won a lawsuit to secure admission to the previously segregated [[University of Mississippi]]. He attempted to enter campus on September 20, on September 25, and again on September 26. He was blocked by Governor Ross Barnett, who said, "[N]o school will be integrated in Mississippi while I am your Governor." The [[Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals]] held Barnett and Lieutenant Governor [[Paul B. Johnson Jr.]] in [[Contempt of court|contempt]], ordering them arrested and fined more than $10,000 for each day they refused to allow Meredith to enroll.

[[File:US Marshals at Ole Miss October 1962 cph.3c35522.jpg|thumb|[[United States Army|U.S. Army]] trucks loaded with Federal law enforcement personnel on the University of Mississippi campus, 1962.]]

Attorney General [[Robert F. Kennedy]] sent in a force of [[United States Marshals Service|U.S. Marshals]] and deputized [[United States Border Patrol|U.S. Border Patrol]] agents and [[Federal Bureau of Prisons]] officers. On September 30, 1962, Meredith entered the campus under their escort. Students and other whites began rioting that evening, throwing rocks and firing on the federal agents guarding Meredith at Lyceum Hall. Rioters ended up killing two civilians, including a French journalist; 28 federal agents suffered gunshot wounds, and 160 others were injured. President [[John F. Kennedy]] sent [[United States Army|U.S. Army]] and federalized [[Mississippi National Guard]] forces to the campus to quell the riot. Meredith began classes the day after the troops arrived.<ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis62.htm#1962olmiss "James Meredith Integrates Ole Miss"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061004011259/http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis62.htm#1962olmiss |date=October 4, 2006 }}, Civil Rights Movement Archive</ref>

Kennard and other activists continued to work on public university desegregation. In 1965 [[Raylawni Branch]] and [[Gwendolyn Elaine Armstrong]] became the first African-American students to attend the [[University of Southern Mississippi]]. By that time, McCain helped ensure they had a peaceful entry.<ref name="sketch">[http://www.lib.usm.edu/~archives/m393.htm?m393text.htm~mainFrameBiographical/Historical], University of Southern Mississippi Library {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090917124123/http://www.lib.usm.edu/~archives/m393.htm?m393text.htm~mainFrameBiographical%2FHistorical|date=September 17, 2009}}</ref> In 2006, Judge Robert Helfrich ruled that Kennard was factually innocent of all charges for which he had been convicted in the 1950s.<ref name="Kennard">[http://www6.district125.k12.il.us/~bbradfor/kennardmission.html "Carrying the burden: the story of Clyde Kennard"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071009153750/http://www6.district125.k12.il.us/~bbradfor/kennardmission.html |date=October 9, 2007 }}, District 125, Mississippi. Retrieved November 5, 2007</ref>

=== Albany Movement, 1961–1962 ===
{{Main|Albany Movement}}

The SCLC, which had been criticized by some student activists for its failure to participate more fully in the freedom rides, committed much of its prestige and resources to a desegregation campaign in [[Albany, Georgia]], in November 1961. King, who had been criticized personally by some SNCC activists for his distance from the dangers that local organizers faced{{mdash}}and given the derisive nickname "De Lawd" as a result{{mdash}}intervened personally to assist the campaign led by both SNCC organizers and local leaders.

The campaign was a failure because of the canny tactics of [[Laurie Pritchett]], the local police chief, and divisions within the black community. The goals may not have been specific enough. Pritchett contained the marchers without violent attacks on demonstrators that inflamed national opinion. He also arranged for arrested demonstrators to be taken to jails in surrounding communities, allowing plenty of room to remain in his jail. Pritchett also foresaw King's presence as a danger and forced his release to avoid King's rallying the black community. King left in 1962 without having achieved any dramatic victories. The local movement, however, continued the struggle, and it obtained significant gains in the next few years.<ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis61.htm#1961albany Albany GA, Movement] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100707051408/http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis61.htm#1961albany |date=July 7, 2010 }}&nbsp;– Civil Rights Movement Archive</ref>

=== Birmingham campaign, 1963 ===
{{Main|Birmingham campaign}}

The Albany movement was shown to be an important education for the SCLC, however, when it undertook the Birmingham campaign in 1963. Executive Director [[Wyatt Tee Walker]] carefully planned the early strategy and tactics for the campaign. It focused on one goal{{mdash}}the desegregation of Birmingham's downtown merchants, rather than total desegregation, as in Albany.

The movement's efforts were helped by the brutal response of local authorities, in particular [[Bull Connor|Eugene "Bull" Connor]], the Commissioner of Public Safety. He had long held much political power but had lost a recent election for mayor to a less rabidly segregationist candidate. Refusing to accept the new mayor's authority, Connor intended to stay in office.

The campaign used a variety of nonviolent methods of confrontation, including sit-ins, kneel-ins at local churches, and a march to the county building to mark the beginning of a drive to register voters. The city, however, obtained an [[injunction]] barring all such protests. Convinced that the order was unconstitutional, the campaign defied it and prepared for [[mass arrest]]s of its supporters. King elected to be among those arrested on April 12, 1963.<ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis63.htm#1963bham The Birmingham Campaign] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090615060449/http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis63.htm#1963bham |date=June 15, 2009 }}&nbsp;– Civil Rights Movement Archive</ref>

[[File:Recreation of Martin Luther King's Cell in Birmingham Jail - National Civil Rights Museum - Downtown Memphis - Tennessee - USA.jpg|thumb|left|Recreation of Martin Luther King Jr.'s cell in Birmingham Jail at the [[National Civil Rights Museum]]]]
While in jail, King wrote his famous "[[Letter from Birmingham Jail]]"<ref>[http://www.stanford.edu/group/King//popular_requests/frequentdocs/birmingham.pdf Letter from a Birmingham Jail] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080407103314/http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/popular_requests/frequentdocs/birmingham.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030404084236/http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/popular_requests/frequentdocs/birmingham.pdf |archive-date=2003-04-04 |url-status=live |date=April 7, 2008 }} ~ King Research & Education Institute at Stanford Univ.</ref> on the margins of a newspaper, since he had not been allowed any writing paper while held in solitary confinement.<ref>Bass, S. Jonathan (2001) ''Blessed Are The Peacemakers: Martin Luther King Jr., Eight White Religious Leaders, and the "Letter from Birmingham Jail"''. Baton Rouge: LSU Press. {{ISBN|0-8071-2655-1}}</ref> Supporters appealed to the Kennedy administration, which intervened to obtain King's release. [[Walter Reuther]], president of the [[United Auto Workers]], arranged for $160,000 to bail out King and his fellow protestors.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.hoover.org/research/great-society-new-history-amity-shlaes-0|title=The Great Society: A New History with Amity Shlaes|website=Hoover Institution|language=en|access-date=April 29, 2020}}</ref> King was allowed to call his wife, who was recuperating at home after the birth of their fourth child and was released early on April 19.

The campaign, however, faltered as it ran out of demonstrators willing to risk arrest. [[James Bevel]], SCLC's Director of Direct Action and Director of Nonviolent Education, then came up with a bold and controversial alternative: to train high school students to take part in the demonstrations. As a result, in what would be called the [[Children's Crusade (1963)|Children's Crusade]], more than one thousand students skipped school on May 2 to meet at the 16th Street Baptist Church to join the demonstrations. More than six hundred marched out of the church fifty at a time in an attempt to walk to City Hall to speak to Birmingham's mayor about segregation. They were arrested and put into jail. In this first encounter, the police acted with restraint. On the next day, however, another one thousand students gathered at the church. When Bevel started them marching fifty at a time, Bull Connor finally unleashed police dogs on them and then turned the city's fire hoses water streams on the children. National television networks broadcast the scenes of the dogs attacking demonstrators and the water from the fire hoses knocking down the schoolchildren.<ref>{{cite news|newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/02/20/children-have-changed-america-before-braving-fire-hoses-and-police-dogs-for-civil-rights/|title=Children have changed America before, braving fire hoses and police dogs for civil rights|date=March 23, 2018}}</ref>

Widespread public outrage led the Kennedy administration to intervene more forcefully in negotiations between the white business community and the SCLC. On May 10, the parties announced an agreement to desegregate the lunch counters and other public accommodations downtown, to create a committee to eliminate discriminatory hiring practices, to arrange for the release of jailed protesters, and to establish regular means of communication between black and white leaders.

[[File:Bomb wreckage near Gaston Motel (14 May 1963).JPG|thumb|right|alt=A black and white photograph of a building in ruins next to an intact wall|Wreckage at the Gaston Motel following the [[Birmingham crisis|bomb explosion]] on May 11, 1963]]
Not everyone in the black community approved of the agreement{{mdash}}[[Fred Shuttlesworth]] was particularly critical, since he was skeptical about the good faith of Birmingham's power structure from his experience in dealing with them. Parts of the white community reacted violently. They [[Birmingham riot of 1963#Gaston Motel|bombed the Gaston Motel]], which housed the SCLC's unofficial headquarters, and the home of King's brother, the Reverend A. D. King. In response, [[Birmingham crisis|thousands of blacks rioted]], burning numerous buildings and one of them stabbed and wounded a police officer.<ref>[http://cgi.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/analysis/back.time/9605/15/ Freedom-Now" ''Time'', May 17, 1963] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150309014723/http://cgi.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/analysis/back.time/9605/15/ |date=March 9, 2015 }}; Glenn T. Eskew, ''But for Birmingham: The Local and National Struggles in the Civil Rights Movement'' (University of North Carolina Press, 1997), p. 301.</ref>

[[File:Wallace at University of Alabama edit2.jpg|thumb|Alabama governor [[George Wallace]] [[Stand in the Schoolhouse Door|tried to block desegregation]] at the [[University of Alabama]] and is confronted by U.S. Deputy Attorney General [[Nicholas Katzenbach]] in 1963.]]

Kennedy prepared to federalize the [[Alabama National Guard]] if the need arose. Four months later, on September 15, a conspiracy of Ku Klux Klan members [[16th Street Baptist Church bombing|bombed the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church]] in Birmingham, killing four young girls.

=== "Rising tide of discontent" and Kennedy's response, 1963 ===
{{Main|Gloria Richardson|Stand in the Schoolhouse Door|Civil Rights Address}}

Birmingham was only one of over a hundred cities rocked by the chaotic protest that spring and summer, some of them in the North but mainly in the South. During the March on Washington, Martin Luther King Jr. would refer to such protests as "the whirlwinds of revolt." In Chicago, blacks rioted through the South Side in late May after a white police officer shot a fourteen-year-old black boy who was fleeing the scene of a robbery.<ref name="Nicholas Andrew Bryant 2006 pg. 2">Nicholas Andrew Bryant, ''The Bystander: John F. Kennedy And the Struggle for Black Equality'' (Basic Books, 2006), p. 2</ref> Violent clashes between black activists and white workers took place in both Philadelphia and Harlem in successful efforts to integrate state construction projects.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://intellhisblackamerica.voices.wooster.edu/files/2012/03/Thomas_Sugrue_Affirmative_Action_from_Below.pdf| title = Thomas J Sugrue, "Affirmative Action from Below: Civil Rights, Building Trades, and the Politics of Racial Equality in the Urban North, 1945–1969" ''The Journal of American History'', Vol. 91, Issue 1}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/events/4279/civil_rights_movement/532945 |title=Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission website, "The Civil Rights Movement" }}</ref> On June 6, over a thousand whites attacked a sit-in in Lexington, North Carolina; blacks fought back and one white man was killed.<ref>T [https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/2922918/ he Daily Capital News(Missouri) June 14, 1963, p. 4] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150925190639/http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/2922918/ |date=September 25, 2015 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=BU8cAAAAIBAJ&pg=2472,3798134&dq=north%20carolina%201963%20riot&hl=en |title=The Dispatch&nbsp;– Google News Archive Search |access-date=July 29, 2016}}</ref> Edwin C. Berry of the National Urban League warned of a complete breakdown in race relations: "My message from the beer gardens and the barbershops all indicate the fact that the Negro is ready for war."<ref name="Nicholas Andrew Bryant 2006 pg. 2" />

In [[Cambridge, Maryland]], a working‐class city on the [[Eastern Shore of Maryland|Eastern Shore]], [[Gloria Richardson]] of SNCC led a movement that pressed for desegregation but also demanded low‐rent public housing, job‐training, public and private jobs, and an end to police brutality.<ref name="Jackson167">{{cite book |last1=Jackson |first1=Thomas F. |title=From Civil Rights to Human Rights |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |location=Philadelphia |page=167 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6YwXAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA167 |isbn=978-0-8122-0000-3 |date=2013}}</ref> On June 11, struggles between blacks and whites [[Cambridge riot of 1963|escalated into violent rioting]], leading Maryland Governor [[J. Millard Tawes]] to declare [[martial law]]. When negotiations between Richardson and Maryland officials faltered, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy directly intervened to negotiate a desegregation agreement.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://teaching.msa.maryland.gov/000001/000000/000033/html/t33.html |title=Teaching American History in Maryland&nbsp;– Documents for the Classroom&nbsp;– Maryland State Archives |access-date=July 29, 2016}}</ref> Richardson felt that the increasing participation of poor and working-class blacks was expanding both the power and parameters of the movement, asserting that "the people as a whole really do have more intelligence than a few of their leaders.ʺ<ref name="Jackson167" />

In their deliberations during this wave of protests, the Kennedy administration privately felt that militant demonstrations were ʺbad for the countryʺ and that "Negroes are going to push this thing too far."<ref name="web1.millercenter.org">{{Cite web|url=http://web1.millercenter.org/apd/colloquia/pdf/col_2008_0410_jackson.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110606153917/http://web1.millercenter.org/apd/colloquia/pdf/col_2008_0410_jackson.pdf |archive-date=2011-06-06 |url-status=live|title=Thomas F. Jackson, "Jobs and Freedom: The Black Revolt of 1963 and the Contested Meanings of the March on Washington" ''Virginia Foundation for the Humanities'' April 2, 2008, pp. 10–14}}</ref> On May 24, Robert Kennedy had a [[Baldwin-Kennedy meeting|meeting with prominent black intellectuals]] to discuss the racial situation. The black delegation criticized Kennedy harshly for vacillating on civil rights and said that the African-American community's thoughts were increasingly turning to violence. The meeting ended with ill will on all sides.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2009/05/clip_job_miss_h.php |title=Miss Lorraine Hansberry & Bobby Kennedy |first=Tony |last=Ortega |date=May 4, 2009 |access-date=July 29, 2016  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121018054636/http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2009/05/clip_job_miss_h.php |archive-date=October 18, 2012 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Za8TAQAAQBAJ |title=Robert Kennedy: Brother Protector |first=James |last=Hilty |date=2000 |publisher=Temple University Press |access-date=July 29, 2016 |via=Google Books |isbn=978-1-4399-0519-7}}</ref><ref name=Schlesinger333>Schlesinger, ''Robert Kennedy and His Times'' (1978), pp. 332–333.</ref> Nonetheless, the Kennedys ultimately decided that new legislation for equal public accommodations was essential to drive activists "into the courts and out of the streets."<ref name="web1.millercenter.org" /><ref>{{cite web |url = http://jah.oxfordjournals.org/content/93/4/1319.1.extract |title = "Book Reviews-The Bystander by Nicholas A. Bryant" ''The Journal of American History'' (2007) 93 (4) |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121010023123/http://jah.oxfordjournals.org/content/93/4/1319.1.extract |archive-date=October 10, 2012 }}</ref>[[File:March on Washington edit.jpg|thumb|The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom at the [[National Mall]]]]
[[File:Civil Rights March on Washington, D.C. (Leaders of the march posing in front of the statue of Abraham Lincoln... - NARA - 542063 (cropped).jpg|thumb|Leaders of the March on Washington posing before the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963]]
On June 11, 1963, [[George Wallace]], Governor of Alabama, tried [[Stand in the Schoolhouse Door|to block]]<ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis63.htm#1963tuscaloosa Standing In the Schoolhouse Door] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090615060449/http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis63.htm#1963tuscaloosa |date=June 15, 2009 }}&nbsp;– Civil Rights Movement Archive</ref> the integration of the [[University of Alabama]]. President John F. Kennedy sent a military force to make Governor Wallace step aside, allowing the enrollment of [[Vivian Malone Jones]] and [[James Hood]]. That evening, President Kennedy addressed the nation on TV and radio with his historic [[Civil Rights Address|civil rights speech]], where he lamented "a rising tide of discontent that threatens the public safety." He called on Congress to pass new civil rights legislation, and urged the country to embrace civil rights as "a moral issue...in our daily lives."<ref>"Radio and Television Report to the American People on Civil Rights," June 11, 1963, [http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/Speeches/JFK/003POF03CivilRights06111963.htm transcript from the JFK library.] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070205051926/http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical%2BResources/Archives/Reference%2BDesk/Speeches/JFK/003POF03CivilRights06111963.htm |date=February 5, 2007 }}</ref> In the early hours of June 12, [[Medgar Evers]], field secretary of the Mississippi NAACP, was assassinated by a member of the Klan.<ref>[http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/english/ms-writers/dir/evers_medgar/ Medgar Evers] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051107211340/http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/english/ms-writers/dir/evers_medgar/ |date=November 7, 2005 }}, a worthwhile article, on ''The Mississippi Writers Page'', a website of the University of Mississippi English Department.</ref><ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis63.htm#1963medgar Medgar Evers Assassination] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090615060449/http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis63.htm#1963medgar |date=June 15, 2009 }}&nbsp;– Civil Rights Movement Archive</ref> The next week, as promised, on June 19, 1963, President Kennedy submitted his Civil Rights bill to Congress.<ref name="abbeville">[http://www.abbeville.com/civilrights/washington.asp Civil Rights bill submitted, and date of JFK murder, plus graphic events of the March on Washington.] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071012121716/http://abbeville.com/civilrights/washington.asp |date=October 12, 2007 }} This is an Abbeville Press website, a large informative article apparently from the book ''The Civil Rights Movement'' ({{ISBN|0-7892-0123-2}}).</ref>

=== March on Washington, 1963 ===
{{Main|March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom}}
[[File:Bayard Rustin NYWTS 3.jpg|thumb|[[Bayard Rustin]] ''(left)'' and [[Cleveland Robinson]] ''(right)'', organizers of the March, on August 7, 1963]]Randolph and [[Bayard Rustin]] were the chief planners of the [[March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom]], which they proposed in 1962. In 1963, the Kennedy administration initially opposed the march out of concern it would negatively impact the drive for passage of civil rights legislation. However, Randolph and King were firm that the march would proceed.<ref>{{cite book |title=Kennedy, Johnson, and the Quest for Justice: The Civil Rights Tapes |last1=Rosenberg |first1=Jonathan |first2=Zachary |last2=Karabell |page=[https://archive.org/details/kennedyjohnsonth00rose/page/130 130] |isbn=978-0-393-05122-3 |year=2003 |publisher=WW Norton & Co |url=https://archive.org/details/kennedyjohnsonth00rose/page/130 }}</ref> With the march going forward, the Kennedys decided it was important to work to ensure its success. Concerned about the turnout, President Kennedy enlisted the aid of white church leaders and [[Walter Reuther]], president of the [[United Automobile Workers|UAW]], to help mobilize white supporters for the march.<ref>{{cite book |title=Robert Kennedy and His Times |last=Schlesinger |first=Arthur M. Jr. |pages=[https://archive.org/details/robertkennedyhis01schl/page/350 350, 351] |isbn=978-0-618-21928-5 |publisher=Houghton Mifflin Books |orig-date=1978 |year=2002 |url=https://archive.org/details/robertkennedyhis01schl/page/350 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/in-march-on-washington-white-activists-were-largely-overlooked-but-strategically-essential/2013/08/25/f2738c2a-eb27-11e2-8023-b7f07811d98e_story.html |title=In March on Washington, white activists were largely overlooked but strategically essential |last=Thompson |first=Krissah |date=August 25, 2013 |newspaper=The Washington Post |access-date=March 24, 2018 |issn=0190-8286 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180320230800/https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/in-march-on-washington-white-activists-were-largely-overlooked-but-strategically-essential/2013/08/25/f2738c2a-eb27-11e2-8023-b7f07811d98e_story.html |archive-date=March 20, 2018 |url-status=live }}</ref>

The march was held on August 28, 1963. Unlike the planned 1941 march, for which Randolph included only black-led organizations in the planning, the 1963 march was a collaborative effort of all of the major civil rights organizations, the more progressive wing of the labor movement, and other liberal organizations. The march had six official goals:
* meaningful civil rights laws
* a massive federal works program
* full and fair employment
* decent housing
* the right to vote
* adequate integrated education.
Of these, the march's major focus was on passage of the civil rights law that the Kennedy administration had proposed after the upheavals in Birmingham.

[[File:Civil Rights March on Washington, D.C. (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mathew Ahmann in a crowd.) - NARA - 542015 - Restoration.jpg|thumb|Martin Luther King Jr. at a civil rights march on Washington, D.C.]]

National media attention also greatly contributed to the march's national exposure and probable impact. In the essay "The March on Washington and Television News",<ref name="southernspaces.org">{{Cite journal |url=http://southernspaces.org/2004/television-news-and-civil-rights-struggle-views-virginia-and-mississippi |author=William G. Thomas III|title=Television News and the Civil Rights Struggle: The Views in Virginia and Mississippi |journal=Southern Spaces|date=November 3, 2004 |access-date=November 8, 2012|doi=10.18737/M73C7X|doi-access=free}}</ref> historian William Thomas notes: "Over five hundred cameramen, technicians, and correspondents from the major networks were set to cover the event. More cameras would be set up than had filmed the last presidential inauguration. One camera was positioned high in the Washington Monument, to give dramatic vistas of the marchers". By carrying the organizers' speeches and offering their own commentary, television stations framed the way their local audiences saw and understood the event.<ref name="southernspaces.org" />

{{listen
| filename=I Have A Dream sample.ogg
| title="I Have a Dream"
| description=30-second sample from "[[I Have a Dream]]" speech by [[Martin Luther King Jr.]] at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963
| filetype=[[Ogg]]
| pos=right
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The march was a success, although not without controversy. An estimated 200,000 to 300,000 demonstrators gathered in front of the [[Lincoln Memorial]], where King delivered his famous "[[I Have a Dream]]" speech. While many speakers applauded the Kennedy administration for the efforts it had made toward obtaining new, more effective civil rights legislation protecting the right to vote and outlawing segregation, [[John Lewis]] of [[Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee|SNCC]] took the administration to task for not doing more to protect southern blacks and civil rights workers under attack in the Deep South.

After the march, King and other civil rights leaders met with President Kennedy at the [[White House]]. While the Kennedy administration appeared sincerely committed to passing the bill, it was not clear that it had enough votes in Congress to do so. However, when [[John F. Kennedy assassination|President Kennedy was assassinated]] on November 22, 1963,<ref name="abbeville" /> the new President [[Lyndon B. Johnson|Lyndon Johnson]] decided to use his influence in [[United States Congress|Congress]] to bring about much of Kennedy's legislative agenda.

=== Malcolm X joins the movement, 1964–1965 ===
{{Main|Malcolm X|Black Nationalism|The Ballot or the Bullet}}

In March 1964, [[Malcolm X]] (el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz), national representative of the [[Nation of Islam]], formally broke with that organization, and made a public offer to collaborate with any civil rights organization that accepted the right to self-defense and the philosophy of Black nationalism (which Malcolm said no longer required [[Black separatism]]). [[Gloria Richardson]], head of the [[Cambridge, Maryland]], chapter of [[SNCC]], and leader of the Cambridge rebellion,<ref>{{cite web |title=Cambridge, Maryland, activists campaign for desegregation, USA, 1962–1963 |url=http://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/cambridge-maryland-activists-campaign-desegregation-usa-1962-1963 |website=Global Nonviolent Action Database |publisher=[[Swarthmore College]] |access-date=January 13, 2015}}</ref> an honored guest at The March on Washington, immediately embraced Malcolm's offer. Mrs. Richardson, "the nation's most prominent woman [civil rights] leader,"<ref name="BAA"/> told ''[[The Baltimore Afro-American]]'' that "Malcolm is being very practical...The federal government has moved into conflict situations only when matters approach the level of insurrection. Self-defense may force Washington to intervene sooner."<ref name="BAA">{{cite web |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=1mY8AAAAIBAJ&pg=1694,6977757&dq=gloria%20richardson%20malcolm%20x&hl=en |title=Baltimore Afro-American|via=Google News Archive Search |access-date=July 29, 2016}}</ref> Earlier, in May 1963, writer and activist [[James Baldwin]] had stated publicly that "the Black Muslim movement is the only one in the country we can call [[grassroots]], I hate to say it...Malcolm articulates for Negroes, their suffering...he corroborates their reality..."<ref>[https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/mlk/sfeature/sf_video_pop_04c_tr_qry.html "The Negro and the American Promise,"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161225033405/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/mlk/sfeature/sf_video_pop_04c_tr_qry.html |date=December 25, 2016 }} produced by Boston public television station WGBH in 1963</ref> On the local level, Malcolm and the NOI had been allied with the Harlem chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) since at least 1962.<ref>Harlem CORE, [http://harlemcore.com/omeka/items/show/162 "Film clip of Harlem CORE chairman Gladys Harrington speaking on Malcolm X"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304204921/http://harlemcore.com/omeka/items/show/162 |date=March 4, 2016 }}.</ref>

[[File:MLK and Malcolm X USNWR cropped.jpg|thumb|left|[[Malcolm X]] meets with [[Martin Luther King Jr.]], March 26, 1964|alt=Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. speak to each other thoughtfully as others look on.]]

On March 26, 1964, as the Civil Rights Act was facing stiff opposition in Congress, Malcolm had a public meeting with Martin Luther King Jr. at the Capitol. Malcolm had tried to begin a dialog with King as early as 1957, but King had rebuffed him. Malcolm had responded by calling King an "[[Uncle Tom]]", saying he had turned his back on black militancy in order to appease the white power structure. But the two men were on good terms at their face-to-face meeting.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/malcolm-x|title=Malcolm X|date=June 29, 2017|website=The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute}}</ref> There is evidence that King was preparing to support Malcolm's plan to formally bring the U.S. government before the United Nations on charges of human rights violations against African Americans.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RownbjVryWIC&pg=PT429|title=Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention|first=Manning|last=Marable|date=2011|publisher=Penguin|isbn=978-1-101-44527-3|via=Google Books}}</ref> Malcolm now encouraged Black nationalists to get involved in voter registration drives and other forms of community organizing to redefine and expand the movement.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/blackspeech/mx.html |title=Say it Plain, Say it Loud&nbsp;– American RadioWorks |first=American Public |last=Media |access-date=July 29, 2016}}</ref>

Civil rights activists became increasingly combative in the 1963 to 1964 period, seeking to defy such events as the thwarting of the Albany campaign, police repression and [[16th Street Baptist Church bombing|Ku Klux Klan terrorism]] in [[Birmingham campaign|Birmingham]], and the assassination of [[Medgar Evers]]. The latter's brother Charles Evers, who took over as Mississippi NAACP Field Director, told a public NAACP conference on February 15, 1964, that "non-violence won't work in Mississippi...we made up our minds...that if a white man shoots at a Negro in Mississippi, we will shoot back."<ref>Akinyele Umoja, ''We Will Shoot Back: Armed Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement'' (NYU Press, 2013), p. 126</ref> The repression of sit-ins in [[Jacksonville, Florida]], provoked a riot in which black youth threw [[Molotov cocktail]]s at police on March 24, 1964.<ref>Francis Fox Piven and Richard Cloward, ''Regulating the Poor'' (Random House 1971), p. 238; [https://books.google.com/books?id=bBQvmMnKmbcC&pg=PA118 Abel A. Bartley, ''Keeping the Faith: Race, Politics and Social Development in Jacksonville, 1940–1970'' (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2000), 111]</ref> Malcolm X gave numerous speeches in this period warning that such militant activity would escalate further if African Americans' rights were not fully recognized. In his landmark April 1964 speech "[[The Ballot or the Bullet]]", Malcolm presented an ultimatum to white America: "There's new strategy coming in. It'll be Molotov cocktails this month, hand grenades next month, and something else next month. It'll be ballots, or it'll be bullets."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://xroads.virginia.edu/~public/civilrights/a0146.html |title=The Ballot or the Bullet |access-date=July 29, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150110073828/http://xroads.virginia.edu/~public/civilrights/a0146.html |archive-date=January 10, 2015}}</ref>

As noted in the PBS documentary ''[[Eyes on the Prize]]'', "Malcolm X had a far-reaching effect on the civil rights movement. In the South, there had been a long tradition of self-reliance. Malcolm X's ideas now touched that tradition".<ref>Blackside Productions, ''Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Movement 1954–1985'', [https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eyesontheprize/about/pt_201.html"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100423154235/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eyesontheprize/about/pt_201.html |date=April 23, 2010 }}, The Time Has Come", Public Broadcasting System</ref> Self-reliance was becoming paramount in light of the [[1964 Democratic National Convention]]'s decision to refuse seating to the [[Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party]] (MFDP) and instead to seat the regular state delegation, which had been elected in violation of the party's own rules, and by [[Jim Crow law]] instead.<ref>{{cite book |last=Lewis |first=John |title=Walking With the Wind |url=https://archive.org/details/walkingwithwindm00lewi |url-access=registration |publisher=Simon & Schuster |year=1998|isbn=978-0-684-81065-2 }}</ref> SNCC moved in an increasingly militant direction and worked with Malcolm X on two Harlem MFDP fundraisers in December 1964.

When [[Fannie Lou Hamer]] spoke to Harlemites about the Jim Crow violence that she'd suffered in Mississippi, she linked it directly to the Northern police brutality against blacks that Malcolm protested against;<ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/docs/flh64.htm Fannie Lou Hamer, Speech Delivered with Malcolm X at the Williams Institutional CME Church, Harlem, New York, December 20, 1964] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160114204507/http://www.crmvet.org/docs/flh64.htm |date=January 14, 2016 }}.</ref> When Malcolm asserted that African Americans should emulate the [[Kenya Land and Freedom Army|Mau Mau army]] of [[Kenya]] in efforts to gain their independence, many in SNCC applauded.<ref>George Breitman, ed. ''Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements'' (Grove Press, 1965), pp. 106–109</ref>

During the [[Selma to Montgomery marches|Selma campaign]] for voting rights in 1965, Malcolm made it known that he'd heard reports of increased threats of lynching around Selma. In late January he sent an open telegram to [[George Lincoln Rockwell]], the head of the [[American Nazi Party]], stating:
<blockquote>"if your present racist agitation against our people there in Alabama causes physical harm to Reverend King or any other black Americans...you and your KKK friends will be met with maximum physical retaliation from those of us who are not handcuffed by the disarming philosophy of nonviolence."<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EAhHl-0ERn8C&pg=PA92|title=Pure Fire: Self-defense as Activism in the Civil Rights Era|first=Christopher B.|last=Strain|date=2005|publisher=University of Georgia Press|isbn=978-0-8203-2687-0|via=Google Books}}</ref></blockquote>The following month, the Selma chapter of SNCC invited Malcolm to speak to a mass meeting there. On the day of Malcolm's appearance, President Johnson made his first public statement in support of the Selma campaign.<ref>Juan Williams, et al, ''Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years 1954–1965'' (Penguin Group, 1988), p. 262</ref> Paul Ryan Haygood, a co-director of the [[NAACP Legal Defense Fund]], credits Malcolm with a role in gaining support by the federal government. Haygood noted that "shortly after Malcolm's visit to Selma, a federal judge, responding to a suit brought by the [[United States Department of Justice|Department of Justice]], required [[Dallas County, Alabama]], registrars to process at least 100 Black applications each day their offices were open."<ref>Paul Ryan Haygood, [http://www.blackcommentator.com/127/127_guest_malcolm.html "Malcolm's Contribution to Black Voting Rights"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304135106/http://www.blackcommentator.com/127/127_guest_malcolm.html |date=March 4, 2016 }}, ''The Black Commentator''</ref>

=== St. Augustine, Florida, 1963–1964 ===
{{Main|St. Augustine movement}}
{{Further|1964 Monson Motor Lodge protest}}
[[File:WhiteTradeOnlyLancasterOhio.jpg|thumb|"We Cater to White Trade Only" sign on a restaurant window in [[Lancaster, Ohio]], in 1938. In 1964, [[Martin Luther King Jr.]] was arrested and spent a night in jail for attempting to eat at a white-only restaurant in [[St. Augustine, Florida]].]]

[[St. Augustine, Florida|St. Augustine]] was famous as the "Nation's Oldest City", founded by the Spanish in 1565. It became the stage for a great drama leading up to the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964. A local movement, led by Robert B. Hayling, a black dentist and Air Force veteran affiliated with the NAACP, had been picketing segregated local institutions since 1963. In the fall of 1964, Hayling and three companions were brutally beaten at a Ku Klux Klan rally.

Nightriders shot into black homes, and teenagers Audrey Nell Edwards, JoeAnn Anderson, Samuel White, and Willie Carl Singleton (who came to be known as "The St. Augustine Four") sat in at a local Woolworth's lunch counter, seeking to get served. They were arrested and convicted of trespassing, and sentenced to six months in jail and reform school. It took a special act of the governor and cabinet of Florida to release them after national protests by the ''[[Pittsburgh Courier]]'', [[Jackie Robinson]], and others.

[[File:Rc17739 04.jpg|alt=Black and white photograph of segregationists fighting on a beach|thumb|left|upright|White segregationists (foreground) trying to prevent black people from swimming at a "White only" beach in St. Augustine, Florida during the [[1964 Monson Motor Lodge protests]]]]
In response to the repression, the St. Augustine movement practiced armed self-defense in addition to nonviolent direct action. In June 1963, Hayling publicly stated that "I and the others have armed. We will shoot first and answer questions later. We are not going to die like Medgar Evers." The comment made national headlines.<ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/tim/tim63b.htm#1963staug Civil Rights Movement Archive. "St. Augustine FL, Movement – 1963"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160816034441/http://www.crmvet.org/tim/tim63b.htm#1963staug |date=August 16, 2016 }}; [https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/hayling-robert-b "Hayling, Robert B.", Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University]; [http://www.augustine.com/history/black_history/dr_robert_hayling/ "Black History: Dr. Robert B. Hayling"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160122042950/http://augustine.com/history/black_history/dr_robert_hayling/ |date=January 22, 2016 }}, Augustine.com; David J. Garrow, ''Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference'' (Harper Collins, 1987) pp. 316–318</ref> When Klan nightriders terrorized black neighborhoods in St. Augustine, Hayling's NAACP members often drove them off with gunfire. In October 1963, a Klansman was killed.<ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/tim/tim63b.htm#1963staug Civil Rights Movement Archive. "St. Augustine FL, Movement – 1963"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160816034441/http://www.crmvet.org/tim/tim63b.htm#1963staug |date=August 16, 2016 }}; [https://books.google.com/books?id=HecWJnClV3wC&pg=PA316 David J. Garrow, ''Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference'' (Harper Collins, 1987) p. 317];</ref>

In 1964, Hayling and other activists urged the [[Southern Christian Leadership Conference]] to come to St. Augustine. Four prominent Massachusetts women—Mary Parkman Peabody, Esther Burgess, Hester Campbell (all of whose husbands were Episcopal bishops), and Florence Rowe (whose husband was vice president of an insurance company)—also came to lend their support. The arrest of Peabody, the 72-year-old mother of the governor of Massachusetts, for attempting to eat at the segregated Ponce de Leon Motor Lodge in an integrated group, made front-page news across the country and brought the movement in St. Augustine to the attention of the world.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/02/07/obituaries/mary-peabody-89-rights-activist-dies.html|title=Mary Peabody, 89, Rights Activist, Dies|work=[[The New York Times]]|date=February 7, 1981}}</ref>

Widely publicized activities continued in the ensuing months. When King was arrested, he sent a "Letter from the St. Augustine Jail" to a northern supporter, [[Rabbi]] [[Israel S. Dresner]]. A week later, in the largest mass arrest of rabbis in American history took place, while they were conducting a pray-in at the segregated Monson Motel. A well-known photograph taken in St. Augustine shows [[1964 Monson Motor Lodge protests|the manager of the Monson Motel]] pouring [[hydrochloric acid]] in the swimming pool while blacks and whites are swimming in it. As he did so he yelled that he was "cleaning the pool", a presumed reference to it now being, in his eyes, racially contaminated.<ref>{{cite book|last=Snodgrass|first=M. E.|title=Civil Disobedience: A–Z entries|publisher=Sharpe Reference|year=2009|page=181|isbn=978-0-76568-127-0|location=New York}}</ref> The photograph was run on the front page of a Washington newspaper the day the Senate was to vote on passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

=== Chester school protests, Spring 1964 ===
{{Main|Chester school protests}}
From November 1963 through April 1964, the [[Chester school protests]] were a series of civil rights protests led by [[George Raymond]] of the [[National Association for the Advancement of Colored Persons]] (NAACP) and [[Stanley Branche]] of the Committee for Freedom Now (CFFN) that made [[Chester, Pennsylvania]] one of the key battlegrounds of the civil rights movement. [[James Farmer]], the national director of the [[Congress of Racial Equality]] called Chester "''the Birmingham of the North''".<ref name=Mele>{{cite book |last1=Mele |first1=Christopher |title=Race and the Politics of Deception: The Making of an American City |date=2017 |publisher=New York University Press |location=New York |isbn=978-1-4798-6609-0 |pages=74–100 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xAl3DQAAQBAJ |access-date=October 27, 2018}}</ref>

In 1962, Branche and the CFFN focused on improving conditions at the predominantly black Franklin Elementary school in Chester. Although the school was built to house 500 students, it had become overcrowded with 1,200 students. The school's average class size was 39, twice the number of nearby all-white schools.<ref name=Phoenix>{{cite web |last1=Holcomb |first1=Lindsay |title=Questions surround student activism fifty-two years later |url=https://swarthmorephoenix.com/2015/10/29/questions-surround-student-activism-fifty-two-years-later/ |website=www.swarthmorephoenix.com |access-date=October 25, 2018|date=October 29, 2015 }}</ref> The school was built in 1910 and had never been updated. Only two bathrooms were available for the entire school.<ref name=nvdbase/> In November 1963, CFFN protesters blocked the entrance to Franklin Elementary school and the Chester Municipal Building resulting in the arrest of 240 protesters. Following public attention to the protests stoked by media coverage of the mass arrests, the mayor and school board negotiated with the CFFN and NAACP.<ref name=Mele/> The Chester Board of Education agreed to [[class-size reduction|reduce class sizes]] at Franklin school, remove unsanitary toilet facilities, relocate classes held in the boiler room and coal bin and repair school grounds.<ref name=nvdbase/>

Emboldened by the success of the Franklin Elementary school demonstrations, the CFFN recruited new members, sponsored voter registration drives and planned a citywide boycott of Chester schools. Branche built close ties with students at nearby [[Swarthmore College]], [[Pennsylvania Military College]] and [[Cheyney State College]] in order to ensure large turnouts at demonstrations and protests.<ref name=Mele/> Branche invited [[Dick Gregory]] and [[Malcolm X]] to Chester to participate in the "Freedom Now Conference"<ref name=McLarnon/> and other national civil rights leaders such as [[Gloria Richardson]] came to Chester in support of the demonstrations.<ref>{{cite web |title=Chester NAACP Scrapbook 1963–1964 |url=http://digitalwolfgram.widener.edu/digital/collection/p270801coll18/id/588 |website=www.digitalwolfgram.widener.edu |access-date=October 20, 2018}}</ref>

In 1964, a series of almost nightly protests brought chaos to Chester as protestors argued that the Chester School Board had [[de facto]] [[Racial segregation|segregation]] [[School segregation in the United States|of schools]]. The mayor of Chester, [[James Gorbey]], issued "The Police Position to Preserve the Public Peace", a ten-point statement promising an immediate return to law and order. The city deputized firemen and trash collectors to help handle demonstrators.<ref name=Mele/> The State of Pennsylvania deployed 50 state troopers to assist the 77-member Chester police force.<ref name=nvdbase>{{cite web |title=African American residents of Chester, PA, demonstrate to end de facto segregation in public schools, 1963–1966 |url=https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/african-american-residents-chester-pa-demonstrate-end-de-facto-segregation-public-schools-19 |website=www.nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu |access-date=October 26, 2018}}</ref> The demonstrations were marked by violence and charges of police brutality.<ref>{{Cite news |title=RIOTS MAR PEACE IN CHESTER, PA.; Negro Protests Continue – School Policy at Issue |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1964/04/26/archives/riots-mar-peace-in-chester-pa-negro-protests-continueschool-policy.html |newspaper=The New York Times |access-date=July 13, 2018|date=April 26, 1964 }}</ref> Over six hundred people were arrested over a two-month period of civil rights rallies, marches, pickets, boycotts and sit-ins.<ref name=Mele/> Pennsylvania Governor [[William Scranton]] became involved in the negotiations and convinced Branche to obey a court-ordered moratorium on demonstrations.<ref name=McLarnon>{{cite journal |last1=McLarnon |first1=John M. |title='Old Scratchhead' Reconsidered: George Raymond & Civil Rights in Chester, Pennsylvania |journal=Pennsylvania History |date=2002 |volume=69 |issue=3 |pages=318–326 |url=https://journals.psu.edu/phj/article/viewFile/25768/25537 |access-date=October 27, 2018}}</ref> Scranton created the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission to conduct hearings on the de facto segregation of public schools. All protests were discontinued while the commission held hearings during the summer of 1964.{{sfn|Mele|2017|p=96}}

In November 1964, the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission concluded that the Chester School Board had violated the law and ordered the Chester School District to desegregate the city's six predominantly African-American schools. The city appealed the ruling, which delayed implementation.<ref name=nvdbase/>

=== Freedom Summer, 1964 ===
{{Main|Freedom Summer}}

In the summer of 1964, [[Council of Federated Organizations|COFO]] brought nearly 1,000 activists to Mississippi{{mdash}}most of them white college students from the North and West{{mdash}}to join with local black activists to register voters, teach in "Freedom Schools", and organize the [[Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party]] (MFDP).<ref name="crmvet.org">[http://www.crmvet.org/disc/mfdp.htm The Mississippi Movement & the MFDP] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080424084752/http://www.crmvet.org/disc/mfdp.htm |date=April 24, 2008 }}&nbsp;– Civil Rights Movement Archive</ref>

Many of Mississippi's white residents deeply resented the outsiders and attempts to change their society. State and local governments, police, the [[White Citizens' Council]] and the Ku Klux Klan used arrests, beatings, arson, murder, spying, firing, evictions, and other forms of intimidation and harassment to oppose the project and prevent blacks from registering to vote or achieving social equality.<ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/docs/msrv64.pdf Mississippi: Subversion of the Right to Vote] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100505032056/http://www.crmvet.org/docs/msrv64.pdf |date=May 5, 2010 }}&nbsp;– Civil Rights Movement Archive</ref>

[[File:FBI Poster of Missing Civil Rights Workers.jpg|thumb|[[Missing persons]] poster created by the [[FBI]] in 1964 [[Murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner|shows the photographs]] of [[Andrew Goodman (activist)|Andrew Goodman]], [[James Chaney]], and [[Michael Schwerner]]]]

On June 21, 1964, [[Murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner|three civil rights workers disappeared]]: [[James Chaney]], a young black Mississippian and plasterer's apprentice; and two [[Jewish]] activists, [[Andrew Goodman (activist)|Andrew Goodman]], a [[Queens College, City University of New York|Queens College]] anthropology student; and [[Michael Schwerner]], a [[Congress of Racial Equality|CORE]] organizer from [[Manhattan]]'s [[Lower East Side]]. They were found weeks later, murdered by conspirators who turned out to be local members of the Klan, some of the members of the [[Neshoba County, Mississippi|Neshoba County]] sheriff's department. This outraged the public, leading the U.S. Justice Department along with the FBI (the latter which had previously avoided dealing with the issue of segregation and persecution of blacks) to take action. The outrage over these murders helped lead to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

From June to August, Freedom Summer activists worked in 38 local projects scattered across the state, with the largest number concentrated in the [[Mississippi Delta]] region. At least 30 Freedom Schools, with close to 3,500 students, were established, and 28 community centers were set up.<ref>{{Cite book |last=McAdam |first=Doug |title=Freedom Summer |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1988 |isbn=978-0-19-504367-9 |url=https://archive.org/details/freedomsummer00mcad }}</ref>

Over the course of the Summer Project, some 17,000 Mississippi blacks attempted to become registered voters in defiance of the red tape and forces of [[white supremacy]] arrayed against them{{mdash}}only 1,600 (less than 10%) succeeded. But more than 80,000 joined the [[Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party]] (MFDP), founded as an alternative political organization, showing their desire to vote and participate in politics.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Carson |first=Clayborne |title=In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1981}}</ref>

Though Freedom Summer failed to register many voters, it had a significant effect on the course of the civil rights movement. It helped break down the decades of people's isolation and repression that were the foundation of the [[Jim Crow laws|Jim Crow]] system. Before Freedom Summer, the national news media had paid little attention to the persecution of black voters in the Deep South and the dangers endured by black civil rights workers. The progression of events throughout the South increased media attention to Mississippi.<ref name="crmvet1">[http://www.crmvet.org/vet/vethome.htm Veterans Roll Call] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080423070052/http://www.crmvet.org/vet/vethome.htm |date=April 23, 2008 }}&nbsp;– Civil Rights Movement Archive</ref>

The deaths of affluent northern white students and threats to non-Southerners attracted the full attention of the media spotlight to the state. Many black activists became embittered, believing the media valued the lives of whites and blacks differently. Perhaps the most significant effect of Freedom Summer was on the volunteers, almost all of whom{{mdash}}black and white{{mdash}}still consider it to have been one of the defining periods of their lives.<ref name="crmvet1" />

=== Civil Rights Act of 1964 ===
{{Main|Civil Rights Act of 1964}}

Although President Kennedy had [[Civil Rights Address|proposed civil rights legislation]] and it had support from Northern Congressmen and Senators of both parties, Southern Senators blocked the bill by threatening [[filibuster]]s. After considerable parliamentary maneuvering and 54 days of filibuster on the floor of the United States Senate, President Johnson got a bill through the Congress.{{sfn|Reeves|1993|pp=521–524}}

[[File:Lyndon Johnson signing Civil Rights Act, July 2, 1964.jpg|thumb|Lyndon B. Johnson signs the historic [[Civil Rights Act of 1964]]]]

On July 2, 1964, Johnson signed the [[Civil Rights Act of 1964]],<ref name="cra64" /> which banned discrimination based on "race, color, religion, sex or national origin" in employment practices and public accommodations. The bill authorized the Attorney General to file lawsuits to enforce the new law. The law also nullified state and local laws that required such discrimination.

=== Harlem riot of 1964 ===
{{Main|Harlem riot of 1964}}

When police shot an unarmed black teenager in Harlem in July 1964, tensions escalated out of control. Residents were frustrated with racial inequalities. Rioting broke out, and [[Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn|Bedford-Stuyvesant]], a major black neighborhood in Brooklyn, erupted next. That summer, [[1964 Philadelphia race riot|rioting also broke out in Philadelphia]], for similar reasons. The riots were on a much smaller scale than what would occur in 1965 and later.

Washington responded with a pilot program called [[Project Uplift]]. Thousands of young people in Harlem were given jobs during the summer of 1965. The project was inspired by a report generated by [[Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited|HARYOU]] called ''[[Youth in the Ghetto]]''.<ref>''Youth in the Ghetto: A Study of the Consequences of Powerlessness'', Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited, Inc., 1964</ref> HARYOU was given a major role in organizing the project, together with the [[National Urban League]] and nearly 100 smaller community organizations.<ref>''Poverty and Politics in Harlem'', Alphnso Pinkney and Roger Woock, College & University Press Services, Inc., 1970</ref> Permanent jobs at living wages were still out of reach of many young black men.

=== Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, 1964 ===
{{Main|Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party}}

Blacks in Mississippi had been disfranchised by statutory and constitutional changes since the late 19th century. In 1963 COFO held a [[1963 Freedom Ballot|Freedom Ballot]] in Mississippi to demonstrate the desire of black Mississippians to vote. More than 80,000 people registered and voted in the mock election, which pitted an integrated slate of candidates from the "Freedom Party" against the official state Democratic Party candidates.<ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/tim/tim63b.htm Freedom Ballot in MS] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160816034441/http://www.crmvet.org/tim/tim63b.htm |date=August 16, 2016 }}&nbsp;– Civil Rights Movement Archive</ref>

[[File:Lyndon Johnson meeting with civil rights leaders.jpg|thumb|upright=1.36|President [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] ''(center)'' meets with civil rights leaders [[Martin Luther King Jr.]], [[Whitney Young]], and [[James L. Farmer Jr.|James Farmer]], January 1964]]

In 1964, organizers launched the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) to challenge the all-white official party. When Mississippi voting registrars refused to recognize their candidates, they held their own primary. They selected [[Fannie Lou Hamer]], [[Annie Bell Robinson Devine|Annie Devine]], and [[Victoria Gray Adams|Victoria Gray]] to run for [[United States Congress|Congress]], and a slate of delegates to represent Mississippi at the 1964 Democratic National Convention.<ref name="crmvet.org" />

The presence of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in [[Atlantic City, New Jersey]], was inconvenient, however, for the convention organizers. They had planned a triumphant celebration of the Johnson administration's achievements in civil rights, rather than a fight over racism within the Democratic Party. All-white delegations from other Southern states threatened to walk out if the official slate from Mississippi was not seated. Johnson was worried about the inroads that Republican [[Barry Goldwater]]'s campaign was making in what previously had been the white Democratic stronghold of the "Solid South", as well as support that [[George Wallace]] had received in the North during the Democratic primaries.

Johnson could not, however, prevent the MFDP from taking its case to the Credentials Committee. There [[Fannie Lou Hamer]] testified eloquently about the beatings that she and others endured and the threats they faced for trying to register to vote. Turning to the television cameras, Hamer asked, "Is this America?"

Johnson offered the MFDP a "compromise" under which it would receive two non-voting, at-large seats, while the white delegation sent by the official Democratic Party would retain its seats. The MFDP angrily rejected the "compromise."

The MFDP kept up its agitation at the convention after it was denied official recognition. When all but three of the "regular" Mississippi delegates left because they refused to pledge allegiance to the party, the MFDP delegates borrowed passes from sympathetic delegates and took the seats vacated by the official Mississippi delegates. National party organizers removed them. When they returned the next day, they found convention organizers had removed the empty seats that had been there the day before. They stayed and sang "freedom songs".

The 1964 Democratic Party convention disillusioned many within the MFDP and the civil rights movement, but it did not destroy the MFDP. The MFDP became more radical after Atlantic City. It invited [[Malcolm X]] to speak at one of its conventions and opposed the [[Vietnam War|war in Vietnam]].

=== Selma Voting Rights Movement ===
{{Main|Selma to Montgomery marches|Voting Rights Act}}

[[Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee|SNCC]] had undertaken an ambitious voter registration program in [[Selma, Alabama]], in 1963, but by 1965 little headway had been made in the face of opposition from Selma's sheriff, Jim Clark. After local residents asked the SCLC for assistance, King came to Selma to lead several marches, at which he was arrested along with 250 other demonstrators. The marchers continued to meet violent resistance from the police. [[Jimmie Lee Jackson]], a resident of nearby Marion, was killed by police at a later march on February 17, 1965. Jackson's death prompted [[James Bevel]], director of the Selma Movement, to initiate and organize a plan to march from Selma to [[Montgomery, Alabama|Montgomery]], the state capital.

On March 7, 1965, acting on Bevel's plan, [[Hosea Williams]] of the SCLC and John Lewis of SNCC led a march of 600 people to walk the 54 miles (87&nbsp;km) from Selma to the state capital in Montgomery. Six blocks into the march, at the [[Edmund Pettus Bridge]] where the marchers left the city and moved into the county, state troopers, and local county law enforcement, some mounted on horseback, attacked the peaceful demonstrators with billy clubs, [[tear gas]], rubber tubes wrapped in barbed wire, and bullwhips. They drove the marchers back into Selma. Lewis was knocked unconscious and dragged to safety. At least 16 other marchers were hospitalized. Among those gassed and beaten was [[Amelia Boynton Robinson]], who was at the center of civil rights activity at the time.

[[File:Bloody Sunday-Alabama police attack.jpeg|thumb|Police attack non-violent marchers on "Bloody Sunday", the first day of the [[Selma to Montgomery marches]].]]

The national broadcast of the news footage of lawmen attacking unresisting marchers seeking to exercise their constitutional right to vote provoked a national response and hundreds of people from all over the country came for a second march. These marchers were turned around by King at the last minute so as not to violate a federal injunction. This displeased many demonstrators, especially those who resented King's nonviolence (such as [[James Forman]] and [[Robert F. Williams]]).

That night, local Whites attacked [[James Reeb]], a voting rights supporter. He died of his injuries in a Birmingham hospital on March 11. Due to the national outcry at a White minister being murdered so brazenly (as well as the subsequent civil disobedience led by Gorman and other SNCC leaders all over the country, especially in Montgomery and at the White House), the marchers were able to lift the injunction and obtain protection from federal troops, permitting them to make the march across Alabama without incident two weeks later; during the march, Gorman, Williams, and other more militant protesters carried bricks and sticks of their own.

Four Klansmen shot and killed [[Detroit]] homemaker [[Viola Liuzzo]] as she drove marchers back to Selma that night.

=== Voting Rights Act of 1965 ===
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Eight days after the first march, but before the final march, President Johnson delivered a televised address to support the voting rights bill he had sent to Congress. In it he stated:

{{blockquote|quote=Their cause must be our cause too. Because it is not just Negroes, but really it is all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome.}}

On August 6, Johnson signed the [[Voting Rights Act of 1965]], which suspended literacy tests and other subjective voter registration tests. It authorized Federal supervision of voter registration in states and individual voting districts where such tests were being used and where African Americans were historically under-represented in voting rolls compared to the eligible population. African Americans who had been barred from registering to vote finally had an alternative to taking suits to local or state courts, which had seldom prosecuted their cases to success. If discrimination in voter registration occurred, the 1965 act authorized the [[Attorney General of the United States]] to send Federal examiners to replace local registrars.

Within months of the bill's passage, 250,000 new black voters had been registered, one-third of them by federal examiners. Within four years, voter registration in the South had more than doubled. In 1965, Mississippi had the highest black voter turnout at 74% and led the nation in the number of black public officials elected. In 1969, Tennessee had a 92% turnout among black voters; Arkansas, 78%; and Texas, 73%.

Several whites who had opposed the Voting Rights Act paid a quick price. In 1966 [[Jim Clark (sheriff)|Sheriff Jim Clark]] of Selma, Alabama, infamous for using [[cattle prod]]s against civil rights marchers, was up for reelection. Although he took off the notorious "Never" pin on his uniform, he was defeated. At the election, Clark lost as blacks voted to get him out of office.

Blacks' regaining the power to vote changed the political landscape of the South. When Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, only about 100 African Americans held elective office, all in northern states. By 1989, there were more than 7,200 African Americans in office, including more than 4,800 in the South. Nearly every county where populations were majority black in Alabama had a black sheriff. Southern blacks held top positions in city, county, and state governments.

Atlanta elected a black mayor, [[Andrew Young]], as did [[Jackson, Mississippi]], with [[Harvey Johnson Jr.]], and [[New Orleans]], with [[Ernest Nathan Morial|Ernest Morial]]. Black politicians on the national level included [[Barbara Jordan]], elected as a Representative from Texas in Congress, and President Jimmy Carter appointed Andrew Young as [[United States Ambassador to the United Nations]]. [[Julian Bond]] was elected to the [[Georgia General Assembly|Georgia State Legislature]] in 1965, although political reaction to his public [[opposition to the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War]] prevented him from taking his seat until 1967. [[John Lewis]] was first elected in 1986 to represent [[Georgia's 5th congressional district]] in the [[United States House of Representatives]], where he served from 1987 until his death in 2020.

=== Watts riot of 1965 ===
{{Main|Watts Riots}}

[[File:Wattsriots-policearrest-loc.jpg|thumb|Police arrest a man during the [[Watts riots]] in Los Angeles, August 1965]]

The new Voting Rights Act of 1965 had no immediate effect on living conditions for poor blacks. A few days after the act became law, a riot broke out in the [[South Los Angeles|South Central]] Los Angeles neighborhood of [[Watts, Los Angeles|Watts]]. Like Harlem, Watts was a majority-black neighborhood with very high unemployment and associated poverty. Its residents confronted a largely white police department that had a history of abuse against blacks.<ref>[[Spencer Crump]], ''Black riot in Los Angeles: the story of the Watts tragedy'' (1966).</ref>

While arresting a young man for drunk driving, police officers argued with the suspect's mother before onlookers. The spark triggered massive destruction of property through six days of rioting in Los Angeles. Thirty-four people were killed,<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ATS6CwAAQBAJ&q=Turn+left+or+get+shot&pg=PA69|title=From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America|last1=Hinton|first1=Elizabeth|date=2016|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=978-0-674-73723-5|pages=68–72}}</ref> and property valued at about $40&nbsp;million was destroyed, making the [[Watts riots]] among the city's worst unrest until the [[1992 Los Angeles riots|Rodney King riots]] of 1992.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Joshua |first1=Bloom |last2=Martin |first2=Waldo |title=Black Against Empire: The History And Politics Of The Black Panther Party| title-link = Black Against Empire |date=2016 |publisher=University of California Press |page=30}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=Szymanski|first=Michael|title=How Legacy of the Watts Riot Consumed, Ruined Man's Life|newspaper=Orlando Sentinel|date=August 5, 1990|url=http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1990-08-05/news/9008031131_1_frye-riots-in-american-rights-leaders|access-date=June 22, 2013|archive-date=December 6, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131206012123/http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1990-08-05/news/9008031131_1_frye-riots-in-american-rights-leaders}}</ref>

With black militancy on the rise, ghetto residents directed acts of anger at the police. Black residents growing tired of police brutality continued to riot. Some young people joined groups such as the [[Black Panther Party|Black Panthers]], whose popularity was based in part on their reputation for confronting police officers. Riots among blacks occurred in 1966 and 1967 in cities such as [[Atlanta]], [[San Francisco]], [[Oakland, California|Oakland]], [[Baltimore]], [[Seattle]], [[Tacoma, Washington|Tacoma]], [[Hough Riots|Cleveland]], [[Cincinnati]], [[Columbus, Ohio|Columbus]], [[1967 Newark riots|Newark]], Chicago, New York City (specifically in [[Brooklyn]], Harlem and [[the Bronx]]), and worst of all in Detroit.

=== Fair housing movements, 1966–1968 ===
The first major blow against housing segregation in the era, the [[Rumford Fair Housing Act]], was passed in [[California]] in 1963. It was overturned by white California voters and real estate lobbyists the following year with [[California Proposition 14 (1964)|Proposition 14]], a move which helped precipitate the [[Watts riots]].<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=b8MeAgAAQBAJ |title=American Babylon: Race and the Struggle for Postwar Oakland |first=Robert O. |last=Self |date=2005 |publisher=Princeton University Press |access-date=July 29, 2016 |via=Google Books |isbn=978-1-4008-4417-3}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |url=http://articles.latimes.com/2005/aug/11/local/la-me-watts11aug11 |title=Watts Riots, 40 Years Later |first1=Valerie |last1=Reitman |first2=Mitchell |last2=Landsberg |date=August 11, 2005 |access-date=July 29, 2016 |newspaper=Los Angeles Times}}</ref> In 1966, the [[Supreme Court of California|California Supreme Court]] invalidated Proposition 14 and reinstated the Rumford Fair Housing Act.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt0b69q1bw/entire_text/ |title=No on Proposition 14: California Fair Housing Initiative Collection |access-date=July 29, 2016}}</ref>

Working and organizing for [[fair housing]] laws became a major project of the movement over the next two years, with Martin Luther King Jr., James Bevel, and [[Al Raby]] leading the [[Chicago Freedom Movement]] around the issue in 1966. In the following year, Father [[James Groppi]] and the [[NAACP Youth Council]] also attracted national attention with a fair housing campaign in Milwaukee.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.blackthursday.uwosh.edu/milwaukee.html |title=Black Thursday |access-date=July 29, 2016}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |url=http://articles.latimes.com/1985-11-05/news/mn-4337_1_roman-catholic-priest |url-access=subscription |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200408181140/https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-11-05-mn-4337-story.html |archive-date=April 8, 2020 |title=James Groppi, Ex-Priest, Civil Rights Activist, Dies |first=Burt A. |last=Folkart |date=November 5, 1985 |access-date=July 29, 2016 |newspaper=Los Angeles Times}}{{cbignore}}</ref> Both movements faced violent resistance from white homeowners and legal opposition from conservative politicians.

The Fair Housing Bill was the most contentious civil rights legislation of the era. Senator [[Walter Mondale]], who advocated for the bill, noted that over successive years, it was the most [[filibuster]]ed legislation in U.S. history. It was opposed by most Northern and Southern senators, as well as the [[National Association of Real Estate Boards]]. A proposed "Civil Rights Act of 1966" had collapsed completely because of its fair housing provision.<ref>{{Cite journal|url=http://www.wiu.edu/cas/history/wihr/pdfs/MilesWIHRSp09.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141223193406/http://www.wiu.edu/cas/history/wihr/pdfs/MilesWIHRSp09.pdf |archive-date=2014-12-23 |url-status=live|author=Darren Miles |title=Everett Dirksen's Role in Civil Rights Legislation|journal=Western Illinois Historical Review|volume= I |date=Spring 2009}}</ref> Mondale commented that:

{{blockquote|quote=A lot of civil rights [legislation] was about making the South behave and taking the teeth from George Wallace, [but] this came right to the neighborhoods across the country. This was civil rights getting personal.<ref name="propublica.org">{{cite web |url=https://www.propublica.org/article/living-apart-how-the-government-betrayed-a-landmark-civil-rights-law |title=Living Apart: How the Government Betrayed a Landmark Civil Rights Law |first=Nikole |last=Hannah-Jones |date=June 25, 2015 |access-date=July 29, 2016}}</ref>}}

=== Nationwide riots of 1967 ===
{{Main|Long Hot Summer of 1967}}
{{Further|Detroit Riot of 1967|1967 Newark riots|1967 Plainfield riots}}
[[File:Excerpt- MP886 Detroit Riots.webm|thumb|Film on the riots created by the White House Naval Photographic Unit]]

In 1967 riots broke out in black neighborhoods in more than 100 U.S. cities, including Detroit, Newark, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Washington, D.C.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.thirteen.org/newark/history3.html |title=A Walk Through Newark. History. The Riots|publisher=Thirteen/WNET |access-date=July 29, 2016}}</ref> The largest of these was the [[1967 Detroit riot]].

In Detroit, a large [[black middle class]] had begun to develop among those African Americans who worked at unionized jobs in the automotive industry. These workers complained of persisting racist practices, limiting the jobs they could have and opportunities for promotion. The [[United Auto Workers]] channeled these complaints into bureaucratic and ineffective grievance procedures.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=3527 |title=Review of Georgakas, Dan; Surkin, Marvin, ''Detroit, I Do Mind Dying: A Study in Urban Revolution'' |first=Karen |last=Miller |date=October 1, 1999 }}</ref> Violent white mobs enforced the segregation of housing up through the 1960s.<ref name="pbs.org">{{cite web |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eyesontheprize/profiles/57_mi.html |title=American Experience. Eyes on the Prize. Profiles |website=[[PBS]] |access-date=July 29, 2016 |archive-date=February 18, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170218081425/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eyesontheprize/profiles/57_mi.html}}</ref> Blacks who were not upwardly mobile were living in substandard conditions, subject to the same problems as poor African Americans in Watts and Harlem.

When white [[Detroit Police Department]] (DPD) officers shut down an illegal bar and arrested a large group of patrons during the hot summer, furious black residents rioted. Rioters looted and destroyed property while snipers engaged in firefights from rooftops and windows, undermining the DPD's ability to curtail the disorder. In response, the [[Michigan Army National Guard]] and [[United States Army|U.S. Army]] [[paratrooper]]s were deployed to reinforce the DPD and protect [[Detroit Fire Department]] (DFD) firefighters from attacks while putting out fires. Residents reported that police officers and National Guardsmen shot at black civilians and suspects indiscriminately. After five days, 43 people had been killed, hundreds injured, and thousands left homeless; $40 to $45&nbsp;million worth of damage was caused.<ref name="pbs.org" /><ref>Hubert G. Locke, ''The Detroit Riot of 1967'' (Wayne State University Press, 1969).</ref>

State and local governments responded to the riot with a dramatic increase in minority hiring.<ref>Sidney Fine, ''Expanding the Frontier of Civil Rights: Michigan, 1948–1968'' (Wayne State University Press, 2000) p. 325</ref> In the aftermath of the turmoil, the Greater Detroit Board of Commerce also launched a campaign to find jobs for ten thousand "previously unemployable" persons, a preponderant number of whom were black.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/expandingfrontie0000fine|title=Expanding the frontiers of civil rights: Michigan, 1948–1968|first=Sidney|last=Fine|date= 2000|publisher=Detroit : Wayne State University Press|isbn=978-0-8143-2875-0|via=Internet Archive}}</ref> Governor [[George Romney (politician)|George Romney]] immediately responded to the riot of 1967 with a special session of the Michigan legislature where he forwarded sweeping housing proposals that included not only [[fair housing]], but "important relocation, [[tenant rights|tenants' rights]] and code enforcement legislation." Romney had supported such proposals in 1965 but abandoned them in the face of organized opposition. The laws passed both houses of the legislature. Historian Sidney Fine wrote that:

{{blockquote|The Michigan Fair Housing Act, which took effect on November 15, 1968, was stronger than the federal fair housing law...It is probably more than a coincidence that the state that had experienced the most severe racial disorder of the 1960s also adopted one of the strongest state fair housing acts.<ref name="law.msu.edu">{{Cite web|url=https://www.law.msu.edu/clinics/rhc/MI_Housing_Disc.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130504011411/http://www.law.msu.edu//clinics/rhc/MI_Housing_Disc.pdf  |title=Sidney Fine, "Michigan and Housing Discrimination 1949–1969" Michigan Historical Review, Fall 1997|archive-date=May 4, 2013}}</ref>}}

President Johnson created the [[Kerner Commission|National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders]] in response to a nationwide wave of riots. The commission's final report called for major reforms in employment and public policy in black communities. It warned that the United States was moving toward separate white and black societies.

=== Memphis, King assassination, and Civil Rights Act of 1968 ===
{{Main|Poor People's Campaign|Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.|Civil Rights Act of 1968}}
{{See also|King assassination riots|Orangeburg massacre}}
[[File:Resurrection City Washington D.C. 1968.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|A 3,000-person shantytown called [[Poor People's Campaign#Resurrection City|Resurrection City]] was established in 1968 on the [[National Mall]] as part of the Poor People's Campaign.]]

As 1968 began, the fair housing bill was being [[filibustered]] once again, but two developments revived it.<ref name="propublica.org" /> The [[Kerner Commission]] report on the [[Long hot summer of 1967|1967 ghetto riots]] was delivered to Congress on March 1, and it strongly recommended "a comprehensive and enforceable federal open housing law" as a remedy to the civil disturbances. The Senate was moved to end their filibuster that week.<ref name="huduser.org">{{Cite web|url=http://www.huduser.org/portal/Periodicals/CITYSCPE/VOL4NUM3/mathias.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141227020632/http://www.huduser.org/portal/Periodicals/CITYSCPE/VOL4NUM3/mathias.pdf |archive-date=2014-12-27 |url-status=live|title=Honorable Charles Mathias Jr. "Fair Housing Legislation: Not an Easy Row To Hoe" US Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Policy Development and Research}}</ref>

[[James Lawson (American activist)|James Lawson]] invited King to [[Memphis, Tennessee]], in March 1968 to support a [[Memphis sanitation strike|sanitation workers' strike]]. These workers launched a campaign for [[trade union|union]] representation after two workers were accidentally killed on the job; they were seeking fair wages and improved working conditions. King considered their struggle to be a vital part of the [[Poor People's Campaign]] he was planning.

{{listen
| filename=I've Been To The Mountaintop.ogg
| title="I've Been to the Mountaintop"
| description=Final 30 seconds of "[[I've Been to the Mountaintop]]" speech by [[Martin Luther King Jr.]] These are the final words from his final public speech.
| filetype=[[Ogg]]
| image=none}}
A day after delivering his stirring "[[I've Been to the Mountaintop]]" sermon, which has become famous for his vision of American society, King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, at the [[Lorraine Motel]] in Memphis. [[King assassination riots|Riots broke out]] in black neighborhoods in more than 110 cities across the United States in the days that followed, notably [[1968 Chicago riots|in Chicago]], [[Baltimore riot of 1968|Baltimore]], and [[1968 Washington, D.C., riots|Washington, D.C.]]

The day before [[Funeral of Martin Luther King Jr.|King's funeral]], April 8, a completely silent march with [[Coretta Scott King]], [[Southern Christian Leadership Conference|SCLC]], and UAW president [[Walter Reuther]] attracted approximately 42,000 participants.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Memphis, Tennessee, sanitation workers strike, 1968 {{!}} Global Nonviolent Action Database|url=https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/memphis-tennessee-sanitation-workers-strike-1968|website=nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu|access-date=May 19, 2020}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Reuther, Walter Philip|url=https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/reuther-walter-philip|last1=University|first1= Stanford|last2=Stanford|date=June 21, 2017|website=The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute|language=en|access-date=May 19, 2020|last3=California 94305}}</ref> Armed National Guardsmen lined the streets, sitting on [[M-48 tanks]], to protect the marchers, and helicopters circled overhead. On April 9, Mrs. King led another 150,000 people in a funeral procession through the streets of Atlanta.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAcoretta.htm |title=Coretta Scott King |publisher=Spartacus Educational Publishers |access-date=October 30, 2010  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100705051610/http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAcoretta.htm |archive-date=July 5, 2010 }}</ref> Her dignity revived courage and hope in many of the Movement's members, confirming her place as the new leader in the struggle for racial equality.

Coretta Scott King said,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Gregg |first1=Khyree |title=A Concise Chronicle History of the African-American People Experience in America |publisher=Henry Epps |page=284}}</ref>

{{blockquote|quote=[[Martin Luther King Jr.]] gave his life for the poor of the world, the garbage workers of Memphis and the peasants of Vietnam. The day that Negro people and others in bondage are truly free, on the day want is abolished, on the day wars are no more, on that day I know my husband will rest in a long-deserved peace.}}

[[File:Leffler - 1968 Washington, D.C. Martin Luther King, Jr. riots.jpg|thumb|Aftermath of the [[King assassination riots]] in Washington, D.C.]]

[[Ralph Abernathy]] succeeded King as the head of the SCLC and attempted to carry forth King's plan for a Poor People's March. It was to unite blacks and whites to campaign for fundamental changes in American society and economic structure. The march went forward under Abernathy's plainspoken leadership but did not achieve its goals.

==== Civil Rights Act of 1968 ====
The [[United States House of Representatives|U.S. House of Representatives]] had been deliberating its Fair Housing Act in early April, before King's assassination and the aforementioned [[King assassination riots|wave of unrest]] that followed, the largest since the Civil War.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.temple.edu/tempress/chapters_1800/2148_ch1.pdf |title=Peter B. Levy, "The Dream Deferred: The Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., and the Holy Week Uprisings of 1968" in ''Baltimore '68: Riots and Rebirth in an American city'' (Temple University Press, 2011), p. 6 |access-date=December 29, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924123559/http://www.temple.edu/tempress/chapters_1800/2148_ch1.pdf |archive-date=September 24, 2015}}</ref> Senator [[Charles Mathias]] wrote:

{{blockquote|quote=[S]ome Senators and Representatives publicly stated they would not be intimidated or rushed into legislating because of the disturbances. Nevertheless, the news coverage of the riots and the underlying disparities in income, jobs, housing, and education, between White and Black Americans helped educate citizens and Congress about the stark reality of an enormous social problem. Members of Congress knew they had to act to redress these imbalances in American life to fulfill the dream that King had so eloquently preached.<ref name="huduser.org" />}}

The House passed the legislation on April 10, less than a week after King was murdered, and President Johnson signed it the next day. The [[Civil Rights Act of 1968]] prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on race, religion, and national origin. It also made it a federal crime to "by force or by the threat of force, injure, intimidate, or interfere with anyone...by reason of their race, color, religion, or national origin."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-82/pdf/STATUTE-82-Pg73.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140716002812/http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-82/pdf/STATUTE-82-Pg73.pdf |archive-date=2014-07-16 |url-status=live|title=Public Law 90-284, Government Printing Office}}</ref>

=== ''Gates v. Collier'' ===
[[File:MississippiStatePen.jpg|thumb|[[Mississippi State Penitentiary]]]]

Conditions at the [[Mississippi State Penitentiary]] at Parchman, then known as Parchman Farm, became part of the public discussion of civil rights after activists were imprisoned there. In the spring of 1961, Freedom Riders came to the South to test the [[Desegregation in the United States|desegregation]] of public facilities. By the end of June 1963, Freedom Riders had been convicted in [[Jackson, Mississippi]].<ref>{{Cite news |title=Riding On |magazine=Time |date=July 7, 1961 |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,872521,00.html?promoid=googlep |access-date=October 23, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080304105758/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,872521,00.html?promoid=googlep |archive-date=March 4, 2008}}</ref> Many were jailed in Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman. Mississippi employed the [[Trusty system (prison)|trusty system]], a hierarchical order of inmates that used some inmates to control and enforce punishment of other inmates.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.dsl.psu.edu/civilrights/chapter1.html |title=ACLU Parchman Prison |access-date=November 29, 2007  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080307222545/http://www.dsl.psu.edu/civilrights/chapter1.html |archive-date=March 7, 2008}}</ref>

In 1970 the civil rights lawyer Roy Haber began taking statements from inmates. He collected 50 pages of details of murders, rapes, beatings and other abuses suffered by the inmates from 1969 to 1971 at Mississippi State Penitentiary. In a [[landmark case]] known as ''[[Gates v. Collier]]'' (1972), four inmates represented by Haber sued the superintendent of Parchman Farm for violating their rights under the [[United States Constitution]].

Federal Judge [[William C. Keady]] found in favor of the inmates, writing that Parchman Farm violated the civil rights of the inmates by inflicting [[cruel and unusual punishment]]. He ordered an immediate end to all unconstitutional conditions and practices. Racial segregation of inmates was abolished, as was the trusty system, which allowed certain inmates to have power and control over others.<ref name="hnet">{{cite web |url=http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=22500870194459 |title=Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice |access-date=August 28, 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060826214105/http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=22500870194459 |archive-date=August 26, 2006 }}</ref>

The prison was renovated in 1972 after the scathing ruling by Keady, who wrote that the prison was an affront to "modern standards of decency." Among other reforms, the accommodations were made fit for human habitation. The system of trusties was abolished. (The prison had armed [[Life imprisonment|lifers]] with rifles and given them authority to oversee and guard other inmates, which led to many cases of abuse and murders.)<ref>{{cite web |last=Goldman |first=Robert M. |date=April 1997 |url=http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=22500870194459 |title="Worse Than Slavery": Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice&nbsp;– book review |publisher=Hnet-online |access-date=August 29, 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060829200032/http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=22500870194459 |archive-date=August 29, 2006 }}</ref>

In integrated correctional facilities in northern and western states, blacks represented a disproportionate number of prisoners, in excess of their proportion of the general population. They were often treated as second-class citizens by white correctional officers. Blacks also represented a disproportionately high number of [[death row]] inmates. [[Eldridge Cleaver]]'s book ''[[Soul on Ice (book)|Soul on Ice]]'' was written from his experiences in the California correctional system; it contributed to black militancy.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Cleaver |first=Eldridge |title=Soul on Ice |publisher=McGraw-Hill |year=1967 |location=New York}}</ref>

=== Legacy ===
Civil rights protest activity had an observable impact on white American's views on race and politics over time.<ref name="mazumdar"/> White people who live in counties in which civil rights protests of historical significance occurred have been found to have lower levels of racial resentment against blacks, are more likely to identify with the [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic Party]] as well as more likely to support [[affirmative action]].<ref name="mazumdar">{{Cite journal|last=Mazumder|first=Soumyajit|date=August 30, 2018|title=The Persistent Effect of U.S. Civil Rights Protests on Political Attitudes|journal=American Journal of Political Science|volume=62|issue=4|pages=922–935|language=en|doi=10.1111/ajps.12384|s2cid=158718227|issn=0092-5853|url=http://osf.io/uvm2a/}}</ref>

One study found that non-violent activism of the era tended to produce favorable media coverage and changes in public opinion focusing on the issues organizers were raising, but violent protests tended to generate unfavorable media coverage that generated public desire to restore law and order.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.omarwasow.com/Protests_on_Voting.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150910075753/http://www.omarwasow.com/Protests_on_Voting.pdf |archive-date=2015-09-10 |url-status=live |title=Agenda Seeding: How 1960s Black Protests Moved Elites, Public Opinion and Voting |author=[[Omar Wasow]] |access-date=January 12, 2021}}</ref>

The 1964 Act was passed to end discrimination in various fields based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in the areas of employment and public accommodation.<ref>Section 703(a)(1), Civil Rights Act of 1964, Pub. L. No. 88-352, 78 Stat. 241, 255 (July 2, 1964).</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/civil-rights-act|title=The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission|date=August 15, 2016|work=National Archives|access-date=October 20, 2017|language=en|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171020043707/https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/civil-rights-act|archive-date=October 20, 2017}}</ref> The 1964 Act did not prohibit sex discrimination against persons employed at educational institutions. A parallel law, Title VI, had also been enacted in 1964 to prohibit discrimination in federally funded private and public entities. It covered race, color, and national origin but excluded sex. Feminists during the early 1970s lobbied Congress to add sex as a protected class category. In 1972, [[Title IX]] was enacted to fill this gap and prohibit discrimination in all federally funded education programs. Title IX, or the [[Education Amendments of 1972]] was later renamed the ''[[Patsy T. Mink]] Equal Opportunity in Education Act'' following Mink's death in 2002.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.congress.gov/bill/107th-congress/house-joint-resolution/113|title=H.J.Res.113 – 107th Congress (2001–2002): Recognizing the contributions of Patsy Takemoto Mink.|last=Miller|first=George|date=October 29, 2002|website=www.congress.gov|access-date=March 30, 2020}}</ref>