Charles Coggins

Civil Rights Movement Web Quest  

  
The civil rights movement was a struggle for social justice that took place mainly during the 1950s and 1960s for
blacks to gain equal rights under the law in the United States.  African Americans continued to endure the devastating
effects of racism and segregation, especially in the South. By the mid-20th century, African Americans had had more than
enough of prejudice and violence against them. They began an unprecedented fight for equality that spanned two
decades.   Use the following websites to find out more information on the major events, people, court cases and laws that
impacted and resulted from the Civil Rights Movement.    
  

Part I - Events
  
Murder of Emmett Till
Emmett Till, a 14-year old African-American boy, was murdered in August 1955 in a racist attack that shocked
the nation and provided a catalyst for the emerging Civil Rights Movement.  Till was brutally beaten and killed before his
body was disposed in a nearby river.   
Till’s devastated mother insisted on a public, open-casket funeral for her son to shed light on the violence inflicted
on blacks in the South. Till’s murderers were acquitted, but his death galvanized civil rights activists nationwide.  
  
http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/emmett-till  
1. Briefly explain what happened to Emmett Till.   
  
  Till was visiting relatives in Money, Mississippi, when he was accused of harassing a local white woman. Several days
later, relatives of the woman abducted Till, brutally beating and killing him before disposing of his body in a nearby river
  
2. Why were so many shocked by the murder of Emmett Till?  
So many were shocked, because now they see that lynching is a problem, as well as racism. Also, the mutilation of Till’s
face was too much to bear.
  
  
  
Watch the video and answer the following question.  (warning:  pictures are graphic)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/emmett-world-learns-emmett-till/  
  
3. What was your reaction to the images in the video?  How do you think others in the US and around the world
felt?  
I was genuinely shocked of Till’s mutilation, and his crushed face. It makes me feel so guilty and sad. I think others in the
US and around the world felt shocked and guilt-stricken.
  
Montgomery Bus Boycott
  The Montgomery Bus Boycott began on December 5, 1955, 4 days after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a
public bus in Montgomery, Alabama.    
  
http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/montgomery-bus-boycott  
1. How many African Americans boycotted the buses in Montgomery?  
  40,000
1.  What was the MIA?   Who was their leader?  
Montgomery Improvement Association. Martin Luther King Jr was their leader.
    
2. When were the buses integrated?  
December 21, 1956
   
3. Describe the resistance and violence that resulted from the integration of the buses.  
Snipers began firing into buses, and one shooter shattered both legs of a pregnant African American passenger. In January
1957, four Black churches and the homes of prominent Black leaders were bombed; a bomb at King’s house was defused.
  
Little Rock 9
The Little Rock Nine were a group of nine black students who enrolled at formerly allwhite Central High School
in Little Rock, Arkansas, in September 1957. Their attendance at the school was a test of Brown v. Board of Education. 
On the first day of classes at Central High, Governor Orval Faubus called in the Arkansas National Guard to block the
black students’ entry into the high school. Later that month, President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent in federal troops to
escort the Little Rock Nine into the school.  
Watch the video on the site and answer the following questions.  
http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/central-high-school-integration  
1. Who was Daisy Bates and what did she do? 
Daisy Gaston Bates, president of the Arkansas NAACP and co-publisher of the Arkansas State Press, an influential
African American newspaper. Daisy vetted the group of students and determined they all possessed the strength and
determination to face the resistance they would encounter. The students participated in intensive counseling sessions
guiding them on what to expect once classes began and how to respond to anticipated hostile situations.

2. Describe the obstacles faced by the Little Rock 9 on their first few days of school.  
Melba Patillo, for instance, was kicked, beaten and had acid thrown in her face. At one point, white students burned an
African American effigy in a vacant lot across from the school. Gloria Ray was pushed down a flight of stairs, and the
Little Rock Nine were barred from participating in extracurricular activities.

3. Which student was the only one of the Little Rock 9 to graduate that year from Central High School?  
Ernest Green

Sit Ins
The sit-in movement began in 1960, when 4 young African-American students staged a sit-in at a segregated
Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and refused to leave after being denied service. The movement
soon spread to college towns throughout the South.  Though many of the protesters were arrested for trespassing,
disorderly conduct or disturbing the peace, their actions made an immediate and lasting impact, forcing Woolworth’s and
other establishments to change their segregationist policies.  
  
http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/the-greensboro-sit-in  
1. Who influenced the Greensboro 4?  
Gandhi
  
2. Explain how the Sit In movement spread.  How long did it last?  
 On February 1, 1960, the four students sat down at the lunch counter at the Woolworth’s in downtown Greensboro, where
the official policy was to refuse service to anyone but whites. Denied service, the four young men refused to give up their
seats. Police arrived on the scene but were unable to take action due to the lack of provocation. By that time, Johns had
already alerted the local media, who had arrived in full force to cover the events on television. It lasted until the 70’s.
   
3. Was this movement successful?  Why or why not?  
Yes, it was successful. The Greensboro Sit-In was a critical turning point in Black history and American history, bringing
the fight for civil rights to the national stage. Its use of nonviolence inspired the Freedom Riders and others to take up the
cause of integration in the South, furthering the cause of equal rights in the United States.

March on Washington
The March on Washington was a massive protest march that occurred in August 1963, when some 250,000 people
gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Also known as the March on Washington for Jobs and
Freedom, the event aimed to draw attention to continuing challenges and inequalities faced by African Americans a
century after emancipation.   
Watch the video on the site and answer the following questions.  
  
http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/march-on-washington  
1. Why was the time right for the march?  
 To advocate for passage of the Civil Rights Act (then stalled in Congress), as well as with all the hate and violence.

2. What famous speech was given at the march?  

  I Have a Dream
3. What 2 laws are thought to have been passed as a result of this speech and march?
1964 Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act
  
  
Freedom Summer
Freedom Summer, also known as the the Mississippi Summer Project, was a 1964 voter registration drive
sponsored by civil rights organizations aimed at increasing black voter registration in Mississippi.   Freedom Summer
workers included black Mississippians and more than 1,000 out-of-state, predominately white volunteers. The Ku Klux
Klan, police and state and local authorities carried out a series of violent attacks against the activists, including arson,
beatings, false arrest and the murder of at least three people.  
  
http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/freedom-summer  
1. Explain what happened to Schwerner, Goodman and Cheney in June, 1964.  
The three disappeared after visiting Philadelphia, Mississippi, where they were investigating the burning of a church.
Their names became nationally-known as the hunt for their killers began.
  
  
2. How did their murders effect the Civil Rights Movement?  
Public outcry over the killings mounted: Where was Federal protection? Why had the investigations been so slow?
Distrust grew between white and Black volunteers and staff.
After the violence of the Freedom Summer, divisions within the civil rights movement grew between those who continued
to believe in non-violence and those who had begun to doubt whether equality could be reached through peaceful means.
After 1964, more militant factions would rise as the struggle for equality continued.
  
3. Did Freedom Summer establish any schools?  How many African Americans were they able to get registered
to vote?  
  The Mississippi Project did establish more than 40 Freedom Schools serving a combined 3,000 students. Voter
registration in Mississippi was not greatly impacted by the Freedom Summer. While 17,000 Black Mississippians
attempted to register to vote that summer, only 1,200 were successful.
  
Bloody Sunday
On March 7, 1965, state troopers brutally assaulted peaceful civil rights marchers in Selma, Alabama. Look back
at the events of “Bloody Sunday” that shocked millions of Americans and galvanized Congress to pass the Voting Rights
Act of 1965.  
  
http://www.history.com/news/selmas-bloody-sunday-50-years-ago  
1. Describe the events of Bloody Sunday.  
The rising racial tensions finally bubbled over into bloodshed in the nearby town of Marion on February 18, 1965, when
state troopers clubbed protestors and fatally shot 26-year-old Jimmie Lee Jackson, an African American demonstrator
trying to protect his mother, who was being struck by police.  
  
2. What was the reaction to the images of Bloody Sunday throughout the nation?  
  Americans were appalled at the sights and sounds of “Bloody Sunday.”

3. After watching the video, how do you think this event help the Civil Rights Movement?  
This helped the civil rights movement by showing racial violence around the U.S. and getting people to acknowledge it.
  
 Part II – People, Events, and Terms
  
Use the following site to find information on each person, court case, group and law.   Give a brief description of
each.    
  
http://www.history.com/  
  
1. Medgar Evers:  
As an NAACP field secretary, Medgar Evers became a target for those who opposed racial equality and desegregation. On
June 12, 1963 at 12:40 a.m., Evers was shot in the back in the driveway of his home in Jackson, Mississippi.
2. Thurgood Marshall:  
Thurgood Marshall—perhaps best known as the first African American Supreme Court justice—played an instrumental
role in promoting racial equality during the civil rights movement. As a practicing attorney, Marshall argued a record-
breaking 32 cases before the Supreme Court, winning 29 of them.

3. John Lewis:  
Inspired by Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis joined the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement. Lewis was a Freedom
Rider, spoke at 1963's March on Washington and led the demonstration that became known as "Bloody Sunday."
4. Claudette Colvin:  
Claudette Colvin is an American pioneer of the 1950s civil rights movement and retired nurse aide. On March 2, 1955,
she was arrested at the age of 15 in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up her seat to a white woman on a
crowded, segregated bus.

5. Ruby Bridges:  
Ruby Nell Bridges Hall is an American civil rights activist. She was the first African-American child to desegregate the
all-white William Frantz Elementary School in Louisiana during the New Orleans school desegregation crisis on
November 14, 1960.

6. Huey Newton   
Huey Percy Newton was an African-American revolutionary, notable as founder of the Black Panther Party. Newton
crafted the Party's ten-point manifesto with Bobby Seale in 1966

7. Black Panthers:  
The Black Panthers, also known as the Black Panther Party, was a political organization founded in 1966 by Huey
Newton and Bobby Seale to challenge police brutality against the African American community

8. CORE:  
Inspired by Mahatma Gandhi's protest strategies of nonviolence and civil disobedience, in 1942 a group of Black and
white students in Chicago founded the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), helping to launch one of America’s most
important civil rights movements.
9. Loving vs. Virginia:  
Loving v. Virginia was a Supreme Court case that struck down state laws banning interracial marriage in the United
States. The plaintiffs in the case were Richard and Mildred Loving, a white man and Black woman whose marriage was
deemed illegal according to Virginia state law. With the help of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Lovings
appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled unanimously that so-called “anti-miscegenation” statutes were
unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment. The decision is often cited as a watershed moment in the dismantling of “Jim
Crow” race laws.
10. Bobby Seale  
Robert George Seale is an American political activist and author. Seale is widely known for co-founding the Black
Panther Party with fellow activist Huey P. Newton.
11. Civil Rights Act of 1957:  
The first major civil rights legislation since Reconstruction. It allowed federal prosecution of anyone who tried to prevent
someone from voting. It also created a commission to investigate voter fraud.

12. Voting Rights Act  

The new law banned all voter literacy tests and provided federal examiners in certain voting jurisdictions. It also allowed
the attorney general to contest state and local poll taxes. As a result, poll taxes were later declared unconstitutional in
Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections in 1966.

13. De Jure Segregation 

Segregation that was mandated by law and enforced by the government.

14.  De Facto Segregation 

Segregation that exists even though laws do not require it

15. 14th Amendment  

It says that anyone born in the United States is a citizen and that all states must give citizens the same rights guaranteed by
the federal government in the Bill of Rights. The 14th Amendment also says that all citizens have the right to due process
and equal protection under the law in all states.
  

Part III - Images

  
Non Violence
A major factor in the Civil Rights Movement was the strategy of protesting for equal rights without using violence. Civil
rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King championed this approach as an alternative to armed uprising. King's non-violent
movement was inspired by the teachings of Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi.  Led by King, millions of blacks took to the
streets for peaceful protests as well as acts of civil disobedience and economic boycotts in what some leaders describe as
America's second civil war.  
  
Watch each of the video clips below and answer the questions  
  
Sit Ins
Watch the video and answer the following questions.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsyO66YB9mY  
  
1. Describe your reaction to the video clip.       
 VIDEO WAS UNAVAILABLE IN YOUTUBE.
From what I know, I am shocked about the violence that occurred with sit-ins.

2. Why do you think the sit in protestors were arrested and not the people who were hurting them?  
I think that the protestors were arrested because of the fact that they were black, and the racial discrimination at the time.
  
  
SNCC Training
  
Watch the video and answer the following questions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReTEVO6SkGw  

1. Why was non-violent training needed for the students?   

  SNCC sought to coordinate youth-led nonviolent, direct-action campaigns against segregation and other forms of racism
  
2. Do you think that using non-violence was a good idea?   Was it successful?  
Yes, it was a good idea in my opinion. I don’t think that it was very successful, because, in comparison, Malcom X was as
important as Dr. King, and they both helped the end of racial injustice.
  
 Freedom Riders

Watch the video clip and answer the questions that follow  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j459tihLQu8  
  
1.  Why do you think the bus was attacked?     
VIDEO WAS UNAVAILABLE IN YOUTUBE
From what I know, it could have been attacked because whites didn’t like people of color sitting in the seats that they
weren’t supposed to.