U.S. Civil Rights Movements of the 20th Century

Although the 13th Amendment officially abolished slavery, African Americans continued to endure prejudice and violence under Jim Crow laws across the country well into the 20th century. World War II and the start of the Cold War also pointed out the contradictions between America’s ideals of democracy and equality, and its domestic policies towards minorities. During the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s, African Americans sought to desegregate schools, have equal access to employment opportunities, end housing discrimination, and ensure that all Black men and women no longer faced voter suppression.

Begin by reading the program for the March on Washington For Jobs and Freedom held on August 28, 1963 and consider the following questions: 

• Why was the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom held in August 1963?

• In what ways do the demands of the March organizers and supporters reveal the disjuncture between what laws say and what takes place in practice?  

• Based on the program and statement calling for self-discipline, who from within the civil rights movement might the March on Washington have alienated? 

Based on Pauli Murray’s speech on condemning “Jane Crow” and Women in SNCC, consider the following questions:  

• What is the difference between “Jim” and “Jane” Crow?  

• What was significant about SNCC’s organization style and membership?  

• What roles did women play in the civil rights movement? 

In 1966, SNCC, headed by Stokley Carmichael, rejected its historical strategy of non-violence to embrace a doctrine of “Black Power,” which emphasized Black nationalism and self-reliance. Read an excerpt from the transcript of a 1988 interview with Stokely Carmichael on the first time he used the slogan “Black Power” and the reactions it provoked (NOTE: Read Question 53 on pages 2 and 3.) Then read Carmichael’s 1966 speech to an audience at UC Berkeley to better understand what Black Power means (NOTE: Read the first ten paragraphs, ending on "That's only a rationalization for suppression.") Lastly, read an excerpt from a 1973 interview with John Lewis discussing tensions within SNCC and the transition of leadership from Lewis to Carmichael. 

Based on the above documents, consider the following questions: 

• How does Carmichael define “Black Power” in relation to civil rights? 

• What issues drove some SNCC members to adopt a more radical stance towards civil rights?  

• Why did the slogan “Black Power” provoke controversy within SNCC and the civil rights movement? 

Based on the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign Brochure, consider the following questions: 

• To what extent were the issues of poverty and racism related?  

• How did the issues outlined in the brochure relate to other civil rights movements?

EDSITEment offers resources to assist with your independent research: 

• Closer Readings Commentary: Grassroots Perspectives on the Civil Rights Movement: Focus on Women
• Closer Readings Commentary: I Have a Dream: The Vision of Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Lesson Plan: Black Separatism or the Beloved Community? Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. (grades 9-12)
• EDSITEment Smithsonian Learning Lab Collection: African American Civil Rights Movement
• Humanities Blog Post: Tune in Tuesdays: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi

During the 1960s, Mexican Americans drew inspiration from the Pachucos in the 1940s and 50s, the Black Power movement, and prior acts of resistance among people of Mexican descent, to achieve the goal of Mexican American empowerment. Although the term “Chicano” was viewed as pejorative, the movement reclaimed the term in the 1960s and 70s to express political autonomy, ethnic and cultural solidarity, and pride in ones’ Mexican heritage. Major goals of the Chicano movement included: rights for farm workers; restoration of land; and education reform.  

The farm workers movement included the 1965-1970 Delano Grape Strike which was the first major collaboration between Filipino and Mexican farm workers. In August 1966, the two came together to form the United Farm Workers (UFW), under the leadership of Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, and Larry Itiliong. For more information on the relationship between Mexican American history and identity, head over to the "Lessons from the Chihuahuan Desert" and "Latino Americans Documentary Resources" sections available at EDSITEment’s Teacher’s Guide on Hispanic Heritage and History in the United States.

After you have read the NAACP flyer, an open letter to Los Angeles supporters, and analyzed a UFW poster, consider the following questions:  

• Why was the UFW created and who led this organization? 

• What rights did the UFW fight for?  

• How do you think UFW’s demands resonated with its supporters? 

Watch 21:28-24:02 of the National Portrait Gallery’s “Living Self-Portrait" interview with Dolores Huerta to learn about Huerta’s activism for labor rights and how she challenged the norms of women’s role in society. Then read an excerpt of the 2013 FRONTLINE interview conducted with Dolores Huerta on an “Epidemic in the Fields.” (NOTE: This source mentions sexual harassment and violence. Read until you finish the question, “But you experienced it in the union?”)  

After viewing the Huerta interview, watch Judithe Hernandez discuss her experience being a Chicana Feminist, featured in a PBS episode Yo Soy Chicana that aired on a Southern California PBS affiliate, KCET.

Based on these sources, consider the following questions: 

• How is Dolores Huerta connected to the Chicano and UFW movements? 

• What challenges did female farmworkers and activists face while on the job? 

• Why is the intersection between race and gender important in understanding the Chicano movement and civil rights movements?

After reading UW Daily’s articles on “Chicano group adopts a new name, image (MEChA)” and “MEChA, campus and community involvement”, consider the following questions: 

• How does the identity of “Chicano” challenge the American narrative of the melting pot?

• Who else shared the issue of living as second-class citizens?

• What were the goals of MECha? 

EDSITEment offers resources to assist with your independent research: 

• EDSITEment Smithsonian Learning Lab Collection: Breaking Barriers: United Farm Workers
• Teacher’s Guide: Hispanic Heritage and History in the United States
• Lesson Plan: “Sí, se puede!”: Chávez, Huerta, and the UFW (grades 6-12)
• Smithsonian Learning Lab Collection: Dolores Huerta: Revolution in the Fields/Revolución en los Campos

As the African American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s exposed institutional racism, Asian Americans reflected on their experiences and identified how they too faced discrimination. Sharing the struggles to achieve freedom and equality for all, Asian American activists joined the African American civil rights movement. They also spoke out and protested over matters specific to their communities, which included equal access to city services in Chinatown and equal employment opportunities. Pan-Asian identity and community gained momentum after the 1982 murder of Vincent Chin led to a federal civil rights case and marked a turning point for Asian American civil rights engagement. 

Watch 12:52-22:46 of the PBS episode Delano Manongs, the story of farm labor organizer Larry Itliong and a group of Filipino farm workers who helped bring about the creation of the United Farm Workers Union (UFW), then consider the following questions:

• What and who do we mean when we use the term Asian American? 

• Why did Larry Itliong seek to collaborate with Cesar Chavez to support the Delano grape strike?  

• How did the outcomes of this collaboration impact the relationship between Filipino and Mexican farmworkers in the UFW? 

Read “Vincent Chin’s Story/Lily Chin: The Courage to Speak" (pp. 2-3) and consider the following questions:

• How did Vincent Chin’s murder catalyze the fight for Asian American civil rights? 

Below, watch the trailer for Grace Lee Boggs’s biographical documentary film for an introduction on Boggs’s background and influences. Then based on pp. 1-2 of Grace Lee Boggs’s “These are the Times that Grow Our Souls” consider the following questions: 

• What is Boggs’s call to her audience?  

• To what extent does this call reveal the interconnectedness of the civil rights movements? 

Listen to or read NPR’s article, “What Do Asian-Americans Owe The Civil Rights Movement?” and then consider the following questions:

• What parallels exist between the Asian American and African American civil rights movements? 

EDSITEment offers resources to assist with your independent research: 

• Teacher’s Guide: Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage and History in the United States
• Lesson Plan: “Sí, se puede!”: Chávez, Huerta, and the UFW (grades 6-12)
• EDSITEment Smithsonian Learning Lab Collection: Breaking Barriers: United Farm Workers
• Smithsonian Learning Lab Collection: Asian Pacific American Activists and Leaders

Beyond passage of the 19th Amendment, Alice Paul and many other women continued fighting for women’s equality by introducing a new constitutional amendment eventually named the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). This amendment stirred enormous controversy as leaders of the women’s rights movement of the 1960s and 70s debated equal rights and opportunities, along with what freedom for all women entailed. The women’s rights movement is recognized as part of the “second wave” of feminism, going beyond a focus on women’s legal rights to include issues of politics, work, family, and sexuality.  

Based on pp. 90-92 of No More Fun and Games news article “The Plea for Gradualism” consider the following questions: 

• What changed during the post-19th Amendment women’s movement? 

• What is the relationship between job equality and equal rights for women?  

• Why had “basic attitudes about women’s nature” remained unchanged?  

Read FPS: a Magazine of Young People’s Liberation news article “Black Women: A Never Ending Song of Struggle” on pp. 32-34 and then consider the following questions:  

• Why did Black women feel alienated from the Women’s Liberation Movement? 

• What does the author state was the “greatest hindrance to the Black involvement in the Women’s Liberation Movement?”

• Why are the intersection of race and gender important to understanding the civil rights and women’s rights movements? 

After you have read The Spokeswoman news article “Ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment” on page 6, read the National Organization for Women’s (NOW) pamphlet on the Equal Rights Amendment and then consider the following questions:  

• Why did some women believe that the ERA should be ratified?  

• Who are listed as some supporters for ratifying the ERA? 

• From where do you think women drew inspiration for their activist tactics? 

Listen to MPR’s interview with Phyllis Schlafly, founder of the Eagle Forum, who opposed the Equal Rights Amendment. Then read this “You Can’ Fool Mother Nature” pamphlet as you consider the following questions:  

• According to Phyllis Schlafly, why should women not be equal to men? 

• What assumptions does Schlafly make to state that women get “both of two worlds”? 

• Why did some consider the ERA to be a threat? 

EDSITEment offers resources to assist with your independent research: 

• Lesson Plan: Women’s Equality: Changing Attitudes and Beliefs (grades 9-12)
• Media Resource: Backstory: Shattering the Glass Ceiling
• Media Resource: Backstory: You’ve Come a Long Way – A History of Women in Politics
• Teacher’s Guide: Women’s History in the United States

The American Indian Movement (AIM), a grassroots civil rights organization, began in 1968 to help American Indians in urban areas who had been displaced by government programs. Its goals eventually expanded to address the decades of discriminatory federal Indian policy, which undermined the civil rights and sovereign rights of the American Indian peoples. Issues of indigenous rights include high unemployment, slum housing, racist treatment, resource exploitation of Indian lands by the federal government, treaty rights, and the reclaiming of tribal land. 

Watch the November 10, 1969 KRON News report on the American Indian Alcatraz Proclamation (0:00-3:47) and then first person footage below from November 29, 1969 of the Occupation of Alcatraz.

Based on what you watched in these reports, consider the following questions: 

• How does the first person footage reflect the goals of the movement?  

• Richard Oakes reads the beginning of the Proclamation of All Indian Tribes (2:50-3:47). You can finish reading the Proclamation here. How does the tone of the proclamation impact its message? 

After analyzing the “Show Your Solidarity with the Indian Nations” poster, consider the following question: 

• Why did AIM occupy Wounded Knee?  

Below, listen to Buffy Sainte Marie’s song, “Now that the Buffalo’s Gone.” If you cannot access audio, you can read the lyrics here. Then examine three photos on the Longest Walk before considering the following questions: 

• What is the message of the song with regard to AIM?

• This song was released in 1964. In what ways does the content of the song relate to what the Longest Walk in 1978 symbolized? 

Started in 1972, the Red School House in St. Paul, Minnesota used a culture-based approach to academic instruction. Scroll through the photos of the Red School House and then consider the following questions: 

• What story might these photographs be telling? What is your evidence for this? 

• What is the Red School House’s philosophy?  

• What other civil rights groups promoted institutions for cultural learning? 

EDSITEment offers resources to assist with your independent research: 

• Teacher’s Guide: American Indian History and Heritage
• Lesson Plan: Native Americans and the American Revolution: Choosing Sides (grades 9-12)
• Humanities article: American Originals
• Media Resource: Backstory: Darkness over the Plain: The Bison in American History
• Humanities Blog Post: 50 States of Preservation: Oglala Lakota College in Kyle, South Dakota

The 1969 Stonewall Uprising in New York City is often credited with marking the start of the modern gay rights movement. After that event, gay political organizations seeking legal and social reforms that advocated equal rights for gay men, lesbians, bisexual, and transgender persons proliferated. The issues that gay rights emphasized have varied since the 1970s by time and place, but prominent issues have included combating the HIV/AIDS epidemic; ending the ban on military service for gay and lesbian individuals; securing marriage and health care rights; and expanding hate crimes legislation to include protection for gay, lesbian, and transgender individuals. 

After reading this 1952 news article on Christine Jorgensen, consider the following questions:  

• Who was Christine Jorgensen? 

• How do you think Christine Jorgensen’s characterization influenced the reception towards her?

• How did Christine Jorgensen advocate for transgender people?

After the Stonewall Uprising in June 1969, the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) formed. Read their platform statement and consider the following questions:  

• What are some ways GLF aimed to fulfill its mission?

• How did GLF approach other groups that faced oppression too?  

Examine three photos from the Lesbian HerStory Archives: “Lesbian Menace Strikes Again,” “Mother Nature is a Lesbian,” and “NOW supports Sexual Privacy Civil Rights" and then consider the following questions:

• What do these photographs reveal about the LGBT civil rights movement?  

Bayard Rustin was one of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s closest advisors and the key organizer of the 1963 March on Washington. Later in his life, he also became an advocate for gay rights. Read his 1986 speech “From Montgomery to Stonewall” and consider the following question: 

• What similarities and differences does Rustin acknowledge existed between the civil rights and gay rights movements? 

EDSITEment offers resources to assist with your independent research: 

• Humanities Blog Post: Documenting the LGBT Movement 
• Humanities article: Writing Gay History
• Smithsonian Learning Lab Collection: LGBTQ