Federal Government Help

1. Federal Government Help In The Civil Rights Movement

2. Civil Rights Act of 1957 Causes: • Ensure all had ability to vote, only 20% of African Americans were registered What it did: • Est. Fed. Commission on Civil Rights • Est. Division in the Justice Dept. to enforce Civil Rights • Enlarged Fed. Power to protect voting rights Effects: • 1st Civil Rights Legislation since Reconstruction • Showed Federal Gov. interested in protecting voting rights • Limited, only 3% increase

3. 24th Amendment • 11 Southern states had Poll Tax • proposed 1962, ratified January 23, 1964. What it did: • prohibits both Congress/states from conditioning the right to vote in federal elections on payment of a poll tax or other types of tax • "There can be no one too poor to vote.“ ~Lyndon Johnson Effects: • Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections (1966) ruled that all poll taxes (including state elections) were officially declared unconstitutional because they violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

4. Civil Rights Acts of 1964 Causes: • Series of African American Protests • Birmingham March • Called for in speech by JFK on June 11, 1963 What it did: • Banned discrimination in most employment / public accommodations • Enlarged fed. power to protect voting rights/speed up school desegregation • Ended discrimination in public employment Effects: • Still fell short on a few issues: private employment, police brutality • Divided both political parties, changed demographics

5. Voting Rights Act of 1965 Causes: • Violations of 14th and 15th Amendments • Freedom Summer, Selma Campaign What it did: • Eliminated voter literacy tests • Enabled federal examiners to register voters Effects: • By 1968, nearly 60% of eligible African Americans were registered to vote in MS, • 1965-1990, the #of black state legislators and members of Congress rose from 2 to 160.

6. Civil Rights Act of 1968 (Fair Housing Act) Causes: • Extension of 1964 act What it did: • Prohibited discrimination in the sale or rental of most housing • Strengthened anti-lynching laws Effects: • De Facto Segregation remained • Whites moved to suburbs, rise in black ghettos in cities

7. Which law do you think benefited the most people?

8. Assassination of MLK • April 4, 1968 – MLK stepped onto a balcony and was shot • Many called for immediate peace • Worst urban rioting in US history • D.C. – 12 dead • Chicago – 11 dead • Baltimore – 6 dead • Louisville – 2 dead • Kansas City – 5 dead

9. Kennedy Brothers • June 11, 1963 – JFK used fed troops to force Alabama gov. to honor a court order on desegregating U of Alabama • JFK demanded sweeping civil rights bill • Robert Kennedy – after MLK assassination, spoke in African American neighborhood made a plea for non-violence • Robert – made Eulogy for MLK

10. Robert Kennedy’s Eulogy For those of you who are black – considering the evidence… that there were white people who were responsible – you can be filled with bitterness, with hatred, and a desire for revenge. We can move in that direction as a country, in great polarization – black people amongst black, white people amongst white, filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort, as MLK did, to understand and comprehend , and to replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand with compassion and love.