Nadia Higgins - The Split History of the Civil Rights Movement: A Perspectives Flip Book

CHAPTER 1

O ld ways were changing in the South, but it took the murder of a 14-year-old boy from Chicago, Illinois, to bring it to light. Emmett Till was visiting family in the small town of Money, Mississippi. One August evening in 1955 Emmett flirted with a white cashier on a dare. Bye, baby, he said to Carolyn Bryant.

Three days later Bryants husband, Roy, and his half-brother J.W. Milam showed up where Emmett was staying. Emmetts great-uncle, Moses Wright, saw the men grab Emmett and shove him in their truck. That night, August 28, they savagely beat the teen before shooting him and dumping his body in a river.

Emmett Till and his mother, Mamie Till Bradley

Lynchings of black men were common in Mississippi, and officials nearly always looked the other way. But Mamie Till Bradley would not let the murder of her son be ignored. She insisted on an open coffin at his funeral. After Jet magazine ran photos of his mangled face, Emmett Till became a rallying cry for outraged African-Americans.

An all-white jury found Bryant and Milam not guilty of murder. Their trial is still remembered, however, for the testimony of Moses Wright. Thar he, said the old man, pointing at the attackers. For perhaps the first time ever, a black man in Mississippi had stood up to white men in a court of law.

THE NEW NEGRO

For years many black southerners didnt question why they were treated as second-class citizens. After all, whites had the best houses and schools. They ran government and businesses. Wasnt that proof of their superiority?

In truth, southern society oppressed blacks on several frontsby law, custom, and by violence and intimidation. Jim Crow laws kept them from attending the best schools, going to libraries, or even trying on clothes at department stores. African-Americans used separate colored toilets, drinking fountains, bus stations, and more, instead of the same facilities white people did.

Few blacks were able to follow through on their constitutional right to vote. Special taxes and tests kept them from registering. If those tactics didnt work, the threat of a lynching did. Blacks who insisted on improving their lives were often punished by being fired from their jobs or getting evicted from their homes.

With World War II (19391945), however, blacks began to see their situation in a new light. African-American soldiers witnessed a larger world where races freely mixed. After defeating injustice abroad, the new negro returned ready to fight injustice at home.

THE MONTGOMERY BUS BOYCOTT

Many black workers in Montgomery, Alabama, relied on city buses to take them to their jobs. A black passenger entered the front of a bus to pay the fare. Then he or she would step off the bus and enter again from the back, where the colored seats were. Seats in the front were reserved for whites. However, if the front was full, black riders in the back were to give up their seats for whites.

Rosa Parks was riding the bus home from work December 1, 1955, when she was ordered to forfeit her seat. Instead, 42-year-old Parks defiantly slid over to the window. With that, she was arrested.

Rosa Parks was arrested and fingerprinted after refusing to give up her seat on a bus.

Four days later Montgomerys buses rumbled through city streets mostly empty. The black community had organized a boycott. They would not set foot on city buses again until they could choose their own seats. Leading the effort was Martin Luther King Jr., a 26-year-old preacher.

That night King addressed a large meeting at the Holt Street Baptist Church. For many years we have shown amazing patience, King told the cheering crowd. But we come here tonight to be saved from that patience that makes us patient with anything less than freedom and justice.

The boycott went on for 381 days. Some maids walked 7 or 8 miles (11 to 13 kilometers) to work each way, despite jeering from passersby. Boycotters squeezed into cars, even after their carpool meeting spots were dynamited. After Kings own house was bombed, he insisted that protesters stay committed to nonviolent methods.

Martin Luther King Jr. speaks about the Montgomery bus boycott.

The U.S. Supreme Court delivered victory to the boycotters in November 1956. King and other leaders sat in the front of the first integrated bus in Montgomery on December 21, 1956. That ride symbolized one of the first grassroots victories of the civil rights movement.

CHAPTER 2

T he U.S. Supreme Court had ruled in 1954 that segregated schools were unequal and therefore unconstitutional. The Brown v. Board of Education ruling was to provide black youth a fresh start. In reality, putting the law into practice would prove a long, hard struggle.

Nine black teenagers in Little Rock, Arkansas, found themselves in the national spotlight in 1957. The teenagers had enrolled at their citys best high school, the all-white Central High. Not long before Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus had helped usher in the first black students to the states white colleges. So the Little Rock Nine, as the teenagers came to be known, looked on in disbelief as Faubus changed his political stripes. The teenagers became his chance to prove to voters that he was not soft on race.

With Faubus leading the way, a mob mentality grew among white supremacists in and around Little Rock. By early September the situation was so tense that the teenagers agreed to a plan to try to safely enter the school together. But Elizabeth Eckfords family did not own a phone, and she was accidently left out of the arrangement.

Elizabeth Eckford is yelled at outside Central High School.

On the morning of September 4, Elizabeth prayed with her family to calm her nerves, and then she headed off to school. As Elizabeth stepped off a city bus, she saw an angry crowd surrounding her school. But she focused on the armed soldiers lining the streets, figuring they would help her through the crowd.

As Elizabeth neared the school doors, the National Guardsmen blocked her way. Lynch her! Lynch her! someone yelled, while another spat on her.

None of the black students attended school that day. They tried again September 23, only to be met by another violent mob. Finally, President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent federal help. The Little Rock Nine were taken to school under armed protection September 25. Paratroopers lined the street in front of the building, and helicopters roared overhead. The angry throng was kept at bay.

Eight of the nine teenagers made it through the school year, with Ernest Green graduating. Melba Pattillo Beals later said she was engulfed by a stark, raving, compelling fear that whole year. The black students were taunted, tripped, and pushed down stairs.