1 00:00:03,371 --> 00:00:06,234 I may not get there with you. 2 00:00:06,234 --> 00:00:09,027 But I want you to know tonight, 3 00:00:09,027 --> 00:00:13,915 that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. 4 00:00:13,915 --> 00:00:17,475 Human progress is neither automatic, nor inevitable. 5 00:00:17,475 --> 00:00:18,954 Welcome to WatchMojo.com, 6 00:00:18,954 --> 00:00:23,616 And today we'll be learning more about the history of the American Civil Rights Movement. 7 00:00:23,616 --> 00:00:29,200 The end of the American Civil War in 1865 effectively meant the end of slavery. 8 00:00:29,200 --> 00:00:34,696 But, African Americans were in for a long struggle before they were finally awarded equal rights. 9 00:00:34,696 --> 00:00:39,286 As of 1870, all eligible male citizens were able to vote. 10 00:00:39,286 --> 00:00:44,755 However, blacks were discouraged to by violence and eventually legal stipulations. 11 00:00:44,755 --> 00:00:51,139 In 1896, the Supreme Court ruled to maintain racial segregation in private businesses, 12 00:00:51,139 --> 00:00:53,558 in a case called Plessy v. Ferguson. 13 00:00:53,558 --> 00:00:55,418 Soon broadened to include schools, 14 00:00:55,418 --> 00:01:00,841 many southern states applied this 'separate but equal' mentality to all aspects of life. 15 00:01:00,841 --> 00:01:04,756 However, this led to the application of Jim Crow laws, 16 00:01:04,756 --> 00:01:08,728 which resulted in blacks being treated as second-class citizens. 17 00:01:08,728 --> 00:01:12,100 Segregated schools, public transit, restrooms, 18 00:01:12,100 --> 00:01:15,967 water fountains and more continued well into the 1900s. 19 00:01:15,967 --> 00:01:20,084 In 1909, a group of prominent black and white campaigners 20 00:01:20,084 --> 00:01:25,918 created the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People or NAACP. 21 00:01:25,918 --> 00:01:31,357 Their goal was to increase racial equality and challenge issues like the Jim Crow laws. 22 00:01:31,357 --> 00:01:36,632 Unfortunately, it was between 1910 and 1930 that white supremacist group 23 00:01:36,632 --> 00:01:41,307 the Ku Klux Klan saw its biggest expansion amid increased racial friction. 24 00:01:41,307 --> 00:01:42,851 Following the First World War, 25 00:01:42,851 --> 00:01:47,477 the NAACP was devoted to ending lynching by white vigilantes. 26 00:01:47,477 --> 00:01:50,306 By mid-century, the group became instrumental 27 00:01:50,306 --> 00:01:54,313 in the Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka court case. 28 00:01:54,313 --> 00:02:00,083 This class-action suit filed in 1951 asked that segregation in schools be struck down. 29 00:02:00,083 --> 00:02:01,452 Taken to the Supreme Court, 30 00:02:01,452 --> 00:02:08,233 the case resulted in the first integrated school in the United States to open in the fall of 1955. 31 00:02:08,233 --> 00:02:13,450 Encouraged by the decision, the Civil Rights Movement began to hold high-profile boycotts, 32 00:02:13,450 --> 00:02:16,970 marches, sit-ins and other peaceful protests. 33 00:02:16,970 --> 00:02:22,723 These included 1955’s Montgomery Bus Boycott in support of Rosa Parks. 34 00:02:22,723 --> 00:02:25,285 A watershed moment came in 1957 35 00:02:25,285 --> 00:02:29,485 when a high school in Arkansas admitted a group of African American students, 36 00:02:29,485 --> 00:02:31,450 nicknamed the Little Rock Nine. 37 00:02:31,450 --> 00:02:36,198 Protested by fellow students, the governor, and even the state’s National Guard, 38 00:02:36,198 --> 00:02:41,263 President Dwight Eisenhower eventually intervened to ensure the students’ safe passage. 39 00:02:41,263 --> 00:02:44,995 By 1962, Universities also began integrating, 40 00:02:44,995 --> 00:02:48,545 though black students were still met with protests and violence. 41 00:02:48,545 --> 00:02:51,700 The Southern Freedom Movement continued into the '60s, 42 00:02:51,700 --> 00:02:55,799 with support from newly-elected President John F. Kennedy and his brother: 43 00:02:55,799 --> 00:02:57,677 Attorney General, Robert Kennedy. 44 00:02:57,677 --> 00:03:00,312 The violence of the Birmingham, Alabama campaign 45 00:03:00,312 --> 00:03:03,473 influenced the President to fully endorse the movement. 46 00:03:03,473 --> 00:03:09,000 A great change is at hand, and our task, our obligation, 47 00:03:09,000 --> 00:03:13,727 is to make that revolution, that change, peaceful and constructive for all. 48 00:03:13,727 --> 00:03:18,854 On June 19th, 1963, he proposed a Civil Rights Bill to Congress, 49 00:03:18,854 --> 00:03:24,818 which was approved in 1964 after his death with support from President Lyndon Johnson. 50 00:03:24,818 --> 00:03:28,981 The bill struck down existing legislation that allowed for discrimination, 51 00:03:28,981 --> 00:03:32,733 and its approval was largely influenced by Martin Luther King Jr. 52 00:03:32,733 --> 00:03:36,737 and the March on Washington of August 1963. 53 00:03:46,178 --> 00:03:49,012 Capturing the attention of the media and the population, 54 00:03:49,012 --> 00:03:53,786 this event attracted hundreds of thousands of people in support of civil rights. 55 00:03:53,786 --> 00:03:59,630 Following that, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 ended the prejudiced voting system. 56 00:03:59,630 --> 00:04:04,076 Instantly effective, blacks began voting and running for public office. 57 00:04:04,076 --> 00:04:06,743 However, just days later on August 11th, 58 00:04:06,743 --> 00:04:12,540 a violent six-day riot in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts resulted in 34 deaths. 59 00:04:12,540 --> 00:04:18,909 This was indicative of a period of racially-motivated violence that occurred in the mid-to-late 1960s. 60 00:04:18,909 --> 00:04:24,242 This era also saw the rise of Black Power, led in large part by Stokely Carmichael, 61 00:04:24,242 --> 00:04:27,361 in opposition to extremists like the Ku Klux Klan. 62 00:04:27,361 --> 00:04:30,987 This ideology was exemplified by the Black Panther Party, 63 00:04:30,987 --> 00:04:34,154 which followed the principles set forth by Malcolm X. 64 00:04:34,154 --> 00:04:40,325 Rising to prominence in the 1950s, his radical ideas advocated militancy for blacks. 65 00:04:40,325 --> 00:04:41,946 Black poeple are dissatisfied. 66 00:04:41,946 --> 00:04:44,118 They're dissatisfied not only with the white man, 67 00:04:44,118 --> 00:04:47,749 but they're dissatisfied with these Negroes who have been sitting around posing as leaders 68 00:04:47,749 --> 00:04:49,764 and spokesmen for black people 69 00:04:49,764 --> 00:04:52,587 and actually making the problem worse instead of making the problem better. 70 00:04:52,587 --> 00:04:59,389 He remained an influential and controversial human rights activist until his assassination in 1965. 71 00:04:59,389 --> 00:05:05,388 The murders of civil rights leaders continued when Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in April 1968, 72 00:05:05,388 --> 00:05:07,602 and Robert Kennedy two months later. 73 00:05:07,602 --> 00:05:12,757 Despite racial tensions continuing into the 1990s, progress has been measurable. 74 00:05:12,757 --> 00:05:16,678 The election of President Barack Obama in 2008 is seen by many 75 00:05:16,678 --> 00:05:21,200 to be a culmination of centuries of work in favor of racial equality. 76 00:05:21,200 --> 00:05:23,458 This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed, 77 00:05:23,458 --> 00:05:27,549 why men and women and children of every race and every faith 78 00:05:27,549 --> 00:05:32,686 can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, 79 00:05:32,686 --> 00:05:35,867 and why a man whose father less than sixty years ago 80 00:05:35,867 --> 00:05:38,914 might not have been served at a local restaurant 81 00:05:38,914 --> 00:05:45,113 can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.