The Civil Rights Movement

Image from: http://www.pbs.org/black-culture/explore/civil-rights-leaders/#.U6L08UCANFI

Changes that took place in the United States during the late 20 th century and early 21st century
revitalized the economy and challenged traditional society and politics in South Carolina. You
will understand the response of South Carolina to these challenges and analyze the Civil Rights
Movement in South Carolina, including the impact of the landmark court cases Elmore v. Rice
and Briggs v. Elliott; civil rights leaders Septima Poinsette Clark, Modjeska Monteith Simkins,
and Matthew J. Perry; the South Carolina school equalization effort and other resistance to
school integration; peaceful efforts to integrate beginning with colleges and demonstrations in
South Carolina such as the Friendship Nine and the Orangeburg Massacre.
Image from:
http://gameofroles.wordpress.com/2011/12/14/the-new-civilrights-movement/

1. According to the political cartoon who

is now the target of discrimination?
2. Based on this cartoon do you feel the
Civil Rights movement was a success?
Explain

Jim Crow laws, restrictions on voting

through poll taxes and literacy tests, and discrimination in the workplace, continue to limit the
social, political, and economic opportunities of African Americans in the 20 th century. It is
important to understand that the civil rights movement began in the colonial period.
Throughout the 20th century, organizations such as the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the
National Association of Colored Women, and the National Urban League actively sought the

recognition of African American rights and the fulfillment of the promises of the Declaration of
Independence and the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments.
The Civil Rights Movement intensified after World War II largely due to the Double V campaign
which called for victory abroad, victory at home. The Supreme Court decision in Brown v.
Board of Education, the influence of mass media, and the leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr.
all increased efforts to bring civil rights to African-Americans.
The NAACP took a legal approach and brought cases to the courts that challenged the popular
practices of discrimination and laid the groundwork for change. Among many other cases, the
NAACP challenged the exclusion of
African American voters from
participation in the South Carolina
Democratic Partys Primary. The
Democratic Party had dominated politics
in South Carolina and the South since
Image from:
http://mlkcommission.dls.virginia.gov/va_school_cl
osings/brown_boe.html

Examine both images.

3. Name 1 similarity and 1
difference between the two.
4.Were the facilities truly
equal? Explain.
Image from:
http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2013/08/16/
archives/post-perspective/the-deep-south-saysnever.html

Reconstruction so the white primary

effectively excluded blacks from having
any say in selecting the states elected
officials. In 1947 the United States
Supreme court ruled in Elmore v. Rice
that the white primary was unconstitutional. African Americans, who continued to face white
hostility, still had to overcome intimidation but they now had the opportunity to vote in the
primary election select candidates for office in their state.

The landmark case of Briggs v. Elliot started with a simple request. The parents of African
American students in Clarendon County, South Carolina requested a bus to take their children
to their all-black school. Some children had to walk 18 miles to and from school each day.
Since the countys white children had school busses and the black children had none, the
parents of Scotts Branch School felt that the separate-but-equal doctrine established by the
Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson required the school district to pay for the gas and repairs
on the used bus that the families bought to take their children to school. Parents did not
originally seek integration but equality. The original case was dismissed due to a technicality.
With the assistance of local leaders including Modjeska Monteith Simkins and the NAACP,
parents brought suit against the school district in a new case, in federal court; the counsel for
the state of South Carolina admitted that separate schools for African Americans were unequal.
They claimed that the state had initiated a building program that would bring the African
American schools up to par with white schools and the court ruled in favor of the school
district. The NAACP then appealed the case to the United States Supreme Court. Briggs v. Elliot
was one of five cases that became part of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education of
Topeka, Kansas decision. In Brown the Supreme Court overturned Plessy v. Ferguson and ruled
that separate but equal was inherently unequal. The court further ruled that African American
students should be integrated into classrooms with white children with all deliberate speed.
South Carolina officials resisted efforts to integrate schools in a variety of ways. While the
Briggs case was still pending in the federal courts, South Carolina launched a statewide effort to
improve education by making separate African American schools equal to white schools. This
was known as the equalization effort, and if successful would allow schools to remain
segregated. Modern schools for blacks were built across the state, but the courts ruled for
integration anyway. The Brown ruling was met with widespread and sometimes violent
opposition and delay. The Governor of South Carolina, James F. Byrnes, encouraged this
resistance. White Citizens Councils were established to coordinate efforts to intimidate African
Americans who petitioned for equal treatment and to label whites who supported Brown as
traitors to their race.
Image from: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129470920
South Carolina
Senator Strom
5. Based on the image name 2 goals of the March on Washington
Thurmond authored
the Southern
Manifesto, signed by
all but three of the
Congressmen from
the Deep South (101
in total). The

Manifesto condemned the Brown decision for upsetting the practice of white supremacy in the
South and encouraged resistance to desegregation. Methods of resistance included the
establishment of numerous white flight private academies, school choice, and plans for the
voluntary closing of public schools. For almost two decades, South Carolina, like other southern
states, sought to avoid the integration of public schools. South Carolina schools were not fully
integrated until the early 1970s.
The Brown decision prompted other civil rights
actions throughout the South and South Carolina
was affected. In response to the actions of Rosa
Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the
Supreme Court ruled that city busses could not be
segregated. South Carolinas bus companies
ignored the ruling. When students staged a sit-in
Image from: http://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-byera/civil-rights-movement/resources/civil-rights-revolutionat a North Carolina lunch counter, South Carolina
interpreting-statistics
students followed their example throughout the
state and initiated the new tactic. In South Carolina 6 According to the chart what overall
trend do you see?
grassroots protests and demonstrations followed
the example set by Martin Luther King, Jr. In the
7. Which state saw the largest and
hopes of attracting economic investment in the
smallest gain?
state, white leaders in South Carolina responded to
the movement differently than in other southern
8. Based on our study of the Civil Rights
states. Pictures of protests and violence in other
movement, create an appropriate title
southern states broadcast on nationwide television for this chart.
and newspapers and would not help bring
economic investment to South Carolina so the state began in 1963 to slowly integrate public
facilities. Beginning with Clemson College and followed by the University of South Carolina,
state colleges were integrated without the violence seen in other southern states. The state
enforced both the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. South Carolinas
relatively peaceful integration of public facilities was spoiled by the violence at the Orangeburg
Massacre. South Carolina public schools were desegregated fifteen years after Brown as the
result of another court ruling.
Although many South Carolinians played a significant role in the civil rights movement, most
notable are the following:
Septima Poinsette Clark

Public School teacher

Helped NAACP bring case for equal pay black teachers
Left SC when the state said state employees could not join
NAACP

Modjeska Monteith
Simkins

Matthew J. Perry

Taught at the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee, teaching

nonviolence to civil rights leaders
Served in Southern Christian Leadership Conference led by
Dr. King
Founded Citizenship Schools to improve literacy and
encourage voter registration
Public School teacher
Public health worker
Active member of NAACP, participated in equalization for
teachers salaries
Helped on Elmore v. Rice to end white primary
Helped write the declaration for Briggs v. Elliot for
equalization of Clarendon County Schools
First graduate of the new law school at South Carolina State
to pass bar exam
Challenged segregation in the courts
Lawyer that won the case to desegregate Clemson
Fought for adoption of single-member districts in SCs House
of Representatives-making it possible for more black
lawmakers to get elected.
Served as South Carolinas first African American federal
judge.

South Carolina college students also played a role in the Civil Rights Movement. The Friendship
Nine were students at Friendship College who introduced a new tactic to the movement in the
early 1960s. While planning a sit-in at a Rock Hill lunch counter, the students said that if
arrested, they would not accept bail but would serve out their sentences. This brought greater
public attention to their protest against segregation. Other protesters across the country
adopted the jail no bail tactic, and served out their jail sentences, thus straining the local
prison system and
Image from: http://www.mckennabrandon.com/Friendship-9-Logo
drawing the attention
9. The Friendship 9s slogan was, jail, no
of the national press.
bail. What does this mean?
In 1968, students at
South Carolina State College protested the segregation of a bowling alley
in Orangeburg. Several days later police who had been called in to keep
the peace, opened fire on students, injuring dozens and killing three. The
officers were acquitted but a wounded student was convicted of riot
because of his activity at the bowling alley several nights before the shooting. By 1968, the
national press paid little attention to the event and it was overshadowed by the riots that
followed the assassination of Dr. King in April.