American Literature: Civil Rights Movement

movement....well after the Civil War ended in 1865 there was a period in the South

known as reconstruction a roughly decade-long period of rebuilding that

was directed by the federal government unfortunately I wasn't able to see this [Woman putting make-up on]

happen because well you know the play was good basically the southern United

States was left in shambles after the Civil War because the North won the

conflict and they must've had one amazing leader and federal government

took control of the situation they encouraged northerners to move south [Northerners moved to south of the US]

to help the rebuilding process. They only use military force to protect the

rights of African American they fought off a growing wave of white supremacist

groups like the Ku Klux Klan by the 1870s however southern Democratic

politicians had successfully reasserted control of the south with their newfound [Democratic politican plants a flag]

power these white politicians created a new set of laws to disenfranchise

African American citizens those racist regulations were known as Jim Crow laws

named after an equally racist fictional character Jim Crow who'd been around

since the 1820s - These laws severely limited the freedoms of the souths new

African American citizens; enforcing segregation in schooling business and

housing..banning interracial relationships and making it nearly [Man shouting and white woman and black man]

impossible for African Americans to vote well these voter suppression efforts

took many different forms some states forced voters to pay poll taxes to block [People paying voter fees]

the poor from voting like literally you had to pay money to vote other states

made voters prove they could read before they got a ballot....

In both instances it's quite clear that these laws were meant to prevent

african-americans from voting especially because some states straight up

made exceptions to the laws that allowed white Americans to vote... well this

nonsense went on for almost 100 years but then at the beginning of the 1950's

something changed and the civil rights movement began - The civil rights

movement was a huge social movement that destroyed those awful Jim Crow laws and [Civil Rights movement on TV]

changed the American society forever there's no one event that kicked off the

movement but there are a few we can identify as being particularly important

well the first is Brown v Board of Education Supreme Court legal case in [The US Supreme Court building]

1954 african-american students in Kansas got sick and tired of being forced into

segregated and underfunded schools and decided to sue the local Board of

Education in favor of school integration and they won, well it took going to the [African-American student in court]

Supreme Court to get there but they did it well segregation was to be phased out

slowly over time and while some southern states accepted this change without fuss

others pitched the bigger fit than a superfan who was too late to buy Justin [Girl superfan throwing tantrum with Justin Bieber]

Bieber tickets.....

well the other major event that kicked off the civil rights movement was the

Montgomery bus boycott, in Montgomery Alabama in 1955 an African American

woman named Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white [Rosa Parks arrested]

man but she was sitting there he walked up he said move and she said no that

seat giving up ting was actually required by the state strict Jim Crow

laws stating that African Americans had to sit in the back of the bus we're not

making this up people this actually happened well Parks protests was met with a huge

wave of support basically a pre-internet flash mob of glorious nonviolent

resistance unsatisfied with the city's response, the protestors kept it up for [People protesting for Rosa Parks]

almost a year when a federal court ordered the city's buses to become

desegregated it took them a year to do this the Montgomery bus boycott also

launched a certain creature into national prominence a young man by the [Bus launching into the air and Martin Luther King appears]

name of the Martin Luther King Jr despite these early victories the

battle for civil rights had just begun well in 1957 in Little Rock Arkansas for

example the governor Orval Faubus...

ordered the National Guard to prevent African Americans from going to high

school kids trying to go to schools and adults trying to stop them that's when [Kid studying at home and man appears]

you know things have turned upside-down in this crazy world, well a similar event

occurred in 1963 when Alabama Governor George Wallace literally put his own

body between black students and the University of Alabama to prevent them

from attending.. it was only 65-70 years ago people....

As the 50s gave way to the 60s the civil rights movement only grew [Civil Rights getting heavier on a scale]

more intense in the late 50s student activists started having sit-ins at

segregated businesses well during a sit-in black protestors would just sit

down in whites only establishment essentially forcing the owners to choose

between willingly integrating their business or using the violence thing to [Arrow pointing to integration and violence]

keep things the way they were sadly most businesses took the latter approach

inflicting heart-wrenching violence upon peaceful protesters keep in mind we're

not talking ancient history this is 50 years ago like your parents know about

it go ask him they were there yeah and they're one of the many people who are

still alive today who endured and somehow accepted this horrendous

violence which really puts into perspective how the issues fought for

during the civil rights movement remained really relevant today... Well in 1961 a

group known as the Freedom Riders entered the scene - The Freedom Riders

were an interracial group that defied segregation laws by sitting next to each

other on Interstate buses intentionally breaking the law to highlight this [Interracial group of people sitting on a bus]

injustice as with the sit-ins these bold acts were met with horrendous violence

several buses were even bombed and this is not like Isis bombing people these

were like you know Americans bombing [American man throws bomb and African-American man]

Anyway Freedom Riders were also attacked by mobs in Birmingham

Montgomery and countless other southern cities and three civil rights activists

Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner and James Chaney were murdered in

Mississippi in 1964 there's a movie you can see about that....

well on the bright side Martin Luther King Jr. led the march on Washington for [Martin Luther King Jr. giving a speech]

Jobs and Freedom that same year a massive gathering of roughly 250,000

people it was here that Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous I have a dream

speech which called for racial unity and dreamt of a future where everyone could [MLK speaking on stage]

live side-by-side in peace it's one of the best speeches ever so if you haven't

read it we're just telling you you should...The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was

the first major piece of legislation passed after the March, the law banned

any sort of discrimination based on race or ethnicity and ended segregation once

and for all well a year later MLK Jr led a group of

activists on a march from Selma to Montgomery Alabama to advocate for [People marching for voting rights]

voting rights as usual the backlash was violent and barbaric earning the moniker

Bloody Sunday for well obvious reasons fortunately this helped speed the passage

of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which protected African American voting rights

in the south, struck down poll taxes and it eliminated literacy tests well then [Federal Agent tears down poll taxes and literacy tests]

in 1968 Martin Luther King jr. was assassinated, sparking riots and protests

across the country this tragedy forced Congress to rush through their final bit

of legislation in the Civil Rights era the Civil Rights Act of 1968, well this

law built on many of the ideas established in the Civil Rights Act of

1964 banning discrimination in the housing market and making it a federal [African-American couple approach a house for sale]

crime to threaten or attack a person based on their race or ethnicity before

we go on we have to talk more about MLK jr. born in 1929 King was the son of a

preacher man making him destined like Luke Skywalker to pick up where his dad [MLK hanging off the edge of a platform and MLK's father as Darth Vader appears]

left off....

While in school Kings stumbled across some books by a fellow named [MLK falls over books]

Mahatma Gandhi, Gandhi famous death metal guitarist....

Gandhi famous Indian

political leader pioneered the field of non-violent resistance..that is the use of non-violent protests

to cause political change...Used these techniques to free India from British colonial rule in 1930's...

well nonviolent resistance can take the form of traditional protests, boycotts and

marches as long as it doesn't leave a bruise it'll probably work here...[People protesting]

Gandhi's philosophy had a huge impact on King and would shape his tactics

throughout the civil rights movement not everyone was as in love with turning the

other cheek however most prominent among this group was Malcolm X a key leader in

a small religious sect known as the Nation of Islam, while many of the

nation's beliefs are derived from mainstream Islam it's considered a

distinct religion with its own beliefs like that Africans are the original [Arrows point to African people]

people of mankind that the races should be separated and that white people were

created by a mad scientist named Yakob [Yakob in the lab with a white man in a tube]

unlike King, Malcolm wasn't dreaming of white and black children

playing together in the schoolyard but he dreamed of more segregation on the

basis that it would allow african-americans to determine their own

future he also supported African Americans using self-defense in the face [Malcolm X giving guns to African-Americans]

of racially based violence a view shared by the other groups like the Black

Panther Party a militant civil rights organization founded in 1966 and nobody

asked them whole thing with an eye for an eye leaves the whole

world blind and toothless ....Well Malcolm would

eventually break with the Nation of Islam in 1964 and convert to Sunni Islam [Malcolm stands with Sunni Islam]

the most popular branch of Islam later that year

well this shift softened Malcolm slightly while he still wasn't pulling a

Gandhi, a'la Martin Luther King jr. he was

open to the integration of the races and willing to express mild support for the [Malcolm takes down segregation sign]

civil rights movement sadly this new phase in Malcolm X's life was cut short

when he was assassinated in 1965 just three years before MLK would meet the

same fate but the approaches of Malcolm X and

Martin Luther King jr. were as different as different can be..just goes to show you

how diverse civil rights movements can be well we see further evidence of

this diversity in Bayard Rustin another prominent leader in the movement well

Rustin wore a lot of different hats in his lifetime kind of like a Dr. Seuss [Rustin wearing lots of hats]

character he was a nightclub singer in Harlem New York, a die-hard member of the

Communist Party of America and an all-purpose political activist well by

the late 1940s Rustin was a pioneering leader in the civil rights movement

focusing particularly on techniques of nonviolent resistance, that's the time

nonviolent resistance was a relatively new technique of social change and the

grand scheme of things as any attempt at nonviolent protest in the 17 or 1800's

would have ended with your head removed from your body most likely [Man taken to a guilotine]

little known fact; Rustin was the one who helped King develop his nonviolent

resistance tactics ahead of the Montgomery bus boycott which means that

Rustin's fingerprints are all over one of the most important events in American [Rustin's fingerprints all over a bus]

history...Rustin and King would continue working together over the decade and

Rustin would become the chief organizer of the 1963 march on Washington though

he received little credit for it at the time see many within the civil rights

movement were skeptical of Rustin because he was openly gay which was so

unheard of at that point in time that well he may as well have been a purple

unicorn although Rustin was out during the 60s [Rustin appears with a unicorn horn and purple unicorn appears beside him]

he didn't begin openly advocating for gay rights until the 80s when he made it

the focal point of his career.....Though he's

often forgotten Rustin is a crucial figure in the civil rights movement

without him MLK might never have perfected his technique of nonviolent

protest but don't think that just because King was advocating non-violence

that he wasn't willing to get his hands dirty... In 1963

King led a campaign to promote integration in Birmingham Birmingham, Alabama city]

Alabama one of the most segregated cities in the country well their efforts

included boycotts of local segregated stores, sit-ins at public restaurants and

marches across the city well it was during one of these marches on Good

Friday the Friday before Easter as it happens, the King was arrested for his [MLK arrested]

part in the day's protests while in prison King wrote a letter that would

end up being a lot more significant than your average email or text message [MLK writing a letter in jail]

letter from Birmingham jail as it would come to be known was written in response

to an editorial published by a group of local white church leaders these prominent

priests and preachers painted King as an outsider looking to stir up trouble in

Birmingham argued that he didn't give the local government enough time to

respond to his demands and described his protest tactics with a generous serving

of tea and shade...Well, not to keep score but King dunks on his haters immediately [MLK slam dunking a basketball]

King starts by quoting some scripture just to prove he can get as biblical as

the rest of them he compares himself to St. Paul one of the most important early

leaders of the church likening his struggle for civil rights to the

struggles of the early church...King then eviscerates the argument that he's an

outsider in Birmingham saying that all the same issues affecting Birmingham

afflict his home of Atlanta and countless other communities across

America plus it's his freakin country Georgia and Alabama border each other [Georgia and Alabama on a map]

with this Smackdown begun King starts describing his approach to nonviolent

political resistance it's an easy four-step process [Lincoln discussing 4 step process]

First; collect facts that determine whether or not injustice exists with

this step King would visit a city to investigate the state of race relations

there and connect with local residents to find out their personal stories if

things were looking bad as they usually were he'd move on to step two [MLK discussing personal stories with a woman]

negotiation well before kicking off the protests King directly approaches local

leaders and business people to see if they can resolve the issue without

conflict this step rarely ended in success.. As was the case with Birmingham local

leaders wouldn't give King the time of day

which means that it's time for step three self purification and no it's not

some weird mystical ritual from Game of Thrones with a dragon... instead self [Game of Thrones characters and Dragon appear]

purification is Kings spiritually charged way of saying preparation

well preparation takes many forms like activists workshops that teach everyday

people how to implement nonviolent political action group sessions that

prepare protesters for the violence they're likely to face and maybe one or [Woman sprays man with firehose]

two trips to Dave & Buster's if only for a morale boost because who doesn't like

that... what's step four? direct action - direct

action is an umbrella term for the nonviolent political action and the term

includes strikes, boycotts, public demonstrations and marches sound

familiar yeah they're the exact same tactics King employs throughout this [People protesting in the street]

whole civil rights movement look King would love it if he could achieve his

goals on step two and call it a day sure would be a whole lot less stressful but

that rarely happens if ever forcing King to employ the often messy tactic of

direct action...well having explained his tactics King takes on the [Person moves King piece in chessboard]

clergyman's point beat by beat, why didn't he give local government more

time to act before protesting? well Kings been through this rodeo before the

people in charge never give up power without pressure why did he use direct

action to cause chaos which might lead to violence....why does the

hypothetical violence caused by protests outweigh the real violence faced by

African Americans on a daily basis... King also makes a distinction between

just and unjust laws...just laws as their name implies are just ie fair... They're like

there's no need to debate whether murder is a bad thing or whether theft is [Person holding knife up to a woman]

something to be a frowned upon but mixed up with all these valid laws are a bunch

of invalid ones like those that enforced segregation and those that limit the

civil rights of African Americans invoking a pre-internet version of

Godwin's law which states that every debate eventually features at least one

reference to Hitler.. King makes the point that every terrible thing that Hitler [Hitler's army marching]

did during World War two was completely legal

even though he perpetrated some of the most horrendous crimes against humanity

ever well King uses this argument to support the

idea that laws can be unjust and conversely that some illegal things like

protesting and equal rights are actually good it's important to note however that [Woman driving a car]

even though King comes down hard on his fellow clergyman's arguments his final

message is a unifying one.. King stresses his respect for his foes as men of God

despite his personal disappointment with their churches and he states that he

hopes to meet them someday not as civil rights leaders but as a fellow clergyman

and Christian brother don't underestimate the brilliance of Kings [MLK writing a letter]

writing here he somehow manages to both destroy their arguments and leave them

with an uplifting brotherly message which is the writing equivalent to you [MLK writing a letter and fire begins to spread]

know being a Jedi Master... Another important piece of civil rights writing

is Anne Moody's coming-of-age in Mississippi born in 1940 Moody is raised

in a poor farming family in surprise-surprise Mississippi the book a

memoir follows Moody from her childhood days performing odd job to making ends

meet to her college years that took elude college to her eventual joining of [Moody at college and joins a protest]

the civil rights movement the 1950's in this way Moody's book serves

as a great document of the development of the civil rights movement after all

Moody is inspired to join the movement after the brutal murder of

14 year-old Emmett Till in 1955 an african-american kid from Mississippi

who was accused of the unforgivable crime of flirting with a white woman [Young boy flirting with woman in supermarket and chased by angry mob]

Moody also learns about the NAACP that's the National

Association for the Advancement of Colored People - A famous civil rights

organization Moody did it all, she took part in sit-ins at diners in Jackson

Mississippi and even rubbed elbows with Medgar Evers a legendary Mississippi [Moody rubs elbows with Medgar]

based civil rights leader who was assassinated in 1963 by members of a white

supremacist organization while the novel even ends with perhaps the most iconic

civil rights movement of all the march on Washington we don't get to see the

event itself but the novel closes out with Moody on a bus with her fellow

activists heading to the capital city wondering if they will finally reach [Bus travelling to Washington]

their goal of racial equality this abrupt ending is actually quite fitting

after all though the civil rights movement achieved some incredible social

change, there's still plenty of work left to do still plenty of racially

based laws to overturn and plenty of hearts and minds that still need to be

won over to the side of equality although the civil rights movement might [Lincoln statue talking about civil rights movement]

not yet be over this lesson sure is and what did we learn well we learned that

the civil rights movement was started in large part due to so-called Jim Crow

laws racist regulations concentrated in the southern United States...Martin Luther

King jr. is one of the first leaders we think of when we talk about the civil

rights movement and for good reason his nonviolent tactics were some of the most [MLK Jr giving speeches for civil rights movement]

effective drivers of social change nowhere is this more evident than in

Kings letter from Birmingham jail which explains his philosophy on activism and

equal rights in full detail but of course he wasn't the only civil rights

leader with his own unique perspective there was also Malcolm X who took a more

militant approach to civil rights than MLK and finally we can see Anne Moody's

memoir coming-of-age in Mississippi as an amazing historical document of the

movement it gives us a first-hand view of some of the most pivotal events of [Person raises hand]

the era while there's still plenty more to learn about of the civil rights

movement this lesson should give you a great foundation to build on...One piece

of advice before you go if your boo ever wants to go out on the town to celebrate

a big event just stay home and watch Netflix instead...[Lincoln statue giving advice and scratches his butt]