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Civil rights in the 1950s: Brown, Montgomery and Little Rock

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In the early 1950s Black Americans in the South faced segregation and could rarely vote. Court cases and protests began to change this.

The position of Black Americans

In the Southern states, Jim Crow laws enforced segregation in schools, buses, restaurants and toilets.
Voting was blocked by literacy tests, poll taxes and intimidation.
Organisations such as the NAACP (which fought through the courts) and CORE (which used non-violent direct action) campaigned for change.

Education: Brown and Little Rock

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954): the Supreme Court ruled that segregated schools were unconstitutional. NAACP lawyer Thurgood Marshall argued the case.
Little Rock (1957): nine Black students tried to join Central High School in Arkansas. Governor Faubus used the National Guard to block them; President Eisenhower sent federal troops to protect the Little Rock Nine.
Opposition included the Ku Klux Klan, White Citizens' Councils, and the murder of Emmett Till (1955).

The Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955 to 56

On 1 December 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man.
Black residents boycotted the buses for 381 days, led by the Montgomery Improvement Association and the young Martin Luther King.
In 1956 the Supreme Court ruled bus segregation unconstitutional.
Impact: King became a national figure; the SCLC was set up in 1957; the Civil Rights Act of 1957 created a Civil Rights Commission, though it did little in practice.
Worked example

Explain why the Montgomery Bus Boycott was significant.

  1. It showed that mass, non-violent protest could work.
  2. It led to a Supreme Court ruling ending bus segregation.
  3. It made Martin Luther King a national leader and led to the SCLC.

Answer: It proved non-violent mass protest could succeed and launched King as a leader.

Key idea

Jim Crow segregation and blocked voting in the South. The NAACP won Brown v. Board (1954); Eisenhower sent troops to Little Rock (1957). Rosa Parks sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955 to 56), led by King, ending bus segregation and leading to the SCLC (1957). Opposition included the KKK and the murder of Emmett Till.

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