The Early Civil Rights Movement.

It is always important to recognize the heroes of the Civil Rights Movement. It was a movement that existed long before the 20th century, but whose impact is national in America plus global internationally. Also, it is important to note that the Civil Rights Movement was a collective movement of brave women, brave men, and brave children who worked together to fight for the freedom of black people and humanity in general. The leaders of this movement desired freedom and justice. Many of them were murdered, abused, mocked, and slandered, but they continued onward in their cause for human liberation. By 1945, the world has changed. From April 5-6, 1945, it was  the time of the Freeman Field Mutiny. This was when black officers of the U.S. Army Air Corps wanted to desegregate an all white officers’ club in Indiana. In August of 1945, the first issue of Ebony was released. Ebony shined the light of black culture and inspired people to promote Blackness unapologetically. In 1946, in  Morgan v. Virginia, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated provisions of the Virginia Code which required the separation of white and black passengers where applied to interstate bus transport. The state law is unconstitutional insofar as it is burdening interstate commerce – an area of federal jurisdiction. In the same year of 1946, black police officers existed for the first time in Daytona Beach, DeLand, Sanford, Fort Myers, Myers, Tampa, and Gainesville (in Florida). Black officers existed in  Little Rock, Arkansas; Louisville, Kentucky; Charlotte, North Carolina; Austin, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio in Texas; Richmond, Virginia; Chattanooga and Knoxville in Tennessee. Paul Robeson (who was a renowned actor and singer) founded the American Crusade Against Lynching organization. Robeson was a great hero who  spoke out against imperialism, against colonialism, against racism, against capitalist exploitation, and against all injustices.

The Congress of Racial Equality or CORE did something on April 9, 1947. CORE wanted equality. On that date, CORE sent 16 men on the Journey of Reconciliation to protest Jim Crow apartheid. Jackie Robinson played his first game for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947. This was the first time when a black baseball player played in the major leagues in 60 years. From Slavery to Freedom was the classic book written by John Hope Franklin in 1947 as well. John Hope Franklin was one of the greatest historians of all time. In 1948, the United United Nations, Article 4 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights banned slavery globally. On January 12, 1948, in Sipuel v. Board of Regents of Univ. of Okla., the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the State of Oklahoma and the University of Oklahoma Law School could not deny admission based on race ("color"). By May 3, 1948, in Shelley v. Kraemer and companion case Hurd v. Hodge, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the government cannot enforce racially restrictive covenants and asserts that they are in conflict with the nation's public policy. On July 12, 1948, Hubert Humphrey gave a courageous speech in favor of American civil rights and racial equality at the Democratic National Convention. Many white racist segregationists walked out to form their short-lived Dixiecrat party. On July 26, 1948,  President Harry S. Truman issued Executive Order 9981 ordering the end of racial discrimination in the Armed Forces. Desegregation comes after 1950. Also, in 1949, the city of Atlanta hired its first black police officers. On January 20, 1949, the Civil Rights Congress protested the second inauguration of Harry S. Truman.

In June 5, 1950, in McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a public institution of higher learning could not provide different treatment to a student solely because of his or her race. By June 5, 1950, in Sweatt v. Painter the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a separate-but-equal Texas law school was actually unequal, partly in that it deprived black students from the collegiality of future white lawyers. In the same day, in Henderson v. United States the U.S. Supreme Court abolished segregation in railroad dining cars. The University of Virginia, under a federal court order, admitted a black student to its law school. The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights was created in Washington, DC to promote the enactment and enforcement of effective civil rights legislation and policy in 1950. In the same year, Orlando hired its first black officers, Dr. Ralph Bunche won the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize, and another thing happened. In 1950, Chuck Cooper, Nathaniel Clifton and Earl Lloyd break the barriers, so they were in the NBA.

The Martinsville Seven were executed on February 2 and 5 1951. In February 15, 1951, the Maryland legislature ended segregation on trains and boats; meanwhile Georgia legislature votes to deny funds to schools that integrate. On April 23, 1951, high school  students in Farmville, Virginia, go on strike: the case Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County is heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1954 as part of Brown v. Board of Education. Segregation is upheld by a federal court ruling in South Carolina public schools on June 23, 1951. White residents riot in Cicero, Illinois when a black family tried to move into an apartment in the all-white suburb of Chicago; National Guard disperses them by July 1951. The United States Army high command desegregated the Army by July 26, 1951.  "We Charge Genocide" petition presented to United Nations by the Civil Rights Congress accused the United States of violating the Genocide Convention existed by December 17, 1951. The Civil Rights Congress was right. By December 24, 1951, the home of  NAACP activists Harry and Harriette Moore in Mims, Florida, was bombed by a KKK group; both die of injuries. In December 28, 1951, the Regional Council of Negro Leadership (RCNL) was founded in Cleveland, Mississippi by T.R.M. Howard, Amzie Moore, Aaron Henry, and other civil rights activists. Assisted by member Medgar Evers, the RCNL distributed more than 50,000 bumper stickers bearing the slogan, "Don't Buy Gas Where you Can't Use the Restroom." This boycott campaign successfully pressured many Mississippi service stations to provide restrooms for black Americans. On January 5, 1951, the racist Governor of Georgia Herman Talmadge criticized television shows for depicting blacks and whites as equal.

By January 28, 1951, there was Briggs v. Elliott: after a District Court had ordered separate but equal school facilities in South Carolina, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the case as part of Brown v. Board of Education. On March 7, 1952, another federal court upheld segregated education laws in Virginia. By April 1, 1952,  Chancellor Collins J. Seitz finds for the black plaintiffs (Gebhart v. Belton, Gebhart v. Bulah) and ordered the integration of Hockessin elementary and Claymont High School in Delaware based on assessment of "separate but equal" public school facilities required by the Delaware constitution. On September 4, 1952, eleven black students attend the first day of school at Claymont High School, Delaware, becoming the first black students in the 17 segregated states to integrate a white public school. The day occurs without incident or notice by the community. On the next day, the Delaware State Attorney General informed Claymont Superintendent Stahl that the black students will have to go home because the case is being appealed. Stahl, the School Board and the faculty refused and the students remain. The two Delaware cases are argued before the Warren U.S. Supreme Court by Redding, Greenberg and Marshall and are used as an example of how integration can be achieved peacefully. It was a primary influence in the Brown v. Board case. The students become active in sports, music and theater. The first two black students graduated in June 1954 just one month after the Brown v. Board case. Ralph Ellison authored the novel Invisible Man in 1952. It exposed racism in real terms and the novel won the National Book Award. Segregation laws were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in June 8, 1953. By August 13, 1953, Executive Order 10479 was signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower as it established the anti-discrimination Committee on Government Contracts. In the landmark case Sarah Keys v. Carolina Coach Company, WAC Sarah Keys, represented by civil rights lawyer Dovey Roundtree, became the first black human being to challenge "separate but equal" in bus segregation before the Interstate Commerce Commission (on Sepember 1, 1953). Also in 1953, James Baldwin’s semi-autobiographical novel Go Tell It on the Mountain was published. It was ahead of its time.


On May 3, 1954, in Hernandez v. Texas, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Mexican Americans and all other racial groups in the United States are entitled to equal protection under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The historic day of May 17, 1954 was when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the "separate but equal" doctrine in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kans. and in Bolling v. Sharpe, thus overturning Plessy v. Ferguson. July 30, 1954 was when at  a special meeting in Jackson, Mississippi called by Governor Hugh White, T.R.M. Howard of the Regional Council of Negro Leadership, along with nearly one hundred other black leaders, publicly refused to support a segregationist plan to maintain "separate but equal" in exchange for a crash program to increase spending on black schools. On September 2, 1954, in Montgomery, Alabama, 23 black children are prevented from attending all-white elementary schools, defying the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling. Washington, D.C. ended segregated education and Baltimore, Maryland does the same thing on September 8, 1954. On September 15, 1954, protests by white parents in White Sulphur Springs, WV forced schools to postpone desegregation another year. This was the start of the white resistance movement against desegregation. Mississippi responded to the Brown v. Board of education decision by abolishing all public schools with an amendment to its state constitution on September 16, 1954.  Integration of a high school in Milford, Delaware collapsed when white students boycotted classes on September 30. There were students demonstrations against integration of Washington, D.C. public schools on October 4, 1954. By October 19, 1954, the federal  judge upheld an Oklahoma law requiring African American candidates to be identified on voting ballots as "negro"..” The total completion of the desegregation of the U.S. Armed Forces were said to be finished by October 30, 1954. By November 1954, Charles Diggs, Jr., of Detroit is elected to Congress, the first African American elected from Michigan. Marie Frankie Muse Freeman was the lead attorney for the landmark NAACP case Davis et al. v. the St. Louis Housing Authority, which ended legal racial discrimination in public housing with the city. Constance Baker Motley was also an attorney for NAACP: it was a rarity to have two women attorneys leading such a high-profile case.

On January 7, 1955, Marian Anderson (of 1939 fame) became the first African American to perform with the New York Metropolitan Opera. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed Executive Order 10590, which established the President's Committee on Government Policy to enforce a nondiscrimination policy in Federal employment on January 15, 1955. Demonstrators from CORE and Morgan State University stage a successful sit-in to desegregate Read's Drug Store in Baltimore, Maryland on January 20, 1955. On April 5, 1955, Mississippi passed a law penalizing white students who attend school with black Americans with jail and fines. NAACP and Regional Council of Negro Leadership activist Reverend George W. Leeis was killed in Belzoni, Mississippi on May 7, 1955. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in "Brown II" that desegregation must occur with "all deliberate speed" on May 31, 1955. The University of Oklahoma decided to allow black students on June 8, 1955. Virginia’s governor and Board of Education decided to continue segregated schools into 1956. The NAACP won a U.S. Supreme Court suit which ordered the University of Alabama to admit Autherine Lucy by June 29, 1955. The Georgia Board of Education ordered any teacher supporting integration to be fired on July 11. A federal appeals court overturned segregation on Columbia, SC buses.


By Timothy