Emphasize was the fact that ordinary people were becoming much more militant and aggressive in defending their civil rights. Im going to continue that theme tonight and, indeed, i think its even more so the case in the 1950s and 1960s that ordinary people became the engines of the Civil Rights Movement. We tend to think about the Civil Rights Movement as Martin Luther king, jr. , fanny hammer and largerthanlife figures. The Civil Rights Movement was made up by ordinary people including and youll find out tonight a lot of College Students. A lot of College Students. In fact, in some ways the driving force of the Civil Rights Movement came from people who were probably no older than you in this room. I want you to remember that. College students were the main force in terms of the Civil Rights Movement. Okay. I want us to keep that in mind when we talk of the evolution of this movement. Ill begin the lecture by discussing the decade of the 1950s because the 1950s really provide, i think, the impetus for what will be the what most historians call the grand Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. There are three episodes. Episode number one is brown. The brown decision in 1964. Brown v board of education. Well say a little more about that later on. Episode number two is the montgomery bus boycott. Of course that boycott was important for a variety of reasons, not only the fact that it catapulted Martin Luther king, jr. To fame but also because it was the First Successful movement in the deep south that actually challenged racial segregation. Then, of course, there was the Central High School desegregation crisis at little rock, arkansas. Everyone has probably heard of little rock. Youre generally familiar with what went on. What ill talk about tonight is the fact that all three of these episodes, especially little rock, were going to, in effect, lay the foundation for what would become the more active Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Each of these episodes indicated profound changes in Race Relations and black progress. And as ive argued all throughout this class, when we talk about black progress and Race Relations were not talking about black people gaining new rights, were talking about africanamericans seeing thing rights that they lost in the 1870s finally restored. In other words, when we talk about voting rights, blacks were essentially trying to get back thing rights that were supposed to be guaranteed by the 15th amendment that was ratified finally in 1870. Let me show a couple of slides that reflect on what i call this rising militancy and trying to change the narrative of the civil rights struggle. First of all, militancy is the watch word. Africanamericans throughout the country either inside the naacp or beyond the naacp were much less tolerant of the racial order after 1946. In other words, the war itself had made people impatient with racial segregation and Racial Discrimination. No longer would africanamericans simply wait for the laws to change, now they would force that change. Secondly, the 1940s, especially in the 1950s indicated that the federal government would increasingly use its authority and its power even in the form of troops if necessary to defend black rights. I love this photograph. Its provocative in so many ways. It is evocative in so many ways. First of all, technically its u. S. Forces, u. S. Army forces defending the freedom riders bus near the mississippi alabama border in 1961. Some of you know about the freedom riders and well at least mention them in passing. But i think whats more interesting about this and the subtext that people dont know is virtually all of these young and they were young men, probably between the ages of 18 and 22, almost all of these young men were southern boys. But they were also members of the u. S. Army and they were sworn to defend the constitution and in this instance, they were sworn to defend black people who were protesting for their civil rights. There are a couple of other images that i want to show because they are showing the role of the federal government and the way in which that role became, if you will, popular at least in the north in the 1950s and 1960s. You probably dont remember this episode but this is ruby bates. A Norman Rockwell painting of ruby bates. She was a young africanamerican girl whose parents sued to have her integrated to a school, ironically in the ninth ward of new orleans, the ward thats now overly black. At the time it was white. Ruby bates, her struggle was captured by Norman Rockwell in this very famous painting. But i want to pull this up. This is the actual photograph of ruby bates. Why is this important . This is the federal government defending the rights of blacks. In this instance defending the rights of a little girl. This is powerful. This is evocative. This is reflecting the changes taking place in American Society and particularly the attitudes. Of the three episodes that i mentioned earlier, the brown decision is by far the most important. The brown decision reflects on two very important changes that have and the place in the 1940s and the 1950s. First, i want to pull this image up. Theres a change in the courts. Now im showing here the u. S. Supreme court. Interestingly this is the Supreme Court in 1954, it was all white and all male. And that was, you know, that was pretty well the norm at that time. But whats more interesting is that that Supreme Court will rule in 1954 unanimously in favor of racial, the end of racial segregation in the Public Schools in the south. What does that mean . It means that the Supreme Court is moving in a particular direction but it also means at least i argue that it also reflects that a whole host of other courts were going to follow suit and they were going to issue orders or they were going to make decisions that would help to break town to break down the wall of segregation. I will take this a little bit farther. I argue that its the courts that were the one arm of government at that particular time that were most committed to making sure that the rights of africanamericans were wellrespected. And ill let you in on a little secret, you may already know this. There is absolutely no way the congress of the United States would have taken a similar state a similar step like this in 1954. And theres no way, in fact, that the president of the United States, president dwight eisenhower, would have taken that step without the prompting by the courts. Now, part of this is almost obvious. The Supreme Court is appointed. The the appointments are for life. The appointments of the federal judges in the south were also for life. As a result they are in some ways insulated from public opinion. In ways that the congress and the president are not. But congress and the president certainly were not embracing of civil rights at that particular moment as the Supreme Court was and as other courts. And i make this argument had it not been for those courts, had it not been for the courts, i doubt if we have much to say about the Civil Rights Movement. In other words, they played a crucial role in terms of laying the foundation for what would come in the 1960s. But i suggest there are other changes taking place as well. One of those changes was in the naacp itself. The National Association for the advancement of colored people as we talked about in this class, the National Association for the advancement of colored people in some ways lost its energy, lost its drive, lost determination in the 1930s, partially because it was attacked by the communists and the left. We talked about scottsboro. You know the significance of the case. Even though the communists didnt get those young men off, even though the fact the communists were more assertive and aggressive in terms of challenging for their freedom put the naacp in the shadow, out of which it found itself very difficult to emerge. By 1940 certainly by 1942, 1943, the naacp was reemerging as the major Civil Rights Organization in the country. It was beginning to, if you will, regain the militancy it had in its first two decades. Part of that is because of the war itself. Part of it is because world war ii, of course, brought large numbers of africanamericans out of the south and as they went to these various other cities they often joined the naacp. Ill give you and example here, a local example. This is the naacp dinner at the Mount Zion Baptist church in seattle in 1945. Whats important is not that these people were celebrating and having a great time at the dinner. In 1940 there are only 140 members of the naacp in seattle. By 1945 there were over 3,000. Over 3,000. This kind of growth is pretty well typical, reflective of the evolution of naacp chapters in a number of cities across the country. This was happening in the north. What was happening in the south was even more dramatic. In the south, essentially the naacp for the first time became a Major Organization to contend with. Our best estimate is that between roughly 1940 and 1946, naacp membership in the south increased from about 25,000 to over 400,000. 25,000 to over 400,000. Now this is not just about numbers. Its not just about the growing ranks of the naacp. Its also about whats happening within the organization itself , and in the 1940s, theres going to be an increase, a dramatic increase in the number of lawsuits filed by naacp local chapters, local branches. In other words, whats happening here is that the National Leadership of the naacp is in many ways being pushed by the people at the bottom. The National Movement is increasingly becoming a movement thats driven by ordinary people in various naacp chapters across the country, and as youre going to see, this will have profound implications in the 1950s and 1960s. During the 1940s, and we talked about some of this before, during the 1940s, the naacp local chapters, local chapters were going to engage in a whole host of lawsuits. They were is going to file a whole host of lawsuits against Racial Discrimination. Let me give you one example here. Well well start with this one. The restrictive covenants. We talked about restrictive covenants before in this class and im not going because the cameras are rolling, i wont ask you to describe them. Essentially you know the problem with restrictive covenants. You know that they were a major force in terms of keeping africanamericans in the ghettos , in urban north and in some places in the south as well. And i would say in the 1930s , there was a Small Movement of naacp types in los angeles to challenge restrictive covenants. That Small Movement became a larger movement. It eventually spread beyond los and by the 1940s, the Supreme Court by 1948, the Supreme Court would finally rule against restrictive covenants. This is not the naacp leadership from the top down saying we have to deal with restrictive covenants. These are local people, people in local branches beginning with l. A. , who are saying that we have to challenge restrictive covenants and eventually the naacp National Leadership got on board. Now they got on board in a big way. They provided significant lawyers, they provided financial support. But the impetus for this came from the bottom up. Came from the naacp branches in los angeles and elsewhere. Theres Something Else thats going on by the 1940s as well i am sorry, ive got this out of order. These are the boilermakers. I dont know if you remember our discussion of boeing, but in portland the big struggle, the big political struggle was among the boilermakers, the black boilermakers who were discriminated against. The naacp in portland led the campaign to get Racial Justice for the boilermakers. Let me repeat that. The naacp led, the local naacp led the campaign to get Racial Justice for the boilermakers. In fact, there were going to be at least three lawsuits that would eventually end discrimination by the boilermakers in portland and elsewhere. But let me suggest that the naacps composition is changing, its growing as an organization, and its growing much more militant in terms of its willingness to challenge the status quo, and particularly the people at the bottom are much more militant. But theres also a huge change at the top thats going to be crucial in the long run. Between roughly 1938 and 1942, the naacp will secure a number of new attorneys. And these attorneys will be critical in terms of winning cases for the organization. Im going focus on three of them. The three that are on the screen here. And in some ways these attorneys were the people who were going to help to create the style of the naacp, the legal style of the naacp, not just in the 1940s, but well beyond that. Let me talk about each of them briefly. Charles houston. I dont know how many of you are familiar with charles houston, but in a variety of ways, he is the architect of the modern Civil Rights Movement or at least the legal phase of the modern Civil Rights Movement. Hes the man who actually planned the legal strategy that would eventually result in brown v board of education. Charles houston was the dean of the Howard University law school at the time. He was also a harvard graduate, Harvard Law School graduate. He was the first africanamerican to edit the harvard law review. I know, in the last campaign with barack obama there was a great deal of emphasis on barack obama being the first person to run the harvard law review. Technically barack obama, the president , was elected to head the harvard law review, but the person who was selected first, the africanamerican who was selected first was charles houston. Charles houston was a brilliant legal strategist. And he set the direction and tone for the naacp throughout the 1930s and into the 1940s. His cousin, william hasley, in the middle was the second to edit the harvard law via. Law review. We went to work for the naacp in the 1940s. The third person here is one im sure youre most familiar with. Thats Thurgood Marshall. How many of you have heard of Thurgood Marshall before . Ok. Youre already familiar with Thurgood Marshall as a legal figure. Marshalls case is interesting. He wanted to go to the university of maryland law school. He could not because he was africanamerican. And so eventually he settled on going to the Howard University law school and its there that he met charles houston, he came under the tutelage of charles houston and the rest as they say is history. Because of houston marshall would devote the rest of his life, the rest of his career to the civil rights litigation. In fact, houston, hasley and marshall, these three attorneys would win almost as many cases for the naacp as most of the leading lawyers of the naacp had done in the previous 15 years. In other words, they were remarkably successful, especially marshall, especially Thurgood Marshall and of course, partly that success would lead to his being on the Supreme Court eventually. One of the things that i think has to be said about this, though, the irony of all this is that houston, hasley and marshall would be successful with the naacp at least in part because there was nowhere else for them to go. The best black lawyers today would do what . They go into Corporate Law or other laws. In 1948, the best black lawyers did civil rights law. They did it in part because thats what they wanted to do but they did civil rights law in part because other areas were closed to them. In a sense, ironic sense the discrimination against them by many of the law firms would lead them to be involved in the kinds of activities that would help to change American Life and particularly africanAmerican Life. Let me come back to charles houston. As i said before, hes the one who would chart the legal strategy that would lead to brown. That strategy was very simple. At least im going to simplify it. Essentially it was this. The culprit is segregation. Racial segregation. But one cannot confront segregation directly in 1940. One has to confront the edges of segregation and essentially what these lawyers were trying to do was to look for, if you will, the weak spots, the weak places, the edges as i said before, the edges of segregation. Whats the edge of segregation . Well, the schools in the border states. So they would go after they would attempt to desegregate schools in places that were on the border of the u. S. South or on the border of the u. S. South and u. S. North. Whats another edge of segregation . They would go after graduate schools because they tended to have older students. And older students theor