Repeatedly, the federal level attempted to force desegregation on the South. Here
are some key examples (federal level in bold):
- 1954: Brownv. Board of Education of Topeka: Supreme Courtdetermines that
segregation in public schools is unconstitutional. - 1957: Nine black students are blocked from entering the formerly all-white
Central High School, Little Rock, Arkansas. Federal troopssent in to protect the
nine. - 1961: James Meredith becomes first black student to enrol at the University of
Mississippi; violence erupts and President Kennedysends in 5,000 federal troops. - 1963: 24th Amendment to the Constitutionabolishes the poll tax, which had
been used to prevent blacks registering to vote. - 1964: Congresspasses the Civil Rights Act – the most radical civil rights
legislation since the 1866 Civil Rights Act. - 1965: Congresspasses the Voting Rights Act.
- 1965: President Johnsonissues Executive Order 11246, enforcing affirmative
action. - 1967: Lovingv. Virginia: Supreme Courtrules that the prohibition on interracial
marriage is unconstitutional. - 1968: Congress passes another Civil Rights Act, this time outlawing
discrimination in the sale, rental and financing of housing.
The laws that were the object of civil disobedience were state laws rather than
federal laws; in general, the federal level was on the side of the Civil Rights
Movement. We now consider some specific actions undertaken by civil rights
activists: bus boycotts and freedom rides; sit-ins at lunch counters and other
segregated spaces; marches, particularly on electoral registration offices.
Bus boycotts
In romanticised accounts of the Civil Rights Movement the refusal of Rosa Parks
to give up her seat for a white passenger is often taken as the starting point of the
Civil Rights Movement. On 1 December 1955 Parks got on a bus in Montgomery
(Alabama), and sat in the fifth row with three other blacks in the ‘coloreds’ section
of the bus. After a few stops the front four rows filled up, and a white man was
left standing; custom dictated that there could not be ‘mixed’ rows, so all four
would be required to move; three of them complied but Parks refused. She was
subsequently arrested. Significantly – from the perspective of civil disobedience –
the charge was unclear: when a black lawyer tried to find out, the police told him
it was ‘none of your damn business’. (Legal theorist Lon Fuller (1965) argued that
valid law must have certain characteristics, among which is clarity.)
It should be said that Parks’s action was not entirely spontaneous; the Civil
Rights Movement had been looking for a suitable ‘victim’ to publicise the issue of
bus segregation and provoke a widespread boycott, and her action was not really
the start of the movement. There had been previous attempts to bring about a
boycott. The boycott was effective, but the authorities then sought legal devices to
end it: they required cab drivers to charge a minimum 45 cents per journey (black
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