African American Politicians & Civil Rights Activists
AFRICAN AMERICAN POLITICIANS CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVISTS THE NAACP RISES TO FIGHT INEQUALITY After the riots sixty people met in New York City to discuss the mistreatment of African Americans Seven were black The rest were white Many white northerners did not support segregation laws or legal discrimination This group formed an organization called the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People NAACP In 1909 the NAACP began fighting for equal rights for all races Forty-one years later the NAACP was called upon to help fight school segregation All over the South schools for black children children were in terrible condition The good schools were reserved for whites In Topeka Kansas thirteen black families tried to enroll their children in white schools They were turned away At about the same time Barbara Johns was a sixteen-year-old high school student in Virginia The school she attended was terribly terribly overcrowded Some of her classes were taught in buses or cold leaky shacks The students school supplies were torn and tattered Fed up with these terrible conditions Barbara organized a student strike Students walked out of school and refused to return until a new school was built The NAACP wanted to help the students But the lawyers understood that building a new school for blacks would not solve the real problem of segregation It would simply continue to follow the racist separate but equal laws So the NAACP agreed to help the students on one condition condition that they give up their demands for a new school and join the bigger fight to end school segregation Barbara and her fellow 6
SOWING THE SEEDS FOR THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT Attorneys George E C Hayes left Thurgood Marshall center and James Nabrit Jr smile in front of the US Supreme Court Building after winning the Brown v Board of Education case which ended segregation in public schools students agreed In 1951 the fight began Officially known as Brown v Board of Education the fight involved cases in five places Barbara Johns and the students in Virginia the thirteen families in Kansas plus Delaware South Carolina and Washington DC After a long fight history was made In 1954 the US Supreme Court ruled that school segregation was against the Constitution Separate but equal was no longer legal Brown v Board of Education opened a door for African Americans But through this door many more years of struggle were waiting 7
CHAPTER TWO FOUR LEADERS FOR FREEDOM We We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness So wrote Thomas Jefferson Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence Yet for centuries African Americans in the United States have had to struggle to break the shackles that have denied them these rights Each of the four black leaders discussed below chose a different route toward the cherished goal of full freedom for blacks in America DAVID WALKER AND HIS APPEAL David Walker was born in 1785 Under North Carolina law of the time he was free because his mother was not a slave As a young man Walker traveled through slave states observing the treatment of his people What he saw so greatly repelled him that he told himself If I remain in this bloody land I will not live long 8
FOUR LEADERS FOR FREEDOM This copy of Walker’s Appeal was published in 1848 Walker moved to Boston Massachusetts where he opened a clothing store But his true occupation became speaking and writing about freedom for his people He began to write as the Boston agent of Freedom’s Journal a black-owned newspaper In 1829 Walker published published a pamphlet that became known as Walker’s Appeal In it Walker called for the abolition of slavery while urging his people to question their enslavement to gain education and if necessary to use armed struggle to gain their freedom The Appeal had far-reaching effects All over the South restrictions on slaves were tightened Sailors entering southern ports were searched to keep out the inflammatory pamphlet Angry whites called for Walker’s arrest and his life was threatened Shortly thereafter Walker disappeared He was never heard from again Many believed David Walker was murdered for his outspoken 9
