1. Race and Ethnicity in America:
Past and Present
Tim Standaert
U.S. Embassy Kyiv
12th American Studies Summer Institute
“The Idea of America: A Look at U.S. Government, Society, and
Innovation in the Early 21st Century”
June 5-10, 2011

2. Approaches to fight segregation
 Individuals citizens
 Groups, e.g., NAACP (National Association for
the Advancement of Colored People), Southern
Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
 Government
 Judiciary (courts)
 Executive (President, federal government, governors,
mayors)
 Legislative

3. Approaches to fight segregation
 Petition – asking government to fix an injustice
 Demonstrations and protest
 Pickets – holding signs and marching
 Non-violent civil disobedience – willingness to go to jail
 Marches
 Boycott - economic pressure
 Organizing, banding together (NAACP, SCLC, SNCC)
 Court cases
 Use of media
 Politics – supporting candidates, running for office, etc.
 Etc…

4. “Jim Crow” Laws
 Mid-1880s
 Southern States
 Strict Segregation of
the Races
 State Laws violated 14th
(civil rights) and 15th
(universal suffrage)
Amendments

5. Slave Trade

6. Slave Trade

7. Plessy v. Ferguson
 1896
 Lawsuits filed to
overturn “Jim Crow”
segregation laws
 Supreme Court ruled
for segregation
 Established “Separate
but Equal”

8. Separate not Equal

9. Separate not Equal

10. Separate not Equal

11. Separate not Equal

12. Jackie Robinson
 1944
 Star athlete Jackie
Robinson served in the
Army during WWII
 Refused to move to the
back of an Army transport
bus when stationed at Ft.
Hood, Texas
 Court-martialed, but
acquitted

13. Military Desegregation
 Military Segregated
 Black soldiers weren’t
allowed to fight
 WWII and Korean War
 1951 - Military
formally integrated

14. Shelly vs. Kraemer
 1940s – Blacks migrated to
northern cities
 Restrictive covenants
confined them to
segregated ghettos
 1948 – Supreme Court
ruled that covenants were
unconstitutional
 Blacks began settling in
formerly all-white
neighborhoods

15. White Flight
 New highways and
suburban development in
the 1940s and 1950s
 Minorities moved into all-
white schools and
neighborhoods
 Whites moved out to the
suburbs
 Inner cities became
predominantly poor and
black

16. Brown v. Board of Education
 1954
 Black family sued the
Board of Education in
Topeka, Kansas over
school segregation

17. Brown vs. Board of Education
 1954
 Supreme Court rules that
“Separate was not Equal”
 Overturned Plessy vs.
Ferguson, 1896 Supreme
Court case that

18. Brown vs. Board of Education
“In the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but
equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are
inherently [by their very nature] unequal.”
“В сфері публічної освіти не може існувати доктрини
‘окремі, але рівні’. Окремі учбові заклади є нерівними
за своєю природою.”

19. Rosa Parks
 December 1, 1955
 Segregated buses in
Montgomery, Alabama
 Rosa Parks arrested for
refusing to give her
seat to a white man on
a crowded bus
 Led to Montgomery
Bus Boycott

20. Montgomery Bus Boycott
 December 3, 1955 –
December 20, 1956
 75% of bus passengers
were black
 Black community
organized peaceful boycott
 Received national attention
 Supreme Court ruled that
Alabama law was
unconstitutional

21. Martin Luther King, Jr.
 Leader of the Montgomery
Bus Boycott
 Organized nonviolent
protests and marches
against segregation
 Attracted positive media
coverage, and brought
segregation to national
attention

22. School Integration:
Central High School
Little Rock, Arkansas
 After Brown v. Topeka
Board of Education ruling:
 Some schools integrated
peacefully
 Other communities shut
the public schools and
sent all white students
to private ‘academies.’
 1957 – Arkansas Governor
Faubus used soldiers to
block 9 black students
from Central High School
in Little Rock, Arkansas.

23. School Integration:
Central High School
Little Rock, Arkansas
 1957 – President Eisenhower sends in the U.S. Army to
integrate Central High School.

24. School Integration:
Central High School
Little Rock, Arkansas
 1957 – President Eisenhower sends in the U.S. Army to
integrate Central High School.

25. School Integration:
Central High School
Little Rock, Arkansas

26. Stand in the Schoolhouse Door
 Alabama government
resisted public school
integration
 1963 – Three black
students registered at
University of Alabama
 Governor George Wallace
blocked the doors
 President Kennedy sent
soldiers to force Wallace to
admit the students

27. Sit-Ins
Technique Gandhi used in India. Black students used in
Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1960. Quickly spread.

28. Sit-Ins
Instruction sheet used for sit-ins in Nashville, Tennessee
(first Southern city to desegregate public places):
•Don’t strike back or curse back if abused… Don’t
block entrances to stores and aisles.
•Show yourself friendly and courteous at all times.
•Sit straight and always face the counter.
•Remember the teachings of Jesus Christ, Mohandas K.
Gandhi, and Martin Luther King.
•Remember love and nonviolence, may God bless each
of you.

29. Sit-Ins

30. Freedom Rides
 1961 - Groups of Blacks and whites, riding together on
interstate buses into the South, to test ability of Blacks to
exercise their legal rights.
 Violence:
 Anniston, Alabama – KKK, fire bombed the bus
 Atlanta, Georgia – beaten in “whites only” waiting
room.
 Montgomery, Alabama – mob attack
 Kennedy Administration – directs Interstate Commerce
Commission (ICC) to enforce integration.

31. Birmingham
 1963 – King led a two-
month campaign
against segregation in
Birmingham
 Birmingham chosen on
purpose
 White police used dogs
and fire hoses against
peaceful protesters

32. Birmingham

33. Birmingham

34. Birmingham

35. Birmingham

36. Birmingham
 Public opinion turned against segregationists
 Local leaders decide to desegregate.

37. Birmingham

38. March on Washington
 1963 – Coalition of civil
rights groups marched on
Washington, D.C.
 Demanded an end to racial
segregation in public
school
 Demanded meaningful
civil rights legislation,
including a law prohibiting
racial discrimination in
employment

39. March on Washington

40. Civil Rights Act of 1964,
Voting Rights Act of 1965
 Outlawed
segregation in
schools, workplaces
and public facilities
 Extended voting
rights

41. Desegregation
 Desegregation –
officially abolished.
 Real integration – an
ongoing process.
 De facto segregation.
 Racism not abolished.
 Policy debates:
 Affirmative Action
 Education: buses,
quotas, school budgets.

42. Freedom Summer
 Registering Black voters in the South
 June 1964
 Murder of 3 Civil Rights workers:
 Andrew Goodman
 James Earl Cheney
 Michael Schwerner
 Edgar Ray Killen not convicted until 2005

43. Race, Ethnicity, and Tolerance

44. Race, Ethnicity, and Tolerance
•Treatment of Muslims-Americans, especially in
post-Septermber 11th America.
•“World Trade Center Mosque” controversy

45. Struggle For Gay Rights

46. Struggle For Gay Rights

47. America Today
 Many members of minority
communities have enjoyed
great success in America
 Many minorities still live
in “unintegrated”
communities
 Racial stereotypes persist.
 Ideal remains: “All Men
Are Created Equal.”

48. Questions?