A Spectacular Leap by Jennifer H. Lansbury

Author:Jennifer H. Lansbury [Lansbury, Jennifer H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, Civil Rights, Biography & Autobiography, General, Cultural; Ethnic & Regional, Sports, Women, Social Science, Ethnic Studies, African American Studies, Women's Studies, Discrimination & Race Relations, Sports & Recreation, History, Sociology of Sports
ISBN: 9781557286581
Google: 7x1LCgAAQBAJ
Publisher: University of Arkansas Press
Published: 2014-04-01T04:04:16+00:00

World Records and Civil Rights

There had been dramatic advances for African Americans in the ten years since Althea Gibson was struggling in the USLTA and Rosa Parks had refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus. Martin Luther King Jr. had emerged from the 1955–56 Montgomery bus boycott as the young leader of a burgeoning movement. The subsequent formation of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) helped provide organization and structure for the struggle. King’s belief in nonviolent activism to fight racism and achieve parity in civil rights led to approaches that built upon the success of the Montgomery boycott. In February 1960, the same year Wilma Rudolph would have the Olympics of a lifetime, young black college students in cities such as Greensboro, North Carolina; Nashville, Tennessee; and Atlanta, Georgia, began a series of sit-ins. This form of protest involved sitting at lunch counters and restaurants despite statutes allowing local establishments the right to refuse service to blacks, its purpose to push for the desegregation of local restaurants and lunch counters at nationwide chains. The local African American community in these locations joined with the students to picket the stores, encouraging a boycott until desegregation became a reality. As in Montgomery, an economic approach proved successful and stores and restaurants throughout the South capitulated to the demands of local African American communities that they serve blacks as well as whites.

Even as Rudolph approached retirement and a young Tyus began attending Temple’s summer programs, African Americans continued to use these nonviolent tactics, such as boycotts, sit-ins, and freedom rides, to further the dismantling of segregation throughout the South. In August 1963, nearly 250,000 activists marched on Washington, gathering before the Lincoln Memorial to sing songs of freedom, hear speeches, and show their support for the Civil Rights Act and the movement at large. In the afternoon, King delivered what would become known as his “I Have a Dream” speech, outlining his hope for the future. While the speech inspired the crowd of protesters and became a clarion call for freedom, it did not dissuade a violent faction of the opposition from continuing their own tactics. In mid-September, just a few weeks after the March on Washington, white racists bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, killing four young girls that were attending Sunday School. These years of protest, jailings, beatings, and deaths finally resulted in legislative action. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the legislative death sentence to Jim Crow, banning segregation in public facilities and prohibiting racial discrimination in employment practices. Not only did the act provide strong enforcement of its provisions, it also permitted government agencies to withhold public funds to programs that violated the law, a provision that had important ramifications for public schools and colleges.

Though segregation was now illegal, voting rights remained a critical issue. Only approximately one-third of the eligible African Americans were registered to vote in the South, in contrast to 60–70 percent living in the North. Individual states in

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