Student Civil Rights Activism: Crash Course Black American History #37

hi i'm clint smith and this is crash course black american history as we get further along in the series you're probably encountering more events and people that you recognize people like martin luther king jr or rosa parks but as you've probably learned at this point the civil rights movement and any social change movement for that matter aren't just successful because of singular heroic figures they're successful because of the everyday work and courage of ordinary people and among the people

who most effectively help make social change possible is young people students just like many of you so today we'll be talking about three different groups of students who helped advance the cause of justice equality and civil rights whose bravery intelligence and commitment is something that all of us can learn from let's start the show [Music] the civil rights movement is considered by many to have officially started in 1954 following the ruling from the supreme court on brownview board of edu

cation and is considered to have largely ended by 1968 with the assassination of dr martin luther king jr at the time the popular mode of organizing against the discrimination of black americans was by using non-violent direct action we should note that sometimes people misunderstand the tactic and they think that this sort of non-violent activism was all about holding hands and picking flowers and singing kumbaya no shade any of those things i love picking flowers and kumbaya is a great song bu

t non-violent direct action was often about putting your body in harm's way and possibly even putting your life on the line it took an enormous amount of self-control dignity and courage many young activists even spent days and weeks and months training for the actions that they would take so that they could teach their bodies and their minds how to respond when encountering the violence that often awaited them some of the groups that we're going to talk about today include the little rock 9 the

greensboro 4 and the student non-violent coordinating committee or snake the little rock 9 was a group of high school students who were hand chosen by the naacp to test whether brownview board of education was going to be enforced it's not surprising that this ruling needed to be tested considering the unrest that followed including the gruesome murder of emmett till black people needed to make sure that the state not just the literal state of arkansas but the united states as a country was goi

ng to follow through on its commitment through generations of experience black folks knew better than to think that just because the supreme court made a ruling for black equality that that meant people across the country would follow it daisy gatson-bates president of the arkansas naacp was the mastermind behind this test she recruited 10 high school students to integrate the all-white central high school in little rock arkansas the students knew they would face some serious opposition and the

naacp did everything they could to prepare them for what they might experience this included counseling sessions and practicing how to respond to hostile situations and remember these are high schoolers not battle tested activists their courage and commitment just can't be overstated on september 4th 1957 the first day of school the state of arkansas was ready for a fight governor orville fabus called in the national guard to keep the students from integrating the school daisy gatson bates had a

rranged for the students to meet up before going to school in order to protect them from mob activity but one of the students elizabeth eckford didn't have a phone and so she didn't get the message eckford had to walk to school alone while being screamed at and harassed as soon as she was within sight of the building the national guard even kept her from entering the building while the mob harassed her outside and because of the violence and threats against her father's job another one of the st

udents jane hill withdrew and returned to her segregated school making the little rock ten now the little rock nine this havoc went on for weeks meaning zero of the nine students were able to attend a full day of school they attempted to go to school through a side door on september 23rd but an angry mob threatened to rush the students the naacp was so afraid for the students lives that they let the authorities send them home it would get so bad that the president of the united states dwight d e

isenhower had to send down 1200 members of the army and federalize the national guard to protect the students from the ma they were finally able to attend school on september 25th almost a month after school had actually started all nine students remained there for the rest of the year but that didn't stop the harassment every day on the way to school they would have things thrown at them including acid each student had an armed guard that escorted them to class but the guards didn't go inside t

he classroom or the bathroom or the locker room so the students still experienced horrible harassment at the hands of their classmates after one student minnie jean brown was expelled in february of 1958 because of an altercation she got into with a white classmate some students wore badges that read one down eight to go ultimately through incredible persistence on may 27 1958 ernest greene graduated and became the first black student in history to graduate from central high school the presence

and the reaction to the little rock nine forced the nation to confront how hard it was going to be for the promise of brown v board and desegregation more generally to be fulfilled now let's get to know the greensboro 4. at north carolina agricultural and technical state university another historically black university also known as north carolina a t students started organizing to integrate lunch counters in the south these sit-ins were an outgrowth of earlier non-violent immigration efforts in

chicago by an organization called the fellowship of reconciliation in 1942 james farmer who would eventually be the leader of the congress of racial equality also known as core was at the forefront of those sitting on february 1st 1960 iselle blair jr david richman franklin mccain and joseph mcneil who had become known collectively as the greensboro 4 started off these protests by asking for service at an all-white lunch counter in the world war store of greensboro north carolina and after they

asked they were denied they persisted each day after that and more and more hbcu students would join them by february 5th about 300 students sat at the counter and protested at woolworths they took up so much space that they kept the lunch counter and other local businesses from even running this led to heavy television coverage of these sit-ins and as a result an entire sit-in movement erupted across the united states by the end of march 55 cities and 13 states had experienced sit-ins not just

in the south but in the north as well they were spat on had condiments poured on their heads and had cigarette buds pushed into their skin but by the end of july the woolworth lunch counter had been integrated now you would think that a bunch of students protesting on the national news would set off a light bulb in the heads of older leaders who were working on civil rights but not everyone fully understood the power of these students right away but there was one woman who definitely did ella b

aker the acting director of the southern christian leadership conference or sclc realized that the students were important and could play a unique and central role in the movement she organized a 1960 conference that trained students in non-violent direct action and encouraged them to develop a strong autonomous organization independent of the sclc and this led to the formation of one of the most important and more radical groups of the entire civil rights movement the student non-violent coordi

nating committee and many of the snyk students would go on to become freedom riders a group that traveled throughout the south testing integration in places like bus stations and restaurants using non-violent direct action the freedom rides were actually started by members of the congress of racial equality but they were also joined by members of snick and the sclc starting in washington dc in may of 1961 an integrated team of black and white activists rode on buses as far as anniston and birmin

gham alabama in anniston alabama the ku klux klan the domestic white supremacist terror organization and other local white mobs bombed the bus brutally beat the writers in birmingham the students were once again attacked by white mobs and clan members and after the driver refused to go any further the students were evacuated to new orleans louisiana on may 15 1961 but if you thought that this would be the end of the story then you clearly didn't know these students very well organizers from othe

r activist groups started to support these students and other freedom rides began happening throughout the south and by the fall of 1961 the kennedy administration started to pressure the interstate commerce commission to protect the activists and this was the whole point it wasn't that these freedom riders were even asking for a new law to protect them they were asking simply for the one that already existed to actually be enforced and as a result of the freedom rides the interstate commerce co

mmission finally began enforcing the segregation ban in interstate transit terminals by 1965 snick had more staff members than any other civil rights organization in the south they not only engaged in desegregation activism they also conducted voting registration projects all over the region and what's more they also built two independent political parties one of which was the well-known mississippi freedom democratic party snik organized labor unions agricultural cooperatives and reinvigorated

the women's liberation movement they also inspired what would become known as the new left movement which was the radical left movement that became active in the 1960s and 70s it was composed of college students and young intellectuals whose goals included furthering racial equality non-intervention and foreign affairs and other major social changes the work of these young activists completely transformed the civil rights movement without these sit-ins the freedom rides the voting registration d

rives and the school integration battles the movement would not have made the progress that it did now we can't emphasize this enough martin luther king was amazing and he did remarkable work but he alone did not push the civil rights movement forward and he will be the first to tell you that it took thousands of people many of whose names will never know but whose work made it possible that i'm even able to be here talking to you today the work of social change is intergenerational and the figh

t for freedom and liberation needs a song so if you're a young person don't ever feel like you don't have the ability to change things and it doesn't have to be some massive global movement most of the time the most important changes happen on hyper local levels it's in our families in our schools in our neighborhoods and in ourselves and ultimately the work we put into changing ourselves and our friends and our family create the groundswell that leads to societal level change believe in yoursel

f you got this thanks for watching i'll see you next time crash course is made with the help of all these nice people and our animation team is thought cafe crash course is made possible by all of our viewers and supporters thanks to those of you who bought the 2021 crash course learn a coin and thank you to our patrons on patreon