The Civil Rights
Movement
Major Breakthroughs for Equality
Today
● Complete the Civil
Rights Chart
● Free at Last Worksheet
(Due Thursday)
● Complete the Venn
Diagram (Due Friday)
● Begin transferring chart
to timeline (Due Friday).
Once you finish these feel free to see me and
get permission to get on your phone.
Today’s Learning Targets
● Students will analyze the events
leading up to the passage of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964
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March on Washington
Birmingham Church Bombing
Assassination of John F. Kennedy
● Students will analyze the impact of
the 24th Amendment and the Voting
Rights Act of 1965
Birmingham Church Bombing
On September 15th, 1963, less than a month
after the March on Washington, a bomb
exploded at the Sixteenth Street Baptist
Church in Birmingham. Four young African
American girls were killed in the bombing
and dozens were injured.
Civil Rights Loses a Key Ally
When President John F. Kennedy was
assassinated on November 22nd, 1963,
Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson took
the oath of office.
Johnson was a former senator from Texas
with little record of supporting civil
rights. Many wondered what would
happen to Kennedy’s cause of achieving
equal treatment for African Americans.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964
The bill was widely debated in
Congress, but the Civil Rights Act
of 1964 was signed into law on July
2nd, 1964.
The act banned segregation in
public places, desegregated schools,
and allowed the Justice Department
to prosecute those that violated
others civil rights.
The Struggle for Voting
Rights
Need for More Change
While great strides had been
made, the Civil Rights Act of
1964 had no impact on the right
to vote. Poll taxes and literacy
tests were still in place and
discouraged, if not eliminated
the black vote.
The End of the Poll Tax
The 24th Amendment brought an end
to poll taxes on January 23rd, 1964.
Freedom Summer
In the summer of 1964, the SNCC flooded
Mississippi with volunteers in an effort to
help more African Americans register to
vote.
That summer three civil rights workers
disappeared and many feared that they
had been killed. Johnson sent the FBI to
investigate and eventually recover the
bodies of the three workers.
From Selma to Montgomery
Early in 1965, the SCLC and Martin Luther King, Jr. staged
the “Freedom March” from Selma to Montgomery,
Alabama in an effort to pressure the federal government
to help the African Americans gain their right to vote.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965
On August 6th, 1965, President
Johnson signed the Voting
Rights Act of 1965 into law. The
act outlawed the use of literacy
tests and allowed the
government to oversee
elections and voter registration
in states that had shown a
record of discrimination.
Big Results
The passage of the
24th Amendment and
the Voting Rights Act
of 1965 had a major
impact on the
number of African
Americans that
registered to vote.
Video Links
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Birmingham Church Bombing
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http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/civil-rights-movement/videos/bombing-of-the-16th-street-baptist-ch
urch
Freedom Summer
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iz0GpAB0Uf0
Selma to Montgomery
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtIVcOT_o0M