CIVIL RIGHTS IN HISTORY
CRP Bulletin/Noticiero recognizes significant people and landmark events in civil rights history.
60 YEARS AGO…1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education
50 YEARS AGO…Freedom Summer of 1964
It wasn’t always the case that every American had the right to vote. In fact, the right to vote freely, although demarcated in the 15th Amendment, was not solidified until passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. However, many of us forget the in-the-trenches struggle that helped lead to the creation of this important Act. During the summer of 1964, many college students from the North headed down to Mississippi to register as many African-American voters as possible. But it wasn’t easy. In spite of assaults, bombings, and physical violence, the volunteers of Freedom Summer continued on with their mission, with the hope that change would come. Freedom Summer not only registered high numbers of African-Americans, but it also established “Freedom Schools,” where Northern college students taught classes in segregated schools, including lessons on African-Americans history as well as the philosophy behind the Civil Rights Movement. Thus, Freedom Summer was a campaign strategy that called on the political inclusion of African-Americans and also emphasized the need to rethink what is included in curriculum.
40 YEARS AGO...1974 Decision in Milliken v. Bradley
By the 1970s, the schools of Detroit, Michigan had become racially segregated from that of the suburbs. The NAACP filed a lawsuit against Governor Milliken and the district court concluded the Detroit system was segregated and ordered it to create a desegregation plan that included districts outside the city limits, since a Detroit-only plan was considered inadequate. This metropolitan plan set off a storm of public controversy. After an appeal was made and lost to the Sixth Circuit, the outlying districts took their case to the Supreme Court. In a 5-4 decision, the court ruled that while Brown would remain as originally decided, schools and school districts could not be “dismantled” voluntarily to desegregate the outlying school districts where no evidence of any significant de facto segregation by districts or “interdistrict violation or effect” was evident. Prior to Milliken, court oversight in the dismantling of de jure segregation was strong. The Milliken ruling would change this and, some would argue, commence the undoing of Brown.
