History of Georgia (U.S. State) - Civil Rights Movement

Civil Rights Movement

African-Americans who served in the segregated military during WWII returned to a still segregated nation and a South which still enforced Jim Crow laws. Many became motivated and formed local organizations to work for basic rights, especially the right to vote, and the right of their children to an equal education. Statewide, 135,000 blacks registered to vote in 1946, and 85,000 actually did vote. Atlanta, home to a number of traditional black colleges, sustained a large, educated, middle-class black community which produced leaders of the American Civil Rights Movement. In the postwar period, the new movement for change was carried forward by several groups, with somewhat different agendas, but united in the goal of civil rights for African-Americans. The voting rights campaign in Atlanta was spearheaded by the All Citizen's Registration Committee. The NAACP organized a voter registration drive following the 1946 Supreme Court decision Smith v. Allwright. In the 1970s, the Black Women's Coalition of Atlanta promoted opportunities for women in positions of leadership.

The idea of change was not universally embraced. The Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) was denounced by Governor Marvin Griffin, who pledged to keep Georgia's schools segregated, "come hell or high water". In 1958 the state passed legislation again making registration more restrictive, by requiring those who were illiterate to answer 20 of 30 questions posed. In rural counties such as Terrell, black voting registration was repressed. After the legislation, although the county was 64% black in population, only 48 blacks managed to register to vote.

Atlanta-born minister, Martin Luther King, Jr., emerged as a national leader in the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955. The son of a Baptist minister, King earned a doctorate from Boston University and was part of the educated middle class that had developed in Atlanta's African-American community. The success of the Montgomery boycott led to King's joining with others to form the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in Atlanta in 1957, to provide political leadership for the Civil Rights Movement across the South. Black churches had long been important centers of their communities. Ministers and their congregations were at the forefront of the civil rights struggle.

The SCLC led a desegregation campaign in Albany, Georgia in 1961. This campaign, however, failed to rally significant support or to achieve any dramatic victories. Nonetheless the Albany campaign provided important lessons, which were put to use in the more successful Birmingham campaign of 1963–64 in Alabama. National opinion eventually turned in favor of the moral position of civil rights for all citizens. Before his assasination, President John F. Kennedy prepared and submitted a Civil Rights bill to Congress. Kennedy's successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, made the legislation a priority in his administration. In 1964, President Johnson secured passage of the Civil Rights Act. The following year he secured passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. African Americans throughout the South registered to vote and began to re-enter the political process. However, by the 1960s, after waves of migration to the North, the number of African Americans in Georgia had declined to 28% of the state's population. With voting power diminished, it took some years for African Americans to elect a member of Congress or win a state-wide office.

Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen, Jr. testified before Congress in support of the Civil Rights Act, and Governor Carl Sanders worked with the Kennedy administration to ensure the state's compliance. Ralph McGill, editor and syndicated columnist at the Atlanta Constitution, earned both admiration and enmity by writing in support of the Civil Rights Movement. However, the majority of white Georgians continued to oppose integration.

In 1966, Lester Maddox was elected Governor of Georgia. Maddox, who opposed forced integration, gained fame by threatening African-American civil rights demonstrators who attempted to enter his restaurant. After taking office, Maddox appointed more African-Americans to positions of responsibility than any Governor since Reconstruction.

In 1969, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a successful lawsuit against Georgia, requiring the state to integrate public schools. In 1970, newly elected Governor Jimmy Carter declared in his inaugural address that the era of racial segregation had ended.

In 1972 Georgians elected Andrew Young to Congress as the first African American since Reconstruction.