Opposition to the Civil Rights Movement
History: KS3, topic 21.1.7
Opposition to the Civil Rights Movement
The Civil Rights Movement faced opposition at all levels of society. For example the ‘Dixiecrats’ in Congress and the KKK in the Deep South.
The Ku Klux Klan
- A violent white supremacist group, mainly in the South who claimed the Bible supported segregation.
- Many Southern white church-goers were members of the KKK, including members of the police and legal system.
- In 1955 in Mississippi, the racist killing of two black men who attempted to register to vote was written off by authorities as a car accident.
- Nobody was arrested for the crime.
Opposition to desegregation in the South
- State governors, mayors and state officials in the South nearly all supported segregation.
- After Brown v. Topeka in 1954, White Citizens’ Councils were set up to campaign against desegregation as they did not see black people as equal citizens who should be able to use the same facilities as whites.
- They threatened black families who tried to attend desegregated schools, and even bombed schools.
Congress and the ‘Dixiecrats’
- The most important opponents of desegregation in Congress were called the Dixiecrats.
- They were a racist political group who had left the Democrats in opposition to a civil rights bill for the military that President Truman attempted to introduce in 1948.
The ‘Dixiecrats’
- Although they later re-joined the Democrats, they continued to oppose civil rights.
- The Presidents had to take their views into account because there were enough of them in Congress to effect the passing of laws.
Test yourself on Opposition to the Civil Rights Movement
What does the KKK stand for?