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Unlock This CourseRemember, Kennedy's civil rights bill was still stuck in Congress when he was shot in November 1963. The new President was Lyndon Johnson, the Texan who had steered the 1957 Act through the Senate. Five days after the shooting he told Congress that passing the bill quickly would be the best way to honour Kennedy.
Johnson knew Congress better than anyone, and he worked on its members one by one. The House of Representatives passed the bill in February 1964. In the Senate, Southern senators kept a filibuster going for more than two months. On 10 June 1964 the Senate voted 71 to 29 to end it. It was the first time the Senate had ever cut off a filibuster on a civil rights bill. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act on 2 July 1964. It:
It was far stronger than the 1957 Act. But it did little about voting. Literacy tests and hostile local registrars were left in place.
Remember, fewer than 7 per cent of black adults in Mississippi were registered to vote in 1964. Bob Moses of SNCC and the other civil rights groups planned a huge summer project to change this.
Key terms:
More than 700 volunteers came. Most were white college students from the North. The organisers knew that the press would follow them, and that the country would care more if white students were in danger.
The danger was real. On 21 June three young workers disappeared near the town of Philadelphia, Mississippi. They had gone to look at a black church that had been burned down. James Chaney was a black Mississippian. Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were white New Yorkers. President Johnson sent the FBI, and the search was on the news all summer. On 4 August their bodies were found buried in a dam. They had been murdered by Klansmen, helped by a local deputy sheriff. During the summer about 1,000 people were arrested and dozens of black churches and homes were burned or bombed.
The results were mixed:
Freedom Summer showed the nation that the new Civil Rights Act could not get black Southerners the vote. It also left many SNCC workers bitter. They felt let down by the federal government and by white politicians, and some began to doubt non-violence. This is picked up in Black Power, Stokely Carmichael and the 1968 Olympics.
Martin Luther King and the SCLC now looked for a place to force a voting law. In January 1965 they joined SNCC workers in Selma, Alabama. More than half the people of the county were black, but only about 2 per cent of black adults were registered. The local sheriff, Jim Clark, was known for his violence, much as 'Bull' Connor had been in Birmingham.
Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act on 6 August 1965. It banned literacy tests. It also let the federal government send its own officials into areas where few people were registered, to sign up voters in place of the local registrars. This took the power to block black voters away from Southern officials.
The effect was fast. By the end of 1965 about 250,000 new black voters had been registered. In Mississippi, registration of black adults rose to almost 60 per cent by 1967. In 1966 the black voters of Selma helped to vote Sheriff Clark out of office. Politicians in the South now had to win black votes, and more black people were elected.
Protest set the timetable. Birmingham pushed Kennedy to send his bill to Congress. Freedom Summer proved the 1964 Act was too weak on voting. Selma led straight to the Voting Rights Act: Johnson spoke eight days after Bloody Sunday and signed the Act within five months. Television turned local violence into national pressure on Congress.
Protest could not pass a law. Kennedy's death created sympathy for his bill. Johnson's skill with Congress beat the filibuster. In November 1964 he won the election by a huge margin and the Democrats gained big majorities in Congress, which made the 1965 Act easier to pass.
The laws had limits. They ended segregation by law and opened the vote, but they did not end poverty, poor housing or discrimination in the cities of the North.
Don't mix up the two laws. The Civil Rights Act (1964) was about segregation and jobs. The Voting Rights Act (1965) was about voting. Don't say Freedom Summer got many people registered: only about 1,600 were accepted. Its importance was the attention it won.
Explain two effects of the Mississippi Freedom Summer (1964) on the civil rights movement. [8 marks]
One effect of Freedom Summer was that it won the movement national attention and sympathy. More than 700 volunteers, mostly white students from the North, went to Mississippi, so the press followed them. When James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner disappeared in June 1964, President Johnson sent the FBI and the search was on the news all summer. This meant that Americans saw the violence used to keep black people from voting. It showed that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had not solved the problem, and so it built support for a separate voting law.
A second effect was that it left parts of the movement bitter and divided. Only about 1,600 of the 17,000 black people who tried to register were accepted. Then, at Atlantic City in August 1964, the MFDP's 68 delegates were offered just two seats, because Johnson feared losing white Southern votes. As a result many SNCC workers felt let down by the federal government and by white politicians. Some began to doubt that non-violence and working with white leaders could succeed, which weakened the unity of the movement.
What lifts this to the top level: two different effects, each with precise facts, and each with a clear link ('this meant that', 'as a result') showing how Freedom Summer caused it.
One effect alone cannot score more than 4 of the 8 marks, however well you explain it. Don't tell the story of the three murders. Name the effect in your first sentence, give two or three facts, then say how Freedom Summer led to it.