Week Five
The US civil rights movement and its influence on Australia
Students:
- Outline the aims and methods of the US civil rights movement
- Explain how the Freedom Rides in the US inspired civil rights campaigners in Australia
- Discuss the impact of the NSW Freedom Ride on the civil rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Students:
- Outline the aims and methods of the US civil rights movement
- Explain how the Freedom Rides in the US inspired civil rights campaigners in Australia
- Discuss the impact of the NSW Freedom Ride on the civil rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
1776
•After the American Revolution in 1776 the Declaration of Independence was written, then a Constitution, a Bill of Rights and a new anthem – the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ to match. All four described America as ‘the land of the free’.
•Everyone was entitled to the worlds newest democracy – except African slaves who worked the plantation fields of the south.
•The first slaves were brought to work in the cotton fields of the south in 1619. The economy of the south depended on slave labour.
Slavery In the US
•Captured or bribed in Africa
•Brought in slave ships
•Were ‘chattel’ slaves; could be bought, sold, killed- had no rights
•Treatment depended on the owner
•Were forced to carry ‘papers’ to prove their identity
•Could not be citizens
•Often uneducated/ illiterate – marked their names to documents using an ‘x’
•Slave trade was outlawed in 1808 in the USA, 1829 in UK- however it continued until the end of the Civil War in 1865
•Civil War broke out in the USA between the southern and northern states
•The primary cause of the war was the question of slavery
•The north rejected the concept, the south wanted to retain it
•President Abraham Lincoln wanted slavery abolished for the southern states (it’s worth noting that he didn’t then want to give slaves citizenship after the war…)
•In 1863 the Emancipation Proclamation stated that all slaves were to be set free and given voting rights – this brought an end to the war
•Many ex-slaves struggled to find work, land or find a way to live in the new America as racism and segregation remained
Ku Klux Klan
Research!
You are to answer the following questions using your iPads:
1. Who are the Ku Klux Klan?
2. What do the believe?
3. How could you identify members of the Ku Klux Klan?
4. What did the Ku Klux Klan do?
5. Are there active members of the Ku Klux Klan today? Where can you commonly find them?
You are to answer the following questions using your iPads:
1. Who are the Ku Klux Klan?
2. What do the believe?
3. How could you identify members of the Ku Klux Klan?
4. What did the Ku Klux Klan do?
5. Are there active members of the Ku Klux Klan today? Where can you commonly find them?
•Many resented the new freedoms of the African Americans
•The Ku Klux Klan formed in 1865 – a white supremacist group that terrorized African Americans
•They wore white hoods, and were responsible for kidnapping, setting fire to, lynching, raping and persecuting African Americans
•The worst states for their activity was Mississippi and Alabama in the south
•In 1871, 163 African Americans were murdered in Florida
•From 1900 to 1910 there were over 150 lynching's per year
•In 1920 the KKK had 5 million members
•The KKK is a ‘Christian’ group and has a hierarchy:
–Grand Wizard
–Dragons
–Goblins
–Monks
•The KKK also is opposed to the existence of Jews, Catholics, and trade union members
•The KKK is still active in America today
•The Ku Klux Klan formed in 1865 – a white supremacist group that terrorized African Americans
•They wore white hoods, and were responsible for kidnapping, setting fire to, lynching, raping and persecuting African Americans
•The worst states for their activity was Mississippi and Alabama in the south
•In 1871, 163 African Americans were murdered in Florida
•From 1900 to 1910 there were over 150 lynching's per year
•In 1920 the KKK had 5 million members
•The KKK is a ‘Christian’ group and has a hierarchy:
–Grand Wizard
–Dragons
–Goblins
–Monks
•The KKK also is opposed to the existence of Jews, Catholics, and trade union members
•The KKK is still active in America today
Homework?
Freedom rides
Freedom Rides
- On May 4, 1961, a group of 13 African-American and white civil rights activists launched the Freedom Rides, a series of bus trips through the American South to protest segregation in interstate bus terminals.
- The Freedom Riders departed from Washington, D.C., and attempted to integrate facilities at bus terminals along the way into the Deep South.
-African-American Freedom Riders tried to use “whites-only” restrooms and lunch counters, and vice versa.
-The group encountered tremendous violence from white protestors along the route, but also drew international attention to their cause. Over the next few months, several hundred Freedom Riders engaged in similar actions.
- On May 4, 1961, a group of 13 African-American and white civil rights activists launched the Freedom Rides, a series of bus trips through the American South to protest segregation in interstate bus terminals.
- The Freedom Riders departed from Washington, D.C., and attempted to integrate facilities at bus terminals along the way into the Deep South.
-African-American Freedom Riders tried to use “whites-only” restrooms and lunch counters, and vice versa.
-The group encountered tremendous violence from white protestors along the route, but also drew international attention to their cause. Over the next few months, several hundred Freedom Riders engaged in similar actions.
freedom_rides_usa.docx | |
File Size: | 327 kb |
File Type: | docx |
Australian Freedom Rides
You are to research the following questions and answer them in your exercise book.
-When did the Australian Freedom Rides occur?
- Why did the Australian Freedom Rides occur?
- What events occurred during the Freedom Rides?
- What was the purpose of the Freedom Rides and were they successful?
•By 1964 it became clear that assimilation was not working as it should. The rise of an Indigenous protest movement in the 1960s meant that more people were aware of the discrimination that was being perpetrated against the Indigenous population.
•When it became clear that the foreign migrants were able to keep aspects of their cultures alive while still living within Australian society, the Federal Government was more open to letting Aboriginal people integrate rather than assimilate. They were still expected to adapt to and adopt 'white' Australian culture, but they were given more leeway to practice traditional aspects of what was left of their own culture.
Charles Perkins (a famous soccer player) gathered a Group of Students called SAFA who were like minded (black and white) and invited them on a tour of NSW towns. There they struggled for rights and freedoms by protesting and teaching. Some of the more famous examples of their protest were with Walgett RSL which would not allow black returned servicemen into the club and Moree which didn’t allow Aboriginal kids to swim in the local pool.
Read the information provided in the following file.
Read the information provided in the following file.
charles-perkins-ann-curthoy-and-jim-spieglman.docx | |
File Size: | 1364 kb |
File Type: | docx |
Complete answers to the activities contained in the next file. There are questions at the beginning and at the end. Write complete answers in your books.
the_australian_freedom_rides.docx | |
File Size: | 1597 kb |
File Type: | docx |
sample_assess_essay.doc | |
File Size: | 224 kb |
File Type: | doc |
The Referendum
Go to the following website and answer the questions below in your exercise book. If you have your headphones you may watch the videos embedded into the article to further your understanding.
- What was Australia's 1967 Referendum about? Summarise the main points provided by the website
- What were sections 51 and 127 of the Consitituation of the Commonwealth?
- What were the Referendum initatives? Create a timeline of the culmination of events which started more than a decade earlier that lead to the Referendum.
- What did the 1967 referendum meant to Aboriginal people?
- What were the results of the 1967 Referendum?
- Why did the 1967 Referendum fail?