Lecture 14. From Sit-Ins to Civil Rights

American History: From Emancipation to the Present (AFAM 162)

Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement have become embodied in each other. But in this lecture, Professor Holloway asks: what of the other activists in the struggle? What of the other organizations involved in the struggle? And what of the history of the struggle before King reluctantly emerged on the scene? By uncovering the histories of the Montgomery bus boycott, the integration of Central High School in Little Rock, the death of Emmett Till, the Greensboro student sit-ins, and the formation of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, one finds differing responses to violence and multiple approaches to attacking racial bias and discrimination. Professor Holloway also draws attention to the gender dynamics of the civil rights movement by considering the inner-workings of the Women's Political Council in Montgomery, Alabama, the original motivating force behind the 1955 bus boycott, and the great importance of respectability to the movement. This lecture reveals that there was no single civil rights movement, that there were many activists working in a variety of different ways and with varying degrees of success, and that King was a complicated figure, both inspiring and stifling activism.

Warning: This lecture contains graphic content and/or adult language that some users may find disturbing.

00:00 - Chapter 1. Narratives of the Civil Rights Movement: Rosa Parks
10:57 - Chapter 2. Narratives of the Civil Rights Movement: Emmett Till
20:09 - Chapter 3. Narratives of the Civil Rights Movement: The Little Rock Nine
26:09 - Chapter 4. Narratives of the Civil Rights Movement: Martin Luther King, Jr

Complete course materials are available at the Yale Online website: online.yale.edu


This course was recorded in Spring 2010.