Lecture 17. From Voting Rights to Watts (continued)

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

In this lecture, Professor Holloway focuses on the events between 1964 and 1966 that contribute to a fundamental shift in the tone and tactics of the civil rights movement. By examining the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party's quest to seat alternate delegates at the Democratic National Convention in 1964; "Bloody Sunday" and the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery; the signing of the 1965 Voting Rights Act; and the riots that summer in Watts, a poor neighborhood in Los Angeles, Professor Holloway reveals that people were struggling with the new tactical change in the movement. The militancy seen in Watts was becoming more recognizable and more frequent, partially due to rhetoric but also do to the increasing U.S. military occupation in Vietnam. Impatience was growing not just in urban or northern areas, but all over the country. In the final portion of the lecture, Professor Holloway offers a preview of the first Black Panther Party, the Lowndes County Freedom Organization, founded in Lowndes County, Mississippi, and the shifting racial philosophy of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, led by Stokely Carmichael.

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

00:00 - Chapter 1. Mississippi Freedom Summer
15:55 - Chapter 2. Martin Luther King, Jr Advocates a New Voter Registration Drive
31:07 - Chapter 3. The Voting Rights Act of 1965

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


This course was recorded in Spring 2010.