Clarification, in reply to question in class. During the Selma campaign of 1965, the attack on the Edmund Pettus Bridge is called "Bloody Sunday," NOT BLACK SUNDAY. It occurred on March 7, 1965. LBJ asked Congress for the bill that eventually comes to be called the Voting Rights Act on March 15, 1965. It was on this occasion that he concluded his speech by invoking the anthem of the civil rights movement, and saying "we shall overcome." The march from Selma to Montgomery was finally cleared by Federal Judge Frank Johnson, and took place for 5 days, from March 21st to March 25th.  In his speech, MLK said how long, not long, because truth crushed to earth will rise again...because no lie can live forever...because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."  Remember that the God of the Afro-American church is not simply the God of freedom or liberty, but the God of justice.

Following passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, police brutality in Los Angeles triggered the massive Watts riot. It stunned the country because to some people it seemed that things were getting worse when everyone "thought" things were getting better. After all, had not the Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965? And there was no segregation that was required by law in Los Angeles.

The Watts riot revealed, to those who might not have realized it previously, that there was a race problem in the North and West too, not just in the South. Indeed, the race problem was national, not just confined to the South. And more progressive Americans began to perceive that even AFTER the problems of segregation and disenfranchisement were peeled away, there were other layers of problems that remained. In the North, the problem of the ghetto, and poverty, and police brutality, and overcrowding in the inner cities, and the inferior quality of inner-city schools, and gangs and violence and urban crime still remained. This interlocking set of problems is expressed by the image of the "ghetto."

In 1966 King and SCLC went to Chicago to dramatize to the nation and draw the attention of the nation to the problem of housing discrimination. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not address housing discrimination. It was a loophole in the bill. Chicago was notorious for de facto segregation. There were historically white neighborhoods, and if blacks tried to move in they were attacked and their homes would be firebombed. The offices of real estate agencies that sold homes to blacks, in white neighborhoods, were attacked. But hundreds of thousands of Afro-Americans had moved into Chicago after 1940. The way that Chicago accommodated this was by building high-rise towers. These towers, sometimes 10 and 20 floors, could hold thousands of people in concrete vertical warehouses.

King led marches in white neighborhoods such as Gage Park. Thousands of whites turned out to jeer and throw bricks at the marchers.

On the other hand, SCLC did not attract the massive support form black working-class and middle-class church-going blacks as it did in the South. Northern urban blacks did not respond to King's message of nonviolence the way that Southern blacks did.

King sent black people into real estate offices, and the agents would tell them that there was noting available in certain traditionally "white" neighborhoods. Then King sent white allies into real estate offices, and the real estate agents would indicate to them that there were homes available in precisely the "white" areas where the real estate agents had just told black people that there was "nothing available."

King saw that his method was not working well in Chicago, and settled for the best that he thought he could get (a paper agreement with Mayor Daley). Local activists were not satisfied and marched into the white suburb of Cicero. The reaction from angry whites was ferocious. This episode revealed the face of white resistance, in the North, to living with blacks. This was the face of de facto segregation.

From 1966 to 1968 King and LBJ and liberals in the Congress struggled to get a Fair Housing Act passed. LBJ introduced it in 1966, but it was stalled in the Congress for 2 years. The proposed legislation would, in effect, ban discrimination on the basis of race in the sale or rental of housing and in the financing of housing (by banks and lenders). The disastrous riots in Newark and Detroit in 1967 revealed that black anger was boiling over into self-destructive acts of rage. But this only served to alienate whites more and intensify their fears of blacks and drive more whites to flee from the cities. Black riots accelerated the process of white flight (from the cities) and re-segregation in the suburbs. The riots did not create sympathy for blacks, but rather generated greater resentment toward blacks. In this climate of "white backlash," many whites came to feel that blacks were asking for "too much" and trying to move "too far, too fast," and trying to make gains at the expense of whites. Consequently there was not a great deal of political support in the Congress for the fair housing act.

Alongside white flight, the corporations fled the cities and took jobs with them to the suburbs. This twin process of white flight and corporate flight left the cities "blacker" in population than before, but also depleted of jobs. As Afro-Americans became the majority in certain cities, or strong enough numerically to elect mayors, the black mayors inherited bombed-out wastelands that looked like war zones.

In 1966 Kwame Ture publicly embraced the doctrine of Black Power and renounced nonviolence. The civil rights coalition splintered and fragmented and split apart. The public facade of unity could no longer be maintained. Roy Wilkins of the NAACP and basically cut off contact with SNCC. CORE also embraced the doctrine of Black Power, but recast it as black capitalism (blacks should create and own and run businesses in the black community). The Urban League pursued a cautious policy, alongside the NAACP, of distancing itself from SNCC and CORE, but the Urban League also cast black power as black capitalism. But whereas SNCC and CORE were militant and seemed to be saying "down with whitey," the Urban League was trying to get white corporations to hire more Afro-Americans and get blacks into white corporations (but there is a difference between working for a white employer in his corporation and owning one's own business and working for oneself). King maintained contact with the "young brothers" in SNCC and CORE even though he regretted the choice of words in the phrase "Black Power." In addition, the "militant" stance of SNCC and CORE was interpreted by much of mainstream America as "anti-white," and so the coalition between Afro-Americans and white liberals was strained if not ruptured.

To make matters more difficult, in April 1967 King publicly condemned the war in Vietnam. Lyndon Johnson took it as a personal betrayal, and after this it was "open season" on King. Hoover had a free hand to discredit King in any way that he could. The NAACP and conservative blacks felt that King was disloyal to the country, and that becoming involved in the antiwar movement would hurt support for the civil rights movement.

After April 1967 King was a "marked man." His assassination was only a matter of time.

By 1967 King felt that America was a much sicker society than he had previously realized. He now saw that the problems were so much deeper than he had realized. The sickness was so much more prevalent. America had a streak that was selfish and greedy and complacent, and basically worshipped and exalted itself. America was drunk; intoxicated with power; and blinded by its power. It was hard for America to see any of its flaws in anything other than a superficial way.

So many Americans believed that everyone in America had opportunity, and our social order was essentially fair. The poor were blamed for their problems. They were poor because of some individual failing or defect on their part. They didn't work hard enough or try hard enough, or they had not gone to school long enough. In some sense the poor got what they deserved. But "equality of opportunity" is one of the most insidious of American myths (lies).

By 1967 and 1968 American society was deeply fragmented and divided and polarized. The antiwar movement was intensifying. The "generation gap" divided parents and their young adult children. The environmental movement, women's movement (NOW formed in 1966), gay rights movement and consumer protection movement emerged. Cesar Chavez organized the United Farm Workers Union, of Mexican workers. It seemed as if the "pot was boiling over" or a long simmering pot was "blowing its lid." The ghettos exploded. The concessions that the liberal and moderate sectors of the white power structure were willing to give were so much less than what Afro-Americans wanted and demanded; and so an irresistible force collided with an immovable object. What the white power structure was willing to give lagged so far behind what Afro-Americans wanted that there could be no genuine "meeting of the minds" or "common ground." So dissatisfaction and resentment festered and lingered.

King saw poverty and injustice in the midst of plenty as an abomination, and an indictment against this society. In the end he was very tired, and disappointed. In April 1968 he was assassinated. About a week after his death, the House of Rep. finally passed the Fair Housing Act. It was a tribute to the memory of King.

For many Afro-Americans, the faith in the power of nonviolence died with King. On the night of the assassination, Afro-Americans in 100 cities rioted. The man of peace had been killed by a violent society. Millions now wondered if maybe Malcolm hadn't been right all along.

CONCLUSION

King had contributed to the Montgomery Bus Boycott. His leadership of the campaign in Birmingham 1963 had pushed JFK to ask Congress for a civil rights bill, which Congress approved in 1964. This was one of King's greatest achievements. He deserved as much credit as anyone for bringing segregation that was required by law to an end in this country. And King's campaign in Selma, 1965, led LBJ to push Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act. Millions of Afro-Americans in the South were able to vote because of what King had done. Posthumously, his efforts helped to produce the Fair Housing Act of 1968.

Martin always believed that God could make right what people had made wrong. In 1968 the torch was passed to a new generation, to press America to become a better and more just and more humane society. As we confront racial profiling; and police brutality; and the dragging death of James Byrd; and the sadistic torture of Abner Louima: and the murder of Amadou Diallo; and innocent black men serving on death row for years before being cleared by DNA evidence; and failing schools; and the ghetto; it is clear that much more work remains to be done. But King never gave up trying. And neither should we.