Minority rights 1960-80 - key facts

Termination (1953)

• Native Americans freed from federal control and protected by US federal and state laws

• Tribal lands once held in trust for them by the government now open for sale

1956 Indian Relocation Act

• Encouraged Native Americans aged 18-35 to move to specified towns and cities for work

• 25-33% returned by 1961

Native Americans in towns or cities by 1970

Half of all Native Americans

Indian Removal Act 1830

Federal government made treaties with tribes, giving them land and money for their removal

Indian Boarding Schools

Set up from 1893

American Indian Movement

• Set up in 1968

• 4500 members in 1971

Alcatraz Red Power Movement

Took over Alcatraz Island 1969-71

1972 Trail of Broken Treaties

• Protest drive to Washington regarding BIA management of issues like not renegotiating government treaties that took over Native American land

• BIA building occupied

1973 Occupation of Wounded Knee

• AIM declares independence as the Oglala Sioux Nation

• Government sends US marshalls and state police

• Siege lasts 71 days - AIM only withdraws once government agrees to investigate its grievances

1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act

Transferred 40 million acres of land and $462,500,000 to Native Alaskans

1972 Indian Education Act

Funds for tribal schools

1978 Indian Child Welfare Act

Gave Native Americans more control over the adoption of Native American children

Hawaii in 1971

Continued to evict Native Americans from land if the state wanted it for building or other use

Bracero programme

4.6 million contracts were signed between 1942-64

Operation Wetback

Deported 3.8 million, including US citizens who were in active protest, between 1953-58

Cesar Chavez

• Set up National Farm Workers Association in 1952

• Organised strikes, marches and protests

• Gained publicity by fasting in protest

Reies Lopez Tijerina

• Protests about Mexican land rights in New Mexico

• Started with legal protests but then held marches, mass demonstrations and camp-ins on National Forest Land

• Worked with Black Power leaders

Rodalfo Gonzales

Crusade for Justice stressed importance of racial identity and the need to fight for Hispanic rights at once

La Raza Unida party

• Led by Jose Angel Gutierrez

• Encouraged Hispanic people to register to vote and provided them with a party to vote for

• Campaigned for better work, housing and education

Brown Berets

Militant youth organisation set up in East LA in 1967

School walkouts 1 June 1968

10,000 students walk out of mainly Mexican schools in East LA to protest conditions

Mexican American Legal Defense and Education fund

Set up in 1968 to pursue civil rights in courts

1975 California’s Agricultural Labor Relations Act

Recognises right of farm workers to unionise

1966 Cuban American Adjustment Act

All Cubans who had lived in the USA for a year made permanent residents

1974 Equal Opportunities Act

Provided for more bilingual teaching in schools

1975 Voting Rights Act extension

Provides language assistance at polling stations and extended right to Native Americans, Asian Americans and Hispanic groups

First state to repeal anti-gay laws

Illinois in 1962

Homosexuality decriminalised across the US

2003

Gay Liberation Front

• Set up in weeks following Stonewall

• Large, peaceful protests organised

1970 New York Pride March

10,000 marchers

People supporting gay rights in 1977

Over 50%

First openly gay candidate elected to office

Kathy Kozachenko in 1974

Harvey Milk

• Elected to office in San Francisco in 1977

• Assassinated in 1979

• 5000 protest lenient sentence to his killer

Proposition 6

A law proposed in California in 1978 that would fire gay teachers and teachers who spoke in favour of gay rights

1958 Supreme Court ruling

First ruling in favour of gays - refused to let the postal service ban a gay magazine as ‘obscene’

1973 American Psychiatric Association

Removal of homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses

Democratic Party 1980

Says it will not discriminate against gays and campaign for their rights

Governor of California

Appointed 4 openly gay state judges between 1979 and 1981

Save Our Children

• Set up in 1977 by Anita Bryant

• Collected petitions against proposed law in Florida to stop discrimination in housing, public facilities and employment

• Law was rejected