Civil Rights

Brown v. Board of Education

In 1954, a landmark Supreme Court case overturned school segregation, declaring "separate but equal" unconstitutional.

Montgomery Bus Boycott

1955 boycott that resulted in the integration of the bus system in Montgomery, Alabama

Little Rock Nine

Event in 1957 where nine African American students faced violence and segregation when trying to integrate into an all-white high school in Arkansas.

civil disobedience

Flashcard: Civil disobedience is a nonviolent protest against unjust laws or government actions, often led by figures like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

an organization formed by Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders in 1957 to use nonviolent resistance to achieve social and political goals

Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee

a civil rights organization formed in 1960 by college students, who organized sit-ins and other nonviolent protests

Freedom Riders

Civil rights protests in which Black people and White people rode interstate buses together in 1961 to test whether southern states were complying with the Supreme Court ruling against segregation on interstate transport

March on Washington

A 1963 protest in which more than 250,000 people demonstrated in the nation's capital for "jobs and freedom" and the passage of civil rights legislation

Civil Rights Act of 1964

A landmark act that banned discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, or national origin; the most important civil rights law since Reconstruction

Freedom Summer

A 1964 campaign by CORE and SNCC to register Black voters in Mississippi

disenfranchisement

The deprivation of voting rights, often imposed as a punishment or used to suppress certain groups from participating in elections.

Voting Rights Act of 1965

an act of Congress outlawing literacy tests and other tactics that had long been used to deny African Americans the right to vote

Black Power

The call by many civil rights activists, beginning in the mid-1960s, for African Americans to have economic and political power, with an emphasis on not relying on nonviolent protest

Black Panther Party

A group founded in 1966 that demanded economic and political rights and was prepared to take violent action

Civil Rights Act of 1968

A law that included a ban on discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin, or sex