Civil Rights

Black Panthers

a new generation of militant

African American leaders who

also preached black power,

black nationalism, and

economic self-sufficiency

Black Power

Two meanings:

⚫Violence or taking control of the

social, political, and economic

direction of their struggle.

⚫Or taking pride in African American

culture by adopting new Afro

hairstyles and African-style clothing.

Booker T. Washington

⚫He believed

the way to equality was through

vocational education and

economic success

⚫He hoped that segregation

would fade away as African

Americans improved their lives

and moved into better jobs.

Brown v. Board of Education

⚫1954: the Supreme Court

combined 4 cases (one from

VA) and issued a general ruling

on segregation in schools.

⚫One case involved a young

African American girl named

Linda Brown, who was denied

admission to her neighborhood

school in Topeka, Kansas and

instead had to go to an all black

school across town.

-The court case that integrated schools

-Thurgood Marshall won the case

Civil Rights Act of 1964

⚫Law made segregation illegal and gave all citizens

equal access to public facilities

⚫Prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion,

gender, or national origin.

⚫Signed by Lyndon Johnson

Cloture

(in a legislative assembly) a procedure for ending a debate and taking a vote.

Filibuster

when a group of senators don’t want a bill to pass, so

they delay a vote by continuing to debate without stopping.

Freedom Riders

⚫Despite rulings outlawing segregation in bus service, bus

travel remained segregated in much of the South.

⚫A group of African Americans, and white volunteers

boarded several southbound buses to protest the

continued illegal segregation.

⚫were met with

angry white mobs

who attacked them.

Ida B. Wells

⚫ an African

American woman who launched a

crusade against lynchings.

⚫demanded “a fair trial by

law for those accused of crime,

and punishment by law after

honest conviction”

⚫Congress rejected Wells' anti-

lynching bill, but the number of

lynchings decreased in the 1900s

Jim Crow laws

⚫African Americans in the North were often barred from

public places (segregated) based on race.

⚫Southern states, however, passed laws that enforced this discrimination call it this.

Literacy Test

⚫required a person to read and understand

the states’ Constitution.

⚫Both of these requirements were impossible for most

poor African Americans to meet

Little Rock 9

⚫In September 1957, a court order required that nine

African Americans students be admitted to Central High

School in Little Rock, Arkansas.

⚫The severe backlash caused President Eisenhower to

send troops to Little Rock.

Malcolm X

⚫By the early 1960s, a young man had become a symbol of the black power movement.

⚫Born Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska.

⚫The “X” symbolized the family name of his

African ancestors who had been enslaved.

⚫Joined the Nation of Islam, AKA the Black

Muslims, which preached black

nationalism.

⚫He broke from the Black Muslims

after his pilgrimage to Mecca where he saw

many races worshipping together.

⚫He criticized the Nation of Islam which led

to his assassination in February of 1965.

March on Washington

⚫Dr. King realized that President Kennedy would have a very difficult

time pushing his civil rights bill through Congress.

⚫To help lobby Congress and build more public support, King

organized a march on Washington, D.C..

⚫On August 28, 1963, more

than 200,000 demonstrators

of all races went to the

nation’s capital.

⚫King gave his famous

“Address in Washington”

speech.

Martin Luther King Jr.

⚫ A pastor that advocated for civil rights

⚫ He believed that the only moral way to

end segregation and racism was

through nonviolent passive resistance.

Massive Resistance

The Senator from Virginia called on

Southerners to adopt this against integration. Across the

South, citizens pressured their local

governments and school boards into

defying the Supreme Court. A year after

Brown v. Board of Education, the Court

ordered school districts to proceed “with

all deliberate speed to end school

segregation.”

NAACP

-stood for National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

-Founded by W.E.B. DuBois

-a civil rights organization

Plessy v. Ferguson

⚫In 1892, an African

American named Homer

Plessy challenged the

Louisiana law that forced

African Americans to ride

in separate railroad cars.

⚫Case went all the way to the Supreme Court.

⚫The Supreme Court upheld the Louisiana law and set out

a new doctrine of “separate but equal” facilities for

African Americans.

Poll Tax

A $2 tax that was required to vote, mainly targeted to African Americans

Roas Parks

⚫December 1, 1955, she boarded a bus and

took a seat in the middle,

just behind the white

section.

⚫When all the seats filled up

the bus driver told her to

move to the back of the bus;

she refused.

⚫The bus driver called the

police, and she was

arrested.

Segregation

A seperation of races in public places

Selma March

⚫Even after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, voting

rights were still an issue.

⚫Convinced that a new law was needed to protect African

American voting rights, Dr. King decided to stage another

major protest.

⚫In January 1965, Dr. King selected Selma, Alabama for

the campaign for voting rights.

⚫Violence erupted again and approximately 2000 African

Americans were arrested, including schoolchildren.

Sit-In Movement

-a form of protest used mostly at segregated

restaurants. African Americans would sit in a whites-only

section and not move.

⚫Eventually, student leaders across the nation established

the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

(SNCC).

The Montgomery Bus Boycott

⚫ Instead of riding the Montgomery

buses, African Americans organized

car pools or walked to work.

⚫ This boycott lasted for over a year.

⚫ Meanwhile, Rosa Parks’ case went to

the Supreme Court where it was

declared that Alabama’s laws requiring

segregation on buses unconstitutional.

Thurgood Marshall

-An attorney at Brown v. Board of Education

-became the first African

American to be appointed as a

U.S. Supreme Court Justice.

Voting Rights Act of 1965

⚫Authorized the U.S. Attorney General to send federal

examiners to register qualified voters.

⚫Outlawed discriminatory actions such as the literacy test.

⚫The results of the act were dramatic. By the end of the

year, almost 250,000 African Americans registered tovote.

W. E. B. Du Bois

⚫challenged

Booker T. Washington.

⚫believed education

was meaningless without

equality.

⚫African Americans needed to

insist upon equal treatment and

voting rights.