Civil Rights Movement

1963 March on Washington

Organized by A. Philip Randolph in support of Civil Rights Legislation. 200,000 people gathered for it.

A. Philip Randolph

Prominent African-American Civil Rights leader in 20th century. Founded the March on Washington and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.

Angela Davis

American political activist. Associated with the Black Panther Party.

Bayard Rustin

American Civil Rights activist. Cheif organizer of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

Black Panthers/Black Panther Party for Self-Defense

Intended to protect African-American neighborhoods from police brutality.

Bobby Seale

Co-founded the Black Panthers with Huey P. Newton.

Booker T. Washington

American educator, author, and political leader. Spoke on behalf of Southern blacks and was sponsored by many powerful white people.

Brown vs. Board of Education

Court case that declared segregation in schools unconstitutional.

Carol Moseley Braun

Represented Illinois in the U.S. senate from 1993-1999. First and only African American woman elected to the U.S. Senate.

Charles Houston

Dean of Howard University law school. Also the Litigation Director of the NAACP; fought against Jim Crow Laws.

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Act outlawed major forms of racial and sexist discrimination. Intended to end unequal voting registration and school segregation.

Congress on Racial Equality/CORE

Organization that was founded in 1942 by James Farmer and George Houser. Worked for equality for everyone unaffected by a person's race, sex, or disabilities.

Ella Baker

Civil Rights activist in the 30's. Worked with SNCC by organizing the first meeting at Shaw University.

Fannie Lou Hamer

American voting rights activist. Organized the MIssissippi Freedom Summer for SNCC.

Fred Hampton

Deputy chairman of the Black Panther Party, murdered by the FBI.

Frederick Douglass

Social reformer, writer. Published a book recounting his life in slavery.

Freedom Rides

Started by CORE. Challenged the law of the desegregation of interstate bussing by traveling through the South.

Huey P. Newton

Co-founder of the Black Panthers with Bobby Seale.

Ida B. Wells

Huge anti-lynching activist in the U.S.

Jesse Jackson

Candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988. He founded the Rainbow/PUSH organization.

Malcolm X

Very influential leader for African-Americans. Posed the white world as harsh oppressors who committed many crimes against blacks.

Marcus Garvey

Founded the UNIA-ACL. Tried to create the Black Star Line; used radical tactics to push racial pride.

Martin Luther King Jr.

African-American activist/Civil Rights leader. Used non-violent tactics inspired by Ghandi to convey his message.

Montgomery Bus Boycott

Political/social protest. Started when Rosa Parks refused to move for a white man on a bus.

NAACP

One of the oldest Civil Rights organizations in the U.S., founded in 1909. Fought for freedom of speech and criticism, manhood suffrage, etc.

Plessy vs. Ferguson

Major Supreme Court decision that allowed the segregation of facilities as long as they were equal.

Rosa Parks

Her refusal to move for a white man on a bus started the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Sojourner Truth

Spoke about her experiences as a woman in slavery. Delivered her famous "Ain't I A Woman?" speech at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention.

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

First president was Martin Luther King Jr. Aimed at ending all forms of segregation in the U.S.

Stokely Carmichael

Leader of SNCC. Honorary prime minister of the Black Panthers. Advocated black power.

SNCC

Principal organization in the 1960's. First started by a series of students along with Ella Baker at Shaw University.

Thurgood Marshall

American jurist; first African-American on the Supreme Court. Known for his argument in the Brown vs. Board Education case.

UNIA/Universal Negro Improvement Association

Black nationalist fraternal organization. Founded by Marcus Garvey.

Voting Rights Act of 1965

Act outlawed discriminatory voting practices.

W.E.B. DuBois

First African-American to graduate from Harvard. Only black founder of NAACP.

William Lloyd Garrison

American abolitionist. Editor of the Liberator; promoted immediate emancipation of slaves

The Young Lords Party

Organization based off the Black Panthers. Active during the 60's and 70's. Aimed to achieve their goal of equal education, rights, etc. violently.

AIM/American Indian Movement

Created in 1968. Started to fight police brutality against Indians. Now concentrated on education and fighting stereotypes about Native Americans.

Gray Panthers

Founded in 1970 by Margaret Kuhn. Aimed to work for social and economic justice and peace for all.

Disability Rights Movement

First began in 1960 with the National Association for Down Syndrome. Working towards the end of discrimination against those who are disabled using political action.

NGLTF/National Gay and Lesbian Task Force

Started in the 1970's, still alive today. Fighting for the acceptance and equal rights of the LGBT community.

Harlem Renaissance

Black artists emerging despite racial violence.

Jim Crow Laws

Southern states and local governments passed these laws in order to segregate blacks and whites in public and private facilities.

Voting restrictions

Literacy tests, poll taxes, and the grandfather clauses

Civil Rights

Basic rights, privileges and protections which belong in principle to every citizen of the U.S.

13th Amendment

1865, abolished slavery/involuntary servitude.

14th Amendment

1868, all persons born in the U.S. are citizens

15th Amendment

1870, prohibits denial of voting rights based on race or color

Ku Klux Klan

Founded by 6 Confederate veterans in Tennessee in 1866. Violent terrorist organization whose goals were to destroy Republican Party, throw out Reconstruction governments, and aid planter class in controlling laborers. Used fear, violence, brutality.

Civil Rights Act of 1866

Gave African-Americans citizenship and forbade states from passing discriminatory laws.

Black Codes

Southern states adopted these laws restoring the restrictions of slavery. Prohibited blacks from carrying weapons, serving on juries, etc.

Freedman's Bureau

Churches, organizations, state governments helped African Americans form their own universities.

Blacks in reconstruction

Active role in political process, held office in local/state/federal governments, increase in education.

Sharecropping

Landowners divide land and give workers seeds and tools. When crops harvested, half given to owners. After all debts paid, no money left, had to resort to sharecropping for another year.

Tenant Farming

Workers supply own tools and rent farmland for cash.

Amnesty Act of 1872

Returned power to Southern Democrats and expired the Freedman's Bureau.

The Great Depression

Black sharecroppers devastated. Whites take over black jobs and the New Deal doesn't support black-dominated work.

WWII

Shift to war economy enables more job offerings, still hiring discrimination for blacks.

Executive Order 8802

Order that FDR issues that bans hiring discrimination.

Double "V" Campaign

Victory in Europe and victory at home against racism.

James Lawson

Studied non-violence as a philosophy in India.

Diane Nash

Student activist in Nashville, TN.

De Facto Segregation

Segregation that exists by practice and custom.

De Jure Segregation

Segregation that exists by law.

Selma Campaign

An organized voter registration drive led to brutal/violent attacks. MLK announced a 50 mile march to Montgomery, Alabama.

10 Point Plan

Black Panther's list of demands.

Kerner Commission

President Johnson appointed this study to find causes of urban violence.