Civil Rights & Social Reforms

Jim Crow Laws

State statutes that enforced racial segregation of public places and services

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

Supreme Court ruling that segregation was legal if facilities were "separate but equal"

Poll Tax

A fee required to vote, used to disenfranchise African Americans

Literacy Tests

Tests of reading, writing, and constitutional knowledge used to block Black voters

Grandfather Clause

Protected white voting rights by exempting those whose ancestors had voted before the Civil War

Lynching

Mob violence used to terrorize and murder African Americans

Ida B. Wells

Investigative journalist who exposed lynching and co-founded the NAACP

W.E.B. Du Bois

Co-founder of the NAACP and organizer of the Niagara Movement; believed in full civil rights

William Monroe Trotter

Co-organizer of the Niagara Movement; published the Boston Guardian

Niagara Movement

Movement led by Du Bois and Trotter demanding full civil rights, equal education, and voting rights

NAACP (1909)

Organization founded to abolish segregation and combat racism and discrimination

Booker T. Washington

Leader of Tuskegee Institution who advocated vocational education and economic progress first

The Crisis

Newspaper published by W.E.B. Du Bois

Boston Guardian

Newspaper published by William Monroe Trotter

Muller v. Oregon (1908)

Upheld restrictions on women's working hours, reinforcing gender role stereotypes

Frances Willard

Advocated for women's access to higher education and professional jobs

Margaret Sanger

Fought to legalize birth control for women

Seneca Falls Convention (1848)

First women's rights convention in the US

The Revolution

Pro-suffrage newspaper edited by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton

NAWSA

National American Women Suffrage Association; fought for a constitutional amendment for women's suffrage

Alice Paul & Lucy Burns

Leaders of the new generation of suffragists; founded the National Women's Party

Suffragist Tactics

Petitioned, picketed the White House, burned speeches, and went on hunger strikes

19th Amendment (1920)

Granted women the right to vote

Equal Rights Amendment (1923)

Proposed by Alice Paul to guarantee equal legal rights regardless of sex; passed Senate in 1972