African American Civil rights

• Jackie Robinson

first black man to play in Major league baseball and broke the color line.

• Defacto v. Dejure Segregation

De facto: by custom

De jure: by law

• Jim Crow Laws

requiring segregation

NAACP

-civil rights organization founded in 1909

-played important role in using the court system to end to dejure segregation during 1950s-60s.

-Took up Linda Brown’s case in 1954

• Brown v. Board of Education

-Supreme Court ruled unanimously segregation in public schools was unconstitutional and violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment

-The ruling against legal segregation in public education also supported the view that all forms of segregation are wrong.

• Thurgood Marshall

NAACP Lawyer - 1954,1st African American Supreme Court Justice - 1967

• Little Rock Nine

-trying to integrate Little Rock’s Central High School

-Opposed - Orval Faubus and the state government of Arkansas

-Support - Dwight Eisenhower and the Federal Government

-Eisenhower’s response Showed the Federal Government would enforce integration

Purpose of March on Washington

-100th anniversary of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation.  

-250,000 people marched on Washington D.C. to demand passage of a new Civil Rights Bill.

-King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech

• 1964 Civil Rights Act

-banned discrimination on basis of race, sex, national origin, or religion in public places and workplaces

-Most significant civil rights law legislation since the 13th, 14th, & 15th Amendments

• Literacy Test

Used to disqualify immigrants the poor and African-Americans from voting, voting rights act of 1965 outlaw these tests.

• Voting Rights Act of 1965

eliminated literacy tests

• 24th Amendment

Eliminated poll taxes  

• Purpose of Selma March

-54-mile march from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery, Alabama to protest literacy tests that kept African Americans from voting

-1st day of the march (3/7/1965) across the Edmund Pettis Bridge was met with police brutality and known as “Bloody Sunday.”

-helped draw attention to the need for the passage of the Voting Rights Act

• Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

-civil rights organization started in 1960 to coordinate nonviolent protests against segregated lunch counters

-played a central role in voter registration drives in Mississippi in 1964

-Helped organize the 1964 Freedom Summer Project

• Children’s March

-Birmingham, Alabama, was one of the most segregated cities in America.

-Dr. King and the SCLC wanted to desegregate Birmingham to show it could happen anywhere.

-Children (age 6 – 16) marched in protest of discrimination in Birmingham

-Inspired sympathy that helped lead to passage of 1964 Civil Rights Act

• MLK Jr. Philosophy

Believed in peaceful protest to make change happen and although it wasn’t physically strong it was spiritually strong. He also thinks victory will be a victory for justice, good will, and democracy.

• Malcom X Philosophy

Felt they had to take whatever means necessary, even violence to fight back and make change happen. He also thinks independence can only have through bloodshed and fighting.

• Rosa Parks

Was arrested for not getting up out of her seat, which set off a chain of reaction and core of civil rights activists to organize a bus boycott.

• Montgomery Bus Boycott

-Dr.King led the bus boycott and urged them to protest peacefully so for more than a year, they boycotted the buses.

• Results of Montgomery Bus Boycott

-In 1956 the Supreme Court ruled the segregation of Montgomery buses was unconstitutional.

-Dr.King became a nation leader in the civil rights movement 

-the SCLC was created

• Southern Christian Leadership Conference

-civil rights organization MLK and others started after the Montgomery bus boycott.

-brought the black church and nonviolent resistance to the forefront if the civil rights movement.

-played a role in most major civil rights demonstrations

• Freedom Rides

-1961 protest by activists who rode buses through southern states to test their compliance with laws banning segregation on interstate buses. But one of the buses was fire bombed, and attacked.

-The interstate commerce commission gave the freedom riders what they wanted and ordered the bus terminals to disaggregate.

• Stokely Carmichael

leader of SNCC who coined phrase “black power” in 1966. 

• Black Panthers

militant African American political organization formed to fight police brutality and provide services in impoverished black neighborhoods of major cities

• Eugene “Bull” Connor

Chief of Police, Bull Connor, ordered the children to be dispersed with firehoses and police dogs during the children’s march.

• Freedom Summer

State wide voter registration effort in Mississippi to help African Americans register to vote.