True Civil Rights Movement Flashcards

African American Mistreatment after Emancipation

• Jim Crow Laws

• Lynchings

• Cycle of Poverty

  • Sharecropping

• Poll Taxes & Literacy Tests

• De-humanization

2 Methods of Civil Rights Actions

• Governmetn Action

• People protest & Activism

NAACP

• Mainly Middle Class African Americans and lawyers

• attempted to fight for Civil Rights in a legal manner

Important Moments of Involvment:

• Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

• Little Rock Nine (1957)

• McLaren vs Oklahoma

Core

• Congress of Racial Equality

• Mainly full of Liberal Northern Whites, and Urban African Americans and College Students

• Deliberate Nonviolent violation of unjust laws to provoke violence of White racists

SNCC

• Student Nonviolent Cordinating Comittee

• Mainly headed by Students and Liberals

• Attempted to help voter registration and protests in the Southf

Important Involvements:

• Freedom Summer

SCLC

• Southern Christian Leadership Conference

• Headed by MLK

• Mainly ministers from the South and Black Leaders

• Use non-violent active resistance

  • Boycotts, prayer groups, etc.

Important Involvements:

• Montgomery Bus Boycotts

• March On Washington

• The Birmingham Campaign (1963)

Nation of Islam

• Mainly popular for Malcom X

• Many Muslims and radicalized African Americans

• Wanted Black separation from White Society and ready to use violence when necessary

Black Panther Party

• Founded in Oakland, CA

  • Kind of Like a Robinhood

• Inner city poor and middle class movement

• Would win local elections and support themselves

• Would clash with the police

• Acted as Protection for civilians and gave them proper resources

Redlining

a discriminatory practice where the U.S. government and banks marked "hazardous" minority neighborhoods (often majority Black) in red on maps, refusing to provide mortgages, loans, or services

Racial Covenants

legally enforceable, discriminatory clauses inserted into property deeds in the early 20th century, prohibiting non white people from buying or occupying land Used to maintain white only neighborhoods

Interstate Highway System (1956)

Often, highways ran through black neighborhoods: Physical Barriers to Segregation: physical buffers of land Mass Displacement and Economic Devastation for the black people in these urban areas

White Flight

White residents left the city for the suburbs, often motivated by racial, social, and economic incentives Fear of integration + appeal of suburbia

Urban Decay

The combination of lost tax revenue (white flight) and lack of investment (redlining) in the cities led to widespread suffering and poverty in these urban centers

Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

• 14th Amendment = equal protection under the law Plessy v. Ferguson established “separate but equal”

• Uses Psychological test to show that they are not equal

• Brown v. Board repeals “separate but equal” ONLY in the context of schools

• In South → Much assaults and Lynching’s

Brown v. Board II (1955)

• SCOTUS’s Order the desegregation of U.S. public schools

• "with all deliberate speed,"

  • Controversy over when

Thurgood Marshall

• The lawyer on the case for the NAACP

• eventually becomes the first black justice on the SCOTUS

McLaurin v. Oklahoma State

• Decrees Public Colleges must treat students equally,

  • According to 14th Amendment

Southern Manifesto (1956)

• Southerners believed those who originally wrote the 14th Amendment would not want integrated schools

• A document signed by Southern congressmen to oppose the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision

• Accused the Supreme Court of abusing judicial power

• Urged states to resist integration, and championed states' rights to maintain segregation

Emmett Till murder (1955)

• Heated tensions caused by Brown v. Board decision and the initial dismantling of segregation raised intensity Hate crimes, attacks, and murders against black people increase

• Is the most famous Example

• 14 year old Emmett Till lynched; accused of communicating with White Woman.

• His mother chose an open casket funeral, and this led to national coverage

• Oftentimes, no justice was served, like in the case of Emmett Till

The Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955

• Sparked by the arrest of Rosa Parks Protest against segregation in Alabama’s public transit system

• Lasted for over a year Led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

• The campaign used carpools, caused massive financial losses for city transit, and resulted in a Supreme Court ruling declaring bus segregation unconstitutional

• Had the NAACP, SCLC

Little Rock Nine (1957)

• 9 black high school students in Little Rock, AR admitted to the white high school, dubbed the Black Rock 9

• Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus used the state National Guard to stop black children from entering the school

• Thurgood Marshall sues the state of Arkansas → Faubus forced to remove troops → mob riots against students →forced to evacuate the school

• Eisenhower is forced to send federal troops to the school to allow the nine black students to enter the high school after these riots

MLK 3 Principles of Protest

• Mass movement & Constant Tension

  • Through numerous Protests

• Non-violence & peaceful resistance

• Accept Arrests & violence against one self

The Sit In movement (1960)

• College students are trained to protest and act with non violent protest (SNCC)

• Leads to the sit in movement, where people sit in at a lunch counter or segregated place Waiting to bait white people and police

Freedom Rides (1961)

• Desire for bus reform

  • SNCC believed youth could drive change

• Freedom rides were interracial bus rides (w/blacks at the front and whites at the back) through the Deep South

• Desegratted busses technicallt legal, but heavily hated in South.

• Freedom Rides were attacked

  • FBI knew about the attack ahead of time, but they didn’t tell anyone,

  • Police withdrew themselves from the attack

The Birmingham Campaign (1963)

• Run by SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference)

• Done in order to better Dr. Martin Luther King’s reputation

• During Sit ins, many put to jail but nothing changed in Birmingham

  • Bad image for MLK

• MLK’s letter from Birmingham desegregates Birmingham because of increasing pressure

Election 1960 & Presidency

• Year Kennedy was elected to presidency

• Pledges to end Segregation with “stroke of a pen”

• Sees Civil Rights as a “moral Crisis”

• Passes Civil Rights act of 1963

  • Eventually reformed under Johnson

Lyndon Johnson

• Takes Presidency after Kennedy Assassinated

• Southerner from Texas

• Sees Civil Rights as an issue that must be resolved

3 Priorities:

• Racial Injustice

• War on Poverty

• Healthcare

March on Washington (1963)

• By endorsing the March on Washington, MLK becomes the face of the movement

• The march was for freedom, minimum wage, and integrated schools

• MLK made his famous “I have a dream” speech Most amount of black people gathered at one time Massive demonstration of freedom and rights

The Civil Rights Act (1964)

• Passed by Johnson

  • Somewhat pressure from March on Washington and others

• Cannot be discriminated on the basis of race, religion, sex, nationality, or color

• Occupational assurance and publicly illegal to discriminate T

• Northern Democrats and Republicans combine to break the filibuster Does not include voting rights

Freedom Summer

• Led by CORE and SNCC

• Civil Rights campaign to aid Black Voters

• Taught literacy, civis, and Black history

Selma to Montgomery March

• March to Montgomery

  • A town where racial prejudice still high, in Alabama

• Lots of violence in protests

  • “Bloody Sunday”

The Voting Rights Act (1956)

• Movements and demonstrations like those at Selma Bridge and SNCC’s voting attempts + the attacks on them, cause national awareness and outrage Led to the Voting Rights Act, which banned voter discrimination

• Also allowed federal control of certain Southern states’ elections up until 2013

• 15th Amendment strengthened aswell

Malcolm X

believes that black leaders like MLK are “puppets” of the white liberals The FBI felt threatened by Malcolm X, so they infiltrated the Nation of Islam and assassinated him