US2 Chapter 25 (Civil Rights) Textbook Quiz

Plessy v. Ferguson

Supreme Court case legalizing segregation, "separate but equal"

De facto segregation

Segregation through cultural means (unofficial), instead of legal means (official)

Norris v. Alabama

-One of the NAACP's victories

-Established that the exclusion of African Americans from juries violated their rights to equal protection under the law

How did African Amerians get more political power?

-Northern politicians increasingly sought their votes and listened to their concerns

-New Deal benefited the AA, who then supported the Democratic party

-Stronger Democratic party in the north was able to counter southern Democrats who supported segregation

How did AA leaders use their political power during WWII?

Helped end discrimination in war factories, and also increased opportunities for AA in the military

Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)

-Formed by James Farmer and George Houser

-Used nonviolence and civil disobedience, including sit-ins to desegregate restaurants

Sit-ins

A type of protest where African Americans would sit in businesses and refuse to leave, to shame managers into integrating their restaurants (successful in Northern cities)

Thurgood Marshall

-NAACP chief counsel and director of Legal Defense and Educational Fund from 1939-1961

-Focused on ending segregation in public schools

Brown v. Board of Education

-Topeka, Kansas

-A girl named Linda Brown was denied admission to her neighborhood school and told to attend an all-black school

-Her parents sued, and the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional

How did white Southerners react to Brown v. Board of Education?

They were determined to defend segregation despite what the law said

Massive resistance

-Proposed by Virginian Senator Harry F. Byrd

-White Americans joined citizens' councils to pressure local governments and school boards into defying the Supreme Court

Pupil assignment laws

Established elaborate requirements other than race that schools could use to prevent African Americans from attending white schools

How did the Supreme Court accidentally encourage resistance?

-Ordered all school districts to proceed "with all deliberate speed" to end school segregation

-Vague enough that many got away with doing nothing

The Southern Manifesto

Denounced the Supreme Court's ruling during Brown v. Board as "a clear abuse of judicial power" and pledged to use "all lawful means" to reverse the decision

Rosa Parks

-Refused to give up her seat on a bus for a white man and was arrested

-NAACP heard of her arrest and used it to challenge segregation

Jo Ann Robinson

-Head of Women's Political Council

-Started the Montgomery Bus Boycott, sparking a new era in the civil rights movement

Montgomery Improvement Association

-Formed by AA leaders to run the boycott and negotiate with leaders

-Led by Martin Luther King Jr

King's philosophy

-He believed the only moral way to end segregation and racism was through nonviolent, passive resistance

-He spoke about African Americans' capacity to suffer and stirred AA in Montgomery to continue their boycott

What did the Montgomery Boycott achive?

-The Supreme Court declared Alabama's laws requiring segregation on buses unconstitutional

-Showed that nonviolent protest could be successful

How were African American churches used in the civil rights movement?

-Many leaders were African American ministers

-Churches were used to protest and plan meetings

Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)

-Established by Dr. King, Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth of Birmingham, and other ministers + civil rights activists

-MLK was the first president

-Challenged segregation at voting booths and public transportation, housing, and accommodations

Crisis in Little Rock

-School board was under federal court order that 9 black students be admitted to the high school

-Governor Orval Faubus campaigned for reelection as a defender of white supremacy, and ordered the National Guard to prevent the students from entering

-Angry white mob gathered

-District court ordered removal of the troops, but Faubus left the school to the mob, who beat 2 reporters and broke windows

-Eisenhower ordered US Army troops to Little Rock and federalized the Arkansas National Guard

-101st Airborne Division encircled the school, and allowed the students to enter

-Federal troops had to stay for the rest of the school year

What was the significance of the Little Rock crisis?

First use of armed forces of a state to oppose the federal government, the first challenge to the Constitution since Civil War

Civil Rights Act of 1957

-Protected the African American right to vote

-Southern Senators tried to block it but Lyndon Johnson came to a compromise and let the act pass

-Its final form was weaker than intended, but it brought the power of federal gov into the civil rights debate

Achievements of the Civil Rights Act of 1957

-Created a Civil Rights Division within the Department of Justice

-Created US Commission on Civil Rights

-After the bill passed, the SCLC announced a campaign to register 2 million new African American voters

Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department

-Created by the Civil Rights Act of 1957

-Had the power to seek court injuctions against anyone interfering with the right to vote

US Commission on Civil Rights

-Created by the Civil Rights Act of 1957

-Invested denials of voting rights

How did the sit-in movement start?

-African American students at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College (AA college) performed a sit-in in Woolworth's department store

-Stayed til it closed and said they'd sit there daily until they got the same service as white customers

-News of the sit-in spread, and it quickly became common in many states

Why was the sit-in movement important to the youth?

It gave college students a way to dictate the pace of change and actually do something

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

Important student civil rights group formed with the advice of former NAACP official and SCLC executive director Ella Baker

Freedom Summer

-Robert Moses urged the SNCC to start helping rural Southern AA who faced violence if registered to vote

-Many headed South during Freedom Summer to protest

-The KKK murdered 3 SNCC workers with consent of local officials

Fannie Lou Hamer

-SNCC organizer and sharecropper who was evicted from her farm after registering to vote

-Arrested and jailed, but still helped organize the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, and challenged the legality of state's segregated Democratic Party at the national convention

John Patterson

-Governor of Alabama during Freedom Rides, in favor of segregation

-Banned NAACP from being active in Alabama and fought bus boycotts

Freedom Riders

-In May 1961, AA and white volunteers (Freedom Riders) boarded several southbound interstate buses

-Met by angry white mobs who slit tires and threw windows

-Birmingham public safety commissioner Theophilus Eugene "Bull" Connor told the local KKK to beat them

-Violence drew attention to the plight of African Americans in the South

What did President Kennedy do for civil rights?

-Brought 41 African Americans to high-level government positions

-Thurgood Marshall got federal judgeship on the Second Circuit Appeals Court in NY

-Also created Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity (CEEO)

-Allowed the Justice Department (run by his brother Robert) to support civil rights movement; the department tried to help AA register to vote by filing lawsuits in the South

"Cooling off" period

-A period suggested by the Kennedy brothers after the violence on the Freedom Riders

-CORE leader James Farmer rejected it and wanted to head to Mississippi, so JFK made a deal with Mississippi senator James Eastland to stop the violence but not the arrests

How was CORE funded?

-Cost of bailing Freedom Riders out of jail used up most of CORE's funds

-Thurgood Marshall offered Farmer the use of NAACP Legal Defense Fund's bail-bond account

Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC)

Ordered by JFK to tighten regulations against segregated bus terminals

How did bus segregation end?

-JFK ordered the Justice Department to take legal action against Southern cities that maintained segregated bus terminals

-By late 1962 segregation in interstate bus travel had basically ended

"Letter from Birmingham Jail"

-Dr. King launched demonstrations/protests in Birmingham (expecting violence but knowing it was the only way to get the president to actively support civil rights)

-He was arrested and wrote the "Letter from Birmingham Jail" in defense of nonviolent protest

Children's March

-Children marched from churches to downtown businesses, and many were attacked and arrested

-KKK bombed a church and killed 4 young girls

-News reports of this violence toward children led to greater support of civil rights

George Wallace

Governor of Alabama who blocked 2 African American students from enrolling at the University of Alabama, but was ordered to move by federal marshals

Medgar Evers

-Civil rights activist murdered by a white segregationist

-Evers was the NAACP's first field secretary, focusing on voter registration and boycotts

-Martyr for civil rights

The March on Washington

Over 250,000 demonstrators gathered near the Lincoln Memorial, where Dr. King delivered a speech

Who became president after Kennedy's assassination?

Lyndon Johnson

-Had helped pass Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960 but they were weakened through compromises

-Worked to get Kennedy's civil rights bills through Congress

Filibuster

Speaking continuously to prevent a vote (used by Southern senators to prevent civil rights legislation)

Cloture

End of the debate to take a vote

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Most comprehensive civil rights law

1) Illegalized segregation in public places (equal access)

2) Gave the US Attorney General more power to bring lawsuits to force school desegregation

3) Required private employers to end discrimination in the workplace

4) Established the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) as a permanent federal agency

5) Also banned discrimination based on religion, gender, and national origin

Constitutional issues of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

The Act banned discrimination in general public facilities but it was unclear whether the federal government had jurisdiction under the Constitution to regulate those businesses

Which court case challenged the Civil Rights Act of 1964?

Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States

How did Heart of Atlanta Motel fvUnited States resolve?

-Owner of the Heart of Atlanta Motel refused to allow AA in his hotel, filed suit in federal court

-Supreme Court ruled that the interstate commerce clause did indeed give Congress the power to ban discrimination in facilities serving the public

24th Amendment

Eliminated poll taxes in federal elections

Selma, Alabama

-Dr. King chose it as a focal point to campaign for voting rights

-African Americans were only 3% of registered voters despite being the majority of the population

-Sheriff Jim Clark had deputized and armed white citizens to terrorize and prevent AA from registering to vote

-King's demonstrations in Selma led to the arrest of over 3000 AA

-King organized the "march for freedom"

"March for freedom" (Selma)

-March from Selma to the state capitol (50 miles) with the SNCC to protest for voting rights

-Sheriff Clark ordered protesters to disperse at the Edmund Pettus Bridge

-Many were beaten on TV on what is now called Bloody Sunday

-Nation was stunned at the violence

What was the result of the Selma march?

President Johnson passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965

Voting Rights Act of 1965

1) Authorized the US attorney general to send federal examiners to register qualified voters, bypassing local officials who often refused to register African Americans

2) Suspended discriminatory devices such as literacy tests in counties where less than half of all adults had been registered to vote

-250k AA got registered to vote, and elected officials in the South also increased

Why was the Voting Rights Act of 1965 a turning point in civil rights?

2 major legislative goals had been reached

1) Segregation was outlawed

2) New federal laws were put in place to prevent discrimination and protect voting rights

After 1965, what did the focus of the civil rights movement shift to?

African Americans in poverty

Voting Rights Act of 1965 constitutional issues

-States had been allowed to set rules regarding eligibility to vote

-Article 1 section 2 specified that states use same rules for choosing members of Congress as it uses for choosing members of state legislature

-Article 2 section 1 specified that each state chooses how to select electors who vote for president

-By banning literacy tests, Congress was imposing a rule on voting (interfering on how they choose members of government), and it was unclear whether this violated the rights of the states to set their own voting rules

Which court case upheld the Voting Rights Act of 1965?

Katzenbach v. Morgan

Katzenbach v. Morgan

The Supreme Court ruled that the 14th Amendment gave Congress the authority to ban literacy tests and impose voting rules on the state governments