Civil Rights

Dredd Scott Case

Dredd Scott Case

slave brought suit against his purported owner’s son for freedom; Chief Justice Taney’s majority opinion effectively stated that no black person in America had any rights that a white person was bound to respect.

13^th Amendment

Abolished Slavery 

14^th Amendment:

Reinstated citizenship to African Americans

15^th Amendment:

Gave the right to vote to African American men 

Plessy vs. Ferguson

Homer Plessy brought suit to be able to sit in the white/first class train car→ lost case; Court-“Separate, but Equal” (separate accommodations in public spaces...unless they don’t)

De Jure-

By law (“by jury”)...legal discrimination (Jim Crow Laws, segregation; etc.) 

De Facto

“a matter of fact”/by tradition (racism that is ingrained in society, “hearts & minds”, etc.) 

“Southern Justice”

an oxymoronic system; created to keep Black Americans in second-class status (“keep them in their ‘place’”)

Booker T. Washington

wanted rights given, work/buy property, education, civil disobedience (bide your time) 

W.E.B. DuBois

wanted to seek out rights, demand rights, fight for what you want 

A. Philip Randolph

founded the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (union); advocated for a March on Washington

Marcus Garvey

“Back to Africa” Movement; populate Liberia with Black Americans who feel they can’t be treated fairly here in the U.S.

End of WWII

soldiers return home; GI Bill; Red-lining; segregation continues (fought to “make the world safe for democracy”...why not at home?)

Jackie Robinson

breaks the color barrier for the Brooklyn Dodgers

Emmett Till

14-year-old black teen murdered in Mississippi for “stepping out of his place”; sparks anger & a commitment to change and challenge unfair treatment and laws

Brown vs. Board of Ed. of Topeka Kansas (1954)

Linda Brown (8 years old); segregated school…farther from her home; NAACP challenged KS segregation law; Thurgood Marshall for Brown family (Later Supreme Court Justice-1967); Supreme Court [SCOTUS] decision: “Separate is NOT equal”; Desegregation of public schools with “all deliberate speed”; leads to questioning segregation in all public places (*14^th Amend. → due process & equal protection under the law) *Watershed moment!

Black Panther Party for Self Defense (1966)

--Huey Newton & Bobby Seale; prevent police brutality in black neighborhoods in Los Angeles

-- “Arm yourselves!” (Militancy)

--Led in many places by WOMEN

--10 Principles (Rules & Beliefs)

Militancy

the use of confrontational or violent methods in support of a political or social cause (willingness to use guns)

“Black Power” (after 1965)

--James Meredith shot during “March Against Fear”

--SNCC led by Stokely Carmichael calls for “Black Power”

Vietnam Draft Protests (1965-1972)

--Escalation in Vietnam=more African-Americans dying 

--Muhammad Ali on trial (*banned from boxing & 5-year prison sentence)

Tumultuous Year (1968)→SHIFT (frustration)

--MLK Assassination & Urban Riots

--Vietnam news: Tet Offensive & My Lai massacre

--Mexico City Summer Olympics Protest (Tommy Smith & John Carlos)

--Presidential election: RFK, George Wallace, & DNC protests

“Black is Beautiful” (1970s) → Black Pride!

--Natural hair (textured hair)

--African patterns (“Dashiki” shirts)

--Icons: James Brown & Jesse Jackson

--white flight suburbs → “ghettoization”

--forced school desegregation (“Remember The Titans”--VA 1970)=”massive resistance”

--Affirmative Action Laws: move to include more diversity in all job types & colleges/universities

“Mainstream” Black Culture (1980s-90s)

Icons--Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan, Chicago Mayor Harold Washington

Film/TV/Music-- Eddie Murphy (Coming to America; Golden Child; The Nutty Professor); Aretha Franklin (RESPECT; Blues Brothers); Family Matters ; In Living Color

→Backsliding: The War on Drugs (Nancy Reagan, “Just Say No”)

Affirmative Action & Backlash (1990s)

--Busing of Urban children (“whitelash”)

--Rodney King Beating & LA Riots

-- “gentrification” (demo of Cabrini Green)

--Rainbow Push Coalition (Jesse Jackson)

Present Day Concerns

--Police Brutality, Black Lives Matter (BLM); Whitelash, Chi-raq, Charlottesville, community oversight

--Say their names: Treyvon Martin, Bryonna Taylor, George Floyd, Philando Castille, Ahmaud Arbery

--“trans-racial?”; “Post-racial?”; intersectionality

--subtle racism; microaggressions; racial awareness

--NFL Protests: Colin Kaepernick (taking a knee during pledge/anthem)

→Protest & consequences

--“token-ism” (“one & done” philosophy)

→Barack Obama, President

Jim Crow Laws

-Southern laws to deny rights to black citizens (curfews, public segregation, voter discrimination- poll tax, literacy test, grandfather clause)

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

abolition of segregation and discrimination in housing, education, employment, voting, and transportation; to oppose racism; and to ensure African Americans their constitutional rights

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)

civil rights organization founded in 1957, as an offshoot of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), which successfully staged a 381-day boycott of the Montgomery Alabama's segregated bus system, founded my MLK

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

coordinate youth-led nonviolent, direct-action campaigns against segregation and other forms of racism. members played an integral role in sit-ins, Freedom Rides, the 1963 March on Washington, and such voter education projects as the Mississippi Freedom Summer.

Caesar Chavez

led the first successful farm workers union in American history, National Farmers organization, achieving dignity, respect, fair wages, medical coverage, pension benefits, and humane living conditions, as well as countless other rights and protections for hundreds of thousands of farm workers

Childrens March

May 2, 1963, more than one thousand students skipped classes and gathered at Sixth Street Baptist Church to march to downtown Birmingham, Alabama. As they approached police lines, hundreds were arrested and carried off to jail in paddy wagons and school buses. organized by activist James Bevel, and their purpose was to draw attention to the Civil Rights Movement

Civil Rights Act of 1964

prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin

Native American Civil Rights Movement

• protest took over alcatraz island

• Established Aim Patrol

• Founded Indian Health-Board

• Signing of American Religious Freedom Act

Womens Liberation

• The Pill

• Title 9 ended sex based discrimination

• Creation of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission 

• Many equality laws passed

• Womans Suffrage

• Roe V. Wade

LGBTQ Movement

• formation of the Gay Liberation Front

• Organized first Gay Pride Event

• Gay Rights

• Stonewall Riots

Stonewall Riots

series of riots over police action against The Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City's Greenwich Village impetus for the formation of the Gay Liberation Front as well as other gay, lesbian and bisexual civil rights organizations

Voting Rights Act of 1965

signed into law on August 6, 1965, by President Lyndon Johnson. It outlawed the discriminatory voting practices adopted in many southern states after the Civil War, including literacy tests as a prerequisite to voting

Sit-ins

African Americans (later joined by white activists), usually students, would go to segregated lunch counters (luncheonettes), sit in all available spaces, request service, and then refuse to leave when denied service because of their race

Schwerner, Goodman and Chaney

The three were abducted, driven to another location, and shot at close range. The bodies were buried in an earthen dam. The disappearance of the three men was initially investigated as a missing persons case. The civil-rights workers' burnt-out car was found parked near a swamp three days after their disappearance.

Red Power Movement

movements' main goals were to secure better rights for American Indians and give more control over Indian-held land to the tribes

Nation of Islam

African American movement and organization, founded in 1930 and known for its teachings combining elements of traditional Islam with Black nationalist ideas. The Nation also promotes racial unity and self-help

Montgomery Bus Boycotts

civil rights protest during which African Americans refused to ride city buses in Montgomery, Alabama, to protest segregated seating. The boycott took place from December 5, 1955, to December 20, 1956

Freedom Rides

student activists from the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) launched the Freedom Rides to challenge state laws that enforced segregation in transportation and call upon the federal government to enforce the recent Supreme Court Boynton v. Virginia ruling prohibiting the segregation of interstate travel

Freedom Summer

volunteer campaign in the United States launched in June 1964 to attempt to register as many African-American voters as possible in Mississippi

Malcom X

American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a prominent figure during the civil rights movement. A spokesman for the Nation of Islam until 1964, he was a vocal advocate for Black empowerment and the promotion of Islam within the Black community.

Martin Luther King

organized and led marches for Blacks' right to vote, desegregation, labor rights, and other basic civil rights, assassinated in 1968