Civil Rights Movement

de jure segregation

segregation that is imposed by law

de facto segregation

segregation that is not law but by unwritten customs or tradition.

Brown v. Board of Education

was when the Supreme Court reversed its previous Plessy v. Ferguson case (1896) saying that separate was equal and rules that schools had to desegregate with all deliberate speed.

Rosa Parks

a seamstress and NAACP member from Montgomery, Alabama who refused to give up her bus seat to a white patron leading to her arrest and sparking a city wide bus boycott.

Montgomery Bus Boycott

when the black community in Montgomery, Alabama refused to ride the public bus system until laws were changed that did not make black patrons sit in the back of the bus and give up their seats to whites. This lasted a little over a year until the Supreme Court ruled that the Montgomery law segregating busses was unconstitutional.

Martin Luther King Jr.

was a Baptist minister who used the ideas and principles of non-violence and civil disobedience to help lead the fight for civil rights. For his beliefs and efforts he was shot and killed in 1968 by James Earl Ray a white ex-convict.

sit-in

was a non-violent strategy used by blacks in which they would go to white's only restaurants and sit down at the counter or a table in direct contrast with the law. Many were arrested, spit on or beat but gained a lot of support for their cause by their non-violent actions.

Civil Rights Act of 1964

an act that banned segregation in public accommodations and gave the federal government the ability to compel state and local school boards to desegregate their schools.

Freedom Summer

the 1964 effort to register African American voters in Mississippi.

Voting Rights Act of 1965

banned literacy tests and empowered the federal government to oversee voter registration and elections in states that had discriminated against minorities.

24th Amendment

passed in 1964 this banned the poll tax which been used to keep poor African Americans from voting.

Malcolm X

the most well known African American radical who unlike Martin Luther King Jr. believed in the separation of races and began the move away from non-violence as the primary way to enact change.

Black Panthers

created in Oakland, California this Party became the symbol of young militant African Americans and often had violent confrontations with whites and the police.

feminism

the theory of political, social and economic equality of men and women. The women's movement has a long history dating back to the early 1800's but underwent a revival in the 1960's and 70's.

NOW (National Organization for Women)

founded in 1966 this group was dedicated to winning "true equality to all women" and the attain a "full and equal partnership of the sexes".

Roe v. Wade

was a Supreme Court decision in 1973 with assured women the right to legal abortions.

migrant farmworkers

workers who moved from farm to farm and many times from state to state picking fruits and vegetables who labored for long hours in terrible conditions for low pay and no benefits.

UFW (United Farm Workers)

a group of farm laborers led by Cesar Chavez who created a farmers Union to fight for better conditions and higher pay. Like Martin Luther King and many African Americans these Latino and Filipino farmers used boycotts and strikes to better themselves.

AIM (American Indian Movement)

created in 1968 this group was created to address civil rights issues, particularly the securing of land, legal rights and self government for Native Americans.