Civil Rights Movement

Jim Crow Laws

Laws enacted by southern state and local governments to separate white and black people in public and private facilities.

Segregation

The separation of people on the basis of race.

Plessy v. Ferguson

An 1896 case in which the Supreme Court ruled that separation of the races in public accommodations was legal, thus establishing the "separate but equal" doctrine.

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka

A 1954 case in which the Supreme Court ruled that "separate but equal" education for black and white students was unconstitutional.

NAACP

An organization founded in 1909 to promote full racial equality.

Congress of Racial Equality

An interracial group founded in 1942 by James Farmer to work against segregation in northern cities.

Sit-ins

A form of demonstration used by African Americans to protest discrimination, in which the protesters sit down in a segregated business and refuse to leave until they are served.

Freedom Rider

One of the civil rights activists who rode buses through the South in the early 1960s to challenge segregation.

Civil Rights Act of 1964

A law that banned discrimination on the basis of race, sex, national origin, or religion in public places and most workplaces.

Nation of Islam

A religious group, popularly known as the Black Muslims, founded by Elijah Muhammad to promote black separatism and the Islamic religion.

Freedom Summer

A 1964 project to register African American voters in Mississippi.

Voting Rights Act of 1965

A law that made it easier for African Americans to register to vote by eliminating discriminatory literacy tests and authorizing federal examiners to enroll voters denied at the local level.

Black Power

A slogan used by Stokely Carmichael in the 1960s that encouraged African American pride and political and social leadership.

Black Panther

A militant African American political organization formed in 1966 by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale to fight police brutality and to provide services in the ghetto.

Feminism

The belief that women should have economic, political, and social equality with men.

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

An organization formed in 1957 by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other leaders to work for civil rights through nonviolent means.

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

An organization formed in 1960 to coordinate sit-ins and other protests and to give young blacks a larger role in the civil rights movement.

Affirmative Action

A policy that seeks to correct the effects of past discrimination by favoring the groups who were previously disadvantaged.

United Farm Workers Organizing Committee

A labor union formed in 1966 to seek higher wages and better working conditions for Mexican American farm workers in California.

American Indian Movement

A frequently militant organization that was formed in 1968 to work for Native American rights.

National Organization for Women

An organization founded in 1966 to pursue feminist goals, such as better childcare facilities, improved educational opportunities, and an end to job discrimination.

Equal Rights Amendment

A proposed and failed amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would have prohibited any government discrimination on the basis of sex.