Civil Rights

Jimmie Lee Jackson

His death and subsequent protest march led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1965 that concerned voting.

Bishop Desmond Tutu

Nobel Peace Prize winner and agitator against Apartheid; headed a commission investigating a half century of abuse.

Harlem Renaissance

A blossoming of African American culture until the 1930s in the Northeast region of the USA.

Ku Klux Klan

Hurt their cause with the Birmingham Bombing and decreased in importance into the 1970s.

United Democratic Front

Non-racial coalition in South Africa that was anti-apartheid and promised to make the country ungovernable through protests, strikes, and sabotage.

Swart gevaar

Idea of the “Black Danger” that stoked English and Boer fears.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Assassinated in 1968; his death shocked the world and ensured his message and method of protest endured.

Soweto Uprising

Violent attack against protestors assembled against language laws requiring Afrikaans or English in upper grades.

Deng Xiaoping

Influential politician in China representing hardliners against democratic reform.

Brown v. Board of Education

Ernest Green and eight others were immediate benefactors of desegregated schools.

Sharpeville Massacre

Protesting the Pass Laws in 1960, police opened fire on the crowd.

National Party

Elected in 1948; soon after, apartheid was officially enforced in South Africa.

Homer Plessy (Plessy v. Ferguson)

First major test of “Separate but Equal”; Supreme Court reaffirmed segregation.

Louisiana Voters Test

African Americans were forced to pass this absurd barrier to vote, including questions like bubbles in soap.

General Motors

Major corporation enriched in part through cheap South African labor.

Emmett Till

Symbol of Southern injustice; accused of flirting with a white woman and murdered without immediate convictions.

Wei Jingsheng

Bravely posted his name on the “Democracy Wall” in China.

Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Investigated abuses of apartheid but produced mixed results.

Steve Biko

South African activist beaten to death in prison; photos humiliated the apartheid government.

Rosa Parks

Already seated in the back of the bus; refused to give up her seat.

Lyndon B. Johnson

President whose “Great Society” turned civil rights ideals into law.

Special Economic Zones

Areas of Western influence in China that spread democratic and capitalist ideas.

John F. Kennedy

Assassinated before his New Frontier policies could be enacted.

Mikhail Gorbachev

Soviet leader visiting China during intense internal repression.

Thurgood Marshall

First African American Supreme Court Justice; famous for fighting segregation as a lawyer.

Jim Crow

Cartoonish racial stereotype system used to oppress African Americans in the 1800s.

Nelson Mandela

First post-apartheid president of South Africa.

Hu Yaobang

Chinese reformer whose death led to harsher crackdowns on protests.

Malcom X

Leader of the Nation of Islam in the U.S., later assassinated.

F. W. de Klerk

Boer leader who worked with Mandela to end apartheid peacefully.