History Year 2: Unit 4A Civil Rights Movement in the US

Civil Rights Movement

A range of social and political movements in the USA whose goal was to end racial segregation and discrimination against black Americans and ensure legal, social, and political equality for them

Ku Klux Klan

A secret terrorist society formed by ex-Confederate soldiers in 1865 in order to maintain white supremacy

14th Amendment

This guaranteed' equal protection of the law' to all citizens

15th Amendment

This granted the suffrage to black men. (Women, black and white, were granted the right to vote in 1920)

Jim Crow Laws

Named after a comic, stereotypical character, these laws were passed by southern states in order to 'legalize' segregation

Segregation

The separation of people by race in schools, public spaces, and transport

Poll Tax

A tax levied on would-be voters, which made it harder for blacks (who were usually poorer) to vote

Disenfranchised

Deprived of the right to vote

Lynching

Unlawful killing, mostly by hanging, usually of black people

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

The oldest and largest civil rights organization. It is still active today

Desegregation

The (process of) ending of segregation or the implementation of integration

States' Rights

The rights which the Constitution reserves for the states as opposed to the federal government

Southern Manifesto

A statement of defiance against the 1954 Brown ruling which was signed bu most southerners in Congress.

White Citizens' Councils

Organizations set up to maintain segregation. The first one was in Mississippi but they soon spread across the Deep South

Boycott

A refusal to have anything to do with a person or an organization, in this case the Montgomery bus company

Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA)

The organization that co-ordinated the Montgomery Bus Boycott

Southern Chirstian Leadership Conference (SCLC)

A non-violent civil rights organization founded by Martin Luther King Jr

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

The student run organization formed after the 1960 sit-ins

Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)

An interracial civil rights group founded by James Farmer and other students in Chicago in 1942

Black Nationalists

Those who believed that black people should seek separation from, not integration with, whites. Many of them criticized the policy of non-violence

Nation of Islam (NOI)

A religious movement founded in 1930. Its leader was Elijah Muhammad and its main stated goal was to improve the lives of African-Americans in the USA

Black Power

A movement that emphasized black racial pride and the importance of blacks creating their own political and cultural institutions.