IB History Rights and Protest: Civil Rights

Freedmen

Another term for freed slaves

Sharecroppers

Work on someone's land in exchange for housing and food, but the debt from buying supplies to work that land effectively returned those who practiced it to less-harsh slavery

Jim Crow Laws

Once Reconstruction ended in the North and troops were removed, attention returned to maintaining white supremacy, and these were passed to effectively keep segregation legal, name is based off of a dumb comic character, did actually guarantee equal rights but these were never practiced

Poll Tax

Levied on new black voters to discourage anyone besides white males from voting, was a "legal" method to prevent blacks from voting

Grandfather Clause

A black voter could only vote if his grandfather was a freedman before 1865

Disenfranchisement

The prevention of voting

Plessy vs. Ferguson

Court case in 1896 where Homer Plessy, who was 1/8th black, refused to move from his seat in a whites only section of a train in Louisiana and he was jailed, the court ruling upheld that segregation was not illegal if the facilities provided to blacks and whites were equal

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

Organization founded partially by W.E.B. Du Bois that aimed to publicize black discrimination and violence, as well as fight against injustice through legal means

Fair Employment Practices Commission

Established by Roosevelt to ensure blacks would be employed in the war industries

Thurgood Marshall

Charles Houston's star student who initially set out jointly to acquire equality within schools

Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka

Part of a string of victorious court cases headed by Thurgood Marshall that was based on Oliver Brown wanting to send his kid to a closer white school than a farther black school, court ruled in favor of desegregating all public funded schools to comply with the 14th Amendment

Brown II

Second court case ruling that called for desegregation of all public schools " with all due speed" because the first case did not put this into effect

Southern Manifesto

Condemned the Brown v. Board ruling and unified the Deep South under this resistance, was signed by most Southern Congressmen

White Citizens' Councils

Supposedly nonviolent organizations created to maintain segregation and deter integrationists

Elizabeth Eckford

Little Rock attendee who faced harassment and abuse from whites

Orval Faubus

Sent National Guard troops outside Little Rock High School who prevented the nine black students from entering

Cold War

State of tension between the US and USSR, civil rights issues in the US made it more difficult to calm the tension

Civil Rights Acts

Eisenhower's attempts at legal reformation of civil rights, were diluted in Congress and he did not fully support them himself, only gained 3% more black voters

Rosa Parks

Black woman who refused to give up her seat on a bus and was jailed as a result, ran the NAACP Youth Council

Emmett Till

Young boy who catcalled a white woman and was lynched as a result, picture of the brutality was put in the magazine the Jet, was on Rosa Parks' mind when she didn't give up her seat

Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)

Formed by King in January 1957 to coordinate the power of black churches so mass demonstrations could be carried out, developed the idea of nonviolent protesting

Greensboro Four

Students who sat in at Woolworth's store and refused to leave, gained lots of attentions and sit-ins became really popular, reignited the Civil Rights Movement

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

Student-run organizations formed after the sit-ins, gained Ella Baker's movements lots of popularity among ordinary blacks

John Kennedy

Supported the civil rights movements more than Eisenhower did, secured his victory against Nixon in the presidential election of 1961

Freedom Rides

White and black people got on buses and rode into the South to oppose segregation, were asphyxiated and firebombed

Bull Connor

Police chief who supported the actions of the KKK against the Freedom Riders

"Cooling-off period"

What Robert Kennedy called for but James Farmer said they would be in a deep freeze if they did

The Battle of Ole Miss

Happened in 1962, Kennedy wanted James Meredith to be the first black man to attend the University of Mississippi, turned into violence as white government officers and white people opposed his admission, ended in Kennedy intervening with government force

The Albany Movement

SNCC and local activists led attacks against discrimination in Albany, Georgia, were later joined by MLK Jr and the SCLC

Laurie Pritchett

Trained his officers to be nonviolent against the people in the Albany Movement to oppose King at his own game

George Wallace

Governor of Alabama who said segregation now and forever

Black Nationalists

Blacks who wanted to stay segregated instead of integrated with the white people

March on Washington

Was led by A. Phillip Randolph and MLK Jr to put pressure on Congress to pass the civil rights bill, demanded jobs and freedom, Kennedy tried to warp it into support of his own bill, but 250,000 white and black people showed up and showed support for civil rights

Bayard Rustin

SCLC member who helped organize the March on Washington

Lyndon B. Johnson

Successor to Kennedy who was able to get the civil rights bill through Congress as part of Kennedy's legacy

Great Society

LBJ's plan to decrease poverty and inequality in the US

Civil Rights Act

Wiped out Jim Crow laws, established the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, guaranteed faster legal action for blacks

John Lewis

Former SNCC leader and current Congressman who gave a speech about the Civil Rights Act

Medgar Evers

WWII Veteran and member of the NAACP who organized a voter registration drive but received a lot of backlash from white citizen's council members and was then murdered

Voter Education Project

Set up by Robert Kennedy to favor integration support through less violent means, thereby lessening the need for the federal government to intervene, consisted of SNCC and CORE volunteers overcome the fear associated with voting, still resulted in a lot of backlash from whites and the KKK

Federal Bureau of Investigation

Was pressed by the SNCC to intervene with the KKK and whites being violent against them, but they still didn't do anything helpful

Freedom Summer of 1964

Bob Moses' plan to mobilize Northern blacks and get them to come to the University of Mississippi during their break to help encourage black voting, and this sparked backlash from the KKK who responded with firebombing and murder

Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party

Established by the SNCC to provide an alternative to the all-white delegation to the Democratic National Convention, backed LBJ but LBJ didn't back them because he didn't want a possible race issue preventing his presidency, and this angered black voters because they did not get the representation that they thought they deserved

Selma

King called it the "Symbol of bitter-end resistance to the Civil Rights Movement in the Deep South," a public demonstration here would grant enough publicity to pressure the government into passing a Voting Rights Act, eventually 3000 people including King were jailed

Jim Clark

Sheriff of Selma, was extremely racist and violent towards blacks so he was a good media attention-getter

Bloody Sunday

First day of the march from Selma to Montgomery, featured extreme violence from white police against black marchers, poison gas, horses and guns were used, gained the march a lot of publicity, white clergyman was also killed and that gained a lot more publicity

Voting Rights Act

Signed in 1965, was said to be as big as the Emancipation Proclamation, effectively enforced the 15th Amendment and removed all the voting registry exams, 60% of blacks were voting as a result

Watts

Location of a riot based on a black woman being beaten by cops in LA, burning of white businesses happened as a result, was a sign that SNCC and SCLC nonviolence was failing

Malcolm X

Black leader who voiced the opinions and distress of young blacks better than anyone, was killed in 1965, had an unstable upbringing, part of the Nation of Islam

Nation of Islam

Black American religious organization run by Elijah Muhammad, main goal was to improve the lives of African Americans in the USA

Muhammad Ali

Also known as Cassius Clay, was publicly befriended by Malcolm X

Black Power

Movement that emphasized black racial pride and the creation of their own political and cultural institutions