Civil Rights Vocab

Segregation

The practice of keeping people of different races separate, which was common in the U.S. before and during the Civil Rights Movement

Legal Segregation

When laws forced people of different races to stay separate, especially in public places like schools and bathrooms

Unofficial Segregation

When people of different races were kept separate by habits or traditions, even though there weren’t any laws saying they had to be

NAACP

A group that works to stop racial discrimination and promote equal rights for African Americans

Jim Crow Laws

Laws in the southern United States that kept black and white people seperate and made things unfair for African Americans

Voting Rights Act

A law passed in 1965 that worked to remove barriers that stopped African Americans from voting, making voting fair for everyone

Civil Rights Act of 1964

A law that made it illegal to treat people unfairly because of their race, color, religion, gender or ethnicity

Selma March

A series of marches in 1965 from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, to demand voting rights for African Americans

Montgomery Bus Boycott

A protest that started in 1955 where African Americans in Montgomery, Alabama, refused to ride city buses to fight against unfair segregation laws and rules

Lunch counter sit-ins

A protest where African American students sat at “white-only” lunch counters to challenge unfair segregation rules

Freedom Riders

Group of Civil Rights Workers who took bus trips through southern states in 1961 to protest illegal bus segregation. Police arrested riders for violating local racist laws, but they often first let white mobs attack them without helping

Black Power

term used by black leaders in the late 1960s-frustrated with the lack of results from nonviolence

Black Panther Party

group founded in 1966 which demanded economic and political rights and was prepared to use violence

March on Washington

1963 August - 200,000 demonstrators converged on the Lincoln Memorial to hear Dr. King's speech and to celebrate Kennedy's support for the civil rights movement. (putting pressure on the federal government to pass civil rights legislation)

Rosa Parks

Refused to give up her seat to a white passenger. After she was jailed, the Montgomery bus boycott was organized

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr

Nonviolent leader of the civil rights movement and founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Affirmative Action

1960's policy giving preference to minority and female applicants (in hiring for government jobs, college scholarships, etc.) to make up for past injustices

Taking a Knee

The protests against racial injustice and police brutality that began in 2016 in the National Football League (NFL) with quarterback Colin Kaepernick during the national anthem

BLM

a political and social movement protesting against racially motivated violence against black people. It used street demonstrations and social media after the shooting death of African-American teen Trayvon Martin and the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin

Plessy v. Ferguson

The 1896 Supreme Court case that established the constitutionality of racial segregation and the idea of "separate but equal."

Brown v. Board of Education:

1954 Supreme Court ruling reversing the policy of segregation from Plessy v Ferguson, declaring that seperate can never be equal and a year later ordered the integration of all public schools with all deliberate speed