Civil Rights in the 1950s Notes

Boycott - Refusing to buy or use something to show you don't like it.
Brown vs. Board of Education - A court case that said separating kids in schools by race was against the law.
Civil Rights - Basic rights to be treated fairly and equally.
Dixiecrat - A group of Southern Democrats who didn't like civil rights.
Fourteenth Amendment - Gave citizenship and equal rights to everyone born in the U.S.
Fifteenth Amendment - Said everyone can vote, no matter their race.

To learn about segregation (separation of people by race) and how it hurt African-Americans in the 1950s.

Even though the Civil War ended in 1865, African-Americans still faced discrimination in the early 1900s.
By the 1950s, civil rights groups wanted to end segregation and Jim Crow laws.

Segregation was common in the U.S. in the early 1900s.
It meant keeping people apart based on their skin color in places like schools, hospitals, and homes.

After the Civil War, the U.S. tried to rebuild during what was called the Reconstruction Era.
Laws were passed to help African-Americans, but by the 1870s, Southern states made "Jim Crow laws" that kept segregation going until 1965.
These laws favored white people and made life unfair for black people.
White people had more power in jobs, government, schools, and hospitals.

Some politicians and groups didn't want to end segregation.
The White Citizens' Council, a group of white supremacists, tried to stop schools from integrating (mixing races).
They used boycotts, propaganda, and violence against people who wanted equality.
Later, some members joined a new group called the Council of Conservative Citizens.

In 1948, a group of Democrats called the Dixiecrats broke away from the main party because they didn't want civil rights.
They wanted to keep Jim Crow laws and didn't want integration.
They even nominated their own candidate for president in 1948.

In 1954, the Supreme Court said that segregation in public schools was against the Constitution in the Brown v. Board of Education case.
Oliver Brown sued the school board because his daughter had to go to a school far away just because it was for black students.
Brown said this was unfair and broke the rules about equal rights.
The court agreed that separate schools were not equal.

The Supreme Court told schools to desegregate quickly.
This case helped end segregation in other public places and made civil rights groups stronger.

In 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till was killed for supposedly talking to a white woman.
He bragged to friends about having a white girlfriend, and they dared him to talk to a white store clerk.
The woman's husband and his half-brother kidnapped Emmett.
They beat him, hurt him badly, shot him, and threw his body in a river.

The men who killed Emmett Till were put on trial, but an all-white jury found them not guilty.
A magazine published photos of Emmett's body, which shocked the country and showed how brutal racism could be.
Years later, the woman admitted she lied about what Emmett Till did.

In 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white person.
She was arrested, which led to a big boycott where African-Americans stopped riding the buses.
This boycott lasted for over a year.
Many important people, like Martin Luther King, Jr., helped with the boycott.

Rosa Parks and her husband were part of the NAACP, a civil rights group.
Thousands of African-Americans joined the boycott and formed a new group led by Martin Luther King, Jr.
They wanted fair rules on the buses, like first-come, first-served seating and black bus drivers.
The courts eventually said that segregation on buses was illegal.

After the Brown v. Board of Education case, schools were supposed to desegregate.
But in Little Rock, Arkansas, the governor used the National Guard to stop nine black students from entering a white high school.
President Eisenhower sent federal troops to protect the students and make sure they could go to school.
One of the students, Ernest Green, was the first African-American to graduate from the school.

In 1957, President Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act.
It created a special section in the Justice Department to deal with civil rights issues.
It helped protect voting rights for African-Americans.
It showed that the government supported equality.