civil rights flashcards

  1. How did Mohandas Gandhi inspire the Black Civil Rights movement?

    1. Mohandas Gandhi inspired the Black Civil Rights movement through his utilization of nonviolent direct action to protest discrimination against India’s lowest caste, the “untouchables,” and to protest for Indian independence from Britain during World War II. African American civil rights activists such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee adopted tactics that were similar to Gandhi’s, such as sit-ins and marches in order to protest racial discrimination.

  2. Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)

    1. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference is an African-American civil rights organization closely related to Martin Luther King Jr., who acted as the SCLC’s first president. It was established in 1957 to formulate civil rights protests in the American South. The SCLC’s first major campaign followed the pending Civil Rights Bill of 1957; the campaign was known as the Crusade for Citizenship. The goal in the campaign was to register disenfranchised voters in time for the 1958 and 1960 elections.

  3. Civil Disobedience

    1. Civil disobedience is defined as the refusal to obey demands of the government through nonviolent action. Civil disobedience was used often in the Civil Rights movement, exemplified by Rosa Parks refusing to give up her bus seat in 1955, which prompted the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and the act of African Americans sitting in businesses that were “white-only,” such as the Woolworth Lunch Counter Sit-in.

  4. Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

    1. The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee was a political organization founded in early 1960 by college students who were dedicated to nonviolent tactics to directly protest against racism and discrimination. The SNCC was not affiliated with the SCLC or any other civil rights organization, but was still an integral part of coordinating and participating in acts of civil disobedience, such as the Freedom Rides, sit-ins, and the March on Washington in 1963.

  5. Sit-ins

    1. Sit-ins were a nonviolent form of protest and example of civil disobedience utilized by civil rights activists in the 1960s. The first sit-in of the U.S. civil rights movement was done in 1960 at the Woolworth Lunch Counter by the Greensboro Four, four African American high school students from Greensboro, North Carolina who sat at a lunch counter that was determined to prohibit people of color from eating there. Sit-in attracted publicity and caused economic hardships for segregated businesses because the sit-ins took up seats for customers. 

  6. Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)

    1. The Congress of Racial Equality was formed in Chicago in 1942, by a group of students who introduced the idea of nonviolent direct action to discrimination and racism in the American civil rights movement. CORE provided assistance to Martin Luther King Jr. during the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and organized the precursor to the Freedom Rides, which was known as the Journey of Reconciliation, in 1947. Influenced by Gandhi, CORE also utilized sit-ins and other forms of peaceful protest to integrate Chicago’s segregated businesses and restaurants.

  7. Freedom Rides

    1. In 1961, the Congress of Racial Equality started the Freedom Rides to challenge segregation in public transportation in the United States. Members of the Congress of Racial Equality would travel on buses going from Washington D.C. to Mississippi, which resulted in violent opposition from other passengers in the Deep South. The rides promote voting and civil rights. Due to the violence and media coverage, the Kennedy administration eventually was forced to interfere by placing a ban on segregation on all facilities related to the Interstate Commerce Commission. 

  8. Martin Luther King, Jr.

    1. Martin Luther King Jr. was an American Baptist minister and civil rights leader who was instrumental in the civil rights movement through the orchestration of nonviolent direct action against discrimination. He was the first elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which believed in nonviolent protests, such as the 1963 March on Washington. Following the arrest of Rosa Parks after she refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger, the Montgomery Bus Boycott was launched. Other civil rights activists formed the Montgomery Improvement Association to boycott the transportation system, and King was elected their leader. King is most famous for his speech titled “I Have a Dream,” which he delivered in 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial following the 1963 March on Washington. In “I Have a Dream” he emphasized his hope for a future in which all people were equal and could enjoy the same rights and opportunities. King’s effect on national opinion, along with civil rights agitation, resulted in the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

  9. Birmingham, Alabama Riots

    1. The Birmingham, Alabama Riots were related to the Birmingham Campaign, which was a movement started by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., to challenge segregation in Alabama and the American South. Segregated businesses and public facilities were boycotted and struggled financially due to a lack of customers, while sit-ins and other forms of nonviolent direct action, such as marches were utilized to invoke mass arrests, therefore gaining the Birmingham Campaign more publicity. The Birmingham Riots followed a bombing perpetrated by the Ku Klux Klan, and Birmingham police force that targeted African American leaders on May 11, 1963; to retaliate against the bombings, African Americans burned down businesses and fought police in downtown Birmingham. The federal government interfered with the riot that grew violent as a result of police intervention, sending in federal troops to control the violence. The Birmingham Riots influenced Kennedy’s decision to pass a civil rights bill, which was officially passed by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964.

  10. James Meredith

    1. James Meredith is an African American civil rights activist, Air Force veteran, and first African-American to attend the segregated college of the University of Mississippi in 1962. He was originally denied admittance despite having all the requirements, so the Supreme Court ordered that he could attend. The governor of Mississippi blocked his admittance, so Kennedy sent in U.S. deputy marshals to let him in. His admission to the university caused the Ole Miss Riot of 1962, in which Meredith’s life was threatened by white attendees, resulting in federal servicemen interfering to quell the violence – there were murders, fires, and tear gas. With the mob, 5,000 army troops will be deployed. The riot put pressure on the Kennedy administration to pass a civil rights bill that would protect African American rights and end segregation.

  11. Eugene “Bull” Connor

    1. Eugene Connor was an American politician and white supremacist who served as Commissioner of Public Safety in Birmingham, Alabama for over twenty years. He denied rights for African Americans and heavily disapproved of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. He is especially known for directing the use of fire hoses, clubs, electric cattle prods, and attack dogs on African American activists, which included children who attended protests, during the Birmingham campaign. Attention from the media resulted in public outrage from his actions, which increased support for the Civil Rights movement. He also went against federal orders of desegregation, demonstrated by his actions in 1962, in which he closed sixty Birmingham parks in order to prevent desegregation.

  12. Medgar Evers

    1. Medgar Evers was an African American civil rights activist and was the NAACP’s first field secretary. Evers worked to overturn segregation in universities and public facilities after the ruling of Brown v. Board of Education. Evers applied to the law school at the University of Mississippi, as there was no public law school for African Americans in order to challenge segregation in public universities after Brown v. Board of Education determined segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. As the NAACP’s first field secretary, he also coordinated protests and voter registration drives, and also recruited new workers into the Civil Rights movement. Due to his work as an activist, he was assassinated in 1963, in Jackson, Mississippi, by Byron De La Beckwith, a white supremacist and member of the Ku Klux Klan.

  13. June 11, 1963—John F. Kennedy’s speech

    1. John F. Kennedy’s speech that was delivered on June 11, 1963, centers around civil rights and desegregation, specifically starting with mentioning the situation in which two African Americans were denied entry to the University of Alabama by Alabama’s governor to uphold segregation. The denial of entry resulted in Alabama’s National Guardsmen being called by the U.S. District Court of Northern Alabama to ensure the admittance of the African American students into the university. Kennedy’s speech criticized discrimination’s effects on education, public safety, and foreign relations, while solidifying the principle that “all men are created equal,” which demonstrates the fact that the two African American students who were looking to attend the University of Alabama should be entitled to, regardless of race. Kennedy’s speech was another step in the Civil Rights movement to protect all American voting rights, educational opportunities, and access to public facilities, and caused for the introduction of the 1964 Civil Rights Act into Congress. To show support for Kennedy’s bill, civil rights leaders organize a march on Washington D.C.

  14. August 28, 1963—March on Washington

    1. In 1941, a plan to march to Washington D.C. to protest racial discrimination was conceived by A. Phillip Randolph as a result of racial discrimination in African American employment through Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs and the need for workers in WWII. However, after negotiations between Roosevelt and Randolph and the creation of the Fair Employment Practice Commission, the march was stalled. However, the FEPC was dissolved in 1946, so Randolph began planning a march once more. In the 1950s, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the SCLC were planning a march on Washington, a plan similar to Randolph’s, to protest racial discrimination. As a civil rights act was halted in Congress for long periods of time, African American activists of the NAACP and SCLC planned the march in order to pressure Congress to pass the legislation. On August 28, 1963, the March on Washington occurred, with 250,000 individuals in attendance. This march concluded at the Lincoln Memorial, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. The March on Washington and Dr. King’s speech put pressure on the federal government to pass the civil rights act, which was done in 1964 by Lyndon B. Johnson due to Kennedy getting assassinated.

  15. Civil Rights Act of 1964

    1. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was extremely important in the Civil Rights movement. While John F. Kennedy was president, he requested Congress to pass a comprehensive civil rights bill, but it was stalled in Congress in 1963 until its passage in 1964. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited discrimination based on sex, color, race, religion, or ethnicity, and prevented individuals from being hired or fired based upon the aforementioned attributes. It also prohibited discrimination and segregation of public facilities, schools, and businesses. The act ended Jim Crow laws and protected the civil rights of all American citizens.

  16. Selma to Montgomery, Alabama march

    1. The Selma to Montgomery, Alabama march, which took place along the 54-mile highway from Selma to Alabama’s capital city of Montgomery and lasted nineteen days, from March 7, 1965 to March 25, 1965. The march highlighted racial injustices and discrimination through voting rights and defied segregationist practices of the American South and was utilized to demonstrate the desire of African Americans to exercise their right to vote. The Selma to Montgomery march contributed to the passage of the Voting Rights Act, which was passed that year.

  17. Voting Rights Act of 1965

    1. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was created to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment, which was passed in 1869. The act outlawed literacy tests, and determined that states would have to obtain “preclearance” before altering voting practices. It also directed the Attorney General to challenge the constitutionality of poll taxes in state and local elections. By the end of 1965, 250,000 African American voters had registered, and by the end of 1966, 9 of 13 Southern states had more than 50% of the African American population registered to vote. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was important in the Civil Rights movement because it ended discriminatory practices that limited African American voting, especially in the South, therefore targeting an extreme barrier that was preventing racial equality.

  18. Watts riots

    1. The Watts riots, or the Watts Rebellion, took place in Watts, Los Angeles from August 11-16, 1965, which started as a result of the racist, abusive practices of Los Angeles law enforcement. On August 11, 1965, two African American men were pulled over for drunk driving. The driver, Marquette Frye, failed his sobriety test, which resulted in police attempting to arrest him. He panicked and resisted arrest, resulting in a physical altercation. Marquette’s passenger and stepbrother, Ronald, joined in to protest the arrest and protect his brother, which resulted in the altercation growing; Ronald and Marquette were hit with batons, with Ronald receiving a hit to the stomach and Marquette being hit in the face. A crowd had gathered, watching the fight, while Marquette was knocked to the ground and arrested. Ronald and Marquette’s mother believed the two men were being abused by police and attempted to pull officers off of Marquette, resulting in her arrest as well. The crowd grew angry at the fight that was occurring, and with other officers coming to the scene with shotguns and batons to keep the crowd away from the police cars. As police officers were leaving, one was spit on, and dragged the woman who they believed was responsible for spitting out of the crowd to arrest her as she resisted. The woman was Joyce Ann Gaines, and she was rumored to be pregnant by the crowd, resulting in more outrage from the spectators. Rocks and bottles began to be thrown at buses and cars. The night after the arrest, bricks and rocks were still being thrown, and white drivers of the vehicles were pulled out and beaten. By the third day of the riot, a 50-mile radius of Los Angeles was covered by rioters. National Guard troops were called in to subdue the rioters. By the end of the riots, 34 citizens were dead, most of them being African American. Twenty-six of the thirty-four deaths were deemed justifiable homicides. The riots highlighted racial inequality and police brutality in America, and shifted the Civil Rights movement from focusing on racial discrimination to also centralizing on social inequalities in housing, education, and employment.

  19. Stokely Carmichael

    1. Stokely Carmichael was a West-Indian born civil rights activist, member of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, and leader of Black nationalism in the United States. Carmichael joined the SNCC after graduating from Howard University in 1964, and organized the Lowndes County Freedom Organization. Carmichael supported nonviolent direct action, but grew frustrated by assaults and deaths of civil rights activists as a result of nonviolent protests. After being elected a chairman of SNCC in 1966, he promoted self-defense tactics, self-determination, economical and political power, and racial pride through the “Black Power” movement, which he founded. The movement caused a split in the ideologies of the Civil Rights movement, which was seen as detrimental to the cause. 

  20. Black Panthers

    1. The Black Panther Party was founded in 1966 in order to patrol African American neighborhoods to combat police brutality. The ideals of the Black Panthers changed and the Panthers began advocating for the arming of all African Americans, the exemption of African Americans from the draft, the release of all African Americans from jail, and white Americans to provide compensation to African Americans for centuries of exploitation. The Black Panthers represented a shift from nonviolent direct action in the Civil Rights movement to more militant efforts that challenged systematic oppression.

  21. Black Muslims

    1. The Nation of Islam was an Islamic and Black nationalist movement started in 1930 by Wallace D. Fard Muhammad, but gained popularity in the 1950s and 1960s. African Americans and other members of the Nation of Islam would read the Quran, worship Allah, and believed in Black Nationalism. The Nation of Islam gained popularity in the 1950s and 1960s as it promoted racial independence, which was a major factor in the Civil Rights movement.  

  22. Malcolm X

    1. Malcolm X was an African American civil rights leader and member of the Nation of Islam who promoted Black nationalism and racial pride in the 1960s. Following his arrest in 1946 for robbery, Malcolm X was converted to the Nation of Islam, and was a leader of the community following his release from prison in 1952. He promoted the Nation of Islam’s doctrines which articulated the natural superiority of African Americans, and the inherent evil of whites. He became the minister of the temple he founded, Boston Temple No. 11, and was later named minister of the largest, most prestigious of the Nation of Islam’s temples, Temple No. 7 in Harlem, which was second to only the Chicago headquarters. As a minister and public speaker, Malcolm X criticized the civil rights movement, which utilized nonviolent direct action and was focused on integration. Malcolm X believed African Americans should defend themselves by any means, and that there was more at stake in the civil rights movement, specifically Black independence and identity. 

  23. James Earl Ray

    1. James Earl Ray was responsible for the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968. He was sentenced to ninety-nine years in prison following his arrest and confession to the murder. King’s assassination resulted in public outrage and protests and ended the era of nonviolent direct action in the Civil Rights movement, with more radical tactics becoming more normalized.

  24. 24th Amendment

    1. The 24th Amendment was ratified on January 23, 1964, and prohibits federal and state governments from imposing poll taxes that could possibly prevent an individual from voting in elections. The amendment eliminated barriers to voting that stopped disenfranchised African Americans and poor whites from being able to participate in elections, and helped introduce equality to voting, which helped in the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.