Civil Rights Terms

Governor George Wallace

"Jim Crow" position he stood for "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" stood in front of the entrance of the University of Alabama in an attempt to stop the enrollment of black students

Malcolm X

African-American Muslim minister and human rights activist To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of blacks, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its crimes against black Americans; detractors accused him of preaching racism and violence. He has been called one of the greatest and most influential African Americans in history

Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)

African-American civil rights organization in the United States that played a pivotal role for African Americans in the Civil Rights Movement Founded in 1942, CORE was one of the "Big Four" civil rights organizations, along with the SCLC, the SNCC, and the NAACP 1960, the Chicago chapter of CORE began to challenge racial segregation in the Chicago Public Schools Between 1960 and 1963, CORE wrote letters about the conditions of schools to the Board of Education

"With all deliberate speed"

Brown decision declared the system of legal segregation unconstitutional. But the Court ordered only that the states end segregation with "all deliberate speed." This vagueness about how to enforce the ruling gave segregationists the opportunity to organize resistance.

James Meredith

Civil Rights Movement figure, writer, political adviser and Air Force veteran In 1962, he became the first African-American student admitted to the segregated University of Mississippi, after the intervention of the federal government, an event that was a flashpoint in the Civil Rights Movement goal was to put pressure on the Kennedy administration to enforce civil rights for African Americans

Plessy vs. Ferguson 1896

Court ruled that making a legal distinction between races did not violate the 13th amendment forbidding involuntary servitude laws requiring separation didn't imply inferiority

de facto discrimination

Frequently occurred in schools. Even if a school was not legally segregated, violence towards African American students or teachers favoring white students would perpetuate the segregation. Neighborhoods were segregated not by law, but by the social and financial expectations that whites and African Americans should be separated. De facto discrimination does not occur from government legislation, but rather from social norms and prejudices

Martin Luther King, Jr.

He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights using nonviolent civil disobedience based on his Christian beliefs led the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957 helped organize the 1963 nonviolent protests in Birmingham, Alabama. King also helped to organize the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.

de jure discrimination

Jim Crow Laws, which were laws enacted in the 1870s that limited people of color in America. They outlawed interracial marriage, created separate water fountains for whites and African Americans, and decreed that African Americans had to sit at the back of the bus. Because the Jim Crow Laws were passed by the government, they are de jure.

"Massive resistance"

Massive resistance was a strategy declared to unite white politicians and leaders in Virginia in a campaign of new state laws and policies to prevent public school desegregation, particularly after the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision in 1954 Many schools, and even an entire school system, were shut down in 1958 and 1959 in attempts to block integration

"White citizens' councils"

Network of white supremacist organizations in the United States, concentrated in the South oppose racial integration of schools, but they also opposed voter registration efforts and integration of public facilities during the 1950s and 1960s. used severe intimidation tactics including economic boycotts, firing people from jobs, propaganda, and violence against citizens and civil-rights activists

Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka 1954

Topeka board of education denied Linda Brown admittance to an all white school close to her house. Thurgood Marshall argued that a separate but equal violated equal protection clause of the 14th amendment. Warren decided separate educational facilities were inherently unequal Overturned provisions set in Plessy v Ferguson

March on Washington

Wednesday, August 28, 1963 At the march, Martin Luther King Jr., standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial, delivered his historic "I Have a Dream" speech in which he called for an end to racism

Birmingham

Whites unhappy with social changes in the 1950s committed racially motivated bombings of the houses of black families who moved into new neighborhoods or were politically active, earning Birmingham the nickname "Bombingham" gained national and international attention as a center of civil rights activity

Greensboro Sit-ins

nonviolent protests in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1960, which led to the Woolworth department store chain removing its policy of racial segregation in the Southern United States instrumental action, and also the most well-known sit-ins of the Civil Rights Movement led to increased national sentiment at a crucial period

Montgomery Bus Boycott

political and social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama lasted from December 5, 1955—when Rosa Parks, an African American woman, was arrested for refusing to surrender her seat to a white person—to December 20, 1956, when a federal ruling, Browder v. Gayle, took effect, and led to a United States Supreme Court decision that declared the Alabama and Montgomery laws requiring segregated buses to be unconstitutional

Black power

political slogan and a name for various associated ideologies aimed at achieving self-determination for people of African descent prominent in the late 1960s and early 1970s, emphasizing racial pride and the creation of black political and cultural institutions to nurture and promote black collective interests and advance black values

Voting Rights Act

prohibits racial discrimination in voting signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson during the height of the Civil Rights Movement on August 6, 1965, and Congress later amended the Act five times to expand its protections.

Rosa Parks

refused to obey bus driver James F. Blake's order to give up her seat in the colored section to a white passenger, after the white section was filled Parks' act of defiance and the Montgomery Bus Boycott became important symbols of the modern Civil Rights Movement

Freedom Summer

volunteer campaign in the United States launched in June 1964 to attempt to register as many African-American voters as possible in Mississippi set up dozens of Freedom Schools, Freedom Houses, and community centers in small towns throughout Mississippi to aid the local black population

Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

emerged from a student meeting organized by Ella Baker held at Shaw University in April 1960 grew into a large organization with many supporters in the North who helped raise funds to support SNCC's work in the South, allowing full-time SNCC workers to have a $10 per week salary played a major role in the sit-ins and freedom rides, a leading role in the 1963 March on Washington, Mississippi Freedom Summer, and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party over the next few years. SNCC's major contribution was in its field work, organizing voter registration drives all over the South, especially in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi

Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)

first president, Martin Luther King Jr African-American civil rights organization Martin Luther King Jr. invited about 60 black ministers and leaders to Ebenezer Church in Atlanta. Their goal was to form an organization to coordinate and support nonviolent direct action as a method of desegregating bus systems across the South

Passive resistance

bus boycotts, Freedom Rides, sit-ins, marches, and mass demonstrations movement succeeded in bringing about legislative change, making separate seats, drinking fountains, and schools for African Americans illegal, and obtaining full Voting Rights and open housing

"Freedom Rides"

civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated southern United States in 1961 and subsequent years in order to challenge the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court decisions Morgan v. Virginia (1946) and Boynton v. Virginia (1960),which ruled that segregated public buses were unconstitutional The Southern states had ignored the rulings and the federal government did nothing to enforce them first Freedom Ride left Washington, D.C., on May 4, 1961,and was scheduled to arrive in New Orleans