3.3 - The Civil Rights Movement

Voting Rights Act of 1965

Law passed during Lyndon Johnson's administration that empowered the federal government to intervene to ensure that minorities had access to the voting booth.

Ella Baker

(1903 - 1986) An African American civil rights and human rights activist. Baker was a largely behind-the-scenes organizer whose career spanned over five decades. She was a critic of professionalized, charismatic leadership and a promoter of grassroots organizing and radical democracy.

Malcolm X

(1925 - 1965) An African American civil rights leader who was born Malcolm Little and changed his name after becoming a Muslim. He was originally in favor of blacks living separately from whites, but later called for the races to accept each other. He was assassinated while speaking at a civil rights event.

Martin Luther King Jr.

(1929 - 1968) An African American leader during the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. He helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957. His work led to the March on Washington, where he delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech. He was assassinated in 1968.

Stokely Carmichael

(1941 - 1998) An African American civil rights leader. He was a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Black Panther Party. He came up with the term "Black Power."

Cesar Chavez

1927 - 1993) A Mexican American farmworker and civil rights leader. He founded the United Farm Workers with Dolores Huerta. His work led to improvements for farmworkers.

Black Power movement

A civil rights movement that emphasized African American independence and self-reliance as a group rather than reliance on help from white Americans or other groups to achieve civil rights.

nonviolent resistance

A protest strategy focused on peaceful demonstration and a refusal to obey unjust laws, both accomplished without violent confrontation.

command economy

An economic system in which the government determines what products the country will produce and in what quantity. It is the opposite of a market economy, in which supply and demand determine what products are produced.

Civil Rights Act of 1964

An important set of laws passed by the U.S. Congress. The act made it illegal to have separate schools for different races. It also became illegal to have separate public areas for different races.

Black Panther Party

Organization founded in 1966 by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale as a militant self-defense group to protect African Americans from police violence.

"Double V" campaign

World War II campaign begun by the Pittsburgh Courier that encouraged African Americans to work for a double victory: against racism abroad and against racism at home.