Civil Rights Movement

Civil Rights Act of 1964

On July 2, 1964, the Civil Rights Act of 1994 was passed through congress and signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson. It was the most comprehensive civil rights law ever enacted in the United States. It guaranteed equal voting rights, prohibited segregation in public places, and also banned discrimination on the basis of sex.

Brown v. Board of Education

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka was a landmark case in the struggle for African American equality in the United States. On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that racial segregation in the nation's schools was a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. This amendment guarantees equal protection under the law for every citizen.

Freedom Riders

The Freedom Rides, beginning in the late 1940s, were rolling political protests against segregated facilities in the South. As early as 1946, the Supreme Court had banned segregation in interstate bus travel. The ban, however, was widely ignored in the South. In 1961, two buses left Washington, DC, bound for New Orleans. On board were seven African Americans and six whites—the first Freedom Riders. At stops along the way, the Freedom Riders used what were intended to be segregated facilities. They were met with violence. One bus was firebombed, and another had its tires slashed. Some of the Freedom Riders themselves were severely beaten. Each time the Freedom Riders rode south, the results were the same. Even when they were escorted by state troopers and the National Guard, the Freedom Riders were beaten, arrested, and jailed. Only after Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy ordered even stricter enforcement of the segregation bans did the situation begin to improve. Still, for many years after, interracial travel in the Deep South remained a dangerous exercise of freedom.

Lyndon Johnson's Great Society

The Great Society was a set of domestic programs in the United States launched by Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964-65. The main goal was the elimination of poverty and racial injustice. President Johnson first used the term "Great Society" during a speech at Ohio University, then unveiled the program in greater detail at an appearance at University of Michigan.

Little Rock 9

The Little Rock Nine was a group of nine African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Their enrollment was followed by the Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering the racially segregated school by Orval Faubus, the Governor of Arkansas. They then attended after the intervention of President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a successful civil rights protest against segregated public buses in Montgomery, Alabama. The boycott began in December 1955. Rosa Parks, an African American, refused to give up her seat in the front of a public bus to a white man. She was arrested for violating Montgomery's segregation law.

Plessy v. Ferguson

Plessy v. Ferguson was a case in 1896 in which the Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in public places was legal. This case created the doctrine of separate but equal. The justices determined that separate and supposedly equal facilities for white Americans and African Americans did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment requirement of equal protection of the laws.

De facto Segregation

Racial segregation is the separation of people according to their race. During the 1950s, America was a deeply segregated nation. Americans lived, shopped, vacationed, and were educated mostly with members of their own race. Ending segregation was a principal goal of the civil rights movement in the United States. This type of segregation was not done by law, only through people's customs.

Stokely Carmichael

The first person to publicly use the phrase "Black Power" was Stokely Carmichael, a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC. Carmichael had grown impatient with the slow pace of civil rights reform, and pushed for more radical change than Dr. Martin Luther King and other more mainstream civil rights leaders. By the late 1960s, as a member of the Black Panther Party, Carmichael and others advocated revolution and urged African Americans to take up arms against racial oppression.

Bloody Sunday

The march began in Selma on March 7. It ended when state troopers and mounted police attacked demonstrators with tear gas and clubs as they attempted to head out of Selma across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Televised coverage of officers chasing and beating demonstrators as they retreated angered the nation. The day's events became known as "Bloody Sunday."

Civil Rights Act of 1968

This is also known as the Fair Housing Act. It provided equal housing opportunities regardless of race, religion, or national origin. It was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

SCLC

In 1957, Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and his followers established the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). The SCLC lent assistance to local organizations working to secure full equality for African Americans. Toward that goal, the SCLC sponsored voter registration drives, leadership training programs, and citizen education projects. The SCLC played an important role in the March on Washington in 1963. The efforts of the SCLC also helped secure passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Peace Corps

In 1961 President John F. Kennedy established the Peace Corps. The goal of this volunteer government agency is to assist people in other countries. Peace Corps workers use their own personal skills to serve in host countries. They help train people in a variety of fields, including education, technology, health, and agriculture. Volunteers also try to promote a better understanding of U.S. citizens in these host countries.

Voting Rights Act of 1965

In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson called for comprehensive voting rights legislation. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was the result. This act eliminated literacy tests and required federal approval of all election changes states with a history of denying voter eligibility.

Why the rise of Black Power

California elected its first African American to Congress in 1962. In 1966, Edward Brooke of Massachusetts was elected the first African American U.S. senator since Reconstruction. In 1967, Gary Stokes of Cleveland, Ohio, and Richard Hatcher of Gary, Indiana, were elected the first African American mayors of major U.S. cities. Change was slower in the South, but it did come. Georgia voters elected their first African American to Congress since Reconstruction in 1972. The same year, Texas sent African Americans to Congress, and in 1975, voters in Tennessee elected Harold Ford Sr., its first African American representative. However, voters in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia did not elect a single African American to Congress until the 1990s, despite large populations of African Americans in these states. No African American other than Edward Brooke, the Republican senator from Massachusetts elected in 1966, was elected to the Senate until Carol Moseley Braun from Illinois in 1992. In 2008, Barack Obama won the presidency, including the traditionally Republican state of North Carolina and the "swing" states of Virginia and Florida, thanks in part to the high participation of African American voters in the South.

Civil Disobedience/Non-violent Protests (sit-ins, boycotts, protests, marches)

Civil disobedience is the nonviolent refusal to obey government laws and commands because one feels they are unjustified. Individuals who commit acts of civil disobedience often believe they are answering to higher laws. They are prepared to be punished for their actions and hope that others will be inspired by their selflessness.

De jure Segregation

De jure segregation is segregation that is imposed by law, such as the Jim Crow laws. These were common in the South from the late 1800s to the 1950s and 1960s. Laws of this kind required the separation of African Americans and whites in public places such as schools, transportation, hospitals, and restaurants.

Malcolm X

Malcolm X was an advocate for African American rights and proponent of black nationalism during the civil rights era. Born in 1925 as Malcolm Little, he adopted the X in his name to represent his lost African family name. He had a difficult childhood. As a young man, he was arrested and sent to prison for burglary. While in prison, he became a member of the Nation of Islam, a religious group that combined traditional beliefs of Islam with black nationalism and a call for racial separation.

MLK Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr. was a civil rights activist and nobel peace prize winner. He lead the Bus Boycott and throughout his years as an activist, he used Gandhi's nonviolent tactics while protesting. He also organized the March on Washington where he gave his famous "I Have A Dream" speech to thousands of people.

March on Washington

To rally support for the Civil Rights Act, on August 28, 1963, about 250,000 people gathered in Washington, DC, for what was called the March for Jobs and Freedom, now known as the "March on Washington." At the conclusion of the demonstration, King stood of the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and gave his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. Marian Anderson, a well-known African American performer, sang for the protesters. It was the largest civil rights demonstration in U.S. history.

Truman's efforts for Civil Rights

Truman did not seek reelection in 1952, and Dwight Eisenhower became president in 1953. Many of Truman's original plans for domestic change laid the groundwork for civil rights legislation in the 1960s. Although unpopular by the end of his term in office, his reputation has improved in the decades since. He helped end segregation in the military.