Civil Rights Movement and Cold War

Brown v Board of Education

1954 - The Supreme Court overruled Plessy v. Ferguson, declared that racially segregated facilities are inherently unequal and ordered all public schools desegregated.

I Have a Dream Speech

A speech given by Martin Luther King, Jr. at the demonstration of freedom in 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial. It was an event related to the civil rights movement of the 1960's to unify citizens in accepting diversity and eliminating discrimination against African-Americans

The Black Panthers

African American political organization, advocated violent revolution to achieve black liberation and civil rights.

Malcolm X

Black Muslim leader who said Blacks needed to have separate society from whites THROUGH VIOLENCE, but later changed his views. He was assassinated in 1965.

Cuban Missile Crisis 1962

Brink-of-war confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union over the latter's placement of nuclear-armed placement of nuclear-armed missiles in Cuba.

Little Rock 9

Central High School (CHS) incident in which troops (sent by president Eisenhower) helped integrate a high school by allowing nine black students to enter school peacefully and not be prevented by angry mobs. Little Rock Arkansas

1968: Watershed Year

College campuses against Vietnam War, MLK and JFK assassinated, LBJ elected to not run for second term

Montgomery Boycott

In 1955, after Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a city bus, Dr. Martin L. King led a boycott of city busses. After 11 months the Supreme Court ruled that segregation of public transportation was illegal.

Bay of Pigs (1961)

In April 1961, a group of Cuban exiles organized and supported by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency landed on the southern coast of Cuba in an effort to overthrow Fidel Castro. When the invasion ended in disaster, President Kennedy took full responsibility for the failure.

MLK

Martin Luther King Jr. was an African American civil right activist and clergyman known for advancing the cause of African American civil rights through nonviolent civil disobedience; believed in the teachings of Ghandi.

Emmett Till

Murdered in 1955 for whistling at a white woman by her husband and his friends. They kidnapped him and brutally killed him. his death led to the American Civil Rights movement.

John F Kennedy (JFK)

President during Bay of Pigs, and Cuban Missile Crisis. Strong image icon. Creator of Civil Rights Act.

Civil Rights Movement

The civil rights movement came about in response to the disfranchisement of African Americans and to racial segregation which was upheld with the 1896 Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson.

McCarthyism

The term associated with Senator Joseph McCarthy who led the search for communists in America during the early 1950s through his leadership in the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Civil Rights Act of 1964

This act made racial, religious, and sex discrimination by employers illegal and gave the government the power to enforce all laws governing civil rights, including desegregation of schools and public places.

Rosa Parks

United States civil rights leader who refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man in Montgomery (Alabama) and so triggered the national civil rights movement (born in 1913)

Korean War and the 38th Parallel

a war between North and South Korea during Cold War time period; line of latitude that separated North and South Korea

Equal Rights Amendment

constitutional amendment passed by Congress but never ratified that would have banned discrimination on the basis of gender

Ghandi

political and spiritual leader during India's struggle with Great Britain for home rule; an advocate of passive resistance (1869-1948)

Civil Rights Act 1957; 1960

provided a permanent Civil Rights Commission and gave the Justice Department the power to protect voting rights for African Americans

Desegregation

the abolishment of racial segregation, which happened due to the work of Civil Rights leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Warren Court

the chief justice that overturned Plessy v. Ferguson in Brown v. Board of Education (1954); he was the first justice to help the civil rights movement, judicial activism

Domino Theory

the political theory that if one nation comes under Communist control then neighboring nations will also come under Communist control

The Cold War

was a decades-long struggle for global supremacy that pitted the capitalist United States against the communist Soviet Union beginning roughly around 1945.

"Separate but Equal"

was a legal doctrine in United States constitutional law that justified systems of segregation. Under this doctrine, services, facilities and public accommodations were allowed to be separated by race, on the condition that the quality of each group's public facilities was to remain equal. places included, but not limited to; bathrooms, restaurants, windows, taxis