CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

1954 - 1968

Essential Question: How did the Civil Rights movement begin to make major progress in correcting segregation?

Jim Crow Laws

Laws that selectively discriminated against Af-Am

Af-Ams were prevented from voting

KKK regularly lynched Af-Am

Segregation Legalized

Homer Plessy was an octoroon

Boarded a whites only car of a train

Segregation legitimized by Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 Established separate

but equal doctrine

Civil Rights Prior to 1954

W.E.B. Du Bois and the founding of the NAACP Worked to improve legal

rights for Af-Am CORE or Congress of

Racial Equality Dedicated to nonviolent

protests Truman’s Executive

Order to desegregate armed forces

Jackie Robinson

School Segregation in the South

Facilities were grossly unequal

No decent bus transportation

Lack of heating, materials

Legally prohibited from playing together in public

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas

Linda Brown was denied entry to “whites only” school six blocks away

Class Action Lawsuit “Separate but Equal”

violated the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection of the law

Overturned Plessy v. Ferguson

White Resistance to School Integration

Majority of whites in South opposed school integration

568 pro-segregation organizations established

Federal gov’t stalled desegregation efforts

Manifesto signed by Congress

Little Rock Nine

Arkansas governor Orval Faubus gained attention for resisting integration

Nine Af-Am enrolled at Central High School

Elizabeth Eckford Federal troops

brought in to assist integration

Montgomery Bus Boycott Segregated Bus System Rosa Parks refused to make

room for a white passenger Civil Rights leaders decided to

boycott the Montgomery buses Boycott lasted almost a year

Walked Black taxicabs Churches bought station wagons Volunteers carpooled

MLK Jr. One of the leaders of the Boycotts Non-violence- a philosophy and a

strategy Supreme Ct. says Alabama’s

bus segregation laws are unconstitutional- another victory!

Talk to your neighbor:

Essential Question: How did the Civil Rights movement begin to make major progress in correcting segregation?