The Civil Rights Movement

Types of Segregation

• de facto segregation: established by practice and custom, not by law – seen mostly in northern cities

• de jure segregation: racial segregation established by law – Jim Crow laws in the South

Plessy v. Ferguson

• 1896, Supreme Court case that established the “separate but equal” doctrine

Thurgood Marshall

• Civil Rights lawyer

• Later became the first African-American Supreme Court Justice

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas

• 1954, Supreme Court case which ruled that “separate, but equal” education for black and white students was unconstitutional

Little Rock Nine

• Nine black students went to Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas as a part of integration

• Students were met with angry students and parents protesting their arrival

Rosa Parks• 1955, she refused

to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama and was arrested

• This started the Montgomery Bus Boycott

Martin Luther King, Jr. • Minister who

emerged as the leader of the Civil Rights Movement

• Encouraged followers to use non-violent protests and acts of civil disobedience

Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)

• Formed in 1957 by MLK and other leaders to work for civil rights through non-violent means

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC):

• Coordinated sit-ins and other protests to give young blacks a larger role in the Civil Rights Movement

• Started by Stokely Carmichael

The Greensboro Four

• Four college students in North Carolina refused to move from a lunch counter in protest over segregation

• Influenced other college students to protest

The Greensboro Four

Sit-ins

Civil Rights Movement Part II

Civil Rights Act of 1964

• Passed by President Johnson

• Banned discrimination on basis of race, sex, national origin, or religion in public places and most workplaces

Freedom Riders• Civil Rights activists who rode buses

through the South to challenge segregation in 1964

• Made up of mostly college students

• Became known as “Freedom Summer”

Voting Rights Act of 1965

• Passed by President Johnson

• Made registering to vote easier for African-Americans

• Eliminated discriminatory literacy tests

• Authorized Federal examiners to enroll voters who were denied at the local level

James Meredith

• Tried to enroll at the University of Mississippi

• Kennedy sent in federal troops to ensure his enrollment

Selma Campaign

• 1965, Civil Rights activists marched 50 miles from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery, Alabama

• Alabama police violently halted the first march

• Second march proved to be successful

Malcolm X• Sought to end

segregation by urging African Americans to become less dependent of whites

• Resisted MLK’s notion of Civil Disobedience

Nation of Islam

• AKA, the Black Muslims

• Founded by Elijah Muhammad

• Sought to promote black separation along with the Muslim faith

Stokely Carmichael

• Promoted “Black Power”

• Encouraged African-Americans to take pride in “being black” and take an active role in political and social leadership

Black Panthers

• Militant African-American political organization

• Formed by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale

• Sought to fight police brutality and the use of violence in order to protect African-Americans

Huey Newton Bobby Seale

The Kerner Commission

• Warned that America was moving towards two separate societies

• Said whites were to blame for ignoring needs of African Americans

• Changes were needed to avoid a system of apartheid

April 4, 1968

• Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated outside a Memphis Hotel by James Earl Ray