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Plessy vs. Ferguson
A Supreme Court case stating that separation of races in public was legal and did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. -
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
A civil rights organization organized to stop segregation and work to help African Americans. -
Race Riots
Race riots, which started in Chicago, happened after the police refused to arrest a white man who was accused of causing an African American teenager to drown. The riots ended a few months later in Chicago with more than 500 injured, 38 killed, and 1,000 people left homeless after they houses were torched. -
Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka
The Supreme Court ruled that the separate-but-equal doctrine was unconstitutional in public education. The court also overturned the Plessy vs. Ferguson case. -
De Jure vs. De Facto Segregation
De jure segregation is segregation enforced by law, while de facto segregation occurs when widespread individual preferences lead to separation. This was demonstrated in the Little Rock School Integration when, despite the mobs of people who didn't want the black teenagers going to a white school, the government ruled it unconstitutional to not let them in. -
Emmet Till
A 14 year old African American who was lynched by two white men after he talked to a white woman. -
Rosa Parks
An activist in the Civil Rights movement who refused to give up her seat to a white man on a segregated bus. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
African Americans refused to ride city buses in Montgomery to protest segregated seating. -
Martin Luther King Jr.
A leader in the Civil Rights Movement who used nonviolent protests to end segregation. -
Little Rock School Integration
9 African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School (which was an all-white school). -
The Sit-Ins
Young African American students sat at a segregated lunch counter in North Carolina to protest segregation. -
Freedom Rides
A non-segregated bus ride across the South that was made to test the Supreme Court rulings that banned segregated seating. The riders hoped that there would be a violent reaction to the ride so the Kennedy administration would enforce the law of non-segregation. -
March On Birmingham, Alabama
A series of lunch counter sit-ins, marches on City Hall, and boycotts on downtown merchants to protest segregation in Alabama. -
March On Washington
200,000 Americans gathered in Washington D.C. rallying for jobs and freedom to highlight political and social challenges African Americans had to face. -
Malcolm X
A strong civil rights activist who worked with Martin Luther King Jr. to end segregation. -
24th Amendment
The Amendment that outlawed poll taxes for all federal elections which usually had to be paid by each voter before the could vote. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
A civil rights and U.S. labor law that outlaws discrimination based on race, religion, gender, or national origin. -
March from Selma to Montgomery for Voting Rights
Martin Luther King Jr. led thousands of nonviolent protesters to the capitol in Montgomery, Alabama to raise awareness on the difficulties that black voters faced in the South. -
Voting Rights Act Of 1965
An act passed by Congress that eliminated literacy tests for voters and allowed federal examiners to enroll voters who had been denied. -
Black Panther Party
A civil rights organization formed to work for the advancement of black people. It was originally formed to protect black people from police brutality. -
Thurgood Marshall
The first African American justice of the Supreme Court serving from 1967 to 1991
