Civil Rights Key Terms

  • Jim Crow Laws

    Laws that were made to enforce segregation (specifically against blacks) were known as Jim Crow laws
  • Sharecropping and Tenant Farming

    Used after the civil war by plantation owners,they gave dormer slaves a small share of their farm to still have help on the farms that slaves once took care of for them
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    Black Codes

    Black Codes were laws passed in 1865 and 1866 designed to restrict the freedom of people of color in America
  • 13th Amendment

    The 13th amendment made slavery of any kind illegal in the United States
  • 14th Amendment

    The 14th Amendment states that anyone that was born in the United States is a US citizen and can not be forcibly deported to another country
  • 15th Amendment

    The 15th Amendment gave African American Men the freedom to exercise their right to vote
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    Lynching

    Lynching is killing someone for an alleged offense without any sort of trial, many people of color were lynched during the fight for civil rights
  • Plessy v. Ferguson

    In 1896 the constitutionality of "Separate but Equal" was challenged. The case started when a man named Homer Plessy refused to sit in a Jim Crow car on a train. He took it to supreme court and the judges voted unanimously.
  • CORE

    The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) was founded in 1942. They are most known for their Freedom Rides, these were bus rides where black and whites sat together and went from town to town and occasionally even between states.
  • Hector P Garcia

    Garcia investigated conditions of migrant workers in Texas, the workers were malnourished and diseased from lack of sanitation, that same year he helped create the American GI Forum
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    Brown V Board of Education

    During this time the vast majority of schools were segregated and was constitutionally acceptable as long as both facilities were equal to each other. Most white schools were much better than black schools. The supreme court judged in favor of brown and began integrating school in America
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    Peaceful Protests

    During the Civil Rights Movement there were all sorts of peaceful protests, such as: Boycotts, Sit ins, marches, and so much more
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    Martin Luther King Jr.

    MLK first joined the movement for black rights in 1955 when he participated in the bus boycotts and never stopped fighting until he was killed in 1968
  • Emmett Till

    Was brutally lynched after a woman claimed to of been offended by him in her store, his body was found in a lake nearby and was unidentifiable due to how brutally he was beaten and burned
  • Rosa Parks

    On December 1, 1955, Rosa parks was asked to give up her seat for a white man and move to the back, when she refused she was forced off the bus and arrested
  • Civil Disobedience

    Civil disobedience is a refusal to comply with certain laws as a form of peaceful protest, a perfect example of this would be Rosa Parks the she refused to give up her seat on a bus
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    Montgomery Bus Boycott

    In Montgomery Alabama, most colored people stopped riding the buses because they were tired of being forced to give up their seats to white people. The few who had cars started acting almost like taxis to help get boycotters to wherever they need to.
  • SCLC

    The Southern Christian Leadership Conference was created in 1957, the most popular founder and first president of this organization was Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
  • Little Rock Nine

    Nine colored kids were chosen to go to school at Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. The goal was to segregate schools effortlessly, but the governor demanded the state national guard block the school, but the president sent in the National guard to ensure that they could go to school safely
  • Orval Faubus

    On September 2, 1957, Governor Orval Faubus called in the Arkansas National Guard to block off Little Rock Highschool from the black students chosen to integrate public schools.
  • Civil Rights Act of 1957

    Was the first act for civil rights passed in the United States since 1875
  • Sit-Ins

    As a form of peaceful protest, people sat at counters of restaurants and refused to leave until they had service, most sat until closing time or were physically forced to leave the restaurant
  • Affirmative Action

    In 1961 John F. Kennedy said that anyone should be able to be employed and treated fairly regardless of "race, creed, color, or national origin"
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    Freedom Rides

    Freedom riders rode on interstate buses with black and white people sitting together to challenge the law which stated that colored people must sit in the back of the bus if there is space needed for white people in the front
  • Cesar Chavez

    Chavez founded the National Farm Workers Association in 1962 to make sure farmers are treated better and their rights don't get violated anymore. The National Farm Workers Association was later changed to the United Farm Workers Union
  • Ole Miss Integration

    In 1962 when James Meredith tried to enroll and integrate University of Mississippi University riots occurred on campus
  • Betty Friedan

    In 1963, Friedan wrote a book called The Feminine Mystique which is believed to have sparked the "second wave" in american feminism
  • U of Alabama Integration

    In 1963, colored students tried to go to University of Alabama, but the doors were physically blocked by troops to guarantee that they couldn't get in
  • March on Washington

    The March on Washington was a rally at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC, it is most known for Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech
  • Lester Maddox

    Maddox was a restaurant owner who only served whites, when the civil rights law came out he chose to sell his restaurant rather than open business to people of color
  • Desegregation

    The Civil Rights law of 1964 ended segregation by making it illegal to only sell to a certain ethnicity but not the others
  • Civil Rights Act of 1964

    Made it illegal to discriminate based on race, color, religion, gender, or national origin
  • George Wallace

    In 1965 Wallace was told that he had to use Alabama's National Guard to protect marcher of the Selma March, when asked he told President Johnson that the state was "financially unable to do so"
  • Voting Rights Act of 1965

    Made it legal for african american males to exercise their right to vote for government positions
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    Watts Riots

    Riots occurred in a Los Angeles neighborhood, 34 people died, 3,438 people were arrested for a variety of crimes, and 1,032 people were injured
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    Stokely Carmichael

    Carmichael was a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in 1966 and 1967, he popularized the phrase "Black Power"
  • Black Panther

    The black panther party was apart tat believed in anti-racism and equality for all races, it was founded on October 15, 1966 by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale in Oakland California
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    Thurgood Marshall

    President Johnson nominated him for Supreme Court in 1967, He was accepted by a 69-11 senate vote. Thurgood Marshall was the first african-american Justice in US history. He stayed a Justice until 1991 when he had to retire due to declining health
  • Title IX

    Title IX made it illegal to discriminate someone based on gender in government funded education programs or activities