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Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves
This act was significant because it was a part of the trend toward abolishing the slave trade and ending the legality of the U.S.-based transatlantic slave trade. However, it was not always well enforced, and slavery itself continued in the United States until the end of the Civil War and the adoption of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. -
Prigg v. Pennsylvania
Prigg v. Pennsylvania was a case in which the court held that the Federal Fugitive Slave Act precluded a Pennsylvania state law that prohibited blacks from being taken out of Pennsylvania into slavery. This was one of the first cases that defended free slaves from bounty hunters, and slave masters who would seek to take back their 'property'. -
American Civil War
The American Civil war was very significant becasue it was was a civil war fought from 1861 to 1865 in the United States after several Southern slave states declared their secession and formed the Confederate States of America (the South). The states that remained were known as the Union or the North. The war had its origin in the fractious issue of slavery, -
Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation was a very significant moment in the African American civil rights movement. The Proclamation ordered that "suitable" persons among those freed could be enrolled into the paid service of United States' forces, and ordered the Union Army to recognize and maintain the freedom of the ex-slaves. The Proclamation did not compensate the owners, did not itself outlaw slavery, and did not make the ex-slaves citizens. It made the eradication of slavery an explicit war goal. -
End of the American Civil War
The end of the American Civil war was even more significant than the war because slavery was abolished, the Confederacy collapsed, and the difficult Reconstruction process of restoring national unity and guaranteeing rights to the freed slaves began. Slaves for the first time since entering the United States of America were 'free'. -
Founding the KKK
The founding of the KKK was vastly important to the Civil rights movement, not as an assent, but as a force seeking to repress african americans and return blacks back into slavery.The first Klan was founded in 1865 in Pulaski, Tennessee, by six veterans of the Confederate Army. The Klan targeted freed blacks and their allies; it sought to restore white supremacy by threats and violence, including lynchings targeting blacks, white republicans, and black sympathizers -
Fourteenth Amendment
The Fourteenth Amendment is important to the civil rights of African americans because it is virtually the only piece of legislation that helped raise the status of African Americans after the Civil War, was intended to provide the newly freed slaves with equal rights. Because of the vague terms it used, it did not actually guarantee black suffrage, but only set the foundation for the 15th Amendment. -
Fifteenth Amendment
The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was higly important to the civil rights movment as it prohibied the federal and state governments from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's "race, color, or previous condition of servitude". This means that anyone can vote despite being non-white. This moment was very important because for the first time, african americans had a say in government and in defending their own rights -
Civil Rights Act of 1875
This moment was significant to the african american civil rights movement because the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was a United States federal law enacted during the Reconstruction Era that guaranteed African Americans equal treatment in public accommodations, public transportation, and prohibited exclusion from jury service. Allowing african americans freedom and privileges that they did not have previously. -
Plessy v, Ferguson
Plessy v. Ferguson is a landmark civil rights movement. Plessy v Ferguson challenged the upholding of state laws requiring racial segregation in public facilities under the doctrine of "separate but equal". Ultimately the case closed with nothing changing, but it was still vastly important because it was one of the first cases to challenge segregation. -
Founding the NAACP
The NAACP was very very important to african american civil rights because in its early years, the NAACP concentrated on using the courts to overturn the Jim Crow statutes that legalized racial segregation. In 1913, the NAACP organized opposition to President Woodrow Wilson's introduction of racial segregation into federal government policy, offices, and hiring. The NAACP was very influential, sparking other groups like it all over America. -
Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada
Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada, was very important to the education of african american children. It was demanded that states provide a school to white students must provide in-state education to blacks as well. States can satisfy this requirement by allowing blacks and whites to attend the same school or creating a second school for blacks. -
World War II
World War II helped a lot of weight in pushing the african american civil rights movement. Most of the soldiers fighting in World War Two were African American who faced massive discrimination in America. African Americans were hopeful that because of their contribution to the war that they would gain some rights and respect. Blacks were quick to compare the racial theories of the Nazis with the racist beliefs of Southern whites. They vowed to conquer 'Hitlerism without and Hitlerism within'. -
Brown v. Board of Education
Brown v. Board of Education, was a case in which the Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional. The court's decision stated that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." This movement allowed african americans to recieve the same level and quality of education as that of a white american. -
Journal of African American History
The Journal of African American History was extremely important to african american civil rights as it was the first academic journal covering the life of coloured people it helped expose african americans in a positive light to the media, contradicting the Jim Crow laws.It was founded in 1916 by Carter G. Woodson. The journal is published four times a year by the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, founded in 1915 by Woodson and Jesse E. Moorland. -
Freedom Rides
Freedom rides were important because although segregation was outlawed in waiting rooms and resterants in terminals serving buses that crossed state lines, the busses themselves were still segregated. CORE sponsored most of the subsequent Freedom Rides, but some were also organized by SNCC.The Freedom Riders challenged this status quo by riding interstate buses in the South in mixed racial groups to challenge local laws or customs that enforced segregation in seating. -
Kennedy integrates University of Mississippi
This moment was vastly significant to the african american civil rights movement becasue it started intergrating black and whites into the same schools, challenging the colour barrier. Even though the University of Mississippi was not the first school to have both black and white students, it was the first to do so under order from the president, encouraging other schools to do the same. -
Twenty-Fourth Amendment is ratified
The Twenty-Fourth Amendment was important because at the time of this amendment's passage, five states still retained a poll tax: Virginia, Alabama, Texas, Arkansas, and Mississippi. The amendment made the poll tax unconstitutional in regards to federal elections. Allowing more african americans and poor whites to vote and have a voice in the government. -
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
The creation of the Equal employment opportunity commission was very important because it required government contractors to "take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed and that employees are treated during employment without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin." Meaning that blacks would be given the same wage and rights as that of whites. -
Martin Luther King.jr`s death and the decline of the Movement
King’s death was horribly important becasue it stripped the civil rights movement of its greatest leader and visionary. Ideological rifts and feuds among the NAACP, SCLC, SNCC, and CORE also led to the collapse of the movement, as did Black Panther violence and revolutionary rhetoric. As a result, the movement quickly lost momentum in 1968 and 1969 as Americans shifted their focus to the worsening Vietnam War.
