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Sharecropping/ Tenant Farming
Form of agriculture in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on their portion of land. Predominaty used after the -
Black Codes
Laws passed by Democrat-controlled Southern states in 1865 and 1866, after the Civil War. These laws had the intent and the effect of restricting African Americans' freedom, and of compelling them to work in a labor economy based on low wages or debt. -
13th Amendment
The 13th amendment to the United States Constitution provides that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." -
14th Amendment
All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. -
15th Amendment
The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits 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". -
Jim Crow Laws
Southern legislatures passed laws of racial segregation directed against blacks at the end of the 19th century, these statutes became known as Jim Crow laws. -
Plessy v. Ferguson
Plessy v. Ferguson is a U.S. Supreme Court case from 1896 that upheld the rights of states to pass laws allowing or even requiring racial segregation in public and private institutions such as schools, public transportation, restrooms, and restaurants. -
CORE
The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States. This played a pivotal role for African Americans in the Civil Rights Movement. -
Hector P. Garcia
A Mexican-American physician, surgeon, World War II veteran. He was also a civil rights advocate, and founder of the American G.I. Forum. -
Civil Disobedience
Drawing in part on Gandhi's example, Henry David Thoreau and the American civil rights movement, which came to prominence during the 1950s, sought to end racial segregation in the southern United States by adopting the tactics and philosophy of civil disobedience through such protests as the Greensboro sit-in, and the Freedom Rides. -
Brown v. Board of Education
A landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional. -
Thurgood Marshall
An Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, serving from October 1967 until October 1991, A part of Brown v Board of Education -
Lynching
Killing someone (mostly black people) especially by hanging, for an alleged offense with or without a legal trial. Famous example of Emmet Till -
Emmett Till
Emmett Louis Till was a 14-year-old African-American who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955, after a white woman said she was offended by him in her family's grocery store. -
Rosa Parks
An activist in the Civil Rights Movement, whom the United States Congress called "the first lady of civil rights" and "the mother of the freedom movement". -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
The Montgomery bus boycott, a seminal event in the Civil Rights Movement, was a political and social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama. -
Orval Faubus
An American politician who served as 36th Governor of Arkansas from 1955 to 1967. He was famously known for his involvement with the Little Rock Nine -
Little Rock Nine
A group of nine African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Their enrollment was followed by the Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering the racially segregated school by Orval Faubus, the Governor of Arkansas. -
SCLC
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference is an African-American civil rights organization. SCLC, which is closely associated with its first president, Martin Luther King Jr, had a large role in the American Civil Rights Movement. -
Civil Rights Act of 1957
The Act established the U.S. Justice Department as a guarantor of the right to vote. The Act ended official racial segregation in the public schools. -
Stokely Carmichael
Trinidadian-American who became a prominent figure in the Civil Rights Movement and the global Pan-African movement. He grew up in the United States from the age of 11 and became an activist while he attended Howard University. -
Sit-Ins
A sit-in or sit-down is a form of direct action that involves one or more people occupying an area for a protest, often to promote political, social, or economic change. This was used in Greensboro NC -
Affirmative Action
An action or policy favoring those who tend to suffer from discrimination, especially in relation to employment or education; positive discrimination. -
Freedom Riders
Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated southern United States, in order to challenge the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court decisions Morgan v. Virginia, and Boynton v. Virginia, which ruled that segregated public buses were unconstitutional. -
Ole Miss Integration
Riots erupted on the campus of the University of Mississippi in Oxford where locals, students, and committed segregationists had gathered to protest the enrollment of James Meredith, a black Air Force veteran attempting to integrate the all-white school. -
University of Alabama Integration
When African American students attempted to desegregate the University of Alabama in June 1963, Alabama's new governor, flanked by state troopers, literally blocked the door of the enrollment office. -
Non-Violent Protest
The practice of achieving goals such as social change through symbolic protests, civil disobedience, economic or political noncooperation, satyagraha, or other methods, while being nonviolent. This was a big practice during the Cvil Rights Movement with Martin Luther King Jr. -
Betty Friedan
An American writer, activist, and feminist. A leading figure in the women's movement in the United States, her 1963 book The Feminine Mystique is often credited with sparking the second wave of American feminism in the 20th century. -
George Wallace
a Democrat-turned-Republican formerly active in Alabama politics. Alabama was known as the most segregated state and Wallace was known to also famously known for his involvement in "stand-in the schoolhouse door". -
Martin Luther King Jr.
The predominant leader in the Civil Rights Movement to end racial segregation and discrimination in America during the 1950s and 1960s and a leading spokesperson for nonviolent methods of achieving social change. -
March on Washington
Pressuring the administration of John F. Kennedy to initiate a strong federal civil rights bill in Congress. During this event, Martin Luther King delivered his memorable ''I Have a Dream'' speech. -
Lester Maddox
A populist Democrat, Maddox came to prominence as a staunch segregationist, when he refused to serve black customers in his Atlanta restaurant, in defiance of the Civil Rights Act. He later served as Lieutenant Governor during the time that Jimmy Carter was Governor. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
A landmark civil rights and US labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
Signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson, aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote under the 15th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. -
Watts Riots
An African-American motorist was arrested for suspicion of drunk driving. A minor roadside argument broke out, and then escalated into a fight. The community reacted in outrage to allegations of police brutality that soon spread, and six days of looting and arson followed. -
Black Panthers
Original name Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, African American revolutionary party, founded in 1966 in Oakland, California, by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. The party's original purpose was to patrol African American neighborhoods to protect residents from acts of police brutality. -
Cesar Chavez
An American labor leader and civil rights activist who, with Dolores Huerta, co-founded the National Farm Workers Association (later the United Farm Workers union, UFW) in 1962. -
Desegregation
The elimination of laws, customs, or practices under which people from different religions, ancestries, ethnic groups, etc., are restricted to specific or separate public facilities, neighborhoods, schools, organizations, or the like. -
Title IX (9)
Title IX of the Education Amendments Act is a federal law that states: "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance."
