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Civil Disobedience
Civil Disobedience is an essay written by Henry David Thoreau. The essay Thoreau argued that individuals should not permit governments to overrule or atrophy their consciences. He was encouraged to write the essay because if his disgust with slavery. -
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Black Codes
The Black Codes were laws passed to regulate the rights of free African Americans. Before the Civil War, a number of midwestern states adopted black codes to inhibit the migration of free blacks and in other ways limit black rights. 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
Passed by Congress January 31, 1865, and ratified December 6, 1865. 1. 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. 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. -
14th Amendment
Adopted as one of the "Reconstruction Amendments". Granted citizenship and equal civil and legal rights to African Americans and slaves who had been emancipated after the American Civil War. Forbids any state to deny any person "life, liberty or property, without due process of law" or to "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." -
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Sharecropping / Tenant farming
A 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. Southern plantation owners were challenged to find help working the lands that slaves had farmed. Taking advantage of the former slaves' desire to own their own farms, plantation owners used arrangements, where the slaves had to give a portion of the crop to the plantation owner when harvested. -
15th Amendment
The 15th Amendment, was ratified in 1870. THe Amendment stated that the right of citizens to vote shall not be denied or abridged on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Also granted the U.S. Congress the power to enforcement through legislation. -
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Jim Crow Laws
Enacted in the southern states. The Jim Crow Laws legalized segregation between blacks and whites.The segregation principle was extended to parks, cemeteries, theatres, and restaurants in an effort to prevent any contact between blacks and whites as equals. It was codified on local and state levels and most famously with the “separate but equal” decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson. -
Plessy v Ferguson
The importance of Plessy v Ferguson is it's a very big impact on the court rule concept of "separate but equal". The Supreme Court then made a set back in civil rights for decades to come. Leading way for a future case, Brown v Board of Education. -
19th Amendment
Granted women the right to vote, prohibiting any United States citizen to be denied the right to vote based on gender. It was ratified on August 18, 1920 after a long struggle known as the women's suffrage movement. -
20th Amendment
Sets the dates at which federal government elected offices end. In also defines who succeeds the president if the president dies. This amendment was ratified on January 23, 1933. -
Thurgood Marshall
U.S. Supreme Court justice and civil rights advocate. He guided the litigation that destroyed the legal underpinnings of Jim Crow segregation. He crafted a distinctive jurisprudence marked by uncompromising liberalism, unusual attentiveness to practical considerations beyond the formalities of law, and an indefatigable willingness to dissent. -
Brown v Ferguson
Public schools were segregated, or separated into black and white schools. According to the Jim Crow laws, segregated facilities were okay because they were separate but equal. Helped strike down "separate but equal". -
Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama. This single act of nonviolent resistance sparked the Montgomery bus boycott, an 11 month struggle to desegregate the city's buses. Bringing the black community to unity. -
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Desegregation
As a result of the Brown v Board case, segregated its black students into a four-room elementary school in the city. High school students were required to ride a bus into nearby Fort Worth and then walk twenty blocks to the all-black high school. Later on, an angry mob of nearly 400 whites surrounded Mansfield High School to prevent the enrollment of three African American students. The angry whites then proceeded to hang the three black students. -
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Montgomery Bus Boycott
Montgomery Bus Boycott was launched by 17,000 african american citizens the day Rosa Parks was arrested. Lasted 13 months of no african american citizen riding the busses. Ended when the Supreme court ruled that segregated busses was unconstitutional. -
Orville Faubus
Stood against desegregation of the Little Rock School District during the Little Rock Crisis. He ordered the Arkansas National Guard to prevent black students from attending Little Rock Central High School. He defied a unanimous decision of the U.S. Supreme Court made in the 1954 case Brown v. Board of Education. -
Civil Rights Act of 1957
The Civil rights act of 1957 was primarily a voting rights bill. But was also the first federal civil rights legislation passed since 1875. Introduced in Eisenhower's presidency and was the act that kick-started the civil rights legislative program -
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Sit-ins
The Greensboro sit-ins at a restaurant in Greensboro, North Carolina, launched a wave of anti-segregation sit-ins across the South and opened a national awareness of the depth of segregation in the nation. The Greensboro sit-ins were a series of nonviolent protests. Which then later led to the Woolworth department store chain removing its policy of racial segregation in the Southern United States. -
Affirmative Action
Executive Order 10925 was executed by President John F. Kennedy, which made 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." -
Cesar Chavez
Cesar Chavez was dedicated to improve the work life of farm workers. He dedicate his life to increase the treatment, pay, as well as the working conditions for the farmers. Chavez then founded the National Farm Workers Association in 1962. -
Betty Friedan
Betty published her book The Feminine Mystique. In the book, Friedan described a depressed suburban housewife who dropped out of college at the age of 19 to get married and raise four children. Friedan wrote that she had never once in her life seen a positive female role-model who worked outside the home and also kept a family, -
Martin Luther King Jr
On this day MLKJr gave his "I have a Dream speech". In which he called for an end to racism in the United States and called for civil and economic rights. He promoted peaceful protests, and fighting hate with love. -
Nonviolent Protest - I have a Dream Speech
The "I have a Dream" speech, given by Martin Luther King Jr during the March on Washington, encouraged peaceful, nonviolent protesting. Although the whites did not respond with the same intentions, (MLKJr house firebombed) Essentially, the speech added to the movement which wanted equal treatment for all americans, and not just whites. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
Ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, gender or national origin. This act is considered one of the the top legislative achievements of the civil rights movement era. Signed by President Lyndon Johnson, with Martin Luther King Jr. on his side. -
Head Start
A program to help meet the emotional, social, health, nutritional, and psychological needs of preschool-aged children from low-income families. Started by Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson. This goes along with Title IX -
Upward Bound
Now known as Economic Opportunity Act or The War on Poverty. Upward Bounds goal is to provide certain categories of high school students better opportunities for attending college. The categories of greatest concern are those with low income, those with parents who did not attend college. -
24th Amendment
The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any election, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. -
Veterans Rights Act of 1965
Outlawed strategies that had been used by white supremacists to disenfranchise Black citizens and included provisions to facilitate the registration of new voters. Ended most legal forms of white supremacy. Although this was important, it did not end all forms of racial discrimination, many of which are embedded in the structures of society. -
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Lester Maddox
Lester Maddox is a known segregationist who refused to serve African American customers in his restaurant. Maddox was also a politician, the 75th Governor or Georgia. But was then demoted to serve as lieutenant governor when Jimmy Carter was appointed as governor. -
George Wallace
George Wallace, Former Governor of Alabama, ran in the 1968 presidential election. The pro-segregationist during his term as governor, was denied by the Democrat party. Wallace's strategy was to prevent either major party candidate from winning a majority in the Electoral College. This would throw the election into the House of Representatives, where Wallace would have bargaining power strong enough to determine, or at least strongly influence, the selection of the president. -
Lynching
Lynching is killing someone especially by hanging, for an alleged offense with or without a legal trial. In 1968 Over 4,500+ people were lynched, 70% being blacks. White people were only lynched for helping blacks, or protesting lynching. -
26th Amendment
The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age. The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. -
Title IX
Prohibits federally funded educational institutions from discriminating against students or employees based on gender. Therefore, any school that receives any federal money from the elementary to university level all schools must provide fair and equal treatment of the genders in all areas, including athletics. Since the enactment of Title IX, women’s participation in sports has grown exponentially. -
Hector P. Garcia
Advocate for Hispanic-American rights during the Chicano movement. He was the first Mexican-American member of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission and was awarded the Medal of Freedom. Dr Garcia was also a Surgeon Physician, and World War II veteran.
