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Executive Order 9981
Segregation
- Segregation was common in public places, especially in the South.
- the Plessy decision stated that separate accommodations for the races must be equal, the reality was often quite different. -
Advocates for Black Nationalism
Nation of Islam, Malcom X
- One of the leaders of this change was a former convict named Malcolm X.
- As a Black Muslim, Malcolm X rejected the goals of the early civil rights movement. Rather than seeking integration, the Nation of Islam promoted black nationalism, a doctrine that called for complete separation from white society. -
Dodgers hire Jackie Robinson
Color line
- a barrier—created by custom, law, and economic differences—that separated whites from nonwhites
- In 1945, Robinson crossed the color line when Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey hired him. -
Brown v. Board of Education Ruling
Brown v. Board of Education Ruling
- the 1954 Supreme Court ruling declaring that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional
- The Brown decision dismantled the legal basis for segregation in schools and other public places. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
Boycott & Rosa Parks
- On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a 43-year-old African American woman, refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger
- To make the boycott work, African Americans in Montgomery organized an elaborate carpool system to get around town. -
Integration of Central High School
Little Rock Nine
- In 1957, a federal judge ordered public schools in Little Rock, Arkansas, to begin desegregation
- The following year, however, Governor Faubus closed all the Little Rock schools rather than allow another year of integration. It was not until September 1959 that integration continued in Little Rock. -
Lunch Counter sit-ins
Jim Crow Laws & Sit-Ins
- On February 1, 1960, four African American students from North Carolina's Agricultural and Technical College sat down at a lunch counter in the Woolworth's drugstore in Greensboro.
- The sit-ins and boycotts began to transform the segregated South and change the civil rights movement. College students took the lead in the sit-ins, and many became activists in the movement. -
Freedom Rides
Civil Disobedience: peaceful protest against something protester disagrees with
- CORE was involved with organizing these Freedom ride
- CORE ended up abandoning the Freedom Rides, but SNCC continued them
- Some freedom riders were beat up for their cause -
March on Washington
NAACP
- On August 28, more than 250,000 people marched in Washington. It was the largest political gathering ever held in the United States.
- The 1963 March on Washington was a long time coming. -
Birmingham campaign
SCLC
- On April 12, King and 50 others demonstrated and were quickly arrested.
- Birmingham had a history of racist violence. -
Advocates for Black Nationalism
Nation of Islam, Malcom X
- One of the leaders of this change was a former convict named Malcolm X
- As a Black Muslim, Malcolm X rejected the goals of the early civil rights movement. Rather than seeking integration, the Nation of Islam promoted black nationalism, a doctrine that called for complete separation from white society. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
Plessy v. Ferguson
- Civil Rights Act of 1964: a landmark act that banned discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, or national origin; the most important civil rights law since Reconstruction
- banned discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, or national origin—the most important civil rights law passed since Reconstruction. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
Disenfranchise: depriving someone the right to vote
- Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965
- African Americans got the right to vote because of this act -
Watts Riot + Kerner Commission
Kerner Commission, ghettos
- a part of a city where people belonging to a single ethnic group live
- In August 1965, a race riot exploded in Watts, an African American ghetto in Los Angeles. The immediate cause of the riot was a charge of police brutality. The more long-term cause was African Americans' festering frustrations about poverty, prejudice
- a 1965 race riot in Watts, a black ghetto in Los Angeles, caused by frustrations about poverty, prejudice, and police mistreatment -
Black Panther Party Founded
Black power, SNCC
- a group founded in 1966 that demanded economic and political rights and was prepared to take violent action
- The Black Panthers provided many services for blacks in their community, such as free breakfast programs for children, and medical clinics. But they were probably best known for their efforts to end police mistreatment of blacks. -
Civil Rights Act of 1968
discrimination
- the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things
- Drawing on King's efforts and on the national grief over his death, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1968. This law included a fair-housing component that banned discrimination in housing sales and rentals -
Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenberg Board of Education
desegregation
- the ending of a policy of racial segregation.
- Swann vs Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education: the 1971 Supreme Court ruling that busing was an acceptable way to achieve school integration -
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke
Affirmative action
- Regents of the University of California vs Bakke: a 1978 Supreme Court ruling that narrowly upheld affirmative action, declaring that race may be one factor, but not the sole criterion, in school admissions
- “Racial and ethnic classifications of any sort are inherently suspect and call for the most exacting judicial scrutiny.”
