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Jim Crow Laws
Jim Crow Laws were state and local laws that enforced racial segregation in the Southern United States. They mandated the segregation of public schools, public places, public transportation, restrooms, and drinking fountains for whites and blacks. These laws revived principles of the 1865 and 1866 Black Codes which had previously restricted the civil rights and civil liberties of African Americans. -
13th Amendment
The 13th Amendment to the Us Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime.Though the amendment formally abolished slavery throughout the United States, factors such as Black Codes, white supremacist violence, and selective enforcement of statutes continued to subject some black Americans to involuntary labor. -
Civil Disobedience
Civil Disobedience is the refusal to comply with certain laws or to pay taxes and fines as a peaceful form of political protest. It's sometimes defined as having to be nonviolent and therefore equated with nonviolent resistance. Henry David Thoreau's "Essay on Civil Disobedience" began to appear in numerous sermons and lectures relating to slavery in Mexico. -
Black Codes
The Black Codes were laws passed by Democrat-controlled Southern states in 1865 and 1866. These laws had the purpose and effect of restricting African Americans' freedom and forcing them to work in a labor economy based on low wages or debt. For example, many sates required blacks to sign yearly labor contracts; if they refused they risked being arrested and fined or forced into unpaid labor. -
14th Amendment
The 14th Amendment addresses citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws and was proposed in response to issues related to former slaves following the American Civil War. The amendment's first section includes several clauses: the Citizenship Clause, Privileges or Immunities Clause, Due Process Clause, and Equal Protection Clause. The second, third, and fourth sections of the amendment are seldom litigated. -
Sharecropping/Tenant Farming
After the American Civil War, southern plantation owners took advantage of the former slaves' desire to own their own farms, plantation owners used arrangements called sharecropping and tenant farming. In sharecropping land owners provided sharecroppers with a house and a plot of land, as well as all the seed, fertilizer, and tools necessary to cultivate crops. Tenant farmers were responsible for all the necessary supplies and got to select the crops they wanted to raise. -
15th Amendment
The 15th Amendment grants African-American men the right to vote. The amendment reads “the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” After decades of discrimination, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that denied blacks their right to vote under the 15th Amendment. -
Lynching
Lynching is a form of punishment most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an accused individual or intimidate a group. Of the people that were lynched in the US, 3,446 were black. One of the main reasons for lynching was the end of the Civil War when blacks were given their freedom. many people felt that the freed blacks were getting away with too much freedom and felt they needed to be controlled. Mississippi had the highest lynchings; 581. -
Plessy v Ferguson
Plessy v Ferguson was a law case in the Supreme court in 1896. The case went to court to ban state racial segregation laws for public facilities under the ideology "separate but equal." The case was later overturned by the SC in the Brown v Board of Education in Topeka case. -
19th Amendment
The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted American women the right to vote-also known as women's suffrage. At the time the U.S. was founded, its female citizens did not share all of the same rights as men, including the right to vote. It was not until 1848 that the movement for women’s rights launched on a national level with a convention in Seneca Falls, New York. After a 70-year battle, these groups finally emerged victorious with the passage of the 19th Amendment. -
20th Amendment
The 20th Amendment to the US Constitution moved the beginning and ending of the terms of the president and vice president from March 4 to January 20, and of members of Congress from March 4 to January 3. It also has provisions that determine what is to be done when there is no president-elect. Under the Constitution at the time, these presidents had to wait four months before they and the incoming Congresses could deal with the secession of Southern states and the Great Depression respectively. -
Federal Housing Authority
The Federal Housing Authority is a United States government agency created in part by the National Housing Act of 1934. It sets standards for construction and underwriting and insures loans made by banks and other private lenders for home building. The goals of this organization are to improve housing standards and conditions, provide an adequate home financing system through insurance of mortgage loans, and to stabilize the mortgage market. The Acting Commissioner of the FHA is Biniam Gebre. -
Hector P. Garcia
Hector Garcia was a Mexican-American physician, surgeon, WW II veteran, civil rights advocate, and founder of the American G.I forum. The American G.I Forum became a recognized voice for Mexican Americans in the post WW II era. The Forum also raised funds to pay the poll taxes of the indigent and campaigned against the Bracero Program, infamous for exploiting migrant laborers. -
Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood marshall was a US Supreme Court justice and Civil Rights activist. Marshall was also the court's first African-American justice. In 1954 Thurgood won the court case that made segregation of blacks and whites illegal. -
Brown v Ferguson
On May 17, 1954 in Topeka, Kansas,the Supreme Court unanimously decision overturned the Plessy v Ferguson case. It declared that "separate but equal" public facilities are unequal. The 9-0 ruling ended racial segregation. -
Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks was a well known African American female most known for refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama city bus in 1955. Parks was convicted of violating the segregation laws; because of this, the leaders of the local black community organized a bus boycott, led by Dr Martin Luther king Jr., that lasted only a year and ended only when the U.S supreme court ruled that bus segregation was unconstitutional. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
The Montgomery Bus Boycott is regarded as the first large scale demonstration against segregation on the U.S in which African Americans refused to ride city buses in Montgomery, Alabama to protest segregated seating. Led by Martin Luther King Jr, the boycott took place four days after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man. the boycott lasted more than a year and only ended when the U.S SC ruled that bus segregation was unconstitutional. -
Orval Faubus
Orval Faubas was an American politician who served as the 36th Governor of Arkansas. He is most remembered for his 1957 stand against desegregation of the Little Rock School District during the Little Rock Crisis. By ordering the Arkansas National Guard to keep African American 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
Originally proposed by Attorney General Herbert Brownell, the Act marked the first occasion since Reconstruction that the federal government undertook significant legislative action to protect civil rights. It empowered federal officials to prosecute individuals that conspired to deny or abridge another citizen's right to vote. It also created a six-member U.S. Civil Rights Commission charged with investigating allegations of voter infringement. -
Sit-Ins
Sit-Ins are a form of protest in which demonstrators occupy a place, refusing to leave until their demands have been met. One of the most known sit-ins was the Greensboro sit-ins. they were a series of non-violent protests in Greensboro, North Carolina which led to the Woolworth department store chain removing it's policy of racial segregation in the Southern United States. -
Cesar Chavez
Cesar Chavez was Mexican-American prominent union leader and labor organizer. Chavez founded the National Farm Workers Association in 1962. His union joined the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee in it's first strike against grape growers in California. The two organizations later merged to form the United Farm Workers. -
George Wallace
George Wallace was an American politician and the 45th governor of Alabama. Wallace is remembered for his Southern neo-dixiecrat and pro-segregation "Jim Crow" positions during the mid 20th century period of the Civil Rights Movement. He declared in his 1963 Inaugural Address that he stood for "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever." he is also known for standing in the front entrance of the University of Alabama in an attempt to stop the enrollment of black students. -
Desegregation
Desegregation is the ending of racial segregation. One of the most well known instances if desegregation was when African American students attempted to desegregate the University of Alabama in 1963. On June 10th of this year, president John F. Kennedy federalized National Guard troops and deployed them to the University of Alabama to force it's desegregation. -
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. was a well known civil rights leader and activist as well asa famous Baptist Minister. He drove a force behind movements such as the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the March on Washington and believed in non-violent protesting methods. On August 28, 1963 King gave his famous "I Have Dream" speech which influenced many to participate in the anti segregation movement. -
Nonviolent Protest
Nonviolent protest is the practice of achieving goals like social change or political cooperation while being nonviolent. One of the most memorable nonviolent protests was the March on Washington for jobs and freedom. It was the largest political rally ever seen in the US drawing between 200,000 and 300,000 police and participants where Martin Luther King Jr gave his famous "I Have A Dream" speech. -
Lester Maddox
Lester Maddox was an American politician who served a the 75th Governor of Georgia. Maddox became known by the public as a committed segregationist when he refused to serve black customers at his restaurant in Atlanta. Because of this, more African American protesters attempted to enter the restaurant but Maddox confronted the group with an axe handle. -
Upward Bound
Upward Bound is a program that provides opportunities for participants to succeed in their precollege performance and ultimately in their higher education pursuits. This includes high school students from low-income families; and high school students from families in which neither parent holds a bachelor's degree. It emerged out of the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 in response to the administration's War on Poverty. -
Civi Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. First proposed by President John F. Kennedy, it survived strong opposition from southern members of Congress and was then signed into law by Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson. Congress expanded the act and also passed additional legislation aimed at bringing equality to African Americans. -
24th Amendment
The 24th Amendment of the US Constitution prevents both Congress and the states from conditioning in federal elections on payment of a poll tax or other types of tax. The amendment prohibited requiring a poll tax for voters in federal elections. Subsequent litigation related to potential discriminatory effects of voter registration requirements has generally been based on application of this clause. -
26th Amendment
The 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 debate over lowering the voting age in America from 21 to 18 began during World War II and intensified during the Vietnam War, when young men denied the right to vote were being conscripted to fight for their country. “Old enough to fight, old enough to vote” became a common slogan. -
Title IX
Title IX(9) is a federal law that states that 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. Title IX was introduced in Congress by Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana in 1971. On February 28, 1972, Senator Bayh introduced the ERA's equal education provision as an amendment. -
Betty Friedan
Betty Friedan helped advance the women’s rights movement as one of the founders of the National Organization for Women. She advocated for an increased role for women in the political process and is remembered as a pioneer of feminism and the women’s rights movements. n 1982, Betty Friedan published The Second Stage, which sought to help women wrestling with the demands of work and home. -
Affirmative Action
Affirmative Action is the policy of favoring members of a disadvantaged group who suffer or have suffered from discrimination within a culture. Several different studies investigated the effect of affirmative action on women. A study by Kim and Kim 2014 considered the impact of four primary factors on support for affirmative action programs for women. They found that, "Affirmative action both corrects existing unfair treatment and gives women equal opportunity in the future."
