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Civil Rights Movement

1950s
Background

Jim Crow Laws: statutes or laws created to enforce segregation


Jackie Robinson: breaks the color barrier in MLB in 1947

Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education

Earl Warren- US Supreme Court Chief Justice


Supreme Court decision: public schools could not be separated by race
Reversed the separate but equal clause of Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896)

Montgomery Bus Boycott

Dec. 1st, 1955- Montgomery Alabama- Rosa Parks would not give up her seat to a white
passenger
Martin Luther King Jr.- preached to blacks in Montgomery to stop using the buses
Supreme Court ruling: segregation on buses was illegal

Little Rock Arkansas

The south resisted integration (in schools)


Little Rock- National Guard prevented schools from opening/integrating
Federal Judge- forced National Guard to be removed
Ike- sent 1000 paratroopers and opened the schools
The first black students- The Little Rock Nine

Civil Rights Act, 1957

First Civil Rights Act since Reconstruction


The Justice Department file suits on behalf of blacks who were denied the right to vote
Significance- it passed and was bipartisan

1960s
Riots

Race riots broke out across the US in the 1960s


Watts, Los Angeles- 1965
1967- saw the worst rioting- Detroit- 43 died, 5000 homeless
Many African Americans were frustrated with the lack of progress towards equality

Black Leaders

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.- fought for Afr.-Am. rights


o Used non-violent protest
1967- Thurgood Marshall- 1st Afr.-Am. appointed to the Supreme Court
Malcolm X- Malcolm Little- Black power movement
o Influenced Afr.-Am. to take pride in their culture and believe in their ability

1963 March of Washington D.C.

Organized to pressure Congress into passing a civil rights bill


More than 200,000 Freedom Marchers gather before the Lincoln Memorial
King delivered his I have a dream speech

Civil Rights Strategies

Sit-ins- used in an effort to help integrate restaurants


Freedom Riders- used to help draw attention to the Souths refusal to integrate the bus
system
Southern Manifesto- 1956- 19 Senators and 77 members of the House of Representativessigned a resolution condemning the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. B.O.E.

Selma to Montgomery March

King was attempting to register black voters in the south


o Will help lead to the Voting Rights Act (1965)
The freedom march began March 21, 1965
Marchers were protected by federal marshals, FBI, and Alabama National Guard- seen on
TV

Kings Assassination

April 4th, 1968- King assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee


Rioting broke out across the nation
James Earl Ray- arrested and convicted for the crime

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