Civil Rights Movement Vocabulary – Flashcards
Unlock all answers in this set
Unlock answersquestion
Martin Luther King Jr.
answer
U.S. Baptist minister and civil rights leader. A noted orator, he opposed discrimination against blacks by organizing nonviolent resistance and peaceful mass demonstrations. He was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. Nobel Peace Prize (1964)
question
Rosa Parks
answer
Refused to give up her seat to a white passenger. After she was jailed, the Montgomery bus boycott was organized.
question
Thurgood Marshall
answer
American civil rights lawyer, first black justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. Marshall was a tireless advocate for the rights of minorities and the poor.
question
Malcolm X
answer
Malcolm X was an advocate of black power and was the figurehead of the Nation of Islam for some time. He was greatly influential in getting people to believe in black power and self-defense, as opposed to King's peace.
question
Stokely Carmichael
answer
A leader of the Black Nationalist movement in 1966, he coined the phrase "Black Power". Broke off from the nonviolent movements.
question
Huey Newton
answer
Co founded Black Panthers and embraced separatism
question
Bobby Seale
answer
Along with Huey P. Newton, co-founded the Black Panther Party For Self Defense on October 15, 1966. He also ran for Mayor of Oakland, California.
question
James Meredith
answer
United States civil rights leader whose college registration caused riots in traditionally segregated Mississippi (born in 1933)
question
NAACP
answer
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
question
SNCC
answer
Student non-violent coordinating committee, also known as 'Snick.'
question
Black Panthers
answer
Led by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton, they believed that racism was an inherent part of the U.S. capitalist society and were militant, self-styled revolutionaries for Black Power.
question
CORE
answer
An organization founded by James Leonard Farmer in 1942 to work for racial equality.
question
SCLC
answer
Southern Christian Leadership Conference, churches link together to inform blacks about changes in the Civil Rights Movement, led by MLK Jr., was a success
question
Kerner Commission
answer
Created in July, 1967 by President Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate the causes of the 1967 race riots in the United States.
question
Twenty-fourth Amendment
answer
Ratified by the states on January 23, 1964, this amendment prohibits congress and states from using any method to keep someone from voting based on ethnicity.
question
Voting Rights Act of 1965
answer
A law designed to help end formal and informal barriers to African American suffrage. Under the law, hundreds of thousands of African Americans were registered and the number of African American elected officials increased dramatically.
question
Civil Rights Act of 1964
answer
This act made racial, religious, and sex discrimination by employers illegal and gave the government the power to enforce all laws governing civil rights, including desegregation of schools and public places.
question
Freedom Summer
answer
Name given to the voting campaign in the summer of 1964 that helped African Americans register to vote
question
Sit-in
answer
Nonviolent protests in which a person sits and refuses to leave.
question
Boycott
answer
A group's refusal to have commercial dealings with some organization in protest against its policies
question
March on Washington
answer
In August 1963, civil rights leaders organized a massive rally in Washington to urge passage of President Kennedy's civil rights bill. The high point came when MLK Jr., gave his "I Have a Dream" speech to more than 200,000 marchers in front of the Lincoln Memorial.
question
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
answer
Federal Agency created to enforce the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forbids discrimination on the basis of race, creed, national origin, religion, or sex in hiring, promotion, or firing
question
Lyndon B. Johnson
answer
He was the president that assured the nation that "we shall overcome" when he signed the Voting Rights act of 1965. He also took steps to end discrimination earlier when he signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
question
Project "C"
answer
The system of segregation in Birmingham, Alabama. The "C" in the project stood for confrontation, the strategy of nonviolent direct action designed to confront segregation through peaceful demonstrations, rallies, boycotts, and appeals to justice.
question
Protest In Birmingham
answer
The Birmingham campaign was a strategic movement organized by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to bring attention to the unequal treatment black Americans endured in Birmingham, Alabama.
question
Freedom Rides
answer
Freedom Riders rode in interstate buses into the segregated southern United States to test the ruling of unsegregated public places
question
Brown v. Board of Education
answer
Court ruled that segregation was unconstitutional, overturned Plessey v Ferguson.
question
Plessy v. Ferguson
answer
a 1896 Supreme Court decision which legalized state ordered segregation so long as the facilities for blacks and whites were equal.
question
Montgomery Bus Boycott
answer
In 1955, after Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a city bus, Dr. Martin L. King led a boycott of city busses. After 11 months the Supreme Court ruled that segregation of public transportation was illegal.
question
Earl Warren
answer
Chief Justice during the 1950's and 1960's who used a loose interpretation to expand rights for both African-Americans and those accused of crimes.
question
de jure segregation
answer
Segregation imposed by law.
question
de facto segregation
answer
Segregation resulting from economic or social conditions or personal choice.
question
Jim Crow Laws
answer
State level legal codes of segregation, such as literacy requirements and poll taxes
