The Civil Rights Movement, 1954–60 Flashcards
All 29 cards in this deck
What were the Jim Crow laws?
State and local laws in the Southern states that enforced racial segregation, keeping Black and white Americans apart in schools, buses, restaurants, parks and other public places.
What methods were used in Southern states to stop Black Americans voting in the early 1950s?
Literacy tests, poll taxes and intimidation; only around 20% of Black Americans in the South were registered to vote and there were very few Black politicians.
What was the NAACP and how did it campaign?
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; it challenged segregation and unfair education through legal cases in the courts, e.g. its lawyers won Brown v. Topeka (1954).
What was CORE and what methods did it use?
The Congress of Racial Equality; it organised campaigns against segregation using non-violent direct action such as sit-ins, and later organised the Freedom Rides (1961).
What did the Supreme Court rule in Brown v. Topeka (1954)?
That segregation in state schools was unconstitutional, overturning the doctrine of 'separate but equal' in education.
True or false? After Brown v. Topeka (1954) schools in the South were quickly desegregated.
False. Although segregation in schools was declared unconstitutional, many Southern states delayed and resisted desegregation.
How did Governor Orval Faubus try to stop desegregation at Little Rock High School in 1957?
He used the Arkansas National Guard to block the nine Black students (the Little Rock Nine) from entering the school.
How did President Eisenhower respond to the crisis at Little Rock High School (1957)?
He sent federal troops (the 101st Airborne) to escort the Little Rock Nine into the school and protect them.
What did Rosa Parks do on 1 December 1955, and why was it significant?
She refused to give up her bus seat and move to the back, and was arrested; as a well-respected NAACP member her brave example united people and encouraged others to campaign for desegregation.
What was the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA)?
The organisation set up to run the bus boycott, with Martin Luther King as president; it sustained the boycott for 381 days using carpools so Black workers could get to work.
Why did the bus company come under pressure during the Montgomery Bus Boycott?
Widespread support meant the buses carried too few passengers to make a profit, and the long boycott threatened the company with bankruptcy.
How did the Supreme Court bring the Montgomery Bus Boycott to a successful end?
It upheld the federal district court's decision that racially segregated seating on buses was unconstitutional and illegal.
What was the SCLC?
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, set up in 1957 with Martin Luther King as its president, to coordinate non-violent protest against segregation through Black churches in the South.
Why was the Ku Klux Klan opposed to the civil rights movement?
It believed in white supremacy and segregation, and used violent resistance, frequently attacking and murdering civil rights campaigners.
What happened to Emmett Till in 1955?
The Black teenager was murdered in Mississippi after 'wolf-whistling' a white woman in a store; his killers were acquitted by an all-white jury, showing how dangerous the South was.
True or false? Black Americans in the South could rely on the police to protect them from racist violence.
False. Black Americans were not protected by the police and were targeted, even in their own homes, if they campaigned for integration.
Who were the 'Dixiecrats'?
Southern Democrat politicians who wanted to defend segregation and opposed civil rights legislation in Congress.
Why were the White Citizens' Councils set up?
To stop the desegregation of schools and oppose the civil rights movement, as a reaction against desegregation in the South.
True or false? Martin Luther King was already a famous national civil rights leader before the Montgomery Bus Boycott began.
False. He was a young Baptist minister in Montgomery who was elected president of the MIA in 1955, and the boycott made his name.
What did the Supreme Court decide in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)?
That segregation was constitutional as long as the separate facilities for Black and white people were equal. This 'separate but equal' doctrine gave Jim Crow segregation its legal basis.
Which civil rights leader helped found CORE in 1942, and whose ideas inspired its methods?
James Farmer. CORE's non-violent direct action, such as sit-ins, was inspired by Mahatma Gandhi's campaign against British rule in India.
Who was Thurgood Marshall?
The NAACP lawyer who led its legal department and argued its civil rights cases before the Supreme Court, including Brown v. Topeka (1954).
Why did Linda Brown's family take their case to court in Brown v. Topeka?
Linda, a Black girl in Topeka, Kansas, had to travel to a distant Black school instead of her local white one. NAACP lawyers argued that segregated schooling harmed Black children psychologically and held back their education.
Roughly how many Black children in the South were still in segregated schools in 1957, three years after Brown v. Topeka?
About 2.4 million, compared with only around 300,000 who had moved into formerly segregated schools. The ruling had set no firm timetable for desegregation.
What happened when the Little Rock Nine got into Central High School on 23 September 1957?
Faubus had withdrawn the National Guard, and a white mob of about 1,000 gathered outside. The students had to be taken out at midday for their safety, and Eisenhower then sent in federal troops.
Give one reason why the events at Little Rock (1957) were significant.
Any one of: they showed that the federal government would overrule a state that defied the courts; worldwide TV coverage embarrassed the USA during the Cold War, as it claimed to defend freedom against communism.
What did the Civil Rights Act (1957) do?
It set up a Commission on Civil Rights to investigate discrimination and let the federal government act when people were stopped from voting. It was the first civil rights law in over 80 years, but Southern Democrats watered it down.
How did Senator Strom Thurmond try to stop the Civil Rights Bill in 1957?
The South Carolina Dixiecrat spoke non-stop for over 24 hours, a record filibuster, to delay the bill in the Senate. It still passed.
What was the Southern Manifesto (1956)?
A statement signed by about 100 Southern members of Congress condemning the Brown v. Topeka ruling as an abuse of the Supreme Court's power and encouraging states to resist school desegregation.