Civil Rights Movements of the 1950s & 1960s

The excerpt is from a 1923 Alabama Law.

All railroads carrying passengers in this state, other than street railroads, shall provide equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races, by providing two or more passenger cars for each passenger train, or by dividing the passenger cars by partitions, so as to secure separate accommodations.

What was this law written to enforce?

• miscegenation

• desegregation

• de jure segregation

• de facto segregation

The excerpt below is from an agreement made among homeowners in the Washington Park neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, in 1927.

This Agreement entered into this 30th day of September, 1927, by and between the undersigned owners of land...That no part of said premises shall be sold, given, conveyed or leased to any negro or negroes, and no permission or license to use or occupy any part thereof shall be given to any negro except house servants or janitors or chauffeurs employed thereon.

This agreement is an example of

• affirmative action

• a class-action lawsuit

• reverse discrimination

• a restrictive covenant

All of the following tactics were used to disenfranchise African American voters in the first half of the 20th century except

• filibustering

• the poll tax

• gerrymandering

• the white primary

In 1948, President Harry Truman issued Executive Order 9981. What did this order call for?

• desegregation of the armed forces

• the end of the white primary

• preferential treatment in hiring

• the outlawing of racial tension

What lawsuit was brought before the Supreme Court in 1952 to challenge the constitutionality of school segregation laws?

• Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education

• Brown v. Board of Education

• Regents of the University of California v. Bakke

• Swann v. Charolette-Mecklenburg Board of Education

Which of these tactics did Martin Luther King Jr. and Southern Christian Leadership Conference use most effectively in their struggle to win equal rights for African Americans?

• armed rebelion

• affirmative action

• nonviolent resistance

• reverse discrimination

The photograph below was taken during a civil rights protest in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963. What resulted from these events shown in the photograph and the publicity they generated?

• Civil rights activists in Birmingham began to carry weapons.

• Martin Luther King Jr. organized a bus boycott in Birmingham.

• City leaders agreed to desegregate public facilities in Birmingham.

• The Supreme Court ordered Birmingham schools to be desegregated.

The landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed racial discrimination in all of the following except

• employment

• housing

• public accommodations

• public schools

Examine the table. Which of these campaigns was aimed at registering African Americans in the state with the lowest percentage of black voters?

• Freedom Rides

• Freedom Summer

• March on Washington

• Montgomery Bus Boycott

The statement below is from Kerner Commission Report, issued in 1968.

Social and economic conditions...constituted a clear pattern of severe disadvantage for Negroes compared with whites.

What led to the formation of the Kerner Commission?

• the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

• the call for black nationalism by the Nation of Islam

• the murder of three civil rights workers in Mississippi

• the spread of race riots in Watts to other urban ghettos