Unit 8 Civil Rights Movement

During the late 1940s and early 1950s, African Americans enjoyed increased political power due to

• An increasing number of African Americans holding office in Southern state legislatures (e.g.Alabama)

• FDR & the New Deal as many African Americans had begun to support the Republican Party in North (countered the political power of Southern Democrats).

• The Great Migration, which had resulted in huge numbers of African Americans moving South (could now vote).

• The Harlem Renaissance & Negro Nationalism (Garvey) during the 1920s, which gave African Americans pride within their own culture & confidence to become more involved within Politics.

How was the “old” civil rights movement (i.e. that which occurred prior to the mid-1950s) different from the “new”/modern civil rights movement that came after the mid-1950s?

• The “old” civil rights movement had attempted to achieve equality only dealt with court cases while the “new” civil rights movement was multi-dimensional

• The “new” civil rights movement had attempted to achieve equality only dealt with court cases while the “old” civil rights movement was multi-dimensional

• The “new” civil rights movement was assisted by the federal government while the “old” civil rights movement was not.

• The “old” civil rights movement was assisted by the federal government while the “new” civil rights movement was not.

During the late 1950s/early 1960s, sit-in demonstrations were first effectively used by

• College students working with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

• Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)

• Huey Newton and the Black Panthers

• Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam

The Supreme Court decision on Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka essentially reversed which of the following earlier Court decisions?

• Korematsu v. the United States

• Dred Scott v. Sanford

• Gideon v. Wainwright

• Plessy v. Ferguson

All of the following were reactions to the ruling in the Brown v. Board of Education case with the exception of

• Convinced many African Americans that now was the time to challenge segregation

• Angered white southerners who became even more determined to uphold segregation and disregard the Supreme Court ruling

• Angered police in that they now had to read suspects their rights before questioning

• Caused members of Congress (Southern members) to sign the Southern Manifesto, stating the Supreme Court ruling was a violation of court powers and had no legal standing

Many historians consider this event (that occurred in 1955) as the first visible act of “grass-roots”/public protest of the modern Civil Rights Movement.

• The Montgomery Bus Boycott

• The Freedom Riders

• Watts Riots

• Birmingham Protests

What did Martin Luther King, Jr. believe in/advocate for as the best way to end segregation?

• Through aggressive self-defense and violence (if necessary) in order for African Americans should control the social, political, and economic direction of their struggle for equal rights

• Non-violent passive resistance would eventually gain public support & force the Federal government to end segregation.

• Only through the use of open revolution can an oppressed group achieve equal rights

• Through the use of manipulation, intimidation and political bribery of government politicians

For what TWO reasons was the crisis in Little Rock, Arkansas over the admittance of African American students to Central High (a predominantly white high school) significant?

• It resulted in the admittance of James Meredith, the first African American student to enroll and graduate from a previously all-white high school

• It caused American public support to refocus on the modern civil rights movement after the Cuban Missile Crisis.

• It marked the first time since the Civil War that a state had challenged the Constitutional authority of the federal government

• It resulted in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Why was the Civil Rights Act of 1957 significant?

• It was the first Civil Rights law since Reconstruction

• It protected the voting rights of African Americans

• The act brought the power of the Federal government into the Civil Rights debate

• Both A and C

Students staged a sit-in in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1959 to protest

• poverty in the South.

• cutbacks in student aid.

• segregation of public facilities.

• the war in Vietnam.