Chapter 21/Section 1

Taking on Segregation

Key Idea

African Americans use strong organizationand nonviolent tactics to confront policies ofsegregation and racial inequality.

World WarII set the stage for overturning the laws thatforced segregated facilities in the South.

  • Many AfricanAmericans had workedin the war effort at home.
  • Soldiers returned home determinedto fight for their own freedom.

Thurgood Marshall and lawyers for the NAACP took several cases to court.

  • Their major victorycame in the 1954 school desegregation case

Brown v. Board of Education.

  • The Supreme Courtruled that separate was “inherently unequal.”

Most schools desegregated.

  • In someareas, white leaders promised resistance.
  • In Arkansas, the Governor ordered theNational Guard to prevent African-Americanstudents from entering Little Rock’s CentralHigh School.
  • PresidentEisenhower sent federal troops to allow the studentsto enter the school.

Another issue was segregation of citybuses.

  • RosaParks refused to yield her seat to a white man,as Alabama law required.
  • After her arrest, African Americans in Montgomery organizeda year-long boycott of the city’s bus system.
  • It ended with a Supreme Court rulingmaking segregated buses illegal.

Helping lead the boycott wasDr.Martin Luther King, Jr.

  • He joined with otherministers to form the Southern Christian LeadershipCouncil (SCLC), which used nonviolent resistance to unjust laws.
  • By 1960, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee(SNCC) was formed by college students.
  • Theystaged sit-ins at segregated lunch counters.

Chapter 21/Section 2

The Triumphs of a Crusade

Key Idea

Civil rights activists break down numerousracial barriers through continued social protest and theprompting of landmark legislation.

In the Freedom Rides, African Americans testedthe Supreme Court ruling that banned segregationon buses.

  • Many were met by angrymobs that attacked and beat them.

In 1963 inBirmingham, Alabama, ML King and led an effort to desegregate the city.

  • The city police attacked marchers with dogs and water hoses.
  • Many peopleacross the country were outraged by these attacks.

To pressure Congress to pass a new Civil Rights law, leaders staged a massive March onWashington in August of 1963.

  • More than 250,000people showed up.
  • PresidentJohnson pushed Congress, and the Civil RightsAct was passed in 1964.

Civil rights workers began a campaign toregister African-American voters in the South called Freedom Summer.

  • In 1965, a harsh police response to a civilrights march led thousands from allover the country to join the movement.
  • PresidentJohnson pushed Congress to pass the VotingRights Act of 1965, which ended state laws that prevented African Americans from voting.

Chapter 21/Section 3

Challenges and Changesin the Movement

Key Idea

The civil rights movement turns North, newleaders emerge, and the movement becomes more militant.

The civil rights movement met difficulties as itmoved North.

  • In the South the problem hadbeen unfair laws, called de jure segregation.
  • In theNorth, the problem was de facto segregation, whicharises from racist attitudes.

Urban African Americans were angered by poor living conditions and by harsh treatment from police.

  • This anger boiled over in severalriots from 1963 to 1967.

New African-American leaders arose, many ofthem preaching black nationalism.

  • Malcolm X beganadvocating armed self-defense.
  • He later urged pursuit ofpeaceful means to win equality.
  • In 1965, he was assassinated.
  • SNCC leaders began to use the slogan“Black Power” to symbolize their pride and stronger resistance to racism.
  • The Black Panthers adopted military-style dressand harsh words, raising fears among many whites.

King objected to the fiery language of the BlackPower movement.

  • In April 1968, King was shot and killed.
  • Riots erupted in cities across America.

The civil rights movement hadachieved many triumphs, but

de factosegregation remains a problem even today.