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Flashcards in Civil rights for test Deck (40)
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1
Q

What treatment did black Americans face?

A

Across the USA, black Americans faced negative treatment such as racial segregation and discrimination. Jim Crow laws enforced segregation in public parks, cinemas, restaurants, schools, universities and on public transport.

2
Q

What were attitudes like in the ‘Deep South’?

A

The Deep South is those states in the USA’s south-east with a history of slavery and who formed the Confederacy during the US Civil War. Many people in these states held very traditional and conservative views. These states are Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina Virginia and Florida.

3
Q

Why do many laws vary between states?

A

The US has a federal system of government. This means while the constitution gives federal government (President, Houses of Congress and the Supreme Court) some powers, it also gives states the right to pass many of their own laws.

4
Q

What was the Ku Klux Klan?

A

A group who persecuted Jews, Catholics, communists, and anyone who was not white, especially African Americans. They put burning crosses in front of houses, blew up homes and murdered people. Many policemen and judges in the South were members or sympathetic to the organisation.

5
Q

How many black Americans could vote in the South?

A

Before the war around 3% could vote, while in 1956 about 20% were registered to vote.

6
Q

Why were so few black Americans registered to vote

A

White people could stop black people from voting using a variety of official and unofficial methods:

  • Employers threatening to sack black
    employees
  • White gangs gathered outside registration
    and voting places
  • Black campaigners and the lawyers and
    activists who went to court to defend the
    right to vote frequently faced beatings or
    murder
  • Unfair voting registration tests, including
    literacy tests, that would be biased
    towards white people
7
Q

What factors contributed to the growth of the civil rights movement in the 1950s?

A

Factors included:

Better education for black people, especially in the North, led to more black professionals

Migration meant that many poor black people moved north and liberal whites moved south

Southern towns grew, giving black people new job opportunities in industry

The Cold War made the US government sensitive to international criticism

In the Second World War many white people worked with black people and black Americans saw integration abroad

Television brought events into the living room – racism could not ignored across the USA

8
Q

What nationwide civil rights organisations were there in the 1950s?

A

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)

9
Q

What groups campaigned for rights in the South?

A

Local groups were often church-based. These often had more success in the South. Some local groups did not oppose segregation but wanted equal standards. These groups were important in helping develop tactics of non-violent direct action.

10
Q

How did the NAACP campaign for civil rights?

A

Focussed on campaigning through the courts.

11
Q

What was Plessy v. Ferguson?

A

A decision by the US Supreme Court in 1896 that declared segregation was allowed under the constitution, as it was ‘separate but equal’. This allowed for Jim Crow laws.

12
Q

How did CORE campaign against segregation?

A

CORE campaigns used non-violent direct action protests such as boycotts, pickets and sit-ins of segregated places (e.g. lunch counters, public transport).

13
Q

How did church organisations campaign for civil rights?

A

Black American churches were important centres of most black communities in the South. Black clergymen were often community leaders and organisers, and were involved in the civil rights movement because:

  • Most were paid by the church so would
    not lose their jobs if they spoke out
    against white racism
  • They were educated and good public
    speakers
  • They were good negotiators
  • They had their own network of contacts in
    the black community
  • They could persuade and gain support
  • They sometimes used non-violent direct
    action but stressed forgiving opponents
14
Q

What opposition did the civil rights movement face in the South?

A

They faced violent opposition from the KKK as well as from white Southern churches who used the bible to justify segregation.

15
Q

When and where was Emmett Till murdered?

A

The 14 year old from Chicago was murdered in August 1955 in Mississippi.

16
Q

What happened to Till’s killers?

A

The trial was reported across the country. The jury cleared the defendants after about an hour. The defendants later sold their story (admitting the murder) to a magazine for $3,500.

17
Q

What was the impact of Till’s murder?

A

Till’s mother, Mamie Bradley, insisted on an open casket with an open viewing of her son’s battered body in the funeral home. This led to huge publicity.

18
Q

Who were the Dixiecrats?

A

The Democrats were the dominant political party of the South. Many politicians opposed integration. The most significant opponents were nicknamed ‘Dixiecrats’ after Southern Democrats who had formed their own breakaway party

19
Q

What was the Brown v. Topeka case 1954?

A

The NAACP took the case of Linda Brown to the Supreme Court as she could not go to the white school near her house. The Supreme Court ruled that the Plessy ruling should no longer apply so that ‘separate but equal’ could no longer be used to justify segregated education.

20
Q

What was the impact of Brown?

A

The Brown case reversed Plessy, sparking off many more desegregation campaigns.

The Supreme Court set no timetable for desegregation, but in 1955 another Supreme Court case ruled that desegregation should be carried out by states ‘with all deliberate speed’. A vague statement that gave Southern states flexibility.

In the Deep South progress was slower. Governors of some states, such as Kansas and Mississippi did not accept desegregation.

A white backlash began as can be seen from the Southern Manifesto, a declaration signed by 11 Southern States that claimed desegregation was against the US constitution.

21
Q

What happened at Little Rock High School in 1957?

A

Little Rock, Arkansas, was desegregating Central High School in 1957. Due to threats and discrimination only nine students were willing to go at the start of the school year. Governor Orval Faubus sent 250 state troopers to ‘keep the peace’ by stopping the black students from entering on the first day of school. On the second day, Elizabeth Eckford, one of the Little Rock Nine students, was shouted at by a mob of white people as she walked into school.

22
Q

What was the significance of Little Rock?

A

Photographs of Eckford and the white mob were in the newspapers worldwide with the Little Rock Nine becoming famous. The federal government became embarrassed by the publicity. As a result:

  • President Eisenhower, who did not initially
    agree with legally enforcing integration,
    sent in 1000 federal troops to force Kansas
    to obey the law.
  • Governor Faubus’ state troops were put
    under federal control using a presidential
    order.
  • Eisenhower explained his actions on TV
    saying how states had to respect the law.
  • At the end of the school year, Governor
    Faubus closed every Little Rock school for
    the next school year in order to avoid
    integration.
  • Parents forced schools to re-open as
    integrated in September 1959.
23
Q

What were the WCC?

A

The White Citizens’ Councils (WCC), set up after the Brown ruling, grew rapidly in the late 1950s. They campaigned against desegregation and, like the KKK, carried out threats and violent actions against black families and civil rights activists.

24
Q

How did civil rights organisations cope with opposition to desegregation in schools?

A

The NAACP and CORE sent representatives to work with families of children involved in school desegregation. CORE produced a leaflet advising how students should behave during integration and warning them about the hostility they would face.

25
Q

Who was secretary of the Montgomery NAACP and leader of its Youth Council?

A

Rosa Parks

26
Q

Why did she become the figurehead of the bus boycott of 1955-6?

A

Parks was a respectable, middle-aged, married woman who was well regarded in the black community. There was nothing disreputable about her that opponents could use to make her look bad.

27
Q

What action was taken due to Parks’ arrest?

A

The WPC (Women’s Political Council) called for a one-day bus boycott on 5th December. 90% of black passengers boycotted the bus company.

28
Q

Who was Montgomery’s mayor?

A

Mayor Gayle

29
Q

What were the aims of the MIA?

A

The Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) was set up on 5th December 1955. It aimed to support the bus boycott and campaign for improvements demanded by the WPC

30
Q

Who was chosen as leader of the MIA?

A

Martin Luther King

31
Q

When did the Montgomery Bus Boycott take place?

A

5th December 1955 to 20th December 1956.

32
Q

How did the authorities respond to the Montgomery Bus Boycott?

A

Many white people in Montgomery opposed the boycott. WCC membership rose sharply and even Mayor Gayle joined. White officials harassed MIA officials and arrested them on minor charges such as speeding. On 22nd February 89 MIA members, including King, were arrested for disrupting lawful business. Their trial increased publicity although King was found guilty and made to pay a $500 fine.

33
Q

What system was introduced to help the boycott?

A

The MIA met with church groups and other organisations to set up car pools, which began on 12th December.

34
Q

Why was the boycott successful?

A

Overall it was a combination of organisation, commitment, publicity and the leadership of King and E.D. Nixon (NAACP member helped organise the boycott and went on fundraising tours)

35
Q

Why was the boycott important?

A

For several reasons:

  • Showed black people could organise mass
    resistance
  • Attracted widespread support and
    publicity
  • Made King a well known figure
  • Showed how non-violent direct action
    could work
36
Q

What happened after the boycott?

A

While buses were desegregated the day after the boycott ended on 21st December 1956, there was still a white backlash. Several black churches were firebombed as were the homes of MIA leaders including King. Bus services had to be suspended for several weeks as shots were fired at black people. Bus stops and other facilities remained segregated for years after.

37
Q

How did the federal government respond to the boycott?

A

President Eisenhower introduced the 1957 Civil Rights Act.

38
Q

What was the SCLC?

A

The Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC) was set up in January 1957 with King as a leader. It wanted an end to all segregation and campaigned to increase black voter registration by using non-violent direct action, publicity and nationwide protests.

39
Q

What does ‘filibuster’ mean?

A

A tactic used by politicians to stop a bill being voted on by talking for so long that the time limit of the debate expires. This was used by Strom Thurmond, a Dixiecrat, to stop the first vote on the 1957 Civil Rights Act.

40
Q

How effective was the 1957 Civil Rights Act?

A

It was a struggle to pass as Dixiecrats opposed the bill. When it eventually passed on 9th September 1957, it allowed the federal government to prosecute states that did not respect black voting rights. However, the trials had to take place in the states themselves and all-white juries were unlikely to do anything.