PROTESTS
Definition
Happens when ordinary citizens take action against government policies or situations that
they consider unfair or unjust.
This action can be in the form of protest marches, demonstrations, civil disobedience
(deliberately breaking laws) or strikes.
Civil society
In most cases it
involves non violent
action undertaken to
put pressure on
protests 1950-
authorities or
influence public opinion.
Ordinary people have
been
opposing
1970 very
successful in
authority and
Notes
agitating for change.
US Civil
Rights
Movements
Background: post war south: reconstruction
After civil war= process of introducing and managing change= reconstruction
During reconstruction= congress passed laws & the Supreme Court issued rulings that tried
to introduce racial equality into the US states which included:
❖ The 13th amendment abolished slavery
❖ Civil rights act gave back civil rights
❖ 14th Amendment= guaranteed all citizens equality before the law and declared that
the federal government could intervene
❖ 15th amendment 1870= said ‘right to vote should not be denied on account of race,
color, or previous conditions of ‘servitude’( the amendment did not guarantee all
men the right to vote or forbid states to introduce literacy, property and educational
tests for would be voters)
, Failures of reconstruction
❖ Reconstruction failed to bring great economic gains to blacks. Most remained
trapped in poverty, working as a tenant farmers ( sharecroppers) for the white elite
in the economically backward south.
❖ Republicans had long advocated equal voting rights for blacks, so Lincoln’s
Republican Party acquired the black voters, but the blacks were unable to dominate
political life.
❖ They lacked: education, organization and experience.
❖ Southern whites fearful, resentful of black people= depicted Reconstruction as an
era of black rule, rape, murder & arson. —> they made this excuse to disenfranchise
black people.
❖ By 1900 only 3% of Southern Black people could vote.
❖ Reconstruction failed to bring about lasting political gains for black people.
Jim Crow Laws
• Social divisions or segregation became enshrined in law.
• The power given to individual states under the Constitution facilitated the
introduction of the Jim Crow laws: discriminated against black Americans by insisting
they use separate facilities & services, live separately from whites
• Jim Crow was= an early 1830’s comic, black faced minstrel character developed by
white preforming artist, that was very popular with white audiences.
• After reconstruction= south introduce laws that legalized segregation= Jim Crow
laws
• Rights of state = insist separate facilities was upheld by Supreme Court: ‘Plessy vs
Ferguson judgement of 1896.
Plessy vs Ferguson=
o Landmark court case.
o Homer Plessy (black American) arrested for sitting in white railway carriage
Louisiana.
o Argued that the 14th amendment guaranteed equal rights to all US citizens
o Policy of ‘separate but equal’
o Separate facilities came to mean inferior ones for black people
o This case enabled Southern states to pass hundreds of segregation laws or Jim Crow
laws.
o Ferguson = judge
• The ku Klux klan, a white racist group began to terrorize black people and used
lynchings.
Black peoples responses:
• Many migrated northwards
• Protests were sporadic & uncoordinated
Definition
Happens when ordinary citizens take action against government policies or situations that
they consider unfair or unjust.
This action can be in the form of protest marches, demonstrations, civil disobedience
(deliberately breaking laws) or strikes.
Civil society
In most cases it
involves non violent
action undertaken to
put pressure on
protests 1950-
authorities or
influence public opinion.
Ordinary people have
been
opposing
1970 very
successful in
authority and
Notes
agitating for change.
US Civil
Rights
Movements
Background: post war south: reconstruction
After civil war= process of introducing and managing change= reconstruction
During reconstruction= congress passed laws & the Supreme Court issued rulings that tried
to introduce racial equality into the US states which included:
❖ The 13th amendment abolished slavery
❖ Civil rights act gave back civil rights
❖ 14th Amendment= guaranteed all citizens equality before the law and declared that
the federal government could intervene
❖ 15th amendment 1870= said ‘right to vote should not be denied on account of race,
color, or previous conditions of ‘servitude’( the amendment did not guarantee all
men the right to vote or forbid states to introduce literacy, property and educational
tests for would be voters)
, Failures of reconstruction
❖ Reconstruction failed to bring great economic gains to blacks. Most remained
trapped in poverty, working as a tenant farmers ( sharecroppers) for the white elite
in the economically backward south.
❖ Republicans had long advocated equal voting rights for blacks, so Lincoln’s
Republican Party acquired the black voters, but the blacks were unable to dominate
political life.
❖ They lacked: education, organization and experience.
❖ Southern whites fearful, resentful of black people= depicted Reconstruction as an
era of black rule, rape, murder & arson. —> they made this excuse to disenfranchise
black people.
❖ By 1900 only 3% of Southern Black people could vote.
❖ Reconstruction failed to bring about lasting political gains for black people.
Jim Crow Laws
• Social divisions or segregation became enshrined in law.
• The power given to individual states under the Constitution facilitated the
introduction of the Jim Crow laws: discriminated against black Americans by insisting
they use separate facilities & services, live separately from whites
• Jim Crow was= an early 1830’s comic, black faced minstrel character developed by
white preforming artist, that was very popular with white audiences.
• After reconstruction= south introduce laws that legalized segregation= Jim Crow
laws
• Rights of state = insist separate facilities was upheld by Supreme Court: ‘Plessy vs
Ferguson judgement of 1896.
Plessy vs Ferguson=
o Landmark court case.
o Homer Plessy (black American) arrested for sitting in white railway carriage
Louisiana.
o Argued that the 14th amendment guaranteed equal rights to all US citizens
o Policy of ‘separate but equal’
o Separate facilities came to mean inferior ones for black people
o This case enabled Southern states to pass hundreds of segregation laws or Jim Crow
laws.
o Ferguson = judge
• The ku Klux klan, a white racist group began to terrorize black people and used
lynchings.
Black peoples responses:
• Many migrated northwards
• Protests were sporadic & uncoordinated
