Civil Rights Movement:
Origins:
- African Americans had been slaves
→ Freed during the American Civil War (1861-1865)
- Jim Crow Laws
→ Racist treatment of African Americans
- The KKK – White supremacists that used violence and terror (lynching) to
ensure the segregation laws were followed
- National Association for the Advancement of coloured People (NAACP)
→ Formed in 1909 to promote equal rights and eradicate racial prejudice
in USA
- Brown v. the board of education of Topeka/ Kansas
→ The NAACP challenged segregation in the public education system.
Brown’s case was taken to the supreme court that ruled in 1954 that
segregation in the public school system was illegal. HOWEVER most
schools (and other facilities) in the south remained segregated.
Martin Luther King Jr:
- Baptist minister in Montgomery
- Member of the NAACP
- Through his role in organising the Montgomery Bus Boycott he became a
hero among African Americans
- Brilliant public speaker
→ Speeches focused on injustice, prejudice, protest and action
- Believed in non-violent protest and Civil Disobedience (peaceful protest in
which people break laws that they think are unjust or unconstitutional)
→ Influenced by Ghandi and Satyagraha
- Leader of the Civil Rights movement
- Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964
Protest Methods of the Civil Rights Movement:
- Civil disobedience
- Boycotts
- Protest marches
- Non-violence
- Sit-ins
The Montgomery Bus Boycott: (1955-1956)
- Rosa Parks > 1955, refused to give up her bus seat to a white man, she was
sitting at the “whites only” section
→ This was an open defiance of the segregation laws.
→ She was arrested and convicted of breaking the segregation laws.
Origins:
- African Americans had been slaves
→ Freed during the American Civil War (1861-1865)
- Jim Crow Laws
→ Racist treatment of African Americans
- The KKK – White supremacists that used violence and terror (lynching) to
ensure the segregation laws were followed
- National Association for the Advancement of coloured People (NAACP)
→ Formed in 1909 to promote equal rights and eradicate racial prejudice
in USA
- Brown v. the board of education of Topeka/ Kansas
→ The NAACP challenged segregation in the public education system.
Brown’s case was taken to the supreme court that ruled in 1954 that
segregation in the public school system was illegal. HOWEVER most
schools (and other facilities) in the south remained segregated.
Martin Luther King Jr:
- Baptist minister in Montgomery
- Member of the NAACP
- Through his role in organising the Montgomery Bus Boycott he became a
hero among African Americans
- Brilliant public speaker
→ Speeches focused on injustice, prejudice, protest and action
- Believed in non-violent protest and Civil Disobedience (peaceful protest in
which people break laws that they think are unjust or unconstitutional)
→ Influenced by Ghandi and Satyagraha
- Leader of the Civil Rights movement
- Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964
Protest Methods of the Civil Rights Movement:
- Civil disobedience
- Boycotts
- Protest marches
- Non-violence
- Sit-ins
The Montgomery Bus Boycott: (1955-1956)
- Rosa Parks > 1955, refused to give up her bus seat to a white man, she was
sitting at the “whites only” section
→ This was an open defiance of the segregation laws.
→ She was arrested and convicted of breaking the segregation laws.
