Paper 1 flashcards
What were the 13th, 14th and 15th amendements?
The 13th amendment abolished slavery.
The 14th amendment granted citizenship to African Americans.
The 15th amendment granted voting rights for all men.
What was peonage?
In the context of civil rights, peonage is the illegal practice of coercing someone to work to pay off a debt, violating their rights to freedom.
What was ballot stuffing?
Election officials would cast fraudulent votes to ensure the victory of a particular candidate.
What were poll taxes?
This tax disproportionately affected African Americans due to the economic disparities between them and white individuals, often rendering them unable to afford the tax and, consequently, unable to vote.
What are literacy tests?
African Americans were subjected to reading tests, a significant barrier given their historical denial of educational opportunities. Failure to pass these tests resulted in disenfranchisement (depriving someone of the right to vote).
What was the grandfather clause?
The grandfather clause was a legal provision that exempts certain individuals from new regulations or requirements, based on pre-existing conditions. The clause was used to exempt white voters from literacy tests and other voting prerequisites, provided they had an ancestor who was eligible to vote before the introduction of these requirements.
What were Jim Crow laws?
Jim Crow laws were state and local legislation that enforced racial segregation.
They were enforced in 1870 and were gradually dismantled through key civil rights movements (E.g. Brown vs Board).
What was Plessy vs Ferguson?
Plessy vs Ferguson was a U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation under the “separate but equal” doctrine.
It enforced Jim Crow legislation by allowing states to maintain segregated facilities for blacks and whites, as long as they were equal in quality, even though this was rarely the case.
What was the Montgomery Bus Boycott?
African Americans refused to ride city buses, opting for carpools, walking, or other means of transportation, as these were segregated.
The Boycott economically crippiled the public transportation system, forcing the desegregation of buses.
What were the freedom rides?
The Freedom rides were civil rights actions wherein interracial groups travelled by bus into the segregated southern United States to challenge the non-enforcement of Supreme Court decisions mandating desegregated interstate bus travel.
They occured in 1961.
Riders faced brutal violence from white supremacist groups, particularly in Alabama, with little protection from local law enforcement.
Media coverage of the violence drew national and international attention to the civil rights movement.
What was freedom summer?
Freedom Summer, was a 1964 civil rights campaign to register as many African American voters as possible in Mississippi, which had historically excluded most blacks from voting.
Who organised freedom summer?
SNCC
CORE
NAACP
What were the results of the freedom summer?
The project drew national attention to the racism and violence faced by African Americans in the South, especially through the media coverage of the murder of three civil rights workers.
The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) was formed to challenge the state’s all-white delegation at the Democratic National Convention, leading to a national debate over civil rights and representation.
What was massive resistance?
As a response to the Supreme Court’s decision on Brown vs Board, segregationists implemented massive resistance.
This was a method to block the desegregation of educational institutions.
What was brown vs board of education?
Brown v Board of Education was a case seen by the supreme court which resulted in the ruling that segregation in education was unconstitutional.
Brown v Board of Education was a combination of 5 separate cases accumulated into one by the supreme court.
The NAACP won Brown vs Board and educational segregation was deemed unconstitutional.
What was the little rock nine?
The little rock nine event, which occurred when nine African American students integrated Little Rock Central High in 1957 in Arkansas.
The Little Rock population surrounded them in a violent mob.
Arkansas’ governor blocks their entry with the Arkansas state authorities, under the pretense that their entry could potentially lead to riots.
This led to a standoff between state and federal authorities.
President Eisenhower sends federal troops to enforce integration.
What were the civil rights act of 1957 and 1964?
The Civil Rights Act of 1957 created the Civil Rights section of the Justice department, which allowed the prosecution of anybody who conspired to deny others their right to vote and it further established the Civil Rights Commission, aimed to investigate violations of civil rights.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 further built on the civil rights legislative framework, by outlawing employment discrimination based on race, colour, religion, sex or nationality.
What was the voting rights act of 1965?
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 significantly reduced the disenfranchisement of African Americans of the South, by specifically outlawing methods used to disenfranchise African Americans.
It did what the civil rights act of 1957 failed to do, it outlawed literacy tests, poll taxes and similar obstacles.
What was the fair housing act of 1968?
The Fair Housing Act of 1968 prohibited refusing to sell, rent to, or negotiate with any person because of race, colour, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin.
It essentially aimed to eradicate housing discrimination.
What was the NAACP?
National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People.
What was the SCLC?
The SCLC (South Christian Leadership Conference).
It adopted non-violent tactics.
What was CORE?
The CORE (Congress for Racial Equality):
The CORE was founded in 1942.
Its purpose was to improve race relations and end discriminatory policies through direct action and nonviolent protests.
CORE began by initiating sit-ins (refusing to leave) against segregated facilities in the Northern United States, targeting restaurants, theatres, and public transportation.
What was the SNCC?
The SNCC (The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee):
The SNCC was founded in 1960 as a sub-group of the SCLC.
The SNCC worked with CORE to organise the freedom rides, played an instrumental role in freedom summer and campaigned non-violently.
However, they felt that non-violent tactics were not the most effective tactics and the “N” in SNCC was changed from non-violent to national.
They stopped exclusiv
ely using non-violent tactics.
The SNCC was eventually renamed to the Black Panther Party (BPP).
What was the NOI?
The NOI was a distinct civil rights organisation that promoted African-American superiority.
The NOI was founded in 1930.
The philosophy of the NOI was to prepare/educate young people, in order to gain African American supremacy and return the country to its “peaceful status”, promote self-defence and to create the idea of the “white devil” that stated that all white people were inherently bad.
