1965 - 1992 Flashcards
(23 cards)
Why is 1965 considered a turning point in the Civil Rights Movement?
- Legal battles were largely won (Civil Rights Act 1964, Voting Rights Act 1965)
- Focus shifted to de facto issues: economic inequality, urban poverty, police brutality
- Emergence of Black Power, SNCC radicalisation, urban riots
What was the Kerner report and when was it?
- 1968
- “two societies, one black, one white – separate and unequal”
What was the Voting Rights Act?
- Banned literacy tests
- Enabled federal oversight of registration and elections
What was the impact of the Voting rights act?
- Mississippi Black voter registration: 7% (1964) → 67% (1969)
- Over 1 million new Black voters by 1969 in the South
- Increased Black political representation
How did Black political representation grow after 1965?
- Carl Stokes elected mayor of Cleveland in 1967
- Maynard Jackson elected mayor of Atlanta in 1973
- Shirley Chisholm elected to Congress in 1968, ran for President in 1972
What was affirmative action and how did it benefit African Americans?
- Introduced by Executive Order 11246 (1965)
- Expanded through the Philadelphia Plan (1969)
- Required minority inclusion in federal employment and education
- Helped increase Black employment and college access
What was the significance of Regents v. Bakke and when was it?
- 1978
- Banned rigid racial quotas
- Upheld race as a factor in admissions
- Affirmative action continued but was weakened
How did the Supreme Court limit civil rights progress in the 1970s–80s?
- Milliken v. Bradley (1974): restricted busing across district lines
- Regents v. Bakke (1978): challenged affirmative action fairness
- Reagan’s appointments shifted the court to the right
- Civil rights laws enforced more weakly
What caused the Watts Riots and when were they?
- 1965
- Triggered by arrest of Marquette Frye by LAPD
- Highlighted poverty, police brutality, joblessness in Black communities
- Lasted 6 days: 34 killed, 1,000+ injured, 4,000+ arrested
What was the Moynihan Report and what did it say?
- 1965
- Warned of a “tangle of pathology” in Black urban communities
- Highlighted structural issues: family breakdown, poverty, joblessness
What were the causes and consequences of the Detroit Riots?
- 1967
- Sparked by police raid on unlicensed Black bar
- 43 deaths, 7,000 arrests, 2,500+ buildings destroyed
Who coined the term ‘Black Power’ and what did it mean?
- Coined by Stokely Carmichael during the 1966 Meredith March
- Advocated self-determination, racial pride, economic independence
- Opposed integration and white involvement
Who founded the Black Panther Party and why?
- Founded by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale in 1966
- Aimed to end police brutality and systemic oppression
- Promoted self-defence and community empowerment
What did the Black Panther 10-Point Program demand?
- Full employment
- Decent housing
- Education reflecting Black history
- End to police brutality
- Freedom for Black men in jail
- Land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, peace
How did the Black Panthers support Black communities?
- Free Breakfast for Children (20,000+ weekly by 1969)
- Ran 13+ free health clinics
- Offered legal aid and education programs
- Promoted voter registration
What were the limitations of Black Power and the Panthers?
- Negative media portrayal (militant, violent)
- Internal divisions and leadership arrests
- Infiltration by FBI’s COINTELPRO
What economic problems did African Americans face after 1965?
- Black poverty rate 30% in 1970s
- Median Black family income (1968): $5,500 vs. white: $8,900
- Deindustrialisation affected urban Black workers
- High unemployment and growing welfare dependency
How did Reaganomics affect Black Americans in the 1980s?
- Deep welfare cuts (AFDC, housing, Medicaid)
- Black unemployment: 21% (1983) vs. white: 9%
- Minimum wage frozen at $3.35/hour
- Increased homelessness and economic insecurity
What were African American living conditions like post-1965?
- Poor housing in urban ghettos
- High crime and underfunded schools
- Redlining and white flight entrenched segregation
- Fair Housing Act (1968) banned discrimination but poorly enforced
What health inequalities did African Americans face post-1965?
- Infant mortality rate nearly twice that of whites (1970s)
- Higher rates of chronic illness
- Poor healthcare access
- Black Panther clinics helped fill gaps
What was COINTELPRO and how did it affect civil rights activism?
- FBI surveillance/infiltration program (1956–71)
- Targeted MLK, Black Panthers, SNCC
- Used false documents, sowed internal division
- Fred Hampton assassinated in 1969
- Crushed radical activism
What was Nixon’s “Southern Strategy”?
- Appealed to white Southern voters
- Opposed busing and slowed desegregation
- Appointed 4 conservative Supreme Court justices
- Shifted Republican Party away from civil rights support
How did the War on Drugs affect Black communities?
- Anti-Drug Abuse Act (1986): harsher sentences for crack vs. powder cocaine
- Sentencing disparity: 100:1
- Black men incarcerated at 5x the rate of white men
- Fuelled school-to-prison pipeline and destabilised urban areas
