Unit 15: Civil Rights Movement

Unit 15 Vocabulary:

Civil Rights Movement Vocabulary

1. Segregation – the separation of races within a society

2. Integrate – to open to people of all races or ethnic groups

3. Racism – a belief by some that people of one race are superior to those of another

4. Discrimination – favorable or unfavorable treatment of someone based on his or her race, religion, or beliefs

5. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka – Supreme Court ruling that separate public schools for African Americans and white is unconstitutional

6. NAACP – National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Fought for their rights.

7. Thurgood Marshall – persuaded the Supreme Court that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional

8. Plessy v. Ferguson – 1896 ruling by Supreme Court that established that “separate but equal” facilities for African Americans and white was constitutional. Overturned in 1954.

9. Montgomery Bus Boycott – Those that had been discriminated against and their supporters boycotted the use of public transportation

10. Rosa Parks – woman whose refusal to give up her bus seat to a white person started the Montgomery bus boycott

11. Southern Christian Leadership Conference – SCLC coordinated civil rights protests across the South

12. Martin Luther King Jr. – leader of the Civil Rights movement

13. Little Rock Nine – the first students to integrate Central High with the assistance of the National Guard

14. Greensboro Sit-in – a protest at a lunch counter where people refused to move until their demands were met

15. March on Washington – huge demonstration held to build support for civil rights legislation

16. Civil Rights Act of 1964 – law that officially banned segregation in public places

17. Freedom Summer – Voter registration drive for Southern blacks

18. Voting Rights Act – banned literacy tests and other laws that kept blacks from registering to vote

19. Equal Rights Amendment – prohibited discrimination of the basis of sex

20. Pearsall Plan – a plan that allowed schools in North Carolina to close by majority rather than integrate

21. Busing – transporting children to different school districts to integrate the schools

22. Great Society - a program started by LBJ that provided help to the poor, the elderly, women, and also promoted education and outlawed discrimination