Civil Rights Movement Introduction

1. “I’ll Get On When Jim Crow Gets Off”
An Introduction to the Civil Rights Movement

2. Vocabulary
discrimination [dih-skrim-uh-ney-shuhn] : (noun) unfair treatment of
someone based on their membership in a group defined by race,
ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation or other factors
de facto discrimination [dee fak-toh dih-skrim-uh-ney-shuhn : (noun)
unfair treatment of someone that is a matter of custom but not based
in law
de jure discrimination [dee joo r-ee dih-skrim-uh-ney-shuhn] : (noun)
unfair treatment of someone that is based on laws
integration [in-ti-gray-shuuh n] : (noun) a situation in which different
groups—such as those defined by race, ethnicity, sex, sexual
orientation or other factors—live together and use the same facilities

3. Vocabulary
nonviolence [non-vahy-uh-luhns] : (noun) a theory and
practice that emphasizes love of all beings and a refusal to
respond to violence with violence
retaliation [ri-tal-ee-ey-shuhn] : (noun) an action taken as
revenge or reprisal
segregation [seg-ri-gey-shuh] : (noun) the separation of a
specific racial, religious or other group from the general
body of society
unconstitutional [uhn-kon-sti-too-shuh-nl] : (adjective)
inconsistent with the provisions in a country’s constitution

4. Reconstruction Amendments
Thirteenth Amendment : "Neither slavery nor
involuntary servitude, except as a punishment
for crime whereof the party shall have been duly
convicted, shall exist within the United States”
Fourteenth Amendment : “All persons born or
naturalized in the United States, and subject to
the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United
States and of the state wherein they reside. No
state shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens
of the United States; nor shall any state deprive
any person of life, liberty, or property, without
due process of law; nor deny to any person
within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the
laws.”
Fifteenth Amendment : “The right of citizens of
the United States to vote shall not be denied or
abridged by the United States or by any state on
account of race, color, or previous condition of
servitude."

5. Plessy vs. Ferguson
Plessy vs. Ferguson established the
constitutionality of the practice of
“separate but equal.”
“A statute which implies merely a legal
distinction between the white and colored
races - has no tendency to destroy the
legal equality of the two races…The
object of the 14th Amendment was
undoubtedly to enforce the absolute
equality of the two races before the law,
but in the nature of things it could not
have been intended to abolish
distinctions based upon color, or to
enforce social, as distinguished from
political equality, or a commingling of the
two races upon terms unsatisfactory to
the other.” - Justice Henry Brown

6. Jim Crow Laws:
“It shall be unlawful for a negro and white person to play
together or in company with each other in any game of cards or
dice, dominoes or checkers.”
—Birmingham, Alabama, 1930
“Marriages are void when one party is a white person and the
other is possessed of one-eighth or more negro, Japanese, or
Chinese blood.”
—Nebraska, 1911
“Separate free schools shall be established for the education of
children of African descent; and it shall be unlawful for any
colored child to attend any white school, or any white child to
attend a colored school.”
—Missouri, 1929
“All railroads carrying passengers in the state (other than street
railroads) shall provide equal but separate accommodations for
the white and colored races, by providing two or more passenger
cars for each passenger train, or by dividing the cars by a
partition, so as to secure separate accommodations.”
—Tennessee, 1891
How was the Jim Crow
way of life taught to
whites?

7. Brown vs. Board of Education
1954
Overturns Plessy vs.
Ferguson
Argued by NAACP lawyer
Thurgood Marshall who
would later become the first
African American Supreme
Court justice

8. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ow-bdFDrkAw
Why do you think so many chose to participate in nonviolent civil disobedience
during this movement? What are the pros and cons of such actions?
Video: A Time for Justice, part one

9. Rosa Parks
December 1, 1955 - Parks is arrested
for not giving up her seat on a public
bus to a white man while on her way
home from her job as a seamstress at
the Montgomery Fair department
store, thus violating Jim Crow
practices.

10. Montgomery Bus Boycott
December 5, 1955 : In response to
the arrest of Rosa Parks, a 381 day
boycott of the Montgomery bus
system begins.
It becomes known as the official
beginning of the Civil Rights
Movement
November 13, 1956 : The Supreme
Court declares Montgomery’s
segregated bus system to be
unconstitutional and illegal.
December 20, 1956 : The Court’s
order is officially served. The
boycott ends and the buses are
integrated.

11. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Becomes the leader of the Civil Rights Movement after helping to organize the bus
boycott, becoming president of the SCLC, leading marches, and giving powerful
speeches to thousands.

12. Audio: “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” by Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (0:00-3:20)
“We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be
demanded by the oppressed.”
https://soundcloud.com/splcenter/audio-martin-luther-king

13. Continuing the principle of
nonviolent civil
disobedience, people
organized sit-ins, marches,
and Freedom Rides
through the Deep South to
protest segregation and
unequal treatment. Many
were met with violence,
even death, for their
actions.
Why were people willing to
risk their safety to
participate in the Civil
Rights movement?