Civil Rights Movement Flashcards

Grade 11 · Social Studies · Flashcards

Essential terms and events for mastering the Civil Rights Movement.

Flashcards

Jim Crow laws

State and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the South from the 1870s to the 1960s.

Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

Unanimous Supreme Court ruling that school segregation violated the 14th Amendment; overturned Plessy v. Ferguson.

Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955–56)

381-day boycott organized by the MIA and MLK; ended bus segregation and launched King to national prominence.

Greensboro sit-ins (1960)

Four Black college students occupied Woolworth's segregated lunch counter; sparked a nationwide sit-in movement.

Freedom Riders (1961)

Interracial activists who rode interstate buses into the South to challenge segregated travel facilities; met with violence.

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in employment and public accommodations.

Bloody Sunday (March 7, 1965)

State troopers attacked peaceful marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma; nationally televised brutality accelerated the Voting Rights Act.

Voting Rights Act of 1965

Banned discriminatory voting practices; federal oversight dramatically increased Black voter registration in the South.

Nonviolent direct action

MLK's strategy of peacefully breaking unjust laws to expose their immorality and force change, inspired by Gandhi.

Black Power

Stokely Carmichael's 1966 call for racial pride, self-determination, and community control rather than integration.

Thurgood Marshall

NAACP lawyer who argued Brown v. Board; later became the first Black Supreme Court Justice (1967).

SNCC

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee — key civil rights organization led by young activists; organized sit-ins, Freedom Rides, and voter registration drives.

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