The Origins of the Civil Rights

​NAACP - National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

Established in 1909 to fight for the rights of African Americans.

The NAACP gave African Americans the institutional support to fight racial discrimination and injustice.

The NAACP emboldened people to commit acts of defiance against segregated bus laws - Rosa Park's famous refusal to give up her seat to a white person on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in December 1955.

​Plessy v. Ferguson

This Supreme Court case established the "separate but equal" doctrine.

De jure segregation - segregation by law

African American veterans who had fought for democracy abroad, came home to fight for their own rights.

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​World War II

The New Deal

The New Deal paved the way for civil rights - it alienated Southern conservatives while attracting African Americans, causing the Democrats to oppose segregation

C.O.R.E.

CORE - Congress of Racial Equality

This group use "sit-ins" as a form of nonviolent protest, to desegregate restaurants.

Brown V. Board of Education

The Supreme Court ruling overturned Plessy V. Ferguson

The Justices believed that segregation in education is likely to deny some students the opportunity to make social and economic progress.

Brown V. Board of Education

Southern Resistance

Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia called on Southerners to adopt "massive resistance" against the rule.

Little Rock Nine

The violence in Arkansas had gotten so bad that President Eisenhower had to call in the 101st Airborne to walk the 9 African American students into the high school each day.

Civil Rights Act of 1957

Several Southern senators tried to stop the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Lyndon Johnson put together a compromise that enabled the act to pass. Congress primarily passed the Act to protect African Americans' voting rights.

The Sit-in Movement

Many college age African Americans decided to sit at a whites-only lunch counter at Woolworth's department store. They stated that they would sit there daily until they got the same service as white customers. The sit-in Movement brought large numbers of college students into the Civil rights struggle. Sit-ins represented an acceleration of desegregation efforts.