AP US History 8.6-8.7: Civil Rights Movement

Civil rights movement (1954–1968)

A U.S. social movement seeking to end legalized racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement, especially against African Americans. Its major legislative achievements included the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights Act of 1965, and Fair Housing Act of 1968.

What conditions helped produce the modern U.S. civil rights movement?

Major causes included racism, Jim Crow segregation, voter suppression, socioeconomic inequality, and racial violence. The movement also drew on earlier Reconstruction-era struggles and the example of nonviolent resistance associated with Mahatma Gandhi.

Reconstruction Amendments

The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, adopted after the Civil War, abolished slavery, established African American citizenship and related representation, and protected Black male suffrage, respectively.

What did the Thirteenth Amendment accomplish?

Ratified in 1865, it abolished slavery in the United States, except as punishment for a crime after conviction.

What were the major civil-rights provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment?

Ratified in 1868, it established birthright citizenship and required states to provide due process and equal protection under the law. It also established a constitutional basis for challenging state discrimination.

What did the Fifteenth Amendment change?

Ratified in 1870, it prohibited denying a man's right to vote on the basis of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Because women could not yet vote nationally, its protection applied to Black men rather than to all African Americans.

How did the end of Reconstruction affect African American civil rights?

After federal troops withdrew in 1877, white Southerners regained political control and built a system of racial segregation, voter suppression, and violence. This sharply reduced Black political participation and weakened federal enforcement of constitutional rights.

Enforcement Acts

Federal laws used during Reconstruction to combat organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan and protect voting and civil rights. The federal government could intervene when states failed to suppress violent intimidation.

Jim Crow system

A legally enforced system of racial segregation and discrimination that developed after Reconstruction, particularly in the South. It separated public facilities, restricted economic opportunities, and supported the political disenfranchisement of African Americans.

How did Southern states disenfranchise African American voters between 1890 and 1908?

They adopted restrictive constitutions and laws involving voter registration barriers, literacy tests, and other mechanisms that removed Black voters from the rolls. These measures also disenfranchised some poor white voters but were designed and applied primarily to suppress Black political participation.

How did racial violence support the Jim Crow order?

Lynchings, intimidation, attacks by paramilitary groups, and police or mob violence discouraged African Americans from voting, organizing, challenging segregation, or seeking economic advancement. White supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan were central perpetrators.

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

The Supreme Court upheld state-mandated racial segregation under the doctrine of "separate but equal." In practice, separated facilities and services were usually unequal, and the ruling legitimized Jim Crow segregation until it was undermined by later decisions.

How did segregation affect African Americans outside the South?

Northern and Western states generally offered greater formal political rights, but African Americans still faced employment discrimination, housing segregation, racial violence, and unequal access to education and public services.

Great Migration

The movement of nearly seven million African Americans from the South to Northern and Western cities, especially from about 1910 to 1970. It expanded Black urban communities but also intensified competition over jobs and housing and provoked discriminatory practices and racial violence.

What housing practices reinforced racial segregation during and after the Great Migration?

Restrictive covenants, redlining, racial steering, discriminatory lending, and targeted violence limited where Black families could live. These practices contributed to the creation and persistence of segregated Black neighborhoods and unequal housing conditions.

Redlining

A discriminatory housing and lending practice in which neighborhoods associated with African Americans were treated as high-risk, restricting mortgages, investment, and property ownership. It helped preserve racial segregation and wealth disparities.

How did World War II and its aftermath contribute to civil rights activism?

Black military veterans and workers demanded that democratic rights and wartime service be matched by racial equality at home. Pressure from African American activists also encouraged federal actions against employment and military discrimination.

What civil-rights action did President Harry Truman take in 1948?

Truman issued Executive Order 9981, which ordered the desegregation of the U.S. armed forces. His administration also took steps against discrimination in federal employment.

NAACP

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, founded in 1909, challenged racial discrimination through litigation, education, lobbying, and public advocacy. Its legal campaign helped produce the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education.

Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

The Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in public schools violated the Constitution. The decision rejected the application of "separate but equal" to public education and became a major legal foundation of the modern civil rights movement.

Why was Brown v. Board of Education significant even though desegregation was slow?

It declared school segregation unconstitutional, but implementation depended on resistant state and local governments. Some Southern communities used "massive resistance," including delaying integration or closing public schools.

How did media coverage influence the civil rights movement?

Images and reports of racial violence, including the murder of Emmett Till and the use of police dogs and fire hoses against Birmingham demonstrators, exposed the brutality of segregation. This increased national sympathy and pressure for federal action.

Little Rock Nine

The nine Black students who integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957 despite violent resistance. President Eisenhower used federal troops to enforce the students' right to attend the school.

Nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience

The movement's central tactics involved deliberately refusing to obey unjust rules while avoiding physical violence. Boycotts, sit-ins, marches, demonstrations, and disciplined protest sought to create moral pressure, economic consequences, and federal intervention.

Montgomery bus boycott

A mass protest in 1955–1956 against segregated bus seating in Montgomery, Alabama, initiated after Rosa Parks's arrest. The sustained refusal to use city buses demonstrated the effectiveness of organized economic pressure and helped establish Martin Luther King Jr. as a national leader.

Browder v. Gayle (1956)

A federal court decision, later upheld by the Supreme Court, ruled that Alabama's laws requiring segregated buses were unconstitutional. It provided the legal basis for ending the Montgomery bus segregation system.

How did sit-ins challenge segregation?

Black students and other activists occupied segregated lunch counters and refused to leave when denied service. Beginning prominently in Greensboro and spreading to places such as Nashville in 1960, sit-ins disrupted business-as-usual while highlighting the injustice of segregation.

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

A student-led organization founded in 1960 that coordinated sit-ins, Freedom Rides, voter-registration campaigns, and Freedom Summer. SNCC emphasized grassroots organizing and increasingly embraced Black Power and community self-determination by the mid-1960s.

Freedom Rides

Beginning in 1961, interracial groups rode buses through the South to test and challenge segregation in interstate transportation facilities. Violent attacks on riders drew federal attention and increased pressure to enforce desegregation orders.

Birmingham campaign and Children's Crusade

A 1963 campaign targeted segregation in Birmingham, Alabama, through marches, boycotts, and other nonviolent actions. The participation of children and the violent response by authorities generated powerful national publicity and strengthened support for federal civil-rights legislation.

March on Washington (1963)

A large demonstration for civil and economic rights held in Washington, D.C., in August 1963. It helped build public momentum for federal legislation and is associated with Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.

Martin Luther King Jr.

A Baptist minister and central civil-rights leader who advocated nonviolent direct action, civil disobedience, and racial integration. His leadership in the Montgomery boycott, Birmingham campaign, and March on Washington helped build national support for civil-rights legislation.

What was the significance of Freedom Summer in 1964?

Freedom Summer organized voter-registration drives, schools, and community projects in Mississippi. It exposed the violence and institutional barriers facing Black voters and increased pressure for comprehensive federal voting-rights protections.

Civil Rights Act of 1964

This law prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in public accommodations, employment, and federally assisted programs. It was a central legislative victory of the movement.

Twenty-Fourth Amendment

Ratified in 1964, it prohibited poll taxes in federal elections. Its adoption removed one important financial barrier that Southern states had used to discourage African American and poor voters.

McLaughlin v. Florida (1964)

The Supreme Court struck down a law criminalizing interracial cohabitation. The ruling weakened the constitutional basis of state anti-miscegenation laws.

Selma-to-Montgomery voting-rights movement

The 1965 campaign in Alabama used marches and demonstrations to demand protection for African American voting rights. Violent attacks on marchers helped persuade Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act.

Voting Rights Act of 1965

The law prohibited discriminatory voting practices and authorized federal oversight and enforcement in jurisdictions with histories of voter suppression. It greatly expanded Black voter registration and political participation in the South.

Why was federal oversight important under the Voting Rights Act of 1965?

State and local governments had often ignored or evaded constitutional voting protections. Federal oversight supplied an enforcement mechanism that did not depend on the cooperation of officials committed to disenfranchisement.

Loving v. Virginia (1967)

The Supreme Court unanimously invalidated state laws banning interracial marriage. It held that such laws violated constitutional guarantees of equal protection and due process.

Fair Housing Act of 1968

Also known as Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, it prohibited discrimination in housing. It addressed a major area where racial inequality persisted even after public-school and public-accommodations segregation were challenged.

How did the federal government respond under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson?

Kennedy, responding partly to movement pressure and public reaction to demonstrations, urged Congress to enact civil-rights legislation. Johnson then secured passage of major laws in 1964, 1965, and 1968 despite strong opposition from many Southern politicians.

Which federal agencies emerged from the civil-rights reforms of the 1950s and 1960s?

The federal government created or expanded institutions including the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division and U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in 1957, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 1965, and the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity in 1968.

What role did grassroots activism and national leadership play in the civil rights movement?

National figures such as Martin Luther King Jr. received much of the public attention, but local organizers, students, churches, and community members planned and sustained boycotts, voter-registration drives, sit-ins, and marches. The movement depended on both decentralized organizing and national advocacy.

What role did opposition and countermovements play in the civil rights era?

White segregationists used legal obstruction, political resistance, intimidation, and violence to preserve racial hierarchy. Their resistance made federal enforcement and sustained grassroots mobilization necessary for implementing court decisions and legislation.

Black Power movement

A mid-1960s movement emphasizing racial pride, self-determination, community control, and economic empowerment. Influenced by Malcolm X and organizations such as the Black Panther Party, it criticized the gradualism and moderation associated with some earlier civil-rights leadership.

How did urban unrest affect public support for the civil rights movement?

Civil unrest in Black communities from 1964 through 1969, including major disturbances in Watts, Newark, and Detroit, weakened support among many white moderates. The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 also intensified national tension and contributed to declining support for the movement's earlier coalition.

What limitations remained after the major civil-rights victories of the 1960s?

The new laws ended much formal, legal discrimination, but informal racism and structural inequalities persisted in income, housing, education, employment, and criminal justice. Legal equality therefore did not immediately produce social or economic equality.

How did the civil rights movement influence the women's movement?

Women activists drew on civil-rights organizations, protest tactics, and federal antidiscrimination laws to challenge workplace discrimination, unequal pay, and sex discrimination. Organizations such as the National Organization for Women pushed for expanded legal and economic equality.

National Organization for Women (NOW)

Founded in 1966, NOW became a major organization of the modern women's movement. It advocated enforcement of the Civil Rights Act's ban on sex discrimination, equal employment opportunities, reproductive rights, and the Equal Rights Amendment.

Title IX

A 1972 federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in educational programs receiving federal financial assistance. It significantly expanded women's access to academic programs and athletics.

How did Mexican American and Latino activists expand the civil-rights movement?

They organized for voting rights, educational equality, labor protections, and cultural recognition. Activists used boycotts, strikes, marches, litigation, and community organizing to challenge discrimination against Mexican Americans and other Latinos.

United Farm Workers and Cesar Chavez

Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers organized agricultural laborers, many of them Mexican American, through strikes, boycotts, and collective bargaining campaigns. Their activism sought better wages, safer working conditions, and recognition of farmworkers' labor rights.

How did Native American activists pursue expanded civil rights?

Native activists demanded tribal sovereignty, treaty rights, control over community affairs, and protection of land and cultural resources. Organizations such as the American Indian Movement used occupations, protests, and legal action to call attention to federal policies and violations of Native rights.

American Indian Movement (AIM)

Founded in 1968, AIM promoted Native American sovereignty, treaty rights, cultural revitalization, and improved economic and political conditions. Its activism included high-profile occupations and protests against federal treatment of Native peoples.

How did the LGBTQ rights movement emerge from the civil-rights era?

LGBTQ activists adopted civil-rights language, grassroots organizing, demonstrations, and challenges to discriminatory laws and policing. The movement sought legal equality, public acceptance, and an end to criminalization and discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

Stonewall uprising (1969)

A series of protests against a police raid on the Stonewall Inn in New York City. The uprising became a major catalyst for the modern LGBTQ rights movement, encouraging national organizing and annual Pride demonstrations.