Moodle+Ch+24

**Brown v. Board of Education-** was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional. The decision overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896 which allowed state-sponsored segregation. Handed down on May 17, 1954, the Warren Court's unanimous (9–0) decision stated that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." As a result, de jure racial segregation was ruled a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. This ruling paved the way for integration and the civil rights movement.

**National Association for the Advancement of Colored People-** usually abbreviated as NAACP, is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909. Its mission is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination".Its name, retained in accordance with tradition, is one of the last surviving uses of the term colored people. The NAACP bestows the annual Image Awards for achievement in the arts and entertainment, and the annual Spingarn Medals for outstanding positive achievement of any kind, on deserving African Americans. It has its headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland.

**Thurgood Marshall**- (July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993) was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, serving from October, 1967 until October, 1991. Marshall was the Court's 96th justice and its first African American justice. He spent his tenure on the highest court in the land establishing a record for supporting the voiceless American. He began his early career fighting to dismantle racial segregation and as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, Thurgood Marshall left a legacy that expands that early sensitivity to include all of America's voiceless.

**Rosa Parks-** "February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was an African-American civil rights activist, whom the U.S. Congress called "the first lady of civil rights", and "the mother of the freedom movement." On December 1, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, Parks, age 42, refused to obey bus driver James Blake's order that she give up her seat to make room for a white passenger. While her action was not the first of its kind to impact the civil rights issue (see also Lizzie Jennings in 1854, Irene Morgan in 1946, Sarah Louise Keys in 1955, Claudette Colvin on the same bus system nine months before Parks), Parks' individual action of civil disobedience created further impact by sparking the Montgomery Bus Boycott. At the time of her action, Parks was secretary of the Montgomery chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and had recently attended the Highlander Folk School, a Tennessee center for workers' rights and racial equality.

**Martin Luther King, Jr.-** (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African American civil rights movement.[1] He is best known for being an iconic figure in the advancement of civil rights in the United States and around the world, using nonviolent methods following the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi.[2] King is often presented as a heroic leader in the history of modern American liberalism. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 and Congressional Gold Medal in 2004; Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was established as a U.S. federal holiday in 1986.

**Southern Christian Leadership Conference-** The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is an American civil rights organization. SCLC was closely associated with its first president, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The SCLC had a large role in the American Civil Rights Movement. SCLC's belief that churches should be involved in political activism against social ills was also deeply controversial. Many ministers and religious leaders—both black and white—thought that the role of the church was to focus on the spiritual needs of the congregation and perform charitable works to aid the needy. To some of them, the social-political activity of Dr. King and SCLC amounted to dangerous radicalism which they strongly opposed. SCLC and Dr. King were also sometimes criticized for lack of militancy by younger activists in groups such as Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) who were participating in sit-ins and Freedom Rides

**Malcolm X-** May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965), born Malcolm Little and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, was an African-American Muslim minister, public speaker, and human rights activist. To his admirers, he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its crimes against black Americans. His detractors accused him of preaching racism, black supremacy, antisemitism, and violence. He has been called one of the greatest and most influential African Americans in history and in 1998, Time named The Autobiography of Malcolm X one of the ten most influential nonfiction books of the 20th century. After he left the Nation of Islam in 1964, Malcolm X became a Sunni Muslim, made the pilgrimage to Mecca and disavowed racism, while remaining a champion of black self-determination, self defense, and human rights. He expressed a willingness to work with civil rights leaders and described his previous position with the Nation of Islam as that of a "zombie".

**Sit-ins-** A sit-in or sit-down is a form of protest that involves occupying seats or sitting down on the floor of an establishment. Although never used to block public streets, sit-ins were an integral part of the non-violent strategy of civil disobedience and mass protests that eventually led to passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which ended legally-sanctioned racial segregation in the United States. The Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) conducted sit-ins as early as the 1940s. Ernest Calloway refers to Bernice Fisher as "Godmother of the restaurant 'sit-in' technique." In August, 1939, African-American attorney Samuel Wilbert Tucker organized a sit-in at the then-segregated Alexandria, Virginia library. Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) labor delegates had a brief, spontaneous lunch counter sit-in during their 1947 Columbus, Ohio convention.

**March on Washington-** The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (or "The Great March on Washington," as styled in a sound recording released after the event)was a large political rally in support of civil and economic rights for African Americans that took place in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, August 28, 1963. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his historic "I Have a Dream" speech advocating racial harmony at the Lincoln Memorial during the march. The march was organized by a group of civil rights, labor, and religious organizations, under the theme "jobs, and freedom." Estimates of the number of participants varied from 200,000 (police) to over 300,000 (leaders of the march). Observers estimated that 75–80% of the marchers were black and the rest were white and other minorities. The march is widely credited with helping to pass the Civil Rights Act (1964) and the Voting Rights Act (1965).

**Johnson's Great Society-** The Great Society was a set of domestic programs proposed or enacted in the United States on the initiative of President Lyndon B. Johnson. Two main goals of the Great Society social reforms were the elimination of poverty and racial injustice. New major spending programs that addressed education, medical care, urban problems, and transportation were launched during this period. The Great Society in scope and sweep resembled the New Deal domestic agenda of Franklin D. Roosevelt, but differed sharply in types of programs enacted. The Great Society's programs expanded under the administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.