1.2 RECAP flashcards :)
Who was Thurgood Marshall?
(1908-1993) The first black American ever to serve on the
Supreme Court. Having trained as a lawyer, Marshall
worked for the NAACP and became its chief legal
counsel in 1940. It was Marshall who argued the Brown
v Board of Education case. During the 1940s and 1950s,
he took 32 segregation cases to the Supreme Court and
won 29 of them. He was nominated to important legal
positions by two presidents of the USA: Kennedy
nominated him as marshall to the US Court of Appeals
Second Circuit in 1961; Johnson appointed him solicitor
general in 1965 and then to the Supreme Court in 1967
Who was Malcolm X?
(1925-1965) Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little, in Michigan. His
family was among many black Americans terrorised by the Ku
Klux Klan and his father was murdered (he believed by racist
whites). The fatherless family moved to Harlem, in New York, and
Malcolm got into trouble and went to prison. There, in 1952, he
joined the Nation of Islam, a black Muslim group, and took the
name Malcolm X. He believed that non-violent protest had had
its day and that, in the words of one of his speeches, it was the
ballot or the bullet. He said that he didn’t advocate violence
except in self-defence, but it was the slogan that held people’s
attention. Malcolm X didn’t believe that white people should be
involved in the civil rights movement, nor did he believe that
white politicians would ever do more than they were forced to
do to advance it. He saw King’s cultivation of white politicians in
the hope of getting legislation passed as useless. He was one of
the first people to stir up militancy in black Americans
countrywide. He was assassinated in 1965 and, in the months
before that, he was beginning to shift his position. He had several
meetings with King and his radicalism seemed to be softening.
Shortly before his assassination, he remembered having told a
young white woman who offered to help that she was a white
devil, who could do nothing; now he would tell her to work to
change white opinion
Who was Cesar Chavez?
(1927-1993) One of seven children from a family that lost its
home in the Great Depression, joining the flood of migrant
workers to California. He served in the US Navy during the
Second World War, then settled in San Jose. He joined the
Community Services Organisation (CSO) in 1952 and rose to
become its leader. In 1962, he moved to Delano and set up the
National Farm Worker’s Association (NFWA), the farmers’
union. His commitment impressed people (eg. His personal
protest fasts, modelled on Mahatma Gandhi). He died in 1993;
40 000 people came to his funeral
Who was Rosa Parks?
(1913-2005) Born in Montgomery, she married Raymond Parks, a
founder member of Montgomery’s NAACP. She became an active
NAACP member after 1942. In 1955, she was arrested for
refusing to give up her seat on a bus, an action that began the
Montgomery bus boycott. Branded a troublemaker, she and her
husband lost their jobs and moved to Detroit in 1957
Who was Martin Luther King?
(1929-1968) Born into a relatively prosperous family in
Atlanta, King was well educated and became a pastor
in Montgomery where he became prominent in the
1955-1956 bus boycott. In 1957 he established SCLC
and was generally recognised as one of the main
leaders of the civil rights movement in the late 1950s
and early 1960s. In 1963 he organised the
Birmingham campaign against segregation and gave
his great ‘I have a dream’ speech during a march on
Washington. His northern campaign after 1965 was
less successful than his work in the South. He was
assassinated in 1968 by James Earl Ray.
Who was Gandhi?
(1869-1948) Gandhi had led resistance to British rule in
India. Rather than supporting violence, he had used mass
disobedience campaigns
What is the NAACP, CORE and Fellowship for reconciliation?
NAACP:
Established in 1910, it organised many of the
legal actions against segregation in the USA
CORE:
The Congress of Racial Equality, set up in 1942 to campaign for civil
rights by non-violent means, pioneered the tactics of sit-ins, jail-ins and
freedom rides
Fellowship for Reconciliation:
A peace-based organisation founded in 1914. Many of its
members were Quakers
What is termination?
A policy by which Native Americans were freed from federal
control and protected (and policed) by US federal and state
laws, but tribal lands once held in trust for them by the
government would now be open for sale
What is the Bracero Programme?
A Mexican immigration programme run by the US
government, 1942-1964. Mexicans signed contracts to
work, usually on the land, in the USA for a set period of
time in return for a guaranteed level of housing and
working conditions. During that period, 4.6 million
contracts were signed.
What is proposition 6?
A law proposed in California, in 1978, to ban gays, lesbians and
supporters of their rights from working in state-funded schools
in California
What are sharecroppers?
Tenant farmers who give a share of their crops produced to
the landowner as rent
What is ‘uppity’?
A term used by Southern whites in reference to troublesome blacks who ‘did not know their place’
What was the GI Bill?
This allowed returning US servicemen the opportunity to go to
university or college free of charge
What is the Deep South?
States such as Mississppi, Alabama and Georgia where
segregation and racism were most deeply entrenched
What is ‘affirmative action’?
Giving disadvantaged minorities extra opportunities (even if
others were better qualified) in education and employment in
order to compensate for previous unfair treatment
