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A2 History Civil Rights > African Americans > Flashcards

African Americans Flashcards

1
Q

What was the 13th amendment and when did it come into place?

A
  • Abolished slavery

- 1865

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2
Q

What was the Freedmen’s Bureau? Date?

A
  • Federal agency supplying food/medical services/schools to freedmen
  • 1865
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3
Q

What was the 14th amendment and when did it come into place?

A
  • Confirmed rights to citizenship

- 1866

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4
Q

What was the 15th amendment and when did it come into place?

A
  • Forbade stated from denying the right to vote

- 1870

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5
Q

What were the Jim Crow Laws? Date?

A
  • A series of state laws in Southern and border states that introduced formal segregation
  • 1887-1891
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6
Q

What was the date of Plessy vs Ferguson and what was it about?

A
  • 1896

- Deemed segregation constitutional and came up with the ‘separate but equal’ ruling

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7
Q

When was the New Deal introduced? What were the aims?

A
  • 1933

- To relieve human suffering and promote economic recovery (post Depression)

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8
Q

What was the date of Brown vs Board and what did it do?

A
  • 1954

- Desegregated schools and reversed Plessy vs Ferguson

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9
Q

What was the date of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and what did it do?

A
  • 1955

- Peaceful non violent protest could make a change

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10
Q

What was the date of Little Rock and what did it do?

A
  • 1957

- First sign of federal intervention to protect civil rights of AAs

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11
Q

What were sit ins and freedom rides? When did they start?

A
  • Non violent activism/protest aimed to desegregate public areas - lead to desegregation of public areas in 100 cities
  • 1961
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12
Q

When was the March on Washington? What did it do?

A
  • 1963
  • Around 200,000 Americans gathered in Washington DC
  • Helped bring into effect the Civil Rights Act
  • Increased public consciousness and improved view on AAs
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13
Q

When was the Civil Rights Act passed? What did it do?

A
  • 1964

- Ended segregation and discrimination altogether

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14
Q

What did the Voting Rights Act of 1965 do?

A
  • Abolished literacy tests, understanding clauses and proof of moral character and prevented disruption to black people trying to register
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15
Q

What was Andrew Johnson’s aims for the reconstruction plan?

A
  • To re-admit and re-build the Confederate states
  • To help African Americans integrate
  • All Southerners to swear oath of Allegiance to amnesty
  • All slaves freed
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16
Q

What were the strengths of reconstruction?

A
  • Granted AAs citizenship
  • Protected them by the law
  • Men had right to vote
  • Accommodation
  • KKK Act
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17
Q

What were the weaknesses of reconstruction?

A
  • AA women couldn’t vote
  • Violence and murder
  • ‘Black Codes’
  • Disease
  • Southern States didn’t want to abolish slavery in law
  • Loop holes in 15th Amendment
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18
Q

What were the opportunities of reconstruction?

A
  • System of social welfare
  • Work/education
  • Able to buy property
  • Govt. recognised needs
  • Changing attitudes (to an extent)
  • Free to marry and travel
  • 700,000 enrolled to vote
  • 22 black people elected to Congress in 1870s
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19
Q

What were the threats of reconstruction?

A
  • Share cropping
  • Freedmen’s Bureau was limited
  • Newly elected assemblies refused to ratify 13th Amendment
  • 13,000 rebels pardoned
  • Educational segregation
  • Not seen as equal
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20
Q

What were the different ways in which AAs were prevented from voting in the Gilded Age?

A
  • Understanding clause: had to explain part of the constitution
  • Literacy tests
  • Poll tax: $2 in tax to vote
  • Grandfather clause: if your grandfather had been able to vote pre 1867 then you didn’t have to take literacy tests
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21
Q

What were the impacts of the state voting laws?

A
  • No black congress after 1901 for 28 years

- Decrease in amount of eligible black voters from 70% to 11% (1880-1896)

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22
Q

How did AAs respond to the Jim Crow Laws?

A
  • Cooperation
  • Emigration and migration: Northward migration popular, along with African migration and Western migration
  • Political protest: Equal rights leagues, uncoordinated protest, AA league in 1890 which aimed to promote black economical/educational progress
  • Accommodation: Accept status quo and make most of opportunities, black middle class supported
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23
Q

What was the NAACP?

A
  • National activist organisation with branches across the USA
  • Led by blacks and whites
  • Focus on civil rights not social conditions
  • Secretary in the 1920s targeted desegregation, voting rights and education
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24
Q

What were the NAACP Policies?

A
  • Believed races should live and work and be educated together
  • Take cases to federal courts to establish equal rights
  • Defended those accused of rioting but non-violent organisation
  • Lobbying rather than mass action was the central policy
  • Supports anti-lynching law
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25
Q

What were the NAACP developments from 1915 to 1941?

A
  • Growth in membership post 1915: impact of WW1
  • 90,000 members in 1920 - greater interest in civil rights
  • Decline to 50,000 members in 1930
  • Seen as cautious and bureaucratic
  • Run by middle class AAs and whites - limited relations with socially deprived majority
  • Peaceful opposition in the North
  • White population in the south still violently anti-NAACP
26
Q

How did the Depression affect AAs?

A
  • 2 million black farmers left the land as crop prices fell
  • Many went to cities but unemployment was high for black people (between 30 and 60%)
  • Desperate whites moved into jobs that were previously dominated by blacks
  • Whites organised vigilante group (Black Shirts of America) to stop whites getting jobs
27
Q

What was the AAA (New Deal)?

A

Agricultural Adjustment Act

- Regulated farm production by machines - AA farmers displaced

28
Q

What was the CCC (New Deal)?

A

Civilian Conservation Corps

  • Provided work for young men aged 18-25 - worked in environmental projects earning $30 a month
  • Racial segregation occurred and it was disbanded in 1942
29
Q

What was the SSA (New Deal)?

A

Social Security Act

  • Created guaranteed retirement payments for over 65s, insurance for unemployed and assistance for disabled
  • Still continues today
  • Excluded domestic workers which was a major area of black female employment
30
Q

What were the overall impacts of the New Deal?

A
  • Provided 1 million jobs
  • 50,000 housing units
  • Govt. assistance allowed sharecroppers to become independent farmers
  • Eleanor Roosevelt had an impact on black women - working rights
  • Aid didn’t always get to black people
  • Fed govt. wouldn’t guarantee mortgages on houses in white areas
31
Q

What was the impact of WW2 on migration?

A
  • Blacks moved to cities as farms became mechanised
  • Large scale migration led them to have greater economic and political power
  • Large numbers in one town or cities meant they were less vulnerable/not intimidated by white supremacists
  • 2 million migrated North and west
  • Crowding in cities led to rivalry for homes and race riots in Detroit in 1943
  • Increased tension with blacks and whites in close proximity
32
Q

What was the impact of WW2 on blacks and whites working together?

A
  • Tension in workplace
  • More employment but still lower wages and ‘last hired first fired’
  • Whites lashed out over employment of blacks in Alabama Dry Dock Company in 1943
  • Jealousy over jobs
  • White men disliked black men and women working together
  • Over 1 million blacks served in army
33
Q

What was the impact of WW2 on black conciousness and activism?

A
  • NAACP increased from 50,000 to 450,000
  • Cooperation with trade unions brought in urban workers
  • Whites aware that American racism was not hugely different to Hitler
  • Refusal to integrate armed forces but Fair Employment Practises Committee (FEPC) set up to promote equality in defense industries so 2 million blacks employed
  • CORE established in 1942 which organised sit ins
  • Successful bus boycott in 1941
  • Riots convinced blacks that radicals were irresponsible
34
Q

What was the impact of WW2 on federal intervention?

A
  • 2 thirds of job discrimination cases referred to FEPC were dismissed
  • FEPC accomplished too little to be a great success but enough to show importance of Fed. aid
  • Southern black political rights increased in 1944 - Supreme Court declared that exclusion of AAs from the primaries was unconstitutional under the 15th Amendment
  • Between 1940-1947 the number of black registered voters increased in the South from 3 to 12%
35
Q

What did Harry Truman do to improve the Civil Rights situation?

A
  • Senate in 1930s - supported legislation to abolish poll tax and lynching
  • Gave help to FEPC when President - but Congress refused to fund it
  • Supported NAACP in Supreme Court ruling over housing
  • ‘To Secure These Rights’ - called for anti-lynching, voting rights, end to discrimination in work, civil rights in the justice department
  • State of Union addresses said that first goal was to secure the essential human rights of citizens
  • Campaigned in racist areas (Texas and Harlem)
36
Q

What was CORE? When was it established? What did it do?

A

Congress of Racial Equality

  • Established in 1942
  • Organised sit ins, freedom rides and boycotts
  • Non-violent
37
Q

What was SCLC? When was it established? What did it do?

A

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

  • Founded in 1957 by black ministers
  • Led by MLK
  • Aimed to improve situation of southern Blacks
  • Wanted to offer alternative, non-violent direct action
  • Difficult for southern racists to attack due to religion
  • Poor organisation and lack of mass support
38
Q

What was SNCC? When was it established? What did it do?

A

Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee

  • Working in 1960s
  • Aimed to politicise local communities and empower ordinary people
  • Established freedom schools, organised grass roots struggles in Alabama and Georgia
  • Unprotected by the govt.
  • Became militant
39
Q

What did JFK do to help Civil Rights?

A
  • Publicly stated support
  • Planned legislation for better health care/wages
  • Black appointments and federal judges
  • Sent in federal guard to force integration in Alabama
  • Offered public support after Birmingham Protest
  • Proposed Civil Rights Bill
40
Q

What did JFK do to hinder/stop progress of Civil Rights?

A
  • Didn’t have public on his side for forced integration
  • Backed down on voting rights in Mississippi
  • Claimed protesters in Freedom Rides ‘unpatriotic’
  • Refused to offer fed help to enforce voting rights unless there was a breakdown of law and order
  • Did little to improve housing
41
Q

What did LBJ do to help Civil Rights?

A
  • Passed Civil Rights Act
  • Voting Rights Bill
  • Great Society - aimed to end poverty and racial injustice
  • Prohibited discrimination in public places, school desegregation and Equal Employment Commission
  • Helped children out of ghettos with Elementary and Secondary Education Acts - increase number of blacks getting high school diplomas
  • Offered subsidies to desegregated schools
  • Appointed first black SC judge
42
Q

What did LBJ do to hinder/stop progress in Civil Rights?

A
  • Limited success of Education Acts
  • Blacks felt Voting Rights Bill wasn’t enough
  • Found it hard to get financial support from Congress to aid black people
  • Relied heavily on local and state authorities which were reluctant to enforce legislation
  • Great Society had unrealistic hopes
  • Riots after MLK’s assassination stopped progress
  • Vietnam war prevented progress
  • Backlash from white people
43
Q

What was the Black Power Movement and why did it develop?

A
  • Term used in Meredith March 1966
  • Focused on Black Supremacy
  • Developed as a result of racism, the need for political and economic power, working class revolution
  • Focused on black culture and pride
44
Q

What did the Black Panther Party do?

A
  • Formed in 1966
  • Focused on self defense
  • Prepared for war and patrolled streets looking for violence against blacks
  • Alienated and threatened moderate whites in the North
45
Q

When were the Watts Riots in LA? What happened?

A
  • 1965
  • Provoked by poverty, unemployment, lack of education and healthcare
  • 6 days
  • 50,000 blacks burned and looted neighbourhood, attacking whites
46
Q

When was Malcolm X assassinated?
When was MLK assassinated?
What was the result?

A
  • Malcolm X - 1965
  • MLK - 1968
  • BP movement collapsed, focus on Vietnam war, gave AAs effective backing and legislation from govt.
47
Q

What were Malcolm X’s beliefs?

A
  • White people were devils
  • Revolutions should be violent
  • Interracial marriage was betrayal to your race
  • MLK was keeping black people defenseless
48
Q

What were Malcolm X’s methods?

A
  • Violence against whites
  • Separatism
  • Followed Elijah Muhammad’s teachings
49
Q

What were MLK’s beliefs?

A
  • Evoke shame within oppressor
  • Personal Sacrifices must be made to progress in CR
  • Win friendship and understanding of opponents
  • Non-violent protest
  • Advocated for integration
50
Q

What were MLK’s methods?

A
  • Non violent protest, speeches and boycotts

- Believed that non violent protest exposed injustices and changed public opinion

51
Q

What were the positives of Nixon?

A
  • Affirmative action
  • Increased AA workers from 1 to 12%
  • 1972 Equal Employment Opportunity Act
  • Increase fed expenditure on poverty programmes
  • Integration
  • Southern schools better integrated
  • Limited funding for segregated institutions
52
Q

What were the negatives of Nixon?

A
  • Privately racist
  • Didn’t want to meet with black leaders
  • Nominated racists to SC
  • Crushed Black Panthers
  • Promoted bussing
53
Q

What were the positives of Ford?

A
  • Keen to cultivate good relations
  • First black Secretary of Transport
  • Extended Voting Rights Act
54
Q

What were the negatives of Ford?

A
  • Refused to support anti-bussing organisation
  • Doubts on Brown vs Board
  • No stance in Civil Rights
55
Q

What were the positives of Carter?

A
  • Opposed bussing and segregation
  • Employed many black people
  • Appointed more blacks to fed judiciary than any other president
  • Appointed black women to cabinet
  • Renewed Voting Rights Act
56
Q

What were the negatives of Carter?

A
  • University of California vs Bakke - discrimination against non-minority applicants as blacks and hispanics admitted with lower academic scores than whites
57
Q

What were the positives of Reagan?

A
  • Supported extending Voting Rights Act for 10 years
  • Expanded Fair Housing Act
  • Grove City College vs Bell SC - overturned by Civil Rights Restoration Act
58
Q

What were the negatived of Reagan?

A
  • Didn’t support fed initiatives to provide blacks with CR
  • Opposed both Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act 1965
  • Said the Voting Rights Act was humiliating to the South
  • Opposed Fair Housing Legislation in California
  • Under pressure to delay change
59
Q

What were the positives of Bush?

A
  • Found officers in LA riots guilty - violence
60
Q

What were the negatives of Bush?

A
  • 1992 SC supported attacks on desegregation

- Riots in LA over Rodney King Case - police brutality victim

A2 History Civil Rights (5 decks)

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