Eisenhower - Civil Rights

Question 1

SCLC

Answer 1

Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Led by Dr Martin Luther King Jr.
Came out of the Montgomery Bus Boycott
Uses churches as centres of communities

Question 2

SNCC

Answer 2

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
Led sit ins
Sit ins were started by Greensboro 4
Youth movement

Question 3

NAACP

Answer 3

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
Involved in Little Rock, Montgomery and Brown vs Board
Fought for fairer legislation/ legal issues
Thurgood Marshall was their main lawyer
Rosa Parks was a member

Question 4

Emmett Till

Answer 4

1955
14 year old black child
Kidnapped, tortured and murdered after allegedly flirting with a white woman in a shop
Thurgood Marshall was on the case
Mamie Till gave images of her son’s body to the media
The killers were not charged
Eisenhower did nothing

Question 5

Montgomery Bus Boycott

Answer 5

1955
382 days
50,000 black people avoided buses
Carpools/ station wagons were used - run by volunteers
Eventually Supreme Court desegregated buses
Became a blueprint for later protests

Question 6

Why education was targeted?

Answer 6

Many schools resisted Brown vs Board
Wanted to avoid indoctrination
Provide equal opportunities to black students
Schools were a good example of the hypocrisy of “separate but equal”

Question 7

Brown vs Board

Answer 7

1954
Thurgood Marshall was chief attorney for the plaintiffs
Chief Justice died before the hearing
Newly appointed Earl Warren was liberal and swung the vote
Previously 1/3 of states had de jure school segregation
Forced all schools to desegregate - unexpected

Question 8

Little Rock

Answer 8

1957
9 black students attempt to attend Little Rock High School
Governor Orval Faubus used state troopers to block their entry
Eisenhower met with Faubus, had him remove the troops
However the mob grew and the police lost control
POTUS federalised the national guard to deal with the mob
First time a president stepped in directly into a CR crisis