History Flashcards
Rosa Parks
In 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, after refusing to give up her seat at the front of a bus for a white passenger. The arrest resulted in a boycott of the Montgomery bus service by African-American passengers, beginning in December 1955. One year later, the boycott ended when the City of Montgomery was ordered by the US Supreme Court to stop segregating black and white passengers on its bus services.
Dr Martin Luther King Jnr
After Rosa Parks was arrested for not giving up her bus seat to a white man, King became a leader of the Bus Boycott, a significant and successful protest against segregation. After his ‘I have a dream’ speech on the 28th August 1963, the US Congress enacted the Civil Rights Act, which outlawed discrimination based on race or gender.
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan. The Ku Klux Klan is a group of white Protestants who have historically been opposed to rights for people of colour, Catholics, Jews and immigrants. The organisation has been responsible for many hate crimes.
Little Rock Nine
In 1957, nine African-American students tried to enrol in the all-white Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas. The Arkansas governor used armed officers to prevent the nine students from entering the school. They also had to face a white crowd threatening to hang them. President Dwight Eisenhower intervened, sending in the US army to allow the African-American students to enter the high school they were legally entitled to attend
Freedom Rides
The US Freedom Riders was a group of activists who wanted to test the effect of the US Supreme Court’s 1960 decision to end racial discrimination on public transport. The first Freedom Ride was taken by seven black and six white Americans used public transport to travel south to New Orleans from Washington DC. They were attacked by white mobs and the young riders were stoned and beaten with clubs, bicycle chains and baseball bats. Buses were burned as police deliberately arrived late. Federal Marshalls were sent in to keep the peace.
What were they fighting for?
- To end everyday discrimination
- To vote without intimidation
- To change the attitudes of the white racists
- Economic equality
- To be equal before the law
How did they fight
- Sit-ins
- The first sit-in at a lunch counter in Greensboro, North
- Carolina on February 1, 1960, was unplanned.
- Four College students refused to leave the Woolworths Counter when they were refused service because they were black.
- The next day they were joined by 23 more students, by 66 the next day and by 1000 by the end of the week.
- The movement swelled to 50 000 people and lunch counters were desegregated in 126 cities
1962 the right to vote federally;
In 1962, all Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders were given the right to vote in federal elections.
The 1967 Referendum;
On 27 May 1967, Australians voted in favour of changes to the Australian Constitution to improve the services available to Indigenous Australians. The changes focused on two sections of the Constitution, which discriminated against Aborigines. It was successful and the two sections were removed. After, Indigenous people were included in the census and giving federal Parliament the power to make laws in relation to Indigenous people.
Reconciliation;
Reconciliation is best understood as a continuing process and not a single event. It is the way in which Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians can come together and share common goals as unified Australians.
The Mabo decision;
In June 1992, a group of Torres Strait Islander people led by activist Eddie Mabo won a historic land rights case in the High Court of Australia. The judgment meant that the Islanders had a right to their traditional land because they had been the original owners before European settlement. In December 1993, the government passed the Native Title Act to place the Mabo decision in Australian law.
Bring them Home Report on the Stolen Generations;
The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission collated the stories of the Stolen Generations for the Commonwealth Parliament in 1997. Their report, entitled Bringing Them Home, revealed the hurt felt by the many Australians who were affected by this policy.
The Apology.
In his first week in parliament in 2008, the new Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, apologised to Indigenous Australians for poor or unwise treatment from the time of European settlement through to recent years.
1938 Day of Mourning
The Day of Mourning and Protest is remembered as one of the most historically significant events in the struggle for Indigenous civil rights in Australia. A manifesto (written declaration) titled Aborigines Claim Citizen Rights was distributed at the meeting. The manifesto opened with a declaration that ‘This festival of 150 years of so-called “progress” in Australia commemorates also 150 years of misery and degradation imposed on the original native inhabitants by white invaders of this country’. It was a powerful statement that introduced white Australians to an alternative view of their history.
Tent embassy
Before Whitlam’s election, an Aboriginal Tent Embassy was established on the lawn in front of the Australian Parliament in 1972 to keep the issue of Aboriginal rights in the public eye. The embassy was erected in response to the slow progress being made on Aboriginal land rights. The 1967 referendum had delivered administrative responsibility for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to the Commonwealth, but many felt that there still needed to be an acknowledgement of traditional ownership.
