Reasons for the emergence of the Black Power Movement (7) Flashcards
What did The Civil Rights Movement focus on?
The Civil Rights Movement focused on ending segregation in the south.
True or False
There was no discrimination in northern states.
But there was also serious discrimination in the northern states.
Where did majority of African Americans live by 1965?
By 1965, 50% of African Americans lived there, usually in inner city ghettos, with poor housing and schools. and high unemployment. Many were descendants of African Americans who had moved from the rural southern states in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
What was the stark reality for black Americans that moved from southern states?
Although they had escaped the harsh segregation laws of the southern states, the move to the north had not given them the same opportunities as white Americans. Everywhere schools and other facilities used by blacks were inferior.
What did the Civil Rights Movement reject as the 1960s progress?
As the 1960s progressed, they came to reject the non-violent methods which Martin Luther King Jr and the SCLC advocated.
Why did Civil Rights campaigners grow impatient of non-violent methods?
Impatient at the slow pace of change, they adopted the more radical tactics of the ‘Black Power’ Movement. They felt that force was justified in the struggle to achieve equality.
What the growth of the Black Power movement coincide with?
The growth of Black Power coincided with a wave of riots in American cities in the mid-1960s.
What were the main causes of these riots?
The main causes of these riots were poor living conditions and police brutality in the ghettos - issues which the Civil Rights Movement had not dealt with.
What were the first of these riots?
In the first of these riots, in Watts, Los Angeles in August 1965, 34 people were killed, hundreds injured and 4,000 were arrested.
Name another riot that occurred?
There were worse riots in many US cities in 1967 when large areas of cities such as Detroit and Newark were looted and burned.
What did the commission appointed by President Johnson conclude about the reasons of these riots?
The commission appointed by President Johnson to investigate the causes of the riots concluded that white racism was the chief cause.
When and how did MLK die?
In 1968, Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee on the balcony of the hotel where he was staying. James Earl Ray, the white man who shot him, was later arrested and imprisoned, but many people believed that he was part of a larger conspiracy which to this day has never been uncovered.
People around the world mourned the death of the leader who had repeatedly called for ____ and _-_____. It was ironic that in the United States his assassination sparked more angry riots in over a hundred cities.
justice
non-violence
