Topic 2 - Civil Rights 1965-70

Question 1

What campaign did King launch to change voting rights?

Answer 1

Selma launched in March 1965. Half of selma’s 260k pop were black. Authorities responded with violence (just what King wanted)

Question 2

What was “Bloody Sunday” and what did it achieve?

Answer 2

People walked from Selma to Montgomery and they were met with huge violence from clubs and tear gas. Achieved 1965 voting rights act

Question 3

What was the Nation of Islam (NOI)?

Answer 3

An organisation that wanted a Separate “nation of Islam”

Question 4

What did Malcolm X believe in?

Answer 4

The separation of blacks and whites. Believed black’s created by god and everyone else by the devil

Question 5

What were the similarities and differences between MLK and Malcolm X?

Answer 5

Malcolm wanted separation and MLK did not, They both used similar methods to get views across however Malcolm did not discourage violence

Question 6

What did Malcolm X achieve?

Answer 6

Drew attention to ghetto problem
Contributed in black pride
Contributed in rise of black power

Question 7

Who were the black power?

Answer 7

Developed to tackle the ghetto issue, poor housing, poor schools and police brutality

Question 8

How were black power different from Malcolm X?

Answer 8

Wanted eventual intergration

Question 9

Who were the Black panthers?

Answer 9

Small group of 5,000 members who became black powers biggest advocate

Question 10

What did the black panthers try to do? And how successful were they?

Answer 10

End police brutality - not very
Tackle ghetto issue - medium (40 clinics set up advising on health, welfare and legal rights)
Increase black pride - very (founded liberation summer schools which promoted black history)

Question 11

Who was James Meredith?

Answer 11

1st ever black American to go to university of Mississippi. He organised a march against discrimination and as a result was shot and hospitalised by racists

Question 12

How did Meredith show there was a divide in civil rights parties?

Answer 12

His March was taken up by Stokely Carmichael’s SNCE and Kings SCLC. Carmichael was arrested and came out of prison chanting ‘black power’ as opposed to kings ‘freedom now’

Question 13

What did ceased Chavez wish to achieve?

Answer 13

Equal rights for Latino’s

Question 14

What were some of the problems Latino’s faced?

Answer 14

80% lived in ghettos
High unemployment 
Segregated schools 
Poor housing
Police discrimination

Question 15

What was wrong with LULAC?

Answer 15

Not as big as NAACP and many workers were unskilled and wanted to return to Mexico so avoided it

Question 16

How did Chavez try to achieve his aims?

Answer 16

Created United farm workers (UFW) during the depression. They organised a grape boycot in 1966 in which 17 million took part however grower opposition, mechanisation and immigration Weakend UFW

Question 17

What was wrong with the 1964 civil rights bill?

Answer 17

Many African Americans still couldn’t vote

Question 18

What was the ghetto problem?

Answer 18

• poor housing in majority black communities. Blacks could not afford to move elsewhere and White prejudice made it hard to do so
• poor education; in 1960’s only 32% of black kids graduated from high school compared t 56% of whites

Question 19

What were the ghetto riots?

Answer 19

• Watts riots, LA 1965
• In august black mobs crying “long live Malcolm X” set fire to several blocks of stores in Watts
• Alerted King. He began to define freedom in terms of economic equality and planned his Chicago campaign

Question 20

What were the reasons for the Chicago campaign?

Answer 20

• de facto segregation and economic inequality existed in the ghettos
• many ghetto residents believed that civil rights leaders did not understand their problems and were no help in solving them

Question 21

What happened in the Chicago campaign?

Answer 21

• 3 million pop included 700k blacks who suffered unemployment, housing and education problems in the ghetto. -July-Sept 1966 Kings family lived in Ghetto and found their relationship rapidly deteriorated
• Campaign aimed to draw attention to the appalling living conditions in ghettos and difficulties of moving out. King led reporters around rat infested houses which had no air con or heating and marches into white districts where blacks did not buy homes

Question 22

What was the impact of Chicago?

Answer 22

• Mayor Daley promised to improved houses but when King left he did nothing
• Northern whites who supported king in the south supported the Chicago whites as they knew property values would decline
• Taxpayers not willing to fund redevelopment projects
• achieved little despite a $4 million federal gov grant for housing
• many blacks turned to black power