USA 1974-75 Part 2 Flashcards
Greensboro sit-in key features
Occurred at Woolworth’s in Greensboro’s North Carolina on 1 February 1960, four black students demanded to be served at a whites-only counter but when they refused they did a sit-in until closing time, more students joined and by 4 February there were over 300 students working in shifts for the sit-in. Within weeks, sit-ins spread over North Carolina. Black and white people were involved
Role of CORE and SLCC in Greensboro sit-in
Sent people to train students for non-violent protests e.g.
When was SNCC set up?
On 15 April 1960, during a meeting to plan student protests across the South in North Carolina
Key features of the SNCC
Wanted students to cope with hostility using non-violent protest ideals(to demonstrate peacefully and visibly, don’t rise to provocation and let other people look bad from violence).
Significance of the Greensboro sit-in
Sit-ins were open to the media as sit-ins were public spaces black people weren’t supposed to use.
Sit-in protests involved mixed race groups when initially they involved student, black protest.
The sit-ins showed the importance of publicity as publicity for the Greensboro sit-in(the media saw it as a newsworthy mass movement requiring supportive coverage) grew because the numbers of people involved grew rapidly.
The sit-ins attracted significant numbers of protestors(about 50,000 by mid-April 1960).
Features of the Freedom Riders
In 1961, CORE activists rode buses from the North to the Deep South on Freedom Rides to highlight desegregation had not het happened. On 4 May 1961, seven black and six white Freedom Riders left Washington DC on two different buses and they gor as far as the border with Alabama, with just two arrested.
Reaction to freedom riders
Politicians/southern state governors in Alabama and Mississippi and the southern press spoke out against the Riders and the KKK wanted to stop the Riders.
On 15 May 1961, over 100 KKK members surrounded the freedom riders’ bus in Anniston, Alabama and firebombed the bus
How did the freedom riders achieve their objectives?
Freedom rides continued and succeeded as the federal government said they would send federal troops if states didn’t desegregate bus facilities.
James Meredith case
James Meredith a black student was rejected from Mississippi University
The NAACP and Supreme Court challenged his rejection but the officials still stopped them.
In 1962 Kennedy sent the National Guard and Federal troops to Mississippi to ensure he could take his place at a university, but during rioting, 23000 troops kept order
