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Civil Rights and Vietnam

Terms in this set (66)

Civil Rights Movement
A broad and diverse effort to attain racial equality, and compel the U.S. to live up to the ideal of all are created equal.
Jim Crow Laws
Laws that enforced segregation.
De Jure Segregation
Segregation that is imposed by law. In 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson allowed segregation as long as the facilities were "separate, but equal".
De facto Segregation
Segregation by unwritten custom or tradition. This was more common in the North.
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
Civil Rights organization started during World War II with the goal of ending discriminatory policies and improving relations between races. Influenced by Gandhi and Henry David Thoreau to use nonviolent civil disobedience. Organized sit-ins in northern cities.
Thurgood Marshall
Lawyer with the NAACP who used litigation as a means to expand civil rights. In 1967 he became the first African American on the US Supreme Court.
Brown v. Board of Education, 1954
Supreme Court cases that desegregated schools and overturned Plessy v. Ferguson by ruling that "separate is inherently unequal".
Brown II
Nickname of the case that explained the implentation of Brown v. Board of Education and the court ruled that desegregation needed to happen "with all deliberate speed".
Southern Manifesto
In 1956 about 100 southern members of Congress pledged to oppose the Brown ruling through all "lawful means" on the grounds the US Supreme Court had misinterpreted the Constitution.
White Citizens Councils
Organizations of prominent white southerners and businessmen with the goal that South would not be integrated. The Councils imposed economic and political pressure against those who supported compliance with the Supreme Court ruling.
Central High School, Little Rock Arkansas
In 1957, nine African American students volunteered to enroll in Central High School and desegregate it. The Governor of Arkansas opposed integration and called out the Arkansas National Guard to block the students. President Eisenhower responded by sending in federal troops to enforce the Courts decision.
Civil Right Act of 1957
Established a federal Civil Right Commission to investigate violations of civil rights. It lacked real enforcement, but had symbolic importance as the first civil rights law passed by Congress since Reconstruction.
Rosa Parks
A member of the NAACP, began the Montgomery Bus Boycott protest in 1955.
Montgomery Bus Boycott
Began when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man on the bus. Lasted a over a year while the NAACP challenged the segregated buses in court. Ended when the Supreme Court ruled the segregated buses were unconstitutional.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
A baptist minster that advocated nonviolent civil disobedience to fight for civil rights. First gained national attention with the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Continued to work for civil rights until he was assassinated in 1968.
Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
Created by Martin Luther King and another Montgomery minister Ralph Abernathy to continue the fight for civil rights. Made up of mostly southern African American minister who advocated nonviolent resistance to fight injustice.
Greensboro Sit-Ins
Febuary 1, 1960 four African American college students sat at the lunch counter in Woolworth's waiting to be served, in an effort to desegregate it. The protest lasted weeks, but were successful and the tactic spread to other cities.
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
Movement founded in 1960 by young activists. Its goal was to create a grass-roots movement that involved all classes of African Americans in the struggle to defeat white racism and to obtain equality.
Boynton v. Virginia (1960)
Supreme Court case that had ruled segregation on interstate buses and in waiting rooms was illegal.
Freedom Ride
1961 protest by CORE activists who rode buses through southern states to test their compliance with laws banning segregation on interstate buses. Left in two buses from Washington D.C. going to New Orleans. In Alabama one of the buses was firebombed and the other attacked by a white mob. This forced President Kennedy to intervene.
James Meredith
An Air Force veteran who with the help of the NAACP successfully integrated all white University of Mississippi "Ole Miss" in 1962. The Governor tried to prevent the integration resulting in a riot, but the next day Meredith registered as a student. Meredith is shot and nearly killed 3 years later.
Birmingham, Alabama (The Children's March)
1963 King and the SCLC targeted for a major civil rights campaign. Chosen because it was the most segregated city in the South. For the first time school children joined the movement. Dogs and fire houses were used on the protesters. The photos of this shocked many Americans including President Kennedy and convinced him he needed to take a more active role in promoting civil rights.
March on Washington, 1963
Protest to support the proposed Civil Rights Act where more than 200,000 people showed up. They were a diverse group of people. Many people spoke or performed. MLK was the last speaker and it is where his "I Have a Dream" speech was given.
Sixteenth Street Baptist Church
September 15, 1963 the church was bomb and 4 young African American girls were killed. The church was where the Birmingham children's march protest was organized.
Civil Rights Act of 1964
Outlawed discrimination in public places and employment based on race, religion or national origin. Also gave the federal government the power to force states and local school boards to desegregate and the Justice Department to prosecute people who violate others civil rights.
Freedom Summer
1964 effort to register African American voters in Mississippi. About 1,00 volunteers mostly white and black college students. Before most of the volunteers arrived three civil rights workers were killed.
Selma to Montgomery March
1965 protest organized by MLK and SCLC for voting rights. "Bloody Sunday" March 7, 1965 protesters were attacked by state troopers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. The video of the attack resulted on President Johnson going on TV and advocating for a stronger voting rights law.
Voting Rights Act, 1965
Banned literacy tests and empowered the federal government to oversee voter registration and elections in states that had discriminated.
Twenty-Fourth Amendment
Banned poll taxes as a voting requirement.
Kerner Commission
Group set up to investigate the causes of race riots in American cities in the 1960s. It determined that long-term racial discrimination was the single most important cause of violence and recommended expanding federal programs at overcoming problems of urban areas. The recommendations were not followed.
Malcolm X
Spokesman and minister for the Nation of Islam and helped it grow. Preached self-reliance and self-protection and called for black pride. Helped spread the idea of black nationalism. He broke with the group shortly before his assassination in 1965.
Black Power Movement
Urged African Americans to use their collective political and economic power to gain equality.
Black Panthers
Organization of militant African Americans founded in 1966 by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale in Oakland, California. Organized armed patrols to protect people from police abuse, and created antipoverty programs like free breakfasts.
Poor People's Campaign
After spending a year in the Chicago slums MLK starts this campaign to address economic inequality. MLK goes to Memphis, Tenn. in April 1968 to support striking sanitation workers. On April 4, 1968 MLK is assassinated.
Flexible Response
Kennedy policy of defense allowing for both building up nuclear weapons and conventional Army and Navy forces including special forces to respond to any type of conflict.
Peace Corps
American government organization created in 1961 to fight communism, that sends sends volunteers to provide technical, educational, and medical services to developing countries.
Alliance for Progress
President Kennedy's program that gave economic aid to Latin America. It was an attempt to go back to the Good Neighbor Policy. It was not very successful.
Bay of Pigs Invasion
CIA plan to invade Cuba and overthrow Castro. CIA recruited Cuban exiles and trained them in Guatemala. Attempted on April 17, 1961 and failed.
Cuban Missile Crisis
1962 conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union resulting from the Soviet Union installation of nuclear missiles in Cuba. Kennedy decides to "quarantine" the island to prevent the completion of the installation. Resolved with Soviet Union removing weapons, the US promising not to invade and secretly agreeing to remove missiles from Turkey.
Hot Line
Installed as a result of the Cuban Missile Crisis, it is a direct phone line between the White House and the Kremlin.
Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
In 1963 Great Britain, the US and the Soviet Union signed agreeing to ban above ground nuclear tests. This is the first nuclear weapons agreement.
Berlin Wall
Built in 1961 by East Germany to isolate communist controlled East Berlin from capitalist West Berlin.
Ho Chi Minh
Anticolonial leader and then leader of North Vietnam.
Domino Theory
Idea that if a nation falls to communism, its closest neighbors will also fall under communist control. This idea is why the US focused on Vietnam.
Geneva Accords
Agreement for Vietnam's independence. It divided Vietnam at the 17th parallel and resulted in a Communist controlled North and a capitalist and US supported South. They also called for unification elections in 2 years.
Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO)
Similar to NATO, a military alliance with the goal to contain the spread of communism in Southeast Asia.
Vietcong
South Vietnamese communists who waged a guerrilla war against the government of South Vietnam throughout the Vietnam War.
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
1964 congressional resolution that authorized President Johnson to commit U.S. troops to South Vietnam to fight a war against North Vietnam. It was passed as a result of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident where North Vietnam fired on the USS Maddox.
Operation Rolling Thunder
Ordered by President Johnson in 1965, it is the first sustained bombing campaign against North Vietnam.
Hawks
People who supported the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Mostly were conservatives who believed in containment and the domino theory
Doves
People who opposed the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Made up of liberal politicians, pacifists, student radicals, civil rights leaders and questioned the war on moral and strategic grounds.
Draftees
Someone who is drafted into military service. By 1965 most American troops in Vietnam were drafted and not volunteers. The Draft is criticized for drafting too many poor and working class people.
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)
Founded in 1960 at the University of Michigan. Originally formed to campaign against racism and poverty, but began campaigning to end the war in Vietnam.
26th Amendment
Lowered the voting age to 18. Pushed by young people as part of the anti-war movement. "Old enough to fight, old enough to vote"
Living Room War
Vietnam is know as this since many people got their news about the war on TV nightly newscasts. For the first time Americans saw live video of war in their homes. This contributed to the anti-war movement.
Credibility Gap
American public's growing distrust of the statements made by the government during the Vietnam War. What the Johnson Administration said and what people saw on the news did not see to match.
Tet Offesive
North Vietnamese coordinated attack on a large number of South Vietnamese cities in early 1968. It was a military victory for the US and South Vietnam, but it showed the American people the communists had not lost the will or ability to fight.
"Peace with Honor"
Nixon's campaign promise about the Vietnam War.
Silent Majority
Group Nixon said was the quite forgotten majority of nonshouters and nondemonstrators.
Southern Strategy
Nixon strategy to go after conservative Southern voters with an appeal to law and order and try to pull them away from the Democratic Party.
Vietnamization
President Nixon's plan for gradual withdrawal of U.S. forces as South Vietnamese troops assumed more combat duties.
Kent State and Jackson State
When Nixon widened the Vietnam War into Cambodia this resulted in student anti-war protests. Several demonstrations resulted in the police or National Guard being called. At both schools student protesters were killed
My Lai
Village in South Vietnam where in 1968 American forces opened fire on unarmed civilians. U.S. soldiers killed between 400 and 500 Vietnamese.
Pentagon Papers
Classified U.S. government study that revealed American leaders involved the United States in Vietnam without fully informing the American people. They were leaked to the New York Times in 1971.
Paris Peace Accords
1973 peace agreement between the United States, South Vietnam, North Vietnam and the the Vietcong that effectively ended the Vietnam War. Agreed to a cease-fire, US would withdraw from South. POW would be exchanged, but North Vietnamese troops would remain in South Vietnam. The Vietcong becomes a political party and non-communist government remain in power.
War Powers Act
1973 law passed by Congress restricting the President's war-making powers. The law required the President to consult with Congress before committing American forces to a foreign conflict. This was an attempt to take back the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.
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