The Civil Rights era Vocab

Racism: the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races. Discrimination: the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex. Civil Rights: the rights of citizens to political and social freedom and equality Prejudice: preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience

Stereotype: a fixed set of beliefs about a person or group that may or may not be accurate. Civil Disobedience: refusing to obey laws you think are unjust; usually using some tactic of passive resistance. Boycott: an organized refusal to buy or use a product, or to deal w/a company as a form of protest. Martyr: Someone who is willing to make a great sacrifice for a cause they believe in.

Jim Crow Laws: Southern laws that forced the segregation of the races. Lynch(ings): To execute someone illegally by hanging, burning, or other means. Literacy Tests: A test used to keep Blacks from voting. Poll Tax: a tax that must be paid before one can vote; discouraged Southern Blacks from voting. Illegal today due to 24th amendment.

Segregation: separating people according to some standard; usually race. Desegregation: the elimination of segregation De facto Segregation: racial separation NOT established by law. De jure Segregation: racial separation established by law.

Passive Resistance: using non-violent protest to accomplish your goals. Massive Resistance: describes the Southern response to federal laws calling for integration, esp. public school integration. Separate but Equal: a standard by which the U.S. Supreme Court measured and approved segregated facilities in the Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) case. The court overturned this in the 1954 case Brown v. Board of Education saying that separate facilities were by nature unequal.

Federalism: the idea that the powers of government are divided among levels, with the national having supremacy (i.e. The national level is more powerful than the states.) Sit-ins: a form of protest in which the participants occupy a building or a site in the hope of forcing their opponents to give into their demands. State’s Rights: the idea that each state has the power to decide when an act of the Federal gov’t is unconstitutional. Freedom Riders: people of different races who rode buses throughout the South in 1961 & attempted to force the integration of segregated facilities in public bus stations.

Black Power: a movement among some Blacks in the late 1960s to achieve social, political, and economic equality by rejecting integration and white assistance and attempting to unite all Blacks in pursuit of this effort. Affirmative Action: a policy that seeks to correct the effects of past discrimination by favoring the groups who were previously disadvantaged. Reverse Discrimination: an unfair treatment of members of a majority group – for example, white men – resulting from efforts to correct discrimination against members of other groups.