U.S. Government and Civics / Unit 5: Civil Rights and Citizenship
5.2 Segregation and the Civil Rights Movement
Notes
The fight against segregation moved through the courts, Congress and the streets.
- ***Plessy v. Ferguson* (1896): upheld segregation under the "separate but equal**" doctrine.
- ***Brown v. Board of Education* (1954)**: unanimously ruled that segregated public schools are "inherently unequal" and violate the equal protection clause, overturning Plessy in public education.
- Brown II (1955) ordered desegregation "with all deliberate speed," and many districts resisted.
- Nonviolent protest: the Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955 to 1956), sit-ins, the March on Washington (1963) and the Selma marches (1965). Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. promoted civil disobedience, peacefully breaking unjust laws and accepting the penalty.
- Civil Rights Act of 1964: banned discrimination in public accommodations (hotels, restaurants) and in employment based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin.
- Voting Rights Act of 1965: banned literacy tests and allowed federal oversight of voter registration in areas with a history of discrimination.
Practice
Brown v. Board of Education ruled that:
Brown held that separate schools are inherently unequal.
A restaurant in 1965 refuses to serve customers because of their race. Which law makes this illegal?
Title II of the Civil Rights Act bans discrimination in public accommodations.
Activists sit at a "whites only" lunch counter, refuse to leave and accept arrest. This tactic is called:
Civil disobedience is peacefully breaking a law seen as unjust and accepting the consequences.
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