Emmitt Till - teenage boy lynched in 1955, open casket funeral and trial sparked increased involvement in the modern civil rights movement
Montgomery Bus Boycott - lasted 1 year in response to Rosa Parks’ arrest in 1955; Supreme Court decision eventually outlawed segregation on public transportation
Southern Christian Leadership Conference - SCLC, Martin Luther King headed this in 1957 in organizing the response to Rosa Park’s arrest
Little Rock Nine - AL governor Orval Faubus ordered the national guard to keep these students out of high school; Ike ordered troops to escort the kids to school and protect them from protestors outside and students inside the school
Greensboro, NC - 4 college students protest lunch-counter segregation at Woolworths;
sparked the sit-in movement, 1960
Nashville, TN - organized sit-in movement aiming to desegregate lunch counters; parents
boycotted downtown stores in response to their children’s imprisonment
Albany movement - many imprisoned (but sent to jails in other towns), MLK jailed but
released by police chief, considered a failure for the SCLC and MLK
Letters from a Birmingham jail - MLK jailed 1963, wrote a powerful response to “waiting” for equality,
then organized the Children’s March
Medgar Evers assassinated - 1963 civil rights leader, working for voter registration
Civil Rights Act of 1964 - outlawed discrimination based on race and gender; support for this was
increased by the March on Washington and the mourning over JFK’s assassination
Voting Rights Act of 1965 - outlawed literacy tests, support for this was increased by the march from
Selma to Montgomery in 1965
Watts Riots - 1965 sparked by a traffic stop, violence lasted 6 days
Malcolm X assassinated - 1965, by suspected members of the Black Muslims
MLK assassinated - 1968
Robert Kennedy assassinated - 1968, after winning the CA Democratic primary
Engel v. Vitale (1962) - outlawed state laws requiring prayers and Bible readings in public schools
Gideon v. Wainwright (1963) - all persons must be provided legal counsel
Escobedo v. Illinois (1964) - police must honor a person’s request for a lawyer to be present during interrogation
Miranda v. Arizona (1966) - Miranda rights (silent, attorney, lawyer, 1 phone call to obtain a lawyer)
War Powers Resolution (1973) - The President retains emergency war powers, but must notify Congress within 48 hours of
committing troops, and must withdraw troops if Congress does not declare war within 60 days
United States v. Nixon (1974) - executive privilege does not apply to the Whitehouse recordings
The “Saturday Night Massacre” - Nixon wanted special investigator Archibold Cox fired after he requested the Whitehouse
recordings; the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General both resign rather than carry out
this order.
Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education (1971) - supporting busing to reduce de facto racial segregation
de jure segregation - happens by law, such as Jim Crow laws in the South
de facto segregation - happens “by fact” not by law; the kind of segregation found in the north
Bussing in Boston - in order to increase diversity, thousands of students were bussed between Roxbury (an African-American
neighborhood) and Charlestown (Irish), and between Roxbury and South Boston (Italian).
The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) (1966) - any person can request information from federal government agencies.
Rachel Carson - female marine biologist, wrote “Silent Spring” in 1962, a book detailing
the harmful effects of insecticides on birds; helped spark environmentalism
The Clean Air Act (1963) - regulated emissions from factories and automobiles
Coyahoga River Fire (1969) - Ohio river that caught fire, helped inspire the 1st “Earth Day” in 1970
Love Canal, NY - Lois Gibbs helped prove the community was affected by toxic waste,
helped result in the creation of federal “superfund” clean-up sites
American Indian Movement (AIM) - took over Alcatraz island in 1969 and Wounded Knee in 1973
Caesar Chavez - hispanic farm worker organizer; led the 5 year California grape boycott
Twenty-Sixth Amendment - gave 18 year olds the right to vote (Vietnam)
Stonewall Riots (1969) - after police raided a Greenwich gay bar; sparked Gay Pride movement
Harvey Milk - 1st openly gay elected official (San Francisco Board of Supervisors);
murdered by Dan White (Twinkie defense)
DSM-IV - psychological manual 1987-present; does not classify homosexuality as a
mental disorder; previous editions (1968-1987) had
Anita Bryant - “save our children” activist against giving homosexuals equal rights
Ryan White - boy diagnosed with AIDS in the 1980s; fought to be allowed to attend school
“Don’t ask, don’t tell” - 1994, Clinton policy to allow gays to serve in the military in secret
Matthew Shepard - 1995, college student beaten to death for being gay; “gay bashing”; led to
the creation of “hate crime” legislation
Affirmative Action - term introduced by JFK; Active policies to ensure equal opportunity for blacks, women, and other minorities in education and jobs
Equal Pay Act - 1963 outlawed paying men more than women for the same job in most cases
Gloria Steinem - wrote an expose of the Playboy Club in 1963, founded Ms. Magazine in 1971.
NOW - National Organization for Women, founded in 1966
Shirley Chisholm - cofounder of NOW with Betty Friedan, 1st Af-Am women elected to
Congress 1968, ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 1972
Title IX (1972) - prohibited gender-based discrimination in federally funded schools
Equal Rights Amendment - written in 1923 by Alice Paul, introduced at least every two years until passed Congress
in 1972 and sent to the states for ratification; failed in 1982 (3 states shy of 38 needed)
Phyllis Schlafly - opposed the Equal Rights Amendment because it would revoke the special protections
for women gained by law; women would be drafted, gender-integrated bathrooms
Roe v. Wade (1973) - a broad right to privacy prohibits states from banning abortions before the point of viability
The Bakke case (1978) - outlawed affirmative action quotas for campus diversity; race could be only one of the factors
considered in choosing a diverse student body in university admissions decisions.
Moral Majority - Christian Coalition led by evangelist Jerry Falwell; a socially
conservative element of the Republican party in the 1980s
Sandra Day O’Connor - 1st female justice of the supreme court; appointed by Reagan 1981
Geraldine Ferraro - 1st female VP nominee on a major ticket (Democrats) 1984
Hilary Clinton - The first First Lady to become a Senator, 2000
Barack Obama - 1st African American President, 2008