Name______________
Pd.________
Civil Rights Era (1954-1975)
Vocabulary
Chapter 28, Pgs. 870-900
Learning Goal: Students will understand how Americans responded to discrimination during
the civil rights era
Directions: Use your textbook to find definitions for each of the words listed below. Write the
definitions in a way that you will understand them. You do not need to copy word for word.
Please write your definitions on a separate sheet of paper. You WILL be handing in your
definitions on the day of the Vocab Test.
Section 1: Reconstruction and Jim Crow, Pgs. 872-875
1.
2.
3.
4.
Segregation: separation, especially of races
Civil rights: rights granted to all citizens
Black codes: law passed by Southern states that limited the freedom of former slaves
Plessy v. Ferguson: 1896 case in which the Supreme Court ruled that separation of the
races in public accommodations was legal
5. Jim Crow laws: laws meant to enforce separation of white and black people in public
places in the South
6. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP): a civil rights
organization
7. Infringe: to violate
Section 2: The Modern Civil Rights Movement, Pgs. 876-883
8. Integrate: to open to people of all races or ethnic groups
9. Thurgood Marshall: NAACP legal counsel and the first African-American Supreme Court
Justice
10. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954): case in which the Supreme Court ruled
that “separate but equal” education for black and white students was unconstitutional
11. Montgomery bus boycott: 1955 protest action to end segregation on buses in
Montgomery, Alabama
12. Martin Luther King, Jr.: an influential leader of the civil rights era, assassinated in 1968
13. Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC): organization that coordinated nonviolent civil rights protests across the South
14. Sit-in: protest in which people sit in a place and refuse to move until their demands are
met
15. Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee (SNCC): organization created to give young
people a greater role in the civil rights movement
16. Grassroots: group of ordinary people who come together at a local level for a cause
17. Activism: direct action taken to support or oppose a social or political goal
Name______________
Pd.________
Civil Rights Era (1954-1975)
Vocabulary
Chapter 28, Pgs. 870-900
Section 3: Kennedy, Johnson, and Civil Rights, Pgs. 884-893
18. Freedom Rides: protests against segregation on interstate busing in the South
19. Congress of Racial Equality (CORE): organization that planned Freedom Rides
20. March on Washington: huge civil rights demonstration in Washington, D.C., in 1963
21. Civil Rights Act of 1964: law banning segregation in public places and creating the Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission
22. Freedom Summer: 1964 voter-registration drive for Southern blacks
23. Voting Rights Act of 1965: law banning literacy tests and other laws that kept blacks
from registering to vote
24. Great Society: President Johnson’s programs to help the poor, elderly, and women
25. Malcolm X: African-American activists killed in 1965
26. Disenfranchised: people deprived of legal rights, especially the right to vote
Section 4: The Equal Rights Struggle Expands. Pgs. 894-900
27. Dolores Huerta: Mexican-American union organizer and negotiator
28. Cesar Chavez: Mexican-American union organization and leader
29. National Congress of American Indians (NCAI): organization founded in 1944 to promote
rights of Native Americans
30. Betty Friedan: women’s rights leader and author of “The Feminine Mystique”
31. National Organization for Women (NOW): organization founded in 1966 to get women
good jobs at equal pay
32. Equal Rights Amendment (ERA): amendment proposed that would give equality of rights
regardless of sex
33. Latinos: people in the United States who trace their origins to Latin American countries
and cultures
34. Abridged: shortened
35. Assimilate: to blend into society