AP Government
“Civil Rights Movement”
(1 & 2) Two
Concepts of
Equality
• Equality of opportunity
– Idea that each person is guaranteed the
same chance to succeed in life
• Equality of outcome
– Idea that society must ensure that people
are equal, and gov’ts must design policies
to redistribute wealth and status to
achieve social and economic equality
• Americans are less committed to equality of
outcome
– Americans prefer merit-based admissions
and employment over preferential
treatment (affirmative action)
– Leads to reverse discrimination
– “The way to stop discrimination based on
race is to stop discriminating based on
race” – Chief Justice Roberts
(3) Civil War Amendments
• 13th Amendment
– made slavery illegal
• 14th Amendment
– made all people born in
the U.S. citizens (including
former slaves)
– guaranteed all citizens due
process under the law
• 15th Amendment
– Right of citizens to vote
shall not be denied based
on race, color, or previous
condition of servitude
Problems for Freed Slaves
• Black codes – laws passed by former slave states to restrict the
freedom of blacks
• Civil Rights Acts of 1866 and 1875 attempted to protect black
citizens from these laws
– Allowed all citizens to make contracts, sue each other in court,
inherit, buy and sell property, and have equal access to public
facilities
• Nonetheless, with the removal of federal troops from the South
following the Presidential election of 1876, Reconstruction ended
• Jim Crow laws followed which restricted rights for African
Americans and set up segregation
(4) Supreme Court and Civil Rights
• The Court ruled in 1873 that people were citizens of both the
national and state gov’ts, and that states did not have to honor
rights guaranteed by US citizenship
• In 1876 the Court ruled that Congress didn’t have the power to
punish those who violated the rights of blacks within states
• Also in 1876, it ruled that the 15th Amendment did not guarantee
the right to vote, but listed the grounds by which the right to vote
could not be denied (which led to the poll tax and other
restrictions on black voting)
• 1883 ruling struck down the public accommodations section of the
Civil Rights Act of 1875 saying that it could only prohibit gov’t acts
of discrimination not private acts
(5) NAACP
Challenges
• Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) –
upheld state-imposed racial
discrimination if it was “separate
but equal”
• National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP) was founded in 1909 by
WEB Dubois and others with the
goal of ending racial
discrimination and segregation
• NAACP twofold strategy
– press for full equal facilities
for blacks
– Prove the unconstitutionality
of segregation through legal
challenges
(6) Supreme Court and Segregation
• Sweatt v. Painter (1950) – ruled
separate law school in Texas for
black students was inferior and
black students needed to be
admitted into the white law
school
• Brown v. Board of Education of
Topeka, Kansas (1954) – ruled
separate schools were
inherently unequal
• This ruling overturning Plessy v.
Ferguson and led to the end of
segregation
• Brown v. Board II (1955) – Court
ruled that school systems
needed to desegregate “with all
deliberate speed”
(6) Further Supreme Court Rulings
• Loving v. Virginia (1967)
– invalidated laws
prohibiting interracial
marriage
• Swann v. CharlotteMecklenburg County
Schools (1971) – allowed
the ordering of busing of
children to ensure school
desegregation
(7) De Jure v. De Facto Segregation
• De jure segregation – gov’t
imposed segregation
• De facto segregation –
segregation that is not the
result of gov’t influence, but
of common private practice
• It is easier to rid the nation
of de jure segregation by
overturning the laws that
create it
• Ending discrimination
through de facto
segregation much harder
(8) Civil Rights
Leaders
• Rosa Parks and
Montgomery bus boycott
essentially began the
modern civil rights
movement for AfricanAmericans
• The movement fell under
the leadership of Martin
Luther King, Jr. and the
SCLC
• Tactics included boycotts,
nonviolent marches in
protest, civil disobedience
to unjust laws, sit-ins
(9) Civil Rights Legislation
• Civil Rights Act of 1964 – among its
provisions it ended segregation,
established right to equal employment
opportunities, and set up the Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission
• 24th Amendment (1964) – banned poll
taxes
• Economic Opportunity Act (1964) –
provided education and training to
combat poverty
• Voting Rights Act of 1965 – allowed
Justice Dept. to monitor voter
registration in the South (which
doubled in the next 5 years)
• Fair Housing Act (1968) – banned
discrimination in the rental and sale of
most housing