Modern America Vocabulary
1. Segregation: The separation or isolation of a race, class or group
2. Integration: The end of the policy or custom of segregation; Inclusion of people of all races, on an equal
basis in schools, parks, neighborhoods, employment, etc.
3. Domestic policy: relating to a nation's internal affairs: having to do with the internal affairs (issues of the
nation at home) of a nation or country
4. Foreign policy: decisions a government makes that deal with or become involved with a country or
countries other than its own
5. Communications: Any system by which we send information or materials from one place or person to
another, including by telephone, telegraph, television, radio, internet, etc.
6. Manhattan Project: The project organized by the U.S. government in 1942 to produce the first atomic
bomb. This project led to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan to end WWII.
7. Transistor: A small electronic device containing semiconductors such as germanium or silicon, used
instead of a vacuum tube to amplify or control the flow of electrons in an electric circuit
8. Franchising: Selling or buying the privilege or right to sell the products of a manufacturer in a given area
9. Passive: Being acted on without acting in return; not resisting
10. Non-violent: Not violent; peaceful; the belief in the use of peaceful methods to achieve any goal
11. Freedom Rider: a civil rights activist who, during the early 1960s, joined one of the interracial groups
riding buses through parts of the southern United States to protest against racial segregation
12. Sit-in: The act of occupying seats or sitting down on the floor of an establishment as a form of organized
protest
13. Title IX: Law passed by the U.S. Congress in 1972 that states: No person in the United States shall, on the
basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to
discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance
14. Legislation: the making of laws; the laws made by a legislature or legislator
15. Boycott: To refuse to buy items from a particular country (or company); to refuse to use in order to show
disapproval or force acceptance of one’s terms