The Civil Rights Movement in Virginia
• Civil Rights – the privileges that you enjoy as a citizen.
• These include rights such as voting and equal opportunity to get a job!
• For African Americans of this time period (era), it also meant being able to sit anywhere you wanted to on a bus or being served in any restaurant!

The Civil Rights
Movement in Virginia
• During WW II, many
African Americans fought for their country.
• When the war was over, they returned home determined to obtain (get) their full civil rights.

The Civil Rights
Movement in Virginia
• This campaign for equal rights is called the Civil Rights
Movement.
• During the 20 th century (the 1900’s),
Virginia struggled over the issue of civil rights.

• Segregation - the separation of people, usually based on race or religion.
• Desegregation – abolishment of racial segregation.
• Integration – Full equality of all races in the use of public facilities.

Protests Against Segregation –
Blacks Fight Back!
• Boycott – to not buy something as a way of protest.
• This is a picture of
Rosa Parks – this led to a bus boycott!

Protests Against Segregation –
African Americans Fight Back!
• Sit-in – to protest something by sitting in a place and refusing to move.

• The “separate but equal” policy tried to offer African Americans their own schools.
• These schools would treat blacks “equally” but continue to be “separate” from whites.

Desegregation and
Massive Resistance in Virginia
• In the 1954 court case of Brown vs
Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme
Court ruled that
“separate but equal” public schools were unconstitutional.
(against the law)

Desegregation and
Massive Resistance in Virginia
• All public schools, including those in
Virginia, were ordered to integrate.
(desegregate)
• That meant both blacks and whites would attend the same schools!

Desegregation and
Massive Resistance in Virginia
• Virginia’s government established a policy of
Massive Resistance, which fought to “resist” the integration of public schools!
• This meant that the
Virginia state government did not want whites and blacks attending the same schools!

Desegregation and
Massive Resistance in Virginia
• Some schools were closed in order to avoid integration!
• The policy of Massive
Resistance failed, and
Virginia’s public schools were integrated.
(desegregated)

• Harry F. Byrd, Sr. led a Massive Resistance
Movement against the integration
(desegregation) of public schools.

• As a result of the
Civil Rights
Movement, laws were passed that made racial discrimination illegal.