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The first African American child to desegregate an all-white elementary school in New Orleans.
Ruby Bridges
Civil rights activist whose refusal to give up her bus seat to a white man sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Rosa Parks
One of the "Little Rock Nine" and the first one to graduate after transferring.
Ernest Green
Case that made segregated school illegal in the U.S.
Brown v. Board of Education
His murder is seen as the spark of the modern civil rights movement
Emmett Till
The manipulation of electoral district boundaries to favor one political group over another.
Gerrymandering
An organization founded after the Brown decision to resist desegregation and promote white supremacy in the South.
Citizens Council
A derogatory term used to describe a Black person perceived as subservient to white people.
Uncle Tom
A policy adopted by Southern states to resist the desegregation of public schools after the Brown decision.
Massive Resistance
Young minister who became a national figure after the Montgomery Bus Boycott
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Lawyer who tried the Brown case, known as "Mr. Civil Rights".
Thurgood Marshall
Governor of Arkansas who famously opposed the desegregation in Little Rock.
Orval Faubus
Architect of the NAACP legal strategy to defeat Jim Crow
Charles Houston
Defiant statement against the Brown decision signed by almost all southerners in Congress
Southern Manifesto
School that was desegregated by the Little Rock Nine
Central High
A civil rights organization founded by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and others to promote nonviolent protest and civil disobedience.
Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
The first significant civil rights legislation since Reconstruction, aimed at protecting voting rights.
Civil Rights Act of 1957
It provided criminal penalties for violence that obstructed school desegregation
Civil Rights Act of 1960
The organization formed to coordinate the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA)
A discriminatory election practice in the South that excluded African Americans from participating in Democratic Party primaries.
White Primary
A federal judge who supported civil rights in Alabama.
Frank Johnson Jr.
A prominent civil rights leader and co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).
Fred Shuttlesworth
Union leader, president of the Alabama NAACP, and organizer the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
E.D. Nixon
Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court during the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision.
Earl Warren
Alabama governor known for his staunch segregationist stance and "stand in the schoolhouse door" incident.
George Wallace