1. Civil Rights and Women’s Rights

2. Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896)
U.S. Supreme Court allowed for “separate, but equal”
facilities/schools
Separate educational facilities and resources for white and
African American students
Separate public facilities (e.g., restrooms, drinking fountains,
restaurants)
Social isolation of races

3. Civil Rights Movement
Opposition to Plessy v. Ferguson: “Separate but equal”
Brown vs. Board of Education: 1954
Desegregation of schools
Schools could not be separated based on race

4. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Passive resistance against
segregated facilities
Organized protests
sit-ins: act of protesting by sitting down
(i.e. at a segregated restaurant)
Marches
Nonviolent approach

5. Civil disobedience: refusal to obey laws that are considered unjust
“I have a dream…” speech .
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7. Montgomery bus boycott (1955-56)
Rosa Parks
Did not give her seat to a white man
She was arrested and fined
African-Americans boycotted, or refused to use,
the city bus system
U.S. Supreme Court ruled it was illegal to segregate city buses

8. Freedom Riders
1960 U.S. Supreme Court ruled that buses traveling Interstate
(crossing state borders) could not be segregated
White and African-American people volunteered to ride interstate
buses to see if law was being enforced
These people were assaulted and buses were burned in Alabama

9. Civil Rights Act of 1964
Outlawed discrimination in hiring and stopped segregation
in public places
Voting Rights Act of 1965
Gave the federal government the power to force local
officials to allow African-Americans to register to vote.

10. Expansion of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

11. Changing role of women
What were the problems women were facing…
Workplace disadvantages
Discrimination against women in hiring practices
Lower wages for women than for men doing the same job

12. Improved conditions:
National Organization for Women (NOW)
Federal legislation to force colleges to give women equal
athletic opportunities
The Equal Rights Amendment, despite its failure, and a focus
on equal opportunity employment created a wider range of
options and advancement for women in business and
public service.