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CIVILRIGHTS
NEWS
IMPORTANTPEOPLE
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON
Watch each of the videos below. Use
your headphones if you have them.
.
All three of these men played an
important role in race relations. Listen
to what each one has to say and
consider why they might feel that way.
.
Who do you agree with most? Make
sure you are making factual statements.
.
Write a few things about each man on
your notes page in your journal.
W.E.B. DUBOIS
M ARCUS GARVEY
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6 FACTSYOUSHOULDKNOW
THECIVILWAR
Fact # 1: The Civil War was f ought bet ween
t he Nort hern and t he Sout hern st at es f rom
1861-1865.
The Civil War, also known as ?The War
Between the States,? was fought between
the United States of America and the
Confederate States of America, a collection
of eleven southern states that left the
Union in 1860 and 1861 and formed their
own country in order to protect the
institution of slavery. Jefferson Davis a
former U.S. Senator and Secretary of War,
was appointed President of the Confederate
States of America. The United States
thought that the southern states were
wrong to leave the Union and initiated a
war that raged across the country for four
years. In 1865, the United States defeated
the Confederate States and abolished
slavery nation-wide.
Fact # 2: Abraham Lincol n was t he President
of t he Unit ed St at es during t he Civil War.
Alarmed by his anti-slavery stance, the
southern states seceded soon after he was
elected president in 1860. Lincoln declared
that he would do everything necessary to keep
the United States united as one country. He
refused to recognize the southern states as an
independent nation and the Civil War erupted
in the spring of 1861. On January 1, 1863,
Lincoln issued the Emancipat ion Procl amat ion
which freed the slaves in the southern states
and laid the groundwork for slaves to
eventually be freed across the country.
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Fact # 3: Bef ore t he Unit ed St at es was
f ormed, many dif f erent civil izat ions exist ed on
t he American cont inent .
Native Americans have lived in North America
for more than 12,000 years. Around 400 years
ago, people from the Netherlands, England,
Spain, and France arrived in North America and
began to establish small, independent
colonies. These different civilizations traded,
mixed, and fought with each other. In 1789,
they united and formed a common government
based on an agreement known as the
Constitution. Many considered the
Constitution to be a non-binding agreement:
they believed that the different civilizations,
now called ?states,? could leave the common
government at any time they chose.
Fact # 4: The issues of sl avery and cent ral
power divided t he Unit ed St at es.
Slavery was the law of the land, north and
south, until the early 19th century. It was
concentrated in the southern states, where
slaves were used as farm laborers and formed
the backbone of the southern economy. In the
northern states, where industry drove the
economy, many people believed that slavery
was immoral and wrong. Southerners felt
threatened by these northern ?abolitionists?
and claimed that the common government had
no power to end slavery against the wishes of
the states. Eventually, southerners became
convinced that the common government would
attempt to abolish slavery nation-wide. Eleven
states left the United States in the following
order and formed the Confederate States of
America: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida,
Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia,
Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee.
Fact # 5: The Nort h won t he Civil War.
After four years of conflict, the last major
Confederate armies surrendered to the
United States in April of 1865. The war
bankrupted the South, left its roads, farms,
and factories in ruins, and all but wiped out
an entire generation of men. More than
620,000 men died in the Civil War, more
than any other war in American history. The
southern states were occupied by Union
soldiers, rebuilt, and gradually re-admitted
to the United States over the course of
twenty difficult years known as the
Fact # 6: Af t er t he war was over, t he
Const it ut ion was amended t o f ree t he
sl aves, t o assure ?equal prot ect ion under
t he l aw? f or American cit izens, and t o grant
bl ack men t he right t o vot e.
The southern states seceded to prevent the
abolition of slavery. During the war,
Abraham Lincoln freed some slaves and
allowed freedmen to join the Union Army. It
was clear to many that it was only a matter of
time before slavery was fully abolished. As
the war drew to a close, but before the
southern states were re-admitted to the
United States, the northern states added the
13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the
Constitution. The 13th Amendment
abolished slavery, the 14th Amendment
guaranteed that citizens would receive
?equal protection under the law,? and the
15th Amendment granted black men the
right to vote. The 14th Amendment has
played an ongoing role in American society
as different groups of citizens continue to
lobby for equal treatment by the
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Jim Crow Video Links
The minst rel show, or minstrelsy, was an
American form of entertainment developed in
the 19th century of comic skits, variety acts,
dancing, and music, performed by white people
in blackface or, especially after the U.S. Civil
War, by black people.
JIMCROWLAWS
Jim Crow l aws were state and
local l aws enforcing racial
segregation in the Southern
United States. Enacted after the
Reconstruction period, these l aws
continued in force until 1965.
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KUKLUXKLAN
The Ku Klux Klan also know as the KKK or "The Klan" is a white
supremacist group which was founded in 1866. The Klan was
a terrorist secret society organized in the South after the Civil
War that used violence and murder to promote its white
supremacist beliefs.
.
This second generation of the Klan w as not only anti-black
but also took a stand against Roman Catholics, Jew s,
foreigners and organized labor. It w as fueled by grow ing
hostility to the surge in immigration that America
.
The organization took as its symbol a burning cross and
held rallies, parades and marches around the country. At its
peak in the 1920s, Klan membership exceeded 4 million
people nationw ide.
ONTHE
FLIPSIDE
Not everyone
believed in the Jim
Crow Law s or joined
the KKK. There
w ere abolitionists
and suffragists w ho
w anted equal
treatment for
people of all race,
religion, and
gender.
Abolitionist :
opponents to
slavery; people
w ho campaigned
against slavery
during the 18th
and 19th
centuries; people
w ho seek to ban
something;
somebody w ho
supports the
abolition of a
practice
Suffragist:
Somebody w ho
w ants to extend
equal voting rights
to a particular
group, especially
w omen, people
above a particular
age, and black
Americans.
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"YOUCANSETTLEFORIT.... BUT
DON'TYOUEVERGETUSEDTOIT."
ORGANIZATIONSFORCHANGE
UNIA
Universal Negro Improvement Association
(UNIA), primarily in the United States,
organization founded by Marcus Garvey,
dedicated to racial
pride, economic
self-sufficiency, and the formation of an
independent black nation in Africa.
NAACP
Founded in 1909, the Nat ional
Associat ion f or t he Advancement of Col ored
Peopl e (NAACP) was one of the earliest and
most influential civil rights organization in the
United States. During its early years, the NAACP
focused on legal strategies designed to confront
the critical civil rights issues of the day. They
called for federal anti-lynching laws and
coordinated a series of challenges to
state-sponsored segregation in public schools,
an effort that led to the landmark 1954 Supreme
Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education,
which declared the doctrine of ?separate but
equal? to be unconstitutional. Though other civil
rights groups emerged in the 1950s and 1960s,
the NAACP retained a prominent role within the
movement, co-organizing the 1963 March on
Washington, and successfully lobbying for
legislation that resulted in the 1964 Civil Rights
Act and 1965 Voting Act.
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JUNE19, 1865
Junet eent h is t he ol dest known
cel ebrat ion commemorat ing t he
ending of sl avery in t he Unit ed
St at es. Dating back to 1865, it was
on June 19t hthat the Union soldiers,
led by Major General Gordon
Granger, landed atGal vest on, Texas
with news that the war had ended
and that the ensl aved were now f ree.
Note that this was t wo and a hal f
years af t er President Lincoln?s
Emancipat ion Procl amat ion - which
had become of f icial January 1, 1863.
The Emancipation Proclamation had
little impact on the Texans due to the
minimal number of Union troops to
enforce the new Execut ive Order.
However, with the surrender of
General Lee in April of 1865, and
thearrival of General Granger?s
regiment , the f orces were finally
strong enough to inf l uence and
overcome t he resist ance.