Civil Rights Movement Vocabulary

1. Civil Rights MovementVocabulary By: Melissa Meadows

2. Civil rights • Rights to personal liberty established by the 13th and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution and certain Congressional acts, esp. as applied to an individual or a minority group.

3. Civil Rights Movement • movement in the United States beginning in the 1960s and led primarily by Blacks in an effort to establish the civil rights of individual Black citizens 

4. Protest • an expression or declaration of objection, disapproval, or dissent, often in opposition to something a person is powerless to prevent or avoid

5. Boycott • to combine in abstaining from, or preventing dealings with, as a means of intimidation or coercion

6. Nonviolence • peacefully resistant, as in response to or protest against injustice, esp. on moral or philosophical grounds.

7. Freedom Ride • a bus trip made to parts of the southern U.S. by persons engaging in efforts to integrate racially segregated public facilities.

8. Sit in • an organized passive protest, esp. against racial segregation, in which the demonstrators occupy seats prohibited to them, as in restaurants and other public places.

9. Poll tax • a capitation tax, the payment of which is sometimes a prerequisite to exercise the right of suffrage.

10. Jim Crow Laws • any state law discriminating against black persons.

11. Integration • an act or instance of integrating a racial, religious, or ethnic group.