Destany's Civil Rights Trail

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a landmark peice of legislation in the United States that outlawed racial segregation in schools, public places, and employment.  Conceived to help African Americans, the bill was amended prior to passage to protect women, and explicitly included white people for the first time.  The bill was introduced to President John F. Kennedy in his civil rights speech of June 11, 1963, he sent a bill to Congress on June 19 saying to ban discrimination in public accommmodtions but did not include a number of provisons like ending discrimination in private employment.

1.  What was the Civil Rights Act of 1964?

2.  The bill was introduced to which president?

Martin Luther King Jr born Micheal Luther King was born in Atlanta, Ga on Jan. 15, 1929.  His father was a pastor of Ebenzer Baptist Church and Alberta Williams a former schoolteacher.  King went to Morehouse College in Atlanta in 1944 but wasn't planning to enter the ministry but then he met Dr. Benjamin Mays.  After receiving his bachelor's degree in 1948.  In Montgomery, Ala.  Martin made his first mark on the civil-rights movement, by moblizing the black community during a 382-day boycott of the city's bus lines.  King overcame arrest and violent harrasments nut ultimstely the U.S supreme court declared bus segregation outlawed.  But he never got back to his poverty plans because on April 4, 1968, on the balcony of the black-owned Lorraine Hotel just off Beale Street.  While standing outside with Jesse Jackson and Ralph Abernathy, King was shot in the neck by a rifle bullet. His death caused a wave of violence across the country.

1.  What degree did Martin Luther King recieve in 1948?

2. True or False Martin Luther King Jr was standing with Jesse Jackson and Ralph Abernathy?

Rosa Parks born Rosa Louise McCauley Parks on February 4, 1913 was an African-American civil rights activist.  On December 1, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, Parks refused to obey bus driver James Blake's order that she give up her seat to make room for a white passenger.  Her action was not the first of it's kind for her action sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott.  In her final years she suffered from dementia and became embroiled in a lawsuit filed on her behalf aganist American hip-hop duo OutKast.  Her death on October 24, 2005 was a front-page story in the United States' leading newspapers.

1.  What did Rosa Parks do that sparked up a boycott?

2.  What did Rosa suffer from in her final years?

Thurgood Marshall was born July 2, 1908 in Baltimore Maryland as the great-grandson of a slave.  Marshall was an American jurist and the first African American to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States.  Before becoming a judge he was a lawyer who was best remembered for his high success rate in arguing before the Supreme Court and for the victory in Brown v. Board of Education.  Marshall was married twice, once to Vivian "Buster" Burey from 1929 until her death February of 1955 and to Cecilia Suyat from December 1955 until his own death January 24, 1993.

1.  When did Thurgood Marshall die?

2.  What was Thurgood Marshall before he served on the Supreme Court?

The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a political and social protest campaign started in 1955 in Montgomery Alabama.  It intended to oppose the city's policy of racial segregation on its public transit system.  It also had many important people that were all involved in eliminating bus segregation, such as Martin Luther King Jr and Rosa Parks.  This caused deficits in public transit profits because a large percentage of people who used public transportation were now boycotting.  The ensuring struggle lasted from December 1, 1955 to December 20, 1956 and led the United States Supreme Court decide that the Alabama and Montegomery laws requiring segregated bus as unconstitutional.

1.  How long did the struggle last?

2. What was the Montgomery Boycott?

The Little Rock Nine was a group of African-AMerican students who were enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957.  The ensuing Little Rock Crisis in which the students were initially prevented from entering
prevented from entering the racially segregated school by Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus, and then attended after the intervention of President Eisenhower, is considered to be one of the most important events in the African-American Civil Rights Movement.^[1]