Glossary

Bakke case

In this landmark 1978 case, the Supreme Court held that educational institutions could take race into account when screening applicants but could not use rigid racial quotas.

Black Muslims

While civil rights movement leaders fought for racial integration, other black leaders emphasized separatism and identification with Africa. The most important expression of the separatist impulse during the 1960s was the rise of the Black Muslims, who elevated racial separation into a religious doctrine.

freedom riders

Sponsored by the Congress of Racial Equality, the freedom riders in 1961 protested the segregation of interstate travel in the South, where the federal ban on such practices was commonly ignored. Appalled by the violent attacks on them by southern whites, President Kennedy deputized 400 federal marshals to protect their rights.

George Wallace

The symbol of unyielding resistance to integration was George C. Wallace, who gained the governorship of Alabama on an extreme segregationist platform in 1962.

Mapp v. Ohio

In this and several other decisions such as Gideon v. Wainwright and Escobedo v. Illinois, the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Warren greatly increased the ability of defendants to defend themselves in court. In the Mapp decision, the Court ruled that evidence secured by the police through unreasonable searches must be excluded from trial.

Port Huron Statement

In 1962 a youthful group known as the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) met at a lakeside camp near Port Huron, Michigan. When their meeting ended, they issued a manifesto proclaiming the goal of establishing a radically democratic political movement that rejected hierarchy and bureaucracy.

sit-ins

Black students subscribing to Martin Luther King's doctrine of nonviolence used sit-ins to protest segregation. The sit-in movement led to the formation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). The sit-ins also initiated a new, activist phase in black America's struggle for equal rights.

white backlash

Ghetto rioting, the rise of black militancy, and resentment over the Great Society social legislation combined to produce a backlash among many whites in the late 1960s. As a result, the commitment to bringing black Americans into full equality declined.

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