3rd form classes

REVISION SHEET : SLAVERY, SEGREGATION AND THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

1st 1st Ship The Abolition CIVIL

American of Civil of SEGREGATION RIGHTS
SLAVERY
Colony Slaves War Slavery MOVEMENT

1607 1619 1861 1865 1965

What is Slavery? Slavery is a system, an institution or social

practice of owning human beings as
properties/ commodities, but especially as
forced laborers.

When did it start in America? It started in the 17th century. People in Africa
were forced to leave their native lands, their
culture and their families.

Who were the slave traders? They were Europeans who bought or sold
slaves.

What is the slave trade? The buying and selling of slaves.

What is the TRIANGULAR SLAVE ROUTE?

TRIANGULAR SLAVE TRADE: a system
through which Europeans traded Africans,
who were shipped across the Atlantic Ocean
to become slaves in the Americas. In return,
the Europeans were supplied with raw
materials.

What happened in 1619 ? In 1607, 104 English men arrived in North
America to start a settlement. They picked
Jamestown, Virginia for their colony.

The first 20 enslaved Africans landed at

Jamestown, Virginia. These Africans were
traded in exchange for supplies.

How many slaves were there after 1619 ? The number of slaves increased steadily
each year. By 1763, the colonial population
included an estimated 230.000 Africans;
most of them slaves in the South
Why the South ? Slavery is the “economic engine” of the
South.
The ideal climate of the South and the
availability of lands encouraged property
owners to establish plantations and farms of
rice, cotton, tobacco and sugar. These
plantations required increased amount of
labor and so an increased number of slaves.

How they had to live on a plantation ?
They had to wear ill-fitting clothes given by
their owners.
They weren’t allowed to read or write; to
use their birth name or even talk in their
own language.
They were forced to work from sunrise to
sunset

When did slavery end ? Slavery was abolished in 1865.

How did slavery end ? An era known as the “Antebellum period”,

witnessed numerous social, economic and
political factors which contributed to the
abolition of slavery.
The Antebellum period came to an end with
an outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 and the
Emancipation Proclamation in 1863.

What’s the Civil War ? The American nation remained divided over
the practice or the abolition of slavery.
 President Lincoln led the NORTHERN
STATES and supported the abolition
of slavery.
 He also released the Emancipation
Proclamation
The Civil War lasted four years and ended
with the abolition of slavery.

What’s the Emancipation Proclamation ? The Emancipation Proclamation was an

order by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln to
free slaves in 10 states.

WELL-KNOWN NATIONAL FIGURE IN THE ABOLITION MOVEMENT

 Frederick Douglass: He escaped from slavery, caught the attention of black

communities in the North and became a leader the anti-slave movement.
 He was not the only slave to escape to the North
 Life after slavery for African Americans

Slavery came to an end in 1865; African Americans are no longer slaves, no more brutalities of slave life, the
whipping and the assaults of white masters, the selling and forcible relocation of family members. African
Americans celebrated their newfound freedom.

However, life in the years after slavery proved to be difficult. Although slavery was over, the unfairness of
white race persisted. After slavery, state governments across the South instituted laws knowns as the Jim
Crow laws to limit the freedom of black Africans and prevent contact and segregate black and white citizens in
public places.

What is segregation?

The act or process of segregating,

separating, setting apart and isolating
people of different races, religions or
sexes and treating them in different
ways.

It is the system that followed slavery in

the United States

From the 1880s into the 1960s, a majority of American states enforced segregation through « Jim
Crow » laws.

What is the Jim Crow law? An official set of laws enforced segregation between African Americans
and white people in the United States for many years. (Check the timeline above)

The name “Jim Crow” comes from a once popular entertaining show which encouraged a negative
view of blacks.

Here’s a sampling of laws from various states:

Marriage Transportation Entertainment Schools

The marriage of a All bus and train Colored and white The children of the
white person and a stations must have persons are not white and colored
colored person is separate waiting allowed to play races must attend
illegal. rooms and separate cards, dominoes, separate schools.
(Mississippi) ticket windows for checkers, baseball, (17 states)
the white and football, basketball
colored races. with each other.
(Alabama) (Alabama)
 Nurses Prisons Barbers Textbooks
No person or The warden shall see No colored barber Books shall not be
corporations shall that the white shall serve as a interchangeable
require any white convicts shall have barber [to] white between the white
female nurse in separate apartments women or girls (state and colored schools,
wards or rooms in for both eating and of Georgia) but shall continue to
hospitals, either sleeping from the be used by the race
public or private, in negro convicts (state first using them.
which negro men are of Mississippi) (State of North
placed. (State of Carolina)
Alabama)

In a segregationist state, black people and white

people had to use separate facilities.

Segregation was applied in churches, schools,

bathrooms in gas stations, public beaches, buses

and fountains.

Black people were not allowed to play checkers

with white men.

Blacks had to sit in the back of buses

Black people were allowed to drink at “colored

only” drinking fountains.

The end of the slavery era did not mean the end of
suffering to African Americans. They experienced a period
of wild irrational hate, killing, extreme violence, and
atrocities against them simply because of their race.

To make their life worse, a hatred and terrorist group,

known as Ku Klux Klan, appeared.
 KU KLUX KLAN

The Ku Klux Klan, or KKK, was founded at the end of the United States Civil War. It is one of
the oldest and most infamous hate groups in the world. The KKK is an American white
organization, an anti-blacks group that believes in the «White Supremacy»

It’s the belief that the white race or the white people are superior to those other races
and thus should dominate them and have control over them.

Members wore white robes and hoods to hide their identity. They had to be American,
white, Protestant and at least 16 years old.

They used a lot of methods to limit the freedom of black people and intimidate them:
They carried out lynching and violent acts such as kidnapping, hanging, whipping, and
murder toward African Americans

Because they did not accept the facts that African Americans are no longer slaves and are
free people. They considered them a “threat to the American way of life”, subordinate and
inferior.
 1/ who was Rosa
3/ what happened when she
Parks?
didn’t give up her seat?
An American Civil
She was arrested
Right activist

2/ what is Rosa Parks famous

for? 4/ Why was she arrested?
 The Montgomery Bus Because she violated /
Boycott. She refused to give didn’t respect the laws of
up her seat to a white man segregation.
on the bus.

1/ who was Martin Luther In 1964, he won the Nobel

King? Peace Prize

An American Civil Right

Leader and activist In 1963, he delivered his ‘I
Have a Dream” speech to
civil rights marchers

1/ who was he known for?

Known for leading the 1/ When did he die?

Civil Rights movement in the
He was shot dead in 1968 in
United States.
Memphis.
He advocated nonviolent
protest against segregation
His famous quote was
and racial discrimination.
“I have a dream that my four little children
will one day live in a nation where they will
not be judged by the color of their skin but
by the content of their character.”

August, 1963, in a speech to civil rights

supporters at the March on Washington
The Civil Rights Movement was one of the most important changes in America.

The continued growing unrest and anger among African American communities
and the “Movement” to make change finally occurred in the 1956 Montgomery
Bus Protest, led by the activist and leader Martin Luther King.

It is important to note that the Civil Rights Movement did not happen due to
one situation
Rosa Parks’ « No » and the
Small protests that Montgomery Bus Boycott [1963]
were both violent
and peaceful

Martin Luther King’s

Sit-in movement: nonviolent CIVIL RIGHTS famous speech “I have

a Dream” [1963]
movement, an act of
MOVEMENT
disobedience against
segregation [1960]

Civil Rights Act issued

The Black
by the President J. F.
Panthers Kennedy [1964]

What were the positive effects of the civil rights act?

The Desegregation  it is the process of ending segregation, ending the

separation between blacks and whites.

Voting Rights Act of 1965  it is a law of the United States. It made it easier for
African –American to vote, without paying a poll tax or taking a literacy test to
be allowed to vote.