Abernathy, The Reverend Ralph D.

(1926 - 1990) Reverend Abernathy was an American civil rights leader and Baptist minister. He was Martin Luther King Jr.'s closest advisor during the civil rights movement and assisted King in establishing the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957, an organization that coordinated efforts of many groups working for full equality under the law for African Americans. In 1955 and 1956, Reverend Abernathy helped King lead the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama to protest racial bus segregation and racial discrimination in the arrest and conviction of Rosa Parks. Reverend Abernathy was president of the SCLC from 1968 to 1977, succeeding Martin Luther King Jr., after King's assassination in 1968. Reverend Abernathy wrote And the Walls Came Tumbling Down: An Autobiography (1989).

altercation (n): a noisy, heated, angry dispute or confrontation.

Anderson, Marian

(1897 - 1993) In 1955, Anderson, a contralto concert singer, was the first black singer to perform at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. She was acclaimed for her singing of spirituals, but sang in many styles throughout her career. Because she was black, Anderson overcame many difficulties to obtain the training she needed. In 1939, the Daughters of the American Revolution would not let this celebrated singer perform at Washington's Constitution Hall. The First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, arranged Anderson's concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The concert drew an audience of 75,000 people. Anderson was an alternate delegate to the United Nations in 1958. She sang at the inaugural balls of President Eisenhower in 1957 and President Kennedy in 1961. She retired from singing in 1965, Anderson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963 and a Congressional gold medal in 1978. In 1978, she received one of the first Kennedy Center Honors and in 1991 she received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Her autobiography is titled My Lord, What a Morning (1956).

arbitrary (adj): depending on individual discretion and not fixed by law.

assassination (n): murdering by sudden or secret attack usually for impersonal reasons.

belligerent (adj): inclined to or exhibiting assertiveness, hostility, or combativeness.

boycott (v): to engage in a concerted refusal to have dealings with a business, organization, or person; to express disapproval or to force acceptance of certain conditions.

Carr, Rebecca "Johnnie" Daniels

(born 1912) Johnnie Carr was the childhood friend of Rosa Parks whose involvement in the NAACP in Montgomery, Alabama encouraged Rosa to become a member. Carr joined the NAACP in the late 1930s. After the success of the bus boycott, Carr continued her civil rights activism. In 1964, she and the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) sued the Montgomery, Alabama Board of Education so Carr's son could attend the then all-white school. Their suit resulted in the desegregation of the Montgomery schools. In 1967, Carr became the second president of the MIA, following the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. (Art-photo of Johnnie Carr from Al Archives, photo of Johnnie Carr and Rosa Parks from AL archives)

controversial (adj): given to disputes; discussions marked by the expression of opposing views.

dignity (n): the quality of being worthy, honored, or esteemed.

discrimination (n): prejudiced or prejudicial outlook, action, or treatment.

Dunbar, Paul Laurence

(1872 - 1906) Dunbar, born in Dayton, Ohio, the son of former slaves, was one of the most popular American poets of the 1890s and early 1900s. He was the first black American author to become nationally known for his poetry and fiction. Dunbar was the only black student in his Ohio high school, where he became editor of the school paper. He financed the publication of his first volume of poetry, Oak and Ivy (1893), and sold copies to passengers where he worked as an elevator operator. His second volume of poems was Majors and Minors (1895) and his third book of poems Lyrics of Lowly Life (1896), contained some of the best verses from the first two volumes. "We Wear the Mask," the poem Raymond Parks recites in "The Rosa Parks Story," is from Lyrics of Lowly Life. Dunbar also wrote several novels, including The Uncalled (1898) and The Sport of the Gods (1902).

Durr, Clifford

(1899 - 1975) Clifford Durr was a white civil rights activist and lawyer who devoted the latter part of his career to cases involving the rights of black citizens in Montgomery, Alabama. Though this work was not financially lucrative, Durr found the work rewarding. Durr assisted in challenging the city of Montgomery when he and Rosa Parks's attorney, Fred Gray, formed the case for Parks who was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery bus. Durr was instrumental in getting Mrs. Parks released from jail, as the white police gave Durr information they would not give Mrs. Parks's black lawyer, Fred Gray. Clifford Durr and his wife, Virginia, were ostracized by a large segment of white society in Alabama for their work on behalf of civil rights.

Durr, Virginia Foster

(1906 - 1999) Virginia Durr, wife of Clifford Durr, was a white civil rights activist and a founding member of the Southern Conference on Human Welfare, who worked tirelessly toward the goal of ending institutionalized racism. Raised in Alabama, Durr overcame the racism she grew up with, while going to college in the North. After marrying Clifford Durr, they returned to Alabama to help end segregation. Mrs. Durr was especially involved in helping to put an end to poll taxes, which were a tactic used to discourage African Americans from registering to vote. In December 1955, Virginia and Clifford Durr bailed Rosa Parks out of jail after she was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up her seat to a white man on one of the city's segregated buses. (Photo of Virginia Durr alone, photo of Virginia Durr and Rosa Parks both from AL Archives)

Gandhi, Mahatma (Mohandas Karamchand)

(1869 - 1948), Gandhi was one of the foremost spiritual and political leaders of the 1900s. Slight of build, Gandhi seemed to have limitless physical and moral strength. To free his native India from British control, he used a unique method of nonviolent resistance. His writings and deeds inspired Martin Luther King Jr. and Cesar Chavez with his doctrine of nonviolent civil disobedience or satyagraha (meaning "holding to the truth"). Gandhi, honored by the people of India as the father of their nation, was called Mahatma, meaning "Great Soul." Gandhi was assassinated by an Indian who resented Gandhi's racial and religious tolerance.

humanitarian (n): a person promoting human welfare and reform.

humiliated (v): reduced to a lower position in one's own eyes or others' eyes in a way that is extremely destructive to one's self-respect or dignity.

incident (n): an action likely to lead to grave consequences.

integrity (n): firm adherence to a code of moral or artistic values.

Jim Crow laws (n): Jim Crow was the name of a minstrel routine (actually called "Jump Jim Crow") begun by the father of the American minstrel show, Thomas Dartmouth Rice. Minstrel shows were variety shows that entertained, using distorted images of black life. By the 1890s, the term Jim Crow came to describe laws that sanctioned subordination and segregation of black people in the south. The first Jim Crow or segregation law was passed in Louisiana. A black man named Plessy sued when he was jailed for sitting in a railroad car designated for whites. The case, Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), was eventually heard by the Supreme Court. The decision of the court held that since Plessy was "a colored man and be so assigned, he has been deprived of no property, since he is not lawfully entitled to the reputation of a white man." The Court stated that the 14th amendment "could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social as distinguished from political equality." This decision legally established the new idea of "separate but equal," and led to the passing and enforcing of Jim Crow laws. People were fired from jobs, jailed, and killed for breaking these laws. The following are examples of Jim Crow laws in different jurisdictions:

Examples:

Restaurants (Alabama): It shall be unlawful to conduct a restaurant or other place for the serving of food in the city, at which white and colored people are served in the same room, unless such white and colored persons are effectually separated by a solid partition extending from the floor upward to a distance of seven feet or higher, and unless a separate entrance from the street is provided for each compartment.

Amateur Baseball (Georgia): It shall be unlawful for any amateur white baseball team to play baseball on any vacant lot or baseball diamond within two blocks of a playground devoted to the Negro race, and it shall be unlawful for any amateur colored baseball team to play baseball in any vacant lot or baseball diamond within two blocks of any playground devoted to the white race.

Intermarriage (Arizona): The marriage of a person of Caucasian blood with a Negro, Mongolian, Malay, or Hindu shall be null and void.

(Source: Examples of laws from a flier entitled "Jim Crow Laws" used with permission from The Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site Discovery Center)

KKK (Ku Klux Klan) (n): a secret terrorist society of American-born whites advocating white supremacy, that was founded after the Civil War and still exists today.

King, Jr., Dr. Martin Luther

(1929-1968), Martin Luther King Jr., a Baptist minister, devoted his life to the fight for rights for the poor, disadvantaged, and racially oppressed. A passionate orator who galvanized Americans to morally confront the years of injustices against blacks, King led the civil rights movement. In 1955, with the assistance of Reverend Ralph Abernathy and Edgar Daniel Nixon, King successfully organized the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott in response to the arrest of Rosa Parks. In 1957, King established the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), which played a major part in promoting anti-discrimination legislation and voter registration drives, efforts that eventually culminated in the passage of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. King organized the massive March on Washington (August 28, 1963) where he gave his celebrated "I Have a Dream" speech. In 1964, Time chose King to be its first black American Man of the Year, and that same year King also became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1968, he went to Memphis, Tennessee, to assist and support striking sanitation workers. There on April 4, 1968, he was assassinated by James Earl Ray. King was only 39 when he died. In 1983, the U. S. Congress voted to observe a national holiday on King's birthday, the observance of the holiday began in 1986.

literacy test: Although the 15th amendment (1870) gave black men the vote, and the 20th amendment (1920) gave women the vote, some states devised complicated "literacy tests" to keep black citizens from becoming registered voters. In order to make it difficult for people to study for the tests, there were variations and versions that were used randomly. For example, between August 1964 and July 1965, the state of Alabama had 100 different tests and black applicants would be asked to choose one at random. These tests usually required that the applicant explain portions of their state's constitution. Voter registrars used capricious tactics in deciding whether someone was literate, for example, if the test taker did not have good handwriting, he was failed. Once a black citizen finally passed a literacy test and was on the list of qualified voters, their names would often be "purged" (or dropped) for equally capricious and racist reasons. When registered blacks arrived at the polls to vote, they were often attacked or threatened by the KKK. As a result of all these impediments, in Mississippi for example, only five percent of eligible blacks were registered to vote in 1960. The 1965 Voting Rights Act outlawed all literacy tests.

lynch (v): to hang to death by mob action without legal sanction.

miscegenation (n): marriage or cohabitation between a white person and a member of another race.

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Founded in 1909, The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is a civil rights organization in the United States, working to end discrimination against blacks and other minority groups. The NAACP played an important role in the Supreme Court's ruling that segregation of blacks on city buses was unconstitutional. In another landmark case, Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954), Thurgood Marshall, a lawyer from the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, presented the argument that separate schooling could not be equal, and therefore was unconstitutional and a denial of the equal protection of the laws. The NAACP was also instrumental in obtaining passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Besides voting rights, this bill provided for a Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice and a Commission on Civil Rights. The NAACP worked for passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forbids discrimination in public places. This law established the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The association also helped bring into law the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which protects voter registration rights.

Nixon, Edgar Daniel (E.D.)

(1900-1987) Nixon, a railroad porter, was President of the Montgomery, Alabama branch of the NAACP when Rosa Parks became its secretary. Mr. Nixon recognized in Rosa Parks the ideal test case to protest segregation on Montgomery, Alabama's buses. Nixon helped mobilize the black community to attend the initial meeting about the boycott and alerted the press. Nixon was a long-time activist with the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters union in fighting for union wages and better working conditions in Alabama. His organizing skills, learned in his trade's union, and his determination, were critical to success of the bus boycott.

oppression (n): the unjust or cruel exercise of authority or power.

ostracize (v): to exclude from a group by common consent.

perpetuated (v): caused to last indefinitely.

persistence (adj): the quality of continuing to go on stubbornly in spite of opposition.

picture show (n): movie or film.

poll tax (n): a tax paid in order to vote. Both blacks and whites were subject to these taxes prior to the passing of the 24th amendment, which made poll taxes illegal. However, whites simply paid the tax of $1.50 each year from the time they became registered to vote, usually at age 21. Blacks had to pay an "accumulated poll tax," meaning that they had to pay $1.50 retroactively to the age of twenty-one. Since many blacks were not able to register until they were older, and faced many obstacles deliberately put in place to prevent them from voting, this was grossly unfair and prohibitive for many who simply could not afford the accumulated tax amount. Rosa Parks had to pay a poll tax of $16.50 when she became registered to vote in 1945, as she was 32 years old.

Pullman porter (n): one who worked serving passengers on a railroad passenger car with especially comfortable furnishings, usually for night travel.

Quakers (n) (also called Friends): a Christian sect that stresses Inner Light, rejects sacraments and ordained ministers, and opposes war.

redress (v): to set right, or make up for.

retaliation (n): getting revenge.

Roosevelt, Eleanor

(1884-1962), Eleanor Roosevelt the wife of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and a niece of President Theodore Roosevelt, was one of the most active first ladies in American history. Mrs. Roosevelt won fame for her humanitarian work on behalf of poor and oppressed people everywhere, and became a role model for women in public affairs. In 1939, the Daughters of the American Revolution would not let black concert singer Marian Anderson perform at Washington's Constitution Hall. A public outcry followed, and first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, along with several other distinguished women, resigned from the DAR. Mrs. Roosevelt arranged Anderson's concert outdoors on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The concert drew an audience of 75,000 people. Mrs. Roosevelt was a board member of the NAACP and was criticized for integrating White House state functions and gatherings. From 1945 to 1952, she was a delegate to the United Nations General Assembly. In 1947, as chairperson of the U.N.'s Human Rights Commission, she helped draft the U. N. Declaration of Human Rights. The document was designed to protect people throughout the world from abuses of power, emphasizing equality and nondiscrimination. It was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948. In 1961, she was reappointed to the U.N. as the first chairperson of the President's Commission on the Status of Women.

Roosevelt, President Franklin Delano

(1882-1945) FDR was the only president elected four times, serving more than 12 years, longer than any other president. Roosevelt led the United States through its worst depression and through its worst war, WW II. Coming to office during the Depression, Roosevelt inaugurated a new era, a New Deal, for America. For the first time, the federal government stepped in to stimulate and regulate the economy. Roosevelt wanted to help the average American, whom he called the "forgotten man." Since Abraham Lincoln, no other president had been so bitterly hated or so deeply loved. Critics thought that Roosevelt's policies gave the federal government too much of the power that they believed belonged to the states. Many thought that government controls over business would destroy the free enterprise system. Those who supported Roosevelt saw him as the friend and protector of the "common man" and woman. Roosevelt appointed Frances Perkins, the first woman to be appointed to a presidential cabinet, as his Secretary of Labor. He died just 83 days after being elected to his fourth term.

segregation (n): the separation or isolation of a race, class, gender or ethnic group.

Scottsboro Boys

In 1931, in Scottsboro, Alabama, nine black teen-agers were tried for raping two white women. The accused were called the Scottsboro Boys. All but the youngest, who was 12, were found guilty and sentenced to death, despite testimonies by doctors that no rape had occurred. Twice the Supreme Court overturned the convictions, ruling that the defendants had not received adequate legal representation. The case went through several trials over almost seven years, three of those trials before the Supreme Court. In 1935, the Supreme Court overturned the two Alabama convictions because blacks had not been allowed to serve on juries in that state. Yet Alabama officials refused to drop the charges against any of the defendants. Trials in 1936 and 1937 ended in conviction and long prison sentences for five defendants. The charges were dropped against the other four defendants. By 1950, four of those convicted were paroled. The fifth escaped to Michigan, where the governor refused to surrender him to Alabama officials. The Scottsboro Case was one of the most important civil rights cases in the United States. Many believe the case started the civil rights movement, as the young black defendants were so clearly denied their equal rights. (Composite photo of nine photos of Scottsboro boys from individual photos from AL Archives)

symbol (n): something that stands for or suggests something else, or a visible sign of something invisible.

test case (n): a representative case whose outcome is likely to serve as a precedent. (Precedent: something that may serve as an example of or rule to authorize or justify a subsequent act of the same or similar kind.)

Tubman, Harriet

(1820-1913), Harriet Tubman escaped slavery in 1849 via the Underground Railroad to Philadelphia. She returned 19 times to help more than 300 slaves escape to free states or Canada, in spite of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 that made it a crime to help a runaway slave. She was never caught and never lost anyone she rescued. Tubman also became active in the women's rights movement. During the Civil War (1861-1865), Tubman served as a nurse, scout, and spy for the Union Army in South Carolina. During one military campaign, she helped free more than 750 slaves. Tubman was known as the "Moses of her people." To honor her courage and devotion to civil rights, a U.S. postage stamp bearing her portrait was issued in 1978.

Uncle Tom: Uncle Tom was originally a character in the book Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, but the term has become widely used to describe a black person who endures injustice without standing up for his or her rights.