CW - Key Concepts, Part Two: Social Change (Lesson)
Key Concepts, Part Two: Social Change
Before you begin...
Notes are given here as well as in the Readings Document from Boundless that is available to download below. There is a timeline to view as well
The Key Concepts lesson is very important as it covers the main areas of the Advanced Placement frameworks and the Georgia Performance Standards. Many of the test questions will relate to items found here. Many of the test questions will relate to items found here.
Boundless: PDF of readings for this module Links to an external site.
Key Concepts: Social Change
Download the key concepts questions that are found below and answer these as you read and view the information in the module. The answers are found in the text on this and the following pages, the readings, the online textbook links, and in the presentation. After you have done this, you will use these answers to review for the multiple-choice test for this module.
Key Concepts Questions - Social Change Links to an external site.
Individual Rights
During most of the 1950s and 1960s, the U.S. Supreme Court was headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren. The Warren Court, as it was known, became famous for issuing landmark decisions (that often overruled state law), such as declaring that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education, that the Constitution includes the right to privacy, that the right of free speech protects students who wear armbands as an antiwar protest on school grounds and that all states must obey all decisions of the Supreme Court.
The Warren Court also issued a ruling that forced states to elect state legislatures based on population and banned school-led prayer and Bible reading in public schools.
In 1963, the Warren Court issued another of its landmark decisions, Miranda v. Arizona which decreed that police must inform suspects of their constitutional rights at the time of arrest.
The case involved a man named Ernesto Miranda who was convicted and imprisoned after signing a confession; although at the time of his arrest, the police questioned Miranda without telling him he had the right to speak with an attorney and the right to remain silent. The Miranda decision strengthened Americans' individual rights.
A Closer Look: Brown vs Board of Education
- Landmark Supreme Court case that struck down the "separate but equal" doctrine established in 1896 by the Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson and made public school segregation illegal.
- Stated that enforcing segregation in public schools is unconstitutional.
- Unanimous decision and the justices felt that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal" (violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
- However...the ruling didn't specify how integration was to occur or a deadline; the decision simply said "with all deliberate speed."
- Brown v. Board of Education (Topeka, Kansas) was a class action lawsuit on behalf of 9 families.
- Linda Brown's (student) father, Oliver, and a group of other families filed suit against the Topeka Board of Education. (The case is labeled "Brown" because Brown was first in the list of families in alphabetical order.)
- The case was filed because Linda wanted to attend her neighborhood school, but she was forced to ride a bus past the closer school to attend a school for African American children instead.
- The Kansas court ruled against the plaintiff based on the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson precedent. Lawyers appealed it to the Supreme Court.
- Future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall (the 1st African American justice) represented the Browns and other plaintiffs in the case.
- Southerners particularly resisted the ruling and they delayed integration from the mid-1950s until the early 1970s until federal injunctions forced the school systems to desegregate.
Racial Integration
African Americans fought bravely in World War II and also worked in war industries in the United States during the war. After the war, they once again faced the racial discrimination that had been traditional before the war, but many people took bold actions to end discrimination and promote integration. Review the following details of six major events in the recent history of the civil rights movement. Click through the timeline below to read more about each event.
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