Key Terms You Must Know

📖 Key Terms You Must Know

Voting Rights Act (1965)

Federal law that banned literacy tests and other voting barriers, and gave federal officials the power to register voters directly in Southern states. Signed by President Johnson on August 6, 1965. Its impact was immediate and dramatic — Black voter registration in Mississippi jumped from 7% to 67% within a year. It is considered one of the most important pieces of legislation in American history and the crowning achievement of the Civil Rights movement.

"Bloody Sunday" (March 7, 1965)

Attack by Alabama state troopers on 600 peaceful marchers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. Marchers were beaten with clubs, whipped, and tear-gassed. Amelia Boynton was beaten unconscious. The attack was broadcast on national television, watched by 50 million Americans, and the outrage it generated forced President Johnson to propose the Voting Rights Bill within days. The most decisive single event in the campaign for the Voting Rights Act.

SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee)

Student-led civil rights organisation founded in 1960 after the Greensboro sit-ins. More radical than the SCLC — led by younger activists like John Lewis and (later) Stokely Carmichael. Led voter registration drives in Mississippi (Freedom Summer, 1964) and helped organise the Selma marches. John Lewis was one of the marchers beaten on Bloody Sunday — he later became a US congressman and served in Congress for 33 years until his death in 2020.

Freedom Summer (1964)

Campaign organised by SNCC and COFO (Council of Federated Organizations) to register Black voters in Mississippi. Over 700 student volunteers, many of them white Northern college students, participated. Three volunteers — James Chaney (Black), Andrew Goodman (white), and Michael Schwerner (white) — were murdered by the KKK with local police complicity in June 1964. Their deaths attracted national and international attention, strengthening the case for federal voting rights protection.

Edmund Pettus Bridge

Bridge in Selma, Alabama where state troopers attacked marchers on "Bloody Sunday" (March 7, 1965). Named after a former KKK Grand Dragon — a deliberate choice that underlined the nature of Southern racial power. The bridge became a symbol of the Civil Rights movement. President Obama commemorated the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday there in 2015.

24th Amendment (1964)

Constitutional amendment that abolished poll taxes for federal elections. Ratified in January 1964, it removed one major barrier to Black voting in federal elections — though poll taxes for state elections remained until the Voting Rights Act (1965). A legal step that complemented the legislative approach of the Civil Rights movement.