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History >> Civil Rights for Kids

African-American Civil Rights Movement

March on Washington Aug 28, 1963
from the United States Information Agency

The African-American Civil Rights Movement was an ongoing fight for racial equality that took place for over 100 years after the Civil War. Leaders such asMartin Luther King, Jr., Booker T. Washington, and Rosa Parks paved the way for non-violent protests which led to changes in the law. When most people talk about the "Civil Rights Movement" they are talking about the protests in the 1950s and 1960s that led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Background

The Civil Rights Movement has its background in the abolitionist movement before theCivil War. Abolitionists were people that thought slavery was morally wrong and wanted it to come to an end. Before the Civil War, many of the northern states had outlawed slavery. During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln freed the enslaved with the Emancipation Proclamation. After the war, slavery was made illegal with the thirteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Segregation and the Jim Crow Laws

Jim Crow Drinking Fountain
by John Vachon

After the Civil War, many southern states continued to treat African-Americans as second class citizens. They implemented laws that kept black people separate from white people. These laws became known as Jim Crow laws. They required separate schools, restaurants, restrooms, and transportation based on the color of a person's skin. Other laws prevented many black people from voting.

Early Protests

In the early 1900s, black people began to protest the Jim Crow laws that southern states were implementing to enforce segregation. Several African-American leaders such as W.E.B. Du Bois and Ida B. Wells joined together to found the NAACP in 1909. Another leader, Booker T. Washington, helped to form schools to educate African-Americans in order to improve their status in society.

The Movement Grows

The civil rights movement gained momentum in the 1950s when theSupreme Court ruled that segregation in schools was illegal in the case of Brown v. Board of Education. Federal troops were brought in to Little Rock, Arkansas to allow the Little Rock Nine to attend a previously all white high school.

Major Events in the Movement

The 1950's and early 1960's brought about several major events in the fight for the civil rights of African-Americans. In 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested for not giving up her seat on the bus to a white passenger. This sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott which lasted for over a year and brought Martin Luther King, Jr. to the forefront of the movement. King led a number of non-violent protests including the Birmingham Campaign and the March on Washington.

Lyndon Johnson signing Civil Rights Act
by Cecil Stoughton

Civil Rights Act of 1964

In 1964, the Civil Rights Act was signed into law byPresident Lyndon Johnson. This act outlawed segregation and the Jim Crow laws of the south. It also outlawed discrimination based on race, national background, and gender. Although there were still many issues, this law gave the NAACP and other organizations a strong base on which to fight discrimination in the courts.

Voting Rights Act of 1965

In 1965, another law was passed called the Voting Rights Act. This law said that citizens could not be denied the right to vote based on their race. It outlawed literacy tests (a requirement that people be able to read) and poll taxes (a fee that people had to pay to vote).

Interesting Facts about the African-American Civil Rights Movement

The Civil Rights Act was originally proposed by President John F. Kennedy.

The 1968 Civil Rights Act, also known as the Fair Housing Act, outlawed discrimination in the selling or renting of housing.

The National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee was once the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot and killed in 1968.

Today, African-Americans have been elected or appointed to the highest positions in the U.S. government including Secretary of State (Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice) and President (Barack Obama).

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Kids learn about the history of the African-American Civil Rights Movement including segregation, Jim Crow laws, protests, Martin Luther King, and the passage of the Civil Rights Act.

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September 11 Attacks
History >> US History 1900 to Present

Go here to watch avideo about the September 11 Attacks.

The Twin Towers During the Attack
Source: National Park Service

On September 11, 2001 the United States was attacked by an Islamic terrorist group called al-Qaeda. They hijacked four passenger planes and used them as weapons to crash into buildings. Two of the planes crashed into the Twin Towers in New York City while another plane hit the Pentagon. The fourth plane crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania after the passengers attempted to retake control of the plane.

The Attacks

It was early in the morning on September 11 when the hijackers took control of the four airplanes. At the time, no one dreamed of their intentions. Here is what happened to each flight in the order that they crashed:

8:46 AM: American Airlines Flight 11 from Boston crashes into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City.

9:03 AM: United Airlines Flight 175 from Boston crashed into the South Tower at 9:03 AM.

9:37 AM: American Airlines Flight 77 from Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C. crashes into the Pentagon.

10:03 AM: United Airlines Flight 93 from Newark, New Jersey crashes into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania when the passengers attempt to take control. Authorities believe the terrorists' target was the White House or the U.S. Capitol Building.

When the first plane hit the North Tower, many people thought it was some sort of horrible accident. When the second plane hit, we knew we were under attack.

The Twin Towers Collapse

The airplane fuel on board the passenger planes caused an intense fire and extreme heat in the Twin Towers. Eventually, the structural integrity of both buildings gave way and the towers collapsed. The South Tower collapsed first followed by the North Tower around a 1/2 hour later. Several other buildings and skyscrapers around the Twin Towers collapsed as well.

How many people died?

The death toll from the attacks was devastating. All 246 passengers and crew on the four airplanes died along with 2,606 people at the World Trade Center and 125 at the Pentagon. In total, 2,996 people were killed during the attacks, including 2977 victims and 19 terrorists.

September 11 National Memorial
Photo by Ducksters

9/11 Heroes

There are many stories of heroes on the ground and in the air during the attacks. The firefighters and police of New York City worked diligently to save thousands of people before the buildings collapsed. Many of them gave their lives including 343 firefighters, 72 police, and 55 military personnel. The passengers aboard Flight 93 also fought back to gain control of the plane. They knew they were probably going to die, but they didn't let the plane crash into a building where more would die. We will never know just how many lives their bravery saved.

Who were the attackers?

There were 19 terrorists involved in the hijackings. They were members of the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda led by Osama bin Laden.

Aftermath

The effects from the attacks were felt for many years. The U.S. economy struggled as the stock market crashed. Things were even worse in New York City which had to deal with the dust, debris, and destruction of so many buildings. Many had to deal with the death of friends and loved-ones and the loss of jobs and businesses.

The United States government, led byPresident George W. Bush, retaliated with a "War on Terror." The U.S. attacked the Taliban in Afghanistan and searched out leaders and members of al-Qaeda. Osama bin Laden was able to hide out in mountain caves for many years before he was finally hunted down and killed in 2011.

One World Trade Center Building
Photo by Ducksters

Memorials

There are memorials to the victims at each of the three locations of the attacks. There is the National September 11 Memorial and Museum at the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon Memorial in Virginia, and the Flight 93 National Memorial in Pennsylvania.

Interesting Facts About the September 11 Attacks

The Department of Homeland Security was formed and the Patriot Act passed after the attacks in order to help fight terrorism.

Around 50,000 people had jobs in the Twin Towers before the attacks.

All four flights were headed across the country to California. This was part of the terrorists' plans so that the planes would be filled with fuel for a long flight.

The passengers aboard the planes used cell phones to relay details of the hijackers.

President Bush said after the attacks that "We will not waver; we will not falter, and we will not fail. Peace and freedom will prevail."

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Hurricane Katrina was the eleventh tropical storm, fifth hurricane, and the second Category 5 hurricane of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. The storm formed over the Bahamas on August 23, where it moved east and hit Florida as a Category 1 hurricane two days later. Katrina then crossed over Florida and strengthened into a Category 5 hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. The storm then hit Louisiana and Mississippi on the morning of August 29. The leftovers of Katrina then died out over the Great Lakes on August 31.

The damage Katrina brought was so bad that 80% of New Orleans was flooded when the levees to the city broke. Most of the people killed by Katrina were thought to have died from drowning. Because of Katrina's effect on the US, the hurricane was known to be one of the most deadly hurricanes in US history.

Storm history

Hurricane Katrina began as Tropical Depression Twelve over the southeastern Bahamas on August 23, 2005. The depression later strengthened into a tropical storm on the morning of August 24 where the storm was also named Katrina. Katrina continued to move into Florida, and became a Category 1 hurricane only two hours before it made landfall around Hallandale Beach on the morning of August 25. The storm weakened over land, but became a hurricane again while entering the Gulf of Mexico.

Katrina began to gain strength very quickly after entering the Gulf, partly because of the storm moving over to the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. On August 27, Hurricane Katrina reached Category 3 strength on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, becoming the third major hurricane of the season. An "eyewall replacement cycle" once made Katrina stop becoming stronger for a short moment, but made Katrina to become nearly twice as large in the end.

Katrina again began to quickly strengthen, reaching Category 5 strength on the morning of August 28 and reached its strongest point with maximum sustained winds of 175 mph (280 km/h) and a minimum central pressure of 902 mbar. Katrina's minimal pressure measurement made it the fourth most powerful Atlantic hurricane on record at the time, only to be beaten by Hurricanes Rita and Wilma later in the season. In addition, Katrina was also the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Gulf of Mexico at the time (a record also later broken by Rita).

Katrina made its second landfall on August 29 as a Category 4 hurricane with sustained winds of 125 mph (205 km/h) near St. Bernard, Louisiana. At landfall, hurricane-force winds reached outward 120 miles (190 km) from the center and the storm's central pressure was 920 mbar. After moving over southeastern Louisiana, it made its third landfall over New Orleans, Louisiana and the levees were not made to withstand that much water and ended up collapsing leading to massive flooding. Katrina kept its hurricane strength well into Mississippi, but began to weaken later, finally losing hurricane strength more than 150 miles (240 km) inland near Meridian, Mississippi. Katrina weakened to a tropical depression near Clarksville, Tennessee, but its remains were last seen around the eastern Great Lakes on August 31 when it died. The leftover extratropical cyclone moved quickly to the northeast and affected Ontario and Quebec.

American movie maker Spike Lee made a HBO documentary "When The Levees Broke" that shows the extensive damage in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The documentary suggests that the damage caused was due to the inability of the levees to weather the storm or a probable sabotage. The documentary also suggests that the federal government did a poor job of disaster management. Resources arrived after several days. Most of the people who died did so from drowning.

Retirement

The name Katrina was retired for the record breaking damage, the deaths, and the economic impact. This means that it will not be used as a name for any new storms in the future. A new name, Katia, replaced it for 2011.

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I got up at 8:00 to iron the contents of my suitcase, which I had washed the night before. I was packed and ready to go early.

Everyone was out canvassing when we left, except for a couple of people. It is fortunate that we just purchased three cars; one or two of which will be used in Calhoun County. We are now our own group; only slightly dependent on Brandeis SCOPE. At last I feel a part of the Civil Rights Movement, and not a part of a Brandeis (rah, hah!) project. We will be more in contact with other SCOPE groups, and most of all, we can make our own decisions.

We got to the county. It seems to be one enormous cotton field. I almost wondered if any people existed there at all. We saw Spanish moss hanging from the trees, and knew we were really in the South. Our first stop was at the house of our leader, Hope Williams.

Hope is the most wonderful man one could ever meet. He had had no more than a second grade education, and though it is hard to tell his age, his is by no means young. He works in the fields himself, but has found time to register people in his county. Everyone knows him and respects him. They really love him, and he has done an enormous amount of work. He also runs citizenship classes. One is immediately drawn to him. He, his wife, and a swarm of kids (not all his) pack the small decaying house that is his home. It is in the middle of the fields, and chickens and cats run all around it. The inside is furnished by beds filling nearly every corner and wall, except where the TV is. While Pat went out in the fields to talk with Hope, we wandered around the house.

Taking handfuls of peaches with us, we went to the "town" where we would be centered. St. Mathews, the county seat has about 1,000 inhabitants. The whole county has about 6,000 people, and is 55+ percent Negro. The three of us girls are living quite comfortably in the house of an ancient minister, Rev. Howell. There is no running water inside the house, and there is only a couple of wood stoves - one for cooking on. We will have to cook for ourselves. The boys did not have housing ready for them, so they will spend one night with Hope. They will be living near us, though, and we will have an office nearby, too.

While they were investigating housing, we went to meet the neighbors. We stopped in some of the numerous tiny grocery stores and introduced ourselves. The people don't come up to us, but when we approach them, they quickly trust us, and are extremely friendly. It is hard for them to know how to react to whites, because they have little contact with them, and when they do, they often get in trouble for it. The stores always look deserted, and it is strange to find they are being used. I really love them. We talked to our neighbors across the street. Then we met the boys in the Floyd's Grocery Store, which is (our) temporary meeting place.

Everyone is so anxious to help us - it seems as though they are competing to see who can give us the most. We hadn't eaten, so before Pat left us, the Floyds brought our spoons and bowls, set up a table and told us to help ourselves to anything in the store. They sliced up baloney and cheese in thick slabs, and we made enormous sandwiches right in the store. They gave us sodas all day long.

Pat left us waiting for Hope Williams to come. Mary Ann, Carol and I walked up the street to the school to see if anyone from the Head Start Project there was still around. Mr. Parker, who is heading it was around, and a few of the cooks were still there. We talked to them and arranged to come back and see the classes and meet the teachers.

Two boys were at the store when we returned. They are NAACP workers in Orangeberg County. They have also been around in Calhoun County. Some work has already been done here, but we are the first civil rights people to be white. Time will tell what the reaction will be. Mike and Joe really know what is going on.

Later Hope appeared. He is a wonderful man. I can see why everyone likes him so much! I am proud to be helping this man who has so courageously been struggling on his own. We decided our first action was to drive around and see the countryside, and to get to know the county. We must get some cars immediately, and one will not be enough. Canvassing will have to be done by car. We will also need to increase our number with Negro helpers.

We three girls went in the car with Mike and Joe, and we followed the boys in Hope's powder blue pick-up truck. The county is very nice, but so spread out. One big problem will be the fear of the tenant farmers of their white bosses. We can almost always tell whether a man is a tenant farmer or not by observing if he drives a tractor, or walks behind a mule in the field.

Mike and Joe are very well educated. It seems that they were able to get quite a bit out of the Negro colleges. We talked about a lot of things during the drive. I hope they will be able to help us.

We returned to our headquarters in the store, and stood around discussing what we would be doing in the near future. It's really great how everyone gathers in the store, and sits around on upended soda cartons gossiping.

Mr. Floyd invited us into his house to sit down while we talked. All the houses are open to us to use whenever we want - relaxing, eating, bathrooms, etc. We just walk in. While we were there, many of the neighborhood men came in to meet us. There are a lot of very interested people, and Hope Williams gets them all fired up, and pitching in any way they can. They offer their kids, houses, and food. Any spare time they have they're willing to give up.

Following this pattern ... we were brought heaping plates of food from a woman's café. An amazing assortment of side dishes came with our fried chicken....

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I got up at 8:00 to iron the contents of my suitcase, which I had washed the night before. I was packed and ready to go early. Everyone was out canvassing when we left, except for a couple of people. It is fortunate that we just purchased three cars; one or two of which will be used in Calhoun County.

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Anne Frank and her family fled Germany after the Nazis seized power in 1933 and resettled in the Netherlands, where her father, Otto, had business connections. The Germans occupied Amsterdam in May 1940, and two years later German authorities with help from their Dutch collaborators began rounding up Jews and ultimately deported them to killing centers.

In July 1942, Anne, her sister, Margot, her mother, Edith, and her father went into hiding. They huddled into a secret attic apartment behind the office of the family-owned business at 263 Prinsengracht Street, which would eventually hide four Dutch Jews as well.

While in hiding, Anne kept a diary in which she recorded her fears, hopes, and experiences. She received her first diary on her 13th birthday, June 12, 1942. That day she wrote:

I hope I shall be able to confide in you completely, as I have never been able to do in anyone before, and I hope that you will be a great support and comfort to me.

I expect you will be interested to hear what it feels like to hide; well, all I can say is that I don't know myself yet. I don't think I shall ever feel really at home in this house but that does not mean that I loathe it here, it is more like being on vacation in a very peculiar boardinghouse. Rather a mad way of looking at being in hiding perhaps but that is how it strikes me. [July 11, 1942] The fact that we can never go outside bothers me more than I can say, and then I'm really afraid that we'll be discovered and shot, not a very nice prospect, needless to say. [July 11, 1942]

Anne also wrote short stories, fairy tales, and essays. In her diary, she reflected on her "pen children," as she called her writings. On September 2, 1943, she began to meticulously copy them into a notebook and added a table of contents so that it would resemble a published book. She gave it the title "Stories and Events from the Annex." Occasionally she read a story to the inhabitants of the annex, and she wrote about her intention to send one of her fairy tales to a Dutch magazine. Increasingly, she expressed her desire to be an author or journalist.

On March 28, 1944, a radio broadcast from the Dutch government-in-exile in London urged the Dutch people to keep diaries, letters, and other items that would document life under German occupation. Prompted by this announcement, Anne began to edit her diary, hoping to publish it after the war under the title "The Secret Annex." From May 20 until her arrest on August 4, 1944, she transferred nearly two-thirds of her diary from her original notebooks to loose pages, making various revisions in the process.

Just imagine how interesting it would be if I were to publish a romance of the "Secret Annex." The title alone would be enough to make people think it was a detective story. But, seriously, it would be quite funny 10 years after the war if we Jews were to tell how we lived and what we ate and talked about here. Although I tell you a lot, still, even so, you only know very little of our lives. [March 29, 1944]

On April 17, 1944, Anne began writing in what turned out to be her final diary notebook. On the first page she wrote about herself: "The owner's maxim: Zest is what man needs!" A few months later, she and the other inhabitants of the annex celebrated the Allied invasion of France, which took place on June 6, 1944. They were certain the war would soon be over. On August 4, 1944, Anne, her family, and the others in hiding were arrested by German and Dutch police officials. Her last entry was written on August 1, 1944:

I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery and death, I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again. In the meantime, I must uphold my ideals, for perhaps the time will come when I shall be able to carry them out. yours, Anne M. Frank.

The Diary Survives

The Franks and the four others hiding with them were discovered by the Gestapo (German Secret Police) on August 4, 1944. A Gestapo official and two Dutch police collaborators arrested the Franks the same day. They were soon sent to the Westerbork transit camp and then to concentration camps.

Anne's mother Edith Frank died in Auschwitz in January 1945. Anne and her sister Margot both died of typhus at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in March 1945. Their father, Otto, survived the war after Soviet forces liberated Auschwitz on January 27, 1945.

Otto Frank later described what it was like when the Nazis entered the annex in which he had been hiding. He said an SS man picked up a portfolio and asked whether there were any jewels in it. When Otto Frank said it only contained papers, the SS man threw the papers (and Anne Frank's diary) on the floor, walking away with silverware and a candlestick in his briefcase. "If he had taken the diary with him," Otto Frank recalled, "no one would ever have heard of my daughter."

Miep Gies, one of the Dutch citizens who hid the Franks during the Holocaust, kept Anne Frank's writings, including her diary. She handed the papers to Otto Frank on the day he learned of his daughters' deaths. He organized the papers and worked doggedly to get the diary published, first in Dutch in 1947. The first American edition appeared in 1952.

The Diary of Anne Frank did not become a best-seller until after it was adapted for the stage, premiering in 1955 and winning a Pulitzer Prize the next year. The book remains immensely popular, having been translated into more than 70 languages and having sold more than 30 million copies.

There are three versions of the diary. The first is the diary as Anne originally wrote it from June 1942 to August 1944. Anne hoped to publish a book based on her entries, especially after a Dutch official announced in 1944 that he planned to collect eyewitness accounts of the German occupation. She then began editing her work, leaving out certain passages. That became the second version. Her father created a third version with his own edits as he sought to get the diary published after the war.

The third version is the most popularly known. Not all of the versions include Anne's criticism of her mother or the references to her developing curiosity about sex -- the latter of which would have been especially controversial in 1947.

The home where the Franks hid in Amsterdam also continues to attract a large audience. Now known as the Anne Frank House, it drew more than 1.2 million visitors in 2017.

New Educational Resource
Diaries as Historical Sources Lesson
Students study examples of diaries written by young people during the Holocaust, particularly examining the ways in which Anne Frank, the most famous diarist of the Holocaust, thought about her audience while writing. By analyzing these diaries as sources, students are encouraged to think of themselves as historical actors and to consider how they are documenting their experiences for future historians.

Last Edited: Apr 23, 2019

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Anne Frank and her family fled Germany after the Nazis seized power in 1933 and resettled in the Netherlands, where her father, Otto, had business connections. The Germans occupied Amsterdam in May 1940, and two years later German authorities with help from their Dutch collaborators began rounding up Jews and ultimately deported them to killing centers.