The civil rights movement of the early 1960s was aimed at full legal equality for African Americans

When John F. Kennedy became president in 1961, African Americans throughout much of the South were denied the right to vote, barred from public facilities, subjected to insults and violence, and could not expect justice from the courts. In the North, black Americans also faced discrimination in housing, employment, education, and many other areas. But the civil rights movement had made important progress, and change was on the way.

Progress and Protests: 1954-1960

In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Brown v. Board of Education that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. However, many southern political leaders claimed the desegregation decision violated the rights of states to manage their systems of public education. As a result, school desegregation proceeded very slowly. By the end of the 1950s, less than 10 % of black children in the South were attending integrated schools.

In 1955 Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, for a white passenger. It sparks a bus boycott, ending in the outlawing of segregation on city buses.

In 1957, National Guard troops under orders from President Eisenhower enforced the desegregation of Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas.

In February 1960, four black college students sat down at a lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C., and asked to be served. They were refused service, and they refused to leave their seats. Within days, more than 50 students had volunteered to continue the sit-in, and the movement spread to other college campuses. Sit‑ins and other protests swept across the South in early 1960; roughly 50,000 young people joined the protests that year.

The Election of 1960

By the 1960 presidential campaign, civil rights had emerged as a crucial issue. Just a few weeks before the election, Martin Luther King, Jr., was arrested while leading a protest in Atlanta, Georgia. John Kennedy ensured his release. Kennedy’s personal intervention led to a public endorsement by Martin Luther King, Sr., the influential father of the civil rights leader.

Across the nation, more than 70 % of African Americans voted for Kennedy. When President Kennedy took office in January 1961, African Americans had high expectations for the new administration.

But Kennedy's narrow victory left him cautious. He was reluctant to lose southern support by pushing too hard on civil rights legislation. Instead, he appointed unprecedented numbers of African Americans to high-level positions in the administration and strengthened the Civil Rights Commission. He spoke out in favor of school desegregation, praised a number of cities for integrating their schools, and put Vice President Lyndon Johnson in charge of the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity.

The Freedom Rides

For decades, seating on buses in the South had been segregated, along with bus station waiting rooms, rest rooms, and restaurants. In May 1961, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), led by James Farmer, organized integrated Freedom Rides to defy segregation in interstate transportation. Freedom riders were arrested in North Carolina and beaten in South Carolina. In Alabama, a bus was burned and the riders attacked. Attorney General Robert Kennedy sent 400 federal marshals to protect the freedom riders.

In 1962 President Kennedy sends federal troops to the University of Mississippi to quell riots so that James Meredith, the school's first black student, can attend. The Supreme Court rules that segregation is unconstitutional in all transportation facilities.

The March on Washington and the Civil Rights Act of 1964

In August 1963, more than 200,000 Americans of all races celebrated the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation by joining the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Key civil rights figures led the march, including A. Philip Randolph, Roy Wilkins, Bayard Rustin, and Whitney Young. But the most memorable moment came when Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

Later that fall, the comprehensive civil rights bill won the endorsement of House and Senate Republican leaders. It was not passed, however, before November 22, 1963, when President Kennedy was assassinated. The bill was left in the hands of Lyndon B. Johnson. He used his connections with southern white congressional leaders and the outpouring of emotion after the president's assassination to pass the Civil Rights Act as a way to honor President Kennedy.

Provisions of the legislation included: (1) protecting African Americans against discrimination in voter qualification tests; (2) outlawing discrimination in hotels, motels, restaurants, theaters, and all other public accommodations; (3) enforcement of desegregation in public schools; (4) authorizing the withdrawal of federal funds from programs practicing discrimination; and (5) outlawing discrimination in employment and creating an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to review complaints.

Passed on July 2, 1964, the Civil Rights Act was a crucial step in achieving the civil rights movement's initial goal: full legal equality.

On December 10, 1964, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the youngest man to receive the award; he was 35 years of age.

1965. March from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, to demand protection for voting rights. New voting rights act signed.

1968. A day after delivering his famous "I've Been to the Mountaintop" sermon, King was assassinated on April 4, 1968. Riots broke out in more than 110 cities across the United States. Assassination of Martin Luther King is a massive blow to the civil rights movement. It demonstrates how fractured American society is and how far it still has to go to meet the claim in the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal.

1975. Voting Rights Act extended.

22. Describe the geographical position of Canada (the size, the advantages of its position). The main physical features of the country: the relief, rivers & lakes, the climate). Mineral wealth.

Spanning 6 time zones, Canada is the world's second largest country, covering an area of 9,960,555 sq km (exceeded only by Russia, larger than the USA & China).The journey from St. John’s to Victoria along the Trans-Canada highway would take 12 days. The latitudinal spread is considerable from Point Pelee (located on Lake Erie) in the south to Cape Columbia in the north (located on Ellesmere Island). Canada spans an immense territory between the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Atlantic Ocean to the east and the Arctic Ocean to the north, with the United States to the south and northwest (Alaska), and the Arctic Ocean to the north; Greenland is to the northeast.

Canada is bordered by only 1 other country – the USA (including the state of Alaska in the far north-west). In the north her territory extends far into the Arctic. The uninhabited north is a land of lakes – there’re more lakes in Canada than in the rest of the world taken together. There’re also large & unexplored islands extending towards the North Pole (among them: Victoria Island, Prince of Wales Island, Baffin Island, Queen Elizabeth Islands). Hudson Bay in the north is connected with the North Atlantic by Hudson Strait. The Southern end of Hudson Bay ends in James Bay.

The position of Canada is favorable. A deep salient extends southward through Ontario to the USA. The southern Ontario is washed by the waters of the Great Lakes & protrudes into the centre of the American manufacturing belt.

Name. There’re several different stories describing the origin of the name of the country. 1) Some Spanish seamen landed briefly, looked around, said “Aca nada” (“There’s nothing here”) & sailed away. 2) (official theory) The French explorer, Jacques Cartier, gave Canada its name in 1535. The Huron word “Kanata” means a village or settlement. Moving along the St. Lawrence River, he heard it & applied to the surrounding region.

Structure & Relief.

The country can roughly be divided into 7 major geographic regions:

1) The Appalachian region

2) The St. Lawrence – Great Lakes Lowland

3) The Canadian Shield

4) The Hudson Bay Lowland

5) The Interior Plains

6) The Western Mountain region

7) The Arctic Islands.

The Appalachian Region. A northern extension of the ancient Appalachian mountain system. Comprises the area of southeastern Quebec below the St. Lawrence River, and part of the Atlantic Provinces. Mt. Jacques Cartier on Quebec’s Gaspe Peninsula (over 1300 m high) - the highest summit in eastern Canada. But the mountain system has been worn down by erosion, & now it’s merely a series of hills indented by river valleys. The whole structure is a mix of great ocean inlets (the St. Lawrence Gulf & the Bay of Fundy) with peninsulas between them. In the Bay of Fundy there’re some of the world’s highest tides (reach 11 m), which form the famous Reversing Falls of the St. John River in New Brunswick (at high tide the waters of the Bay of Fundy overpower the river & flow upstream).

Timbering, mining, fishing (though less important than manufacturing) are major sources of income in Newfoundland, Labrador and New Brunswick. Low-lying, fertile Prince Edward Island & Nova Scotia (where the first attempts to colonize Canada took place in 1604) produce 85 % of Canada’s potato crop.

The continental shelf is widely developed (the fishing grounds of the Grand Banks). Oil & natural gas have been discovered here.