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John F. Kennedy wins the Presidential election over Vice-President Richard Nixon, Kennedy is the first Catholic to ascend to the Presidency.
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the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) begins sending student volunteers on bus trips to test the new laws banning segregation in traveling facilities. One of the first two groups of "freedom riders," encounters its first problem two weeks later, when a mob in Alabama sets the riders' bus on fire. The program continues and by the end of the summer 1,000 volunteers, black and white, have participated. The Freedom Riders force integration of Interstate and Travel areas.
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British pop group the Beatles attain their first number one of the British charts with Love Me Do.
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Martin Luther King and Ralph Abernathy are arrested and go to jail in Birmingham during the protests, King then writes his Letter from a Birmingham Jail.
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The March for Jobs and Freedom, on Washington attracts over 200,000 people to Washington, D.C. With the people Gathered near the Lincoln Memorial, Martin Luther King Jr. gives his 'I Have a Dream speech.'
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President Kennedy is Assasinated leading to Lyndon Jhonson's presidency.
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The Beatles release "I Want to Hold Your Hand," which becomes a huge hit and a success in America.
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President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964, making segregation in public facilities and discrimination in employment illegal.
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Writer Michael Fallon uses the term "hippie" to describe the San Francisco counterculture in an article about the Blue Unicorn coffeehouse where LEMAR (Legalize Marijuana) & the Sexual Freedom League meet, and hippie houses.
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Gathering of the Tribes, First Human Be-In occurs in San Francisco, 20,000 attend.
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be sure to wear some flowers in your hair!" "Summer of Love" in San Francisco occurs at the heigth of the countercultural Hippie boom