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JFK Assassinated
"John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, is assassinated while traveling through Dallas, Texas, in an open-top convertible... As their vehicle passed the Texas School Book Depository Building at 12:30 p.m., Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly fired three shots from the sixth floor, fatally wounding President Kennedy and seriously injuring Governor Connally. Kennedy was pronounced dead 30 minutes later at Dallas’ Parkland Hospital. He was 46." ("JFK Assassinated") -
Freedom Summer
"Civil rights organizations... organized a voter registration drive, known as the Mississippi Summer Project, or Freedom Summer, aimed at dramatically increasing voter registration in Mississippi. Freedom Summer... faced constant abuse and harassment from Mississippi’s white population. The Ku Klux Klan, police and even state and local authorities carried out a systematic series of violent attacks; including arson... and the murder of at least three civil rights activists" ("Freedom Summer") -
Civil Rights Act
"The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, is considered one of the crowning legislative achievements of the civil rights movement... In subsequent years, Congress expanded the act and also passed additional legislation aimed at bringing equality to African Americans, such as the Voting Rights Act of 1965" ("Civil Rights Act") -
King Wins Nobel Peace Prize
"African American civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his nonviolent resistance to racial prejudice in America. At 35 years of age, the Georgia-born minister was the youngest person ever to receive the award...The peaceful protests he led throughout the American South were often met with violence, but King and his followers persisted, and their nonviolent movement gained momentum" ("King Wins Nobel Peace Prize"). -
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Vietnam War
"The Vietnam War was a long, costly armed conflict that pitted the communist regime of North Vietnam and its southern allies, known as the Viet Cong, against South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States... Growing opposition to the war in the United States led to bitter divisions among Americans, both before and after President Richard Nixon ordered the withdrawal of U.S. forces in 1973. In 1975, communist forces seized control of Saigon, ending the Vietnam War" ("Vietnam War"). -
Malcolm X Assassination
"In New York City, Malcolm X, an African American nationalist and religious leader, is assassinated by rival Black Muslims while addressing his Organization of Afro-American Unity at the Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights... A fiery orator, Malcolm was admired by the African American community... Malcolm’s movement(s) steadily gained followers, and his more moderate philosophy became increasingly influential in the civil rights movement ("Malcolm X is Assassinated"). -
Selma
"In early 1965, Martin Luther King Jr.’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) made Selma, Alabama, the focus of its efforts to register black voters in the South. That March, protesters (marched) from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery.... The historic march, and King’s participation in it, greatly helped raise awareness of the difficulty faced by black voters in the South, and the need for a Voting Rights Act, passed later that year" ("Selma to Montgomery March"). -
Voting Rights Act
"The Voting Rights Act, signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson (1908-73) on August 6, 1965, aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote under the 15th Amendment (1870) to the Constitution of the United States. The act significantly widened the franchise and is considered among the most far-reaching pieces of civil rights legislation in U.S. history" ("Voting Rights Act"). -
Founding of Black Panthers
"Black Panther Party... founded in 1966 in Oakland, California, by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. The party’s original purpose was to patrol African American neighbourhoods to protect residents from acts of police brutality. The Panthers eventually developed into a Marxist revolutionary group that called for the arming of all African Americans... the payment of compensation to African Americans for centuries of exploitation" (Duncan). -
Tet Offensive
"Some 70,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces launched the Tet Offensive, a coordinated series of fierce attacks on more than 100 cities and towns in South Vietnam... Though U.S. and South Vietnamese forces managed to hold off the Communist attacks, news coverage of the offensive shocked and dismayed the American public... Despite heavy casualties, North Vietnam achieved a strategic victory with the Tet Offensive, as the attacks marked a turning point in the Vietnam War" ("Tet Offensive"). -
Tlatelolco Massacre
"Mexico (City) was rocked by huge student protests just before the opening ceremony. What followed was one of the most shameful incidents in Olympic history. Hundreds of young people were gunned down. The evidence was quickly cleaned up before the athletes arrived. To this day protesters mark the anniversary of the massacre" (Montague).
Image Info: "Death of Innocence" courtesy of Montague -
1968 Olympics
"On October 16, Smith and Carlos finished first and third in the 200-meter dash at the Mexico City Olympics. Smith set a new world record: 19.83 seconds... Along with Harry Edwards, one of their professors at San Diego State University, Smith and Carlos had organized a group called the Olympic Project for Human Rights (OPHR) that tried to encourage African-American athletes to boycott the Games... Both bowed their heads, raised their gloved hands” ("Olympic Protestors Stripped of their Medals").
