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Plessy v. Ferguson was important because it essentially established the constitutionality of racial segregation. As a controlling legal precedent, it prevented constitutional challenges to racial segregation for more than half a century until it was finally overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in Brownv.
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constitutes a powerful and seminal metaphor for the struggle of African American freedom in America.
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Jackie Robinson was a professional baseball player who made history when he played for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947. When he stepped onto Ebbets Field that day, he became the first black man to play in a major league baseball game since 1884
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The path to official integration began with the signing of Executive Order 8802 by Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt in June 1941. It signaled the end of racial discrimination in the U.S. defense industry, but the armed forces generally hewed to a policy of segregation throughout the duration of World War II.
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Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segregated schools are otherwise equal in quality.
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Board of Education mandated the end of racial segregation in public schools, Till's death provided an important catalyst for the American civil rights movement. In 2007, over 50 years after the murder, the woman who claimed Till harassed her recanted parts of her account.
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Rosa Parks helped initate the civil rights movement in the United States when she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in 1955. Her actions inspired the leaders of the local Black community to organize the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
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enrolled at a formerly all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in September 1957. Their attendance at the school was a test of Brown v. Board of Education a landmark 1954 Supreme Court ruling that declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional. On September 4, 1957, the first day of classes at Central High, Governor Orval Faubus called in the Arkansas National Guard to block the black students entry into the school
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The result was the Civil Rights Act or 1957, the first civil rights legislation since Reconstruction. The new act established the Civil Rights Section of the Justice Department and empowered federal prosecutors to obtain court injunctions against interference with the right to vote
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The Greensboro Sit-in was a critical turning point in Black history and American history, bringing the fight for civil rights to the national stage. Its use of nonviolence inspired the Freedom Riders and others to take up the cause of integration in the south, furthering the cause of equal rights in the United States.
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The 1961 Freedom Rides sought to test a 1960 decision by the Supreme Court in Boynton v. Virginia that segregation of interstate transportation facilities, including bus terminals, was unconstitutional as well
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The Twenty-Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution prohibits both Congress and the states from conditioning the right to vote in federal elections on payment of a poll tax or other types of tax.
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riots erupted on the campus of the University of Mississippi in Oxford where locals , students, and committed segregationists had gathered to the protest the enrollment of James Meredith, a black Air Force veteran attempting to integrate the all-white school
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they were one of the first two black students to enroll at the University of Alabama in 1963, and in 1965 became the university's first black graduate. she was made famous when George Wallace, the Governor of Alabama , attempted to block her and James Hood from enrolling at the all-white university
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"I Have a Dream" is a public speech that was delivered by American civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963, in which he called the civil and economic rights and an end to racism in the United States
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One immediate consequence of the shocking murder was that Kennedy became idealised in American culture and history. It took a while for historians to be able to look back and objectively assess his legacy, without being blinded by hagiography
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This act, signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson on July 2, 1964, prohibited discrimination in public places, provided for the integration of schools and other public facilities, and made employment discrimination illegal. This document was the most sweeping civil rights legislation since Reconstruction
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His charisma and oratory skills helped him achieve national prominence in the Nation of Islam, a belief system that merged Islam with Black nationalism. After March X's assassination in 1965, his bestselling book, The Autobiography of Malcom X, popularized his ideas and inspired the Black Power movement
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even as Selma-to-Montgomery marchers fought for the right to carry out their protest, President Lyndon Johnson addressed a joint session of Congress, calling for federal voting rights legislation to protect African Americans from barriers that prevented them from voting
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The Voting Rights Act of 1965 offered African Americans a way to get around the barriers at the state and local levels that had prevented them from exercising their 15th Amendment right to vote. After it was signed into law by LBJ, Congress amended it five more times to expand it's scope and offer more protections
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was assassinated in Memphis Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, an event that sent shock waves reverberating around the world King had led the civil rights movement since the mid-1950s, using a combination of impassioned speeches and nonviolent protests to fight segregation and achieve significant civil rights advances for African Americans. His assassination led to an outpouring of anger among Black Americans, as well as a period of national mourning
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expanded on previous acts and prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin, and since 1974, sex. Since 1988, the act protects people with disabilities and families with children
