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President Truman signs Executive Order 9981, which says that "there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin."
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The Supreme Court rules on the case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kans., ruling that segregation in public schools is unconstitutional, overturning Plessy v. Ferguson.
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Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat at the front of the "colored section" of a bus to a white person. Her arrest launched a bus boycott in Montgomery, which lasted for more than a year, until the buses were desegregated in late 1956.
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Nine black students are blocked from entering Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas by the orders of Governor Orval Faubus. President Eisenhower sendt federal troops and the National Guard to escort and guard the students.
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Martin Luther King is arrested and put into jail during anti-segregation protests in Birmingham, Alabama. It was there where he wrote his "Letter from Birmingham Jail."
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About 200,000 people joined the March on Washington. At the Lincoln Memorial, they listened as Martin Luther King delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.
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President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibits discrimination of all kinds based on race, color, religion, or national origin.
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Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, making it easier for Southern blacks to register to vote and illegalizing literacy tests and poll taxes.
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Martin Luther King is shot as he stands on the balcony outside his hotel room.
