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A young African American girl was denied admission to her neighborhood school in Topeka, Kansas, because of her race. She had to travel across town just to attend an all-black school. With the help of the NAACP, her parents then sued the Topeka school board. -
Martin Luther King Jr. was the leader of the boycott. The Supreme court affirmed the decision of a special three-judge panel declaring Alabama’s laws requiring segregation on buses unconstitutional. Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat on the bus to a white man showed that even small acts of defiance could empower people to create change. -
In September 1957, the school board in Little Rock, Arkansas, won a court order requiring that nine African American students be admitted to Central High, a school with 2,000 white students.
The governor of Arkansas, Orval Faubus, was determined to win reelection and began to campaign as a defender of white supremacy. He ordered troops to prevent the nine students from entering the school. Eisenhower immediately responded by ordering the Army to send troops to Little Rock. -
A group named "Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee" led the sit-in movement. The members of this group were Joseph McNeil, Ezell Blair Jr., David Richmond, and Franklin McCain.
They were trying to do a sit-in at the whites only lunch counter until they had gotten the same services as the whites. Later, more and more people supported this act and decided to join with the four original members of the committee. -
The Freedom riders were asked to travel in interstate buses into the South to draw attention to refusal to integrate bus terminals.
They were beaten up by a gang of young men who were armed with baseball bats, chains, and lead pipes. -
James Meredith is an African American Air Force veteran. Chaos broke out at the University of Mississippi after an African-American man named James Meredith attempted to enroll. That night, students and other protesters took to the streets, burning cars and throwing rocks at the federal marshals who were tasked with protecting Meredith. President Kennedy dispatched 500 federal marshals to escort Meredith to the campus -
The March on Washington was a massive protest march that occurred in August 1963, when some 250,000 people gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Martin Luther King Jr. said his "I have a dream" speech. Shortly after the march, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 bill was passed. -
Malcolm X was an African American leader in the civil rights movement, minister and supporter of Black nationalism.
He had lost patience with the slow progress of civil rights and felt that African Americans needed to act more militantly and demand equality, not wait for it to be given. He was later on assassinated in February 1965 after Malcolm X broke with the Nation of Islam and continued to criticize the organization -
Even after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, voting rights were far from secure. The act had focused on segregation and job discrimination, and it did little to address voting issues. A march was held named Selma March. The purpose of this march was to protest against voting rights. At this march, many demonstrators were beaten by police forces because they were ignoring their commands.The Voting Rights Act of 1965 bill was passed. -
African Americans lived in poor neighborhoods in the nation’s major cities were overcrowded and dirty, leading to higher rates of illness and infant mortality. Many of them were trapped in poverty and they found themselves channeled into low-paying jobs with little chance of advancements. The Black Panthers was a Black Power political organization founded by college students. Their views of civil rights were that they believed that a revolution was necessary in the United States.
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