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The Emancipation Proclamation is issued by President Abraham Lincoln freeing the enslaved in the rebellious Confederate states.
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The Thirteenth Amendment is passed abolishing slavery in the United States.
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The Fourteenth Amendment is passed guaranteeing all African-Americans the rights of full U.S. citizens.
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The Fifteenth Amendment is passed guaranteeing the right to vote for all citizens regardless of race.
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Jim Crow laws become common in many southern states segregating blacks from whites.
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The Supreme Court rules that segregation is legal in the Plessy v. Ferguson case using the "separate but equal" argument.
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The NAACP is founded by African-American leaders such as W.E.B. Du Bois and Ida B. Wells.
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Jackie Robinson becomes the first African-American to play major league baseball.
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President Harry S. Truman ends segregation in the U.S. armed forces.
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The Supreme Court rules that segregation in the schools is unconstitutional in the Brown v. Board of Education case, overturning the earlier ruling in the Plessy v. Ferguson case.
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Rosa Parks is arrested for not giving up her seat on the bus. This sparks the Montgomery Bus Boycott which lasts for over a year. Eventually, segregation on the buses in Montgomery comes to an end.