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The Supreme Court Decision of Plessy v. Ferguson
The ruling in the supreme Court case upheld a Louisiana state law that allowed for "equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races." During the era of Reconstruction, Black Americans' political rights were affirmed by three constitutional amendments and numerous laws passed by Congress. -
The Tuskegee Airmen
The Tuskegee Airmen were the first African American soldiers to successfully complete their training and enter the Army Air Corps . Almost 1000 aviators were produced as America's first African American military pilots. -
The Integration of Major League Baseball
In 1945, when Rickey approached Jackie Robinson, baseball was being proposed as one of the first areas of American society to integrate. Not until 1948 did a presidential order desegregate the armed forces; the Supreme Court forbid segregated public schools in 1954. -
The Integration of the Armed Force
On July 26, 1948, President Harry S. Truman signed this executive order banning segregation in the Armed Forces. In 1940, African-Americans made up almost 10 percent of the total U.S. population. -
The Supreme Court Decision of Sweatt v. Painter
majority opinion by Fred M. Vinson. In a unanimous decision, the Court held that the Equal Protection Clause required that Sweatt be admitted to the university. The Court found that the "law school for Negroes," which was to have opened in 1947, would have been grossly unequal to the University of Texas Law School. -
The supreme Court Decision of Brown v. Board of Education
In the milestone decision, the Supreme Court ruled that separating children in public schools on the basis of race was unconstitutional. It signaled the end of legalized racial segregation in the schools of the United States, overruling the "separate but equal" principle set forth in the 1896 Plessy v. -
The Death of Emmitt Till
Emmett Louis Till was a 14-year-old African American boy who was abducted, tortured, and lynched in Mississippi in 1955, after being accused of offending a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, in her family's grocery store. -
The Montgomery Bus Boycott
The Montgomery bus boycott was a political and social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama. It was a foundational event in the civil rights movement in the United States