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National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
The NAACP was a national organization that helped in guiding the Civil Rights Movement. Their organization had been especially noted during the Brown v. Board of Education, as the lawyer present in the case, Thurgood Marshall, had helped win the case. Later on, Thurgood Marshall would be appointed the first African American justice of the Supreme Court in 1967. -
Congress of Racial Equality
This organization worked to integrate restaurants and businesses by doing sit-ins and other nonviolent protests. The main purpose of CORE was said to create an interracial, nonviolent army that would end racial segregation in America with campaigns that ruled under discipline and nonviolence. -
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Brown v. Board of Education
The Brown v. Board of Education took place in Topeka, Kansas in which it was argued that the statement of "separate but equal" regarding schooling for Whites and African Americans was unfair. This was pointed out by NAACP lawyer Thurgood Marshall who responded that it was unfair because minority schools had lower funding, quality, and teachers, not to mention also lowering the self-esteem of its students. Overall, the point of this case was to integrate African Americans into White schools. -
Lynching of Emmett Till
Emmett Till was a 14-year-old African American boy who had gone to Mississippi to visit family. During his short time there he had spoken to a white woman without her permission which eventually led to his torturous death. This event had been said to shock the nation and only increased when the murders of Emmett sold their story to Look magazine for $4,000. -
Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks' story led to another organization to protest against segregation for African Americans. Rosa had essentially refused to give her seat on the bus to a white man after she was incredibly fatigued and humiliated after a day of work. That afternoon she was arrested. -
Montgomery Improvement Association
The leader of this newly founded organization was Martin Luther King Jr. who after hearing about Rosa Parks, started a new boycott movement. During his evening speech, he declared that the segregation and humiliation that African Americans had received had gone on for too long, along with the oppression. While King wanted to boycott the buses, he made sure to do so with peace and love instead of reacting back with violence. -
Gayle et al. v. Browder
This case occurred on the matter that the city's bus companies were unconstitutional in their policies of segregation. This broke the idea for Whites that African Americans had accepted segregation which marked the beginning of nonviolent resistance. -
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
This group which was led again by Martin Luther King Jr. was established after the Montgomery bus boycott. This organization was said to be the backbone of the Civil Rights Movement. -
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Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas
As Brown v. Board of Education had been passed, nine African American students were to be enrolled in Central High School. On the first day, Governor Orval Faubus, called in National Guardsman to block them from entering the building, while mobs surrounded them chanting for them to be lynched. President Eisenhower became involved as riots increased, in which he enforced that those nine students be protected for the rest of the school year by soldiers. -
Civil Rights Act of 1957
The first draft of civil rights since Reconstruction had been written by Attorney General Herbert Brownell. This did not create new rights for those involved but instead paved the way in protecting federal lawsuits to ensure voter rights against civil rights offenses. -
Cooper v. Aaron
The Cooper v. Aaron case occurred because schools in Little Rock had shut down in order to steer clear of integration in their schools. It was ruled that African Americans' right to attend school couldn't "be nullified openly" and "by evasive schemes for segregation". This caused Little Rock schools to reopen as integration slowly started to spread. Those who still opposed this decision had enrolled their White kids into private schools to avoid federal courts getting involved again. -
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
This organization was formed to inspire students to start making their own decisions about priorities and tactics. The nonviolent protests that were brought on would include sit-ins and boycotts, which went against segregation but without the need for violence. -
Council of Federated Organizations
Both the SNCC and the NAACP had joined together with CORE to form this umbrella organization. It was a union that enforced African Americans to assault the wall of White racism in order to increase the presence of civil rights movements and organizations.