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The Civil Rights Congress was formed from the merger of the International Labor Defense, the National Negro Congress, and the National Federation for Constitutional Liberties. The CRC focused on legal defense and mass political action for people that were victims of frame-ups.
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The Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode buses into the southern United States to challenge the local laws and customs that enforced segregation. Their actions were against the law in the south so they would often get arrested.
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Jackie Robinson became the first black professional baseball player in sixty years. He played for the Brooklyn Dodgers.
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Harry S. Truman issues Executive Order 9981 to end segregation in the Armed Forces.
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Eleven black students are the first to go to a public white school, Claymont High School, in Delaware.
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The Supreme Court of the United States rules that all racial groups are entitled to equal protection under the 14th Amendement of the U.S. Constitution.
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Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus which started the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The U.S. Congress called her "the first lady of cilvil rights" and "the mother of the freedom movement."
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Berry Gordy, a black man born in Detroit, Michigan, founded Motown records.
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President John F. Kennedy made a civil rights speech which promised a bill to Congress the next week. In the speech he asked for "the kind of equality of treatment which we would want for ourselves."
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Dr. Martin Luther King made the speech "I Have a Dream" on August 28, 1963 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. He asked for racial equality and no more discrimination. It was a defining moment in the American Civil Rights Movement.
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The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was landmark legislation that outlawed major forms of discrimination against African Americans and women, including racial segregation. It ended inequality in voting, segregation in schools, at work and by facilities that served the general public.
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Dr. Martin Luther King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
