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Brown v. Board of Education, a consolidation of five cases into one, is decided by the Supreme Court, effectively ending racial segregation in public schools. Many schools, however, remained segregated.Brown v. Board of Education was one of the cornerstones of the civil rights movement, and helped establish the precedent that “separate-but-equal” education and other services were not, in fact, equal at all.
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Rosa park helped initiate the civil rights movement in the United States when she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in 1955. The Montgomery Bus Boycott was led by a young Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and the boycott lasted more than a year—during which Parks not coincidentally lost her job—and ended only when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that bus segregation was unconstitutional.
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On November 22, 1963, at 12:30 p.m. while riding in a motorcade in Dallas during a campaign visit President John F. Kennedy was assassinated while he was going to speak about Civil Rights. The person who assassinated him was man named Lee Harvey Oswald, a new employee at the Book Depository, was arrested for JFK’s assassination, as well as for the fatal 1:15 p.m. shooting of Dallas Two days, Oswald would be murdered by local police informant Jack Ruby at point-blank range and on live TV.
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On September 15, 1963, a bomb exploded at the 16th Street Baptist Church as church members prepared for Sunday services. The racially motivated attack killed four young girls and shocked the nation. This was caused by members of the Ku Klux Klan as they didn't want people who were African american in a church.
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The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, is considered one of the crowning legislative achievements of the civil rights movement.First proposed by President John F. Kennedy, it survived strong opposition from southern members of Congress and was then signed into law by Kennedy’s successor,Lyndon B. Johnson
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Malcolm was the son of James Earl Little, a Baptist preacher who advocated the Black nationalist ideals of Marcus Garvey. Threats from the Ku Klux Klan forced the family to move to Lansing, Michigan, where his father continued to preach his controversial sermons despite continuing threats. In 1931, Malcolm’s father was murdered by the white supremacist Black Legion, and Michigan authorities refused to prosecute those responsible.
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The Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote as guaranteed under the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Voting Rights Act is considered one of the most far-reaching pieces of civil rights legislation in U.S. history. Due to the incident in Alabama President Johnson called for comprehensive voting rights legislation
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On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. This event sent shock waves reverberating around the world.King faced mounting criticism from young African American activists who favored a more confrontational approach to seeking change. These young radicals stuck closer to the ideals of the Black nationalist leader Malcolm X , who had condemned King’s advocacy of nonviolence as “criminal” in the face of the continuing repression suffered by African Americans.
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The Fair Housing Act of 1968 prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin or sex. Intended as a follow-up to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the bill was the subject of a contentious debate in the Senate, but was passed quickly by the House of Representatives in the days after the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.The Fair Housing Act stands as the final achievement of the civil rights era.