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On May 17th 1954 the Supreme Court unanimously agreed that segregation in schools was unconstitutional and unequal. Which started the way for the Americal civil rights movements.
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Emmett Till was a 14 year old boy who was visiting his family where he gets kidnapped, and then brutally, beaten, shot and then dumped in the Tallahatchie River all for whisteling at a white women. Two white men, J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant, are arrested for the murder and acquitted by an all-white jury. They later boasted about committing the murder in a Look magazine interview
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On december 1st Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat at the front at bus for a white passenger. She then got arrested for that which was an offence at the time, From her arrest the black community then lead a bus boycott which lasted for over a year until the law was changed to a first served basis.
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Nine black students are blocked from entering the school on the orders of Governor Orval Faubus. President Eisenhower sends federal troops and the National Guard to intervene on behalf of the students,
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James Meredith becomes the first black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi. Violence and riots surrounding the incident cause President Kennedy to send 5,000 federal troops
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Martin Luther King is arrested and jailed during anti-segregation protests in Birmingham, Ala.; he writes his seminal "Letter from Birmingham Jail," arguing that individuals have the moral duty to disobey unjust laws.
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In Washington, D.C about 200,000 people join the March on Washington. Congregating at the Lincoln Memorial, participants listen as Martin Luther King delivers his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.
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President Johnson signs the civil rights act which abolishes any type of segreation due to race, colour, religion and national origin. This act also gives the government the power to enforce desegreation
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American Congress passes the Voting Rights Act of 1965, making it easier for Southern blacks to register to vote. Literacy tests, poll taxes, and other such requirements that were used to restrict black voting are made illegal.
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Asserting that civil rights laws alone are not enough to remedy discrimination, President Johnson issues Executive Order 11246, which enforces affirmative action for the first time. It requires government contractors to "take affirmative action" toward prospective minority employees in all aspects of hiring and employment.
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Martin Luther King, at age 39, is shot as he stands on the balcony outside his hotel room. Escaped convict and committed racist James Earl Ray is convicted of the crime.
