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Dred Scott v. Sandford (Denial of Basic Rights to Blacks)
A major precursor to the Civil War, this controversial U.S. Supreme Court decision denied citizenship and basic rights to all blacks -- whether slave or free. -
Emancipation Proclamation
President Abraham Lincoln's "Emancipation Proclamation," takes effect, proclaiming freedom from slavery for African-Americans. -
Rosa Louise McCauley Parks
An African-American civil rights activist, whom the United States Congress called "the first lady of civil rights" and "the mother of the freedom movement." -
James Meredith
James Howard Meredith is an American civil rights movement figure, a writer, and a political adviser -
Executive Order 9981
President Harry S. Truman. It abolished racial discrimination in the United States Armed Forces and eventually led to the end of segregation in the services. -
Brown vs. Board of Education
The Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional. The decision overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896, which allowed state-sponsored segregation, insofar as it applied to public education. As a result, de jure racial segregation was ruled a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. -
-Emmett Till
Murdered in Mississippi at the age of 14 after reportedly flirting with a white woman. two white men kidnapped him beat him and shot him in the head. The men were tried for murder, but an all-white, male jury acquitted them. Till's murder and open casket funeral -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
Rosa Parks, an African American woman, was arrested for refusing to surrender her seat to a white person, to December 20, 1956, when a federal ruling, Browder v. Gayle, took effect, and led to a United States Supreme Court decision that declared the Alabama and Montgomery laws requiring segregated buses to be unconstitutional. -
SCLC
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference is an African-American civil rights organization. SCLC was closely associated with its first president, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. -
Little Rock Nine
The decision declared (Brown vs. BOE) all laws establishing segregated schools to be unconstitutional, and it called for the desegregation of all schools throughout the nation. attempted to register black students in previously all-white schools in cities throughout the South.
The African American students had to be escorted by the troops of the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army to be let into the school. -
Woolworth sit-ins
Ezell A. Blair, Jr. (now Jibreel Khazan), Franklin E. McCain, Joseph A. McNeil, and David L. Richmond leave the Woolworth store after the first sit-in on February 1, 1960. -
SNCC
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
as one of the principal organizations of the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. It emerged in April of 1960 from student meetings led by Ella Baker held at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina.
SNCC played a leading role in the Freedom Rides, the 1963 March on Washington, Mississippi Freedom Summer and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party -
-Freedom Rides
A series of political protests against segregation by blacks and whites who rode buses together through the American South in 1961. -
Letter from a Birmingham Jail
The letter defends the strategy of nonviolent resistance to racism, arguing that people have a moral responsibility to break unjust laws. After an early setback, it enjoyed widespread publication and became a key text for the American civil rights movement of the early 1960s. -
“Bull” Connor used fire hoses on black demonstrators
His aggressive tactics backfired when the spectacle of the brutality being broadcast on national television served as one of the catalysts for major social and legal change in the southern United States. -
March on Washington
March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom or "The Great March on Washington
one of the largest political rallies for human rights in United States history and called for civil and economic rights for African Americans. The march was organized by a group of civil rights, labor, and religious organizations, under the theme "jobs, and freedom” -
16th Street Baptist Church bombing
This was an act of white supremacist terrorism. The explosion at the African-American church, which killed four girls, marked a turning point in the United States 1960s Civil Rights Movement and contributed to support for passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. -
24th Amendment
Prohibits both Congress and the states from conditioning the right to vote in federal elections on payment of a poll tax or other types of tax. The amendment was proposed by Congress to the states -
Murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner
Murdered in Mississippi. 2 White, 1 black civil rights workers. They had been working together to register black voters in Mississippi. They were arrested by police for “trumped-up charges”, then released to the KKK, who beat and killed them. -
Civil Rights Act 1964
Rights Act of 1964 in an effort to strengthen federal civil rights laws, to provide for damages in employment discrimination cases, and to clarify provisions of the 1964 act relating to “disparate impact” actions. -
Civil Rights Act 1965
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a significant piece of legislation that guarantees the right to vote to racial, ethnic and language minority citizens, signed by LBJ. -
Malcolm X assassinated
An African American nationalist and religious leader, is assassinated by rival Black Muslims while addressing his Organization of Afro-American Unity at the Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights. On February 21, 1965, one week after his home was firebombed, Malcolm X was shot to death by Nation of Islam members while speaking at a rally of his organization in New York City. -
Los Angeles Race Riots 1965
The Watts Riots (or Watts Rebellion)] was a race riot that took place in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles from August 11 to 17, 1965. The six-day unrest resulted in 34 deaths, 1,032 injuries, 3,438 arrests, and over $40 million in property damage. It was the most severe riot in the city's history until the Los Angeles riots of 1992. -
Executive Order 11246
Prohibits federal contractors and subcontractors and federally-assisted construction contractors and subcontractors that generally have contracts that exceed $10,000 from discriminating in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. It also requires covered contractors to take affirmative action to ensure that equal opportunity is provided in all aspects of their employment. -
Black Panthers founded
The Black Panthers were formed in California in 1966 and they played a short but important part in the civil rights movement. The Black Panthers believed that the non-violent campaign of Martin Luther King had failed and any promised changes to their lifestyle though the 'traditional' civil rights movement, would take too long to be implemented or simply not introduced. -
Loving vs. Virginia
Loving v. Virginia, 38 (1967), United States Supreme Court which invalidated laws prohibiting interracial marriage. The case was brought by Mildred Loving, a black woman, and Richard Loving, a white man, who had been sentenced to a year in prison in Virginia for marrying each other. Their marriage violated the state's anti-miscegenation statute, the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, which prohibited marriage between people classified as "white" and people classified as "colored." -
MLK is assassinated
Assassinated at Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He was 39 years old. James Earl Ray was charged and arrested for the crime -
Civil Rights Act 1968
Provided for equal housing opportunities regardless of race, creed, or national origin and made it a federal crime to “by force or by threat of force,injure, intimidate, or interfere with anyone … by reason of their race, color, religion, or national origin.”[1] The Act was signed into law during the King assassination riots by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who had previously signed the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act into law -
Bloody Sunday
Also called the Bogside Massacre, where 26 civil right protesters were shot by soldiers in the British Army. This incident occurred during the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association march. -
Voting Rights Act 1991
Congress amended the Civil After months of political debate over civil rights issues, a compromise measure gained bipartisan support in Congress, and President George H. W. Bush signed the act into law on 21 November 1991. -
1992 Los Angeles Race Riots
1992 Los Angeles Riots, also known as the Rodney King Riots, the South Central Riots, the 1992 Los Angeles Civil Disturbance, and the 1992 Los Angeles Civil Unrest.
were a series of riots, lootings, arsons and civil disturbance that occurred in Los Angeles County, California in 1992, following the acquittal of police officers on trial regarding a videotaped, and widely covered police brutality incident.
