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jackie robinson
In 1982, Jackie Robinson became the first Major League Baseball player to appear on a US postage stamp. Jackie Robinson was 28 years old when he broke into the Major Leagues, yet he still won the unified Rookie of the Year Award. Fifty years after he became the first modern black player, Major League baseball chose his number as the first one to ever retire for every team. In 1949, Jackie Robinson led the National League in stolen bases and batting average, was named to his first All-Star Gam -
The Harlem Renaissance
After the American civil war, liberated African-Americans searched for a safe place to explore their new identities as free men and women. They found it in Harlem. Read on to find out how this New York neighborhood became home to some of the best and brightest minds of the 20th century, gave birth to a cultural revolution, and earned its status as "the capital of black America." -
martin luther king jr
Martin Luther King, Jr., (January 15, 1929-April 4, 1968) was born Michael Luther King, Jr., but later had his name changed to Martin. His grandfather began the family's long tenure as pastors of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, serving from 1914 to 1931; his father has served from then until the present, and from 1960 until his death Martin Luther acted as co-pastor. Martin Luther attended segregated public schools in Georgia, graduating from high school at the age of fifteen; he receive -
brown vs board of education
- TOP 10 CIVIL RIGHTS EVENTBrown v. Board of Education-The U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board ofEducation (1954) is one of the most pivotal opinions ever rendered by that body. This landmarkdecision highlights the U.S. Supreme Court’s role in affecting changes in national and socialpolicy. Often when people think of the case, they remember a little girl whose parents sued sothat she could attend an all-white school in her neighborhood. In reality, the story of Brown v.Board of Educat
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murder of emitt till
While visiting family in Money, Mississippi, 14-year-old Emmett Till, an African American from Chicago, is brutally murdered for flirting with a white woman four days earlier. His assailants--the white woman's husband and her brother--made Emmett carry a 75-pound cotton-gin fan to the bank of the Tallahatchie River and ordered him to take off his clothes. The two men then beat him nearly to death, gouged out his eye, shot him in the head, and then threw his body, tied to the cotton-gin fan with -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
Sparked by the arrest of Rosa Parks on 1 December 1955, the Montgomery bus boycott was a 13-month mass protest that ended with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that segregation on public buses is unconstitutional. The Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) coordinated the boycott, and its president, Martin Luther King, Jr., became a prominent civil rights leader as international attention focused on Montgomery. The bus boycott demonstrated the potential for nonviolent mass protest to successfully -
rosa parks
On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a 42-year-old African American woman who worked as a seamstress, boarded this Montgomery City bus to go home from work. On this bus on that day, Rosa Parks initiated a new era in the American quest for freedom and equality. -
Little Rock Central High School integration
The desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, gained national attention on September 3, 1957, when Governor Orval Faubus mobilized the Arkansas National Guard in an effort to prevent nine African American students from integrating the high school. After several failed attempts to negotiate with Faubus, President Dwight D. Eisenhower took action against the defiant governor by simultaneously federalizing the Arkansas National Guard, removing the Guard from Faubus' control, an -
Greensboro Sit ins
While not the first sit-ins of the African-American Civil Rights Movement, the Greensboro sit-ins were an instrumental action, leading to increased national sentiment at a crucial period in US history.[3] The primary event took place at the Greensboro, North Carolina Woolworth store, now the International Civil Rights Center and Museum. -
Letter from a Birmingham Jail
16 April 1963
My Dear Fellow Clergymen:
While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities "unwise and untimely." Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would have little time for anything other than such correspondence in the course of the day, and I would have no time for constructive work. But since I feel that you are men of genuine -
march on washington
March on Washington - On 28 August 1963, 250,000 people walked from the WashingtonMonument to the Lincoln Memorial, where they listened to speeches from representatives of thevarious organizations. At the days end, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. delivered hispowerful and memorable "I Have a Dream" speech. The interracial, peaceful assemblydemonstrated to the public the influence, unity, and optimism of the civil rights alliance.16th Street Church Bombing - The 16th Street Baptist Church in -
Freedom Summer
During the summer of 1964, thousands of civil rights activists, many of them white college students from the North, descended on Mississippi and other Southern states to try to end the long-time political disenfranchisement of African Americans in the region. Although black men had won the right to vote in 1870, thanks to the Fifteenth Amendment, for the next 100 years many were unable to exercise that right. White local and state officials systematically kept blacks from voting through formal m -
Voting Rights Act
This “act to enforce the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution” was signed into law 95 years after the amendment was ratified. In those years, African Americans in the South faced tremendous obstacles to voting, including poll taxes, literacy tests, and other bureaucratic restrictions to deny them the right to vote. They also risked harassment, intimidation, economic reprisals, and physical violence when they tried to register or vote. As a result, very few African Americans were registered vo
