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Creation of the NAACP
The NAACP was created in 1909 by an interracial group consisting of W.E.B. Du Bois, Ida Bell Wells-Barnett, Mary White Ovington, and others concerned with the challenges facing African Americans, especially in the wake of the 1908 Springfield Race Riot. -
Scottsboro Boys
On March 25, 1931, nine African American teenagers were accused of raping two white women aboard a Southern Railroad freight train in northern Alabama. -
Jackie Robinson Breaks the Color Barrier
After a successful season with the minor league Montreal Royals in 1946, Robinson officially broke the major league color line when he put on a Dodgers uniform, number 42, in April 1947. In 1945, Robinson played 47 games for the Monarchs of the Negro American League as well as the East-West All-Star game. -
Brown vs. Board of Education
Board of Education of Topeka, was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segregated schools are otherwise equal in quality. -
The Murder of Emmitt Till
The murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till in 1955 brought nationwide attention to the racial violence and injustice prevalent in Mississippi. Milam, kidnapped and brutally murdered Till, dumping his body in the Tallahatchie River -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a civil rights protest during which African Americans refused to ride city buses in Montgomery, Alabama, to protest segregated seating. Four days before the boycott began, Rosa Parks, an African American woman, was arrested and fined for refusing to yield her bus seat to a white man. -
The Little Rock 9
The Little Rock Nine was a group of nine African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Their enrollment was followed by the Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering the racially segregated school by Orval Faubus, the Governor of Arkansas. -
Ruby Bridges desegregate elementary
Ruby Bridges advanced the cause of civil rights in November 1960 when she became the first African American student to integrate an elementary school in the South. the Board of Education of Topeka Kansas, which ended racial segregation in public schools. -
School in New Orleans/William Frantz Elementary
New Orleans is a landmark site for public school integration for two reasons: a courthouse and its judges, and a brave little girl named Ruby Bridges. At age 6, Ruby was the only African-American student to attend William Frantz Elementary upon its integration. -
Letter from a Birmingham Jail
Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” in response to criticism of the nonviolent protests in Birmingham, Alabama in April 1963. In the letter, King responds specifically to a statement published in a local newspaper by eight white clergymen, calling the protests “unwise and untimely” and condemning to the “outsiders” who were leading them. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. Provisions of this civil rights act forbade discrimination on the basis of sex, as well as, race in hiring, promoting, and firing. -
Assassination of Malcolm X
In New York City, Malcolm X, 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. -
Creation of the Black Panthers
The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (BPP) was founded in October 1966 in Oakland, California by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, who met at Merritt College in Oakland. It was a revolutionary organization with an ideology of Black nationalism, socialism, and armed self-defense, particularly against police brutality. -
Thurgood Marshall Named Supreme Court Justice
Johnson nominated distinguished civil rights lawyer Thurgood Marshall to be the first African American justice to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States. Marshall had already made his mark in American law, having won 29 of the 32 cases he argued before the Supreme Court, most notably the landmark case Brown v. -
Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
His assassination led to an outpouring of anger among Black Americans, as well as a period of national mourning that helped speed the way for an equal housing bill that would be the last significant legislative achievement of the civil rights era -
Election of Barack Obama
Obama was elected over Republican nominee John McCain in the general election and was inaugurated alongside his running mate, Joe Biden, on January 20, 2009. He was the first ever 1st black president.