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Emmett Till
14 year old, Emmett Till, visits his family in Mississippi when he is kidnapped, brutally killed and dumped in the Tallahatchie River for whistling at a white woman. The two men who killed him, J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant, were arrested for the murder and acquitted by an all-white jury. The case helped in pushing to the civil rights movement. -
Rosa Parks refusal
Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat at the front of the "colored section" of a bus to a white passenger. She was a NAACP member. After she refuses, she is arrested. The Montgomery black community then launches a bus boycott, which will last for more than a year. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
African Americans refused to ride city buses in Montgomery, Alabama for almost a year. They did this to protest segregated seating. They made a big difference, since most people that rode the bus were African Americans. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZsOZSrcjfw -
Little Rock Nine
A group of 9 African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School . The students were prevented from entering the racially segregated school by Orval Faubus, the Governor of Arkansas. They would have soilders walk them to school and class to protect them from other white students. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oodolEmUg2g -
Sit-In Movement
Four students from North Carolina A&T sat down at a "whites-only" Woolworth's lunch counter and asked to be served. Service refused and the students kept sitting there. Despite threats, the students sat there and waited to be served. After that, the civil rights sit-in began. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f82cAuXM4IE -
first Black student
James Meredith became the first Black student to register at the University of Mississippi. He applied to the institution after spending 9 years in the Air Force and 2 years at Jackson State University. He was denied twice because he was black, but he fought the discriminatory decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in his favor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn4M8wmoPto -
Letter from Birmingham Jail
Martin Luther King was arrested and jailed during anti-segregation protests in Birmingham, Alabama. He writes his seminal "Letter from Birmingham Jail." He argues that individuals have the moral duty to disobey unjust laws. -
Medgar Evers assassinated
In the driveway outside his home in Jackson, Mississippi, Medgar Evers is shot to death. Medgar was an African American civil rights activist who worked to overturn segregation at the University of Mississippi. He was shot by white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith.
from Mississippi who worked to overturn segregation at the University of Mississippi and gain social justice and voting rights. -
March on Washington
The March on Washington was one of the largest political rallies for human rights in United States history. African Americans demanded civil and economic rights for African Americans.The march was organized by A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin. The number of participants varied from 200,000 to 300,000 and then listened to the famous speech "I have a dream." -
Civil Rights Act
President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act. It prohibits discrimination of all kinds based on race, color, religion, or national origin. The law also provides the federal government with the powers to enforce desegregation. -
Missing
The bodies of three civil-rights workers; two white, one black and are found in an earthen dam. President Johnson calls for a federal investigation. James E. Chaney,Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner had been working to register black voters in Mississippi, and, on June 21, had gone to investigate the burning of a black church. They were arrested by the police on speeding charges, incarcerated for several hours, and then released to the Ku Klux Klan, who killed them. -
"Bloody Sunday"
Blacks began a march to Montgomery in support of voting rights . They are stopped at the Pettus Bridge by a police blockade. Fifty marchers are hospitalized after police use tear gas, whips, and clubs against them. The incident is dubbed "Bloody Sunday" by the media. -
The Voting Rights Act
Congress passes the Voting Rights Act. The act makes it easier for Southern blacks to register to vote. Literacy tests, poll taxes, and other equirements that were used to restrict black voting became illegal. -
Stokely Carmichael's speech
Stokely Carmichael, a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, expands the "black power" in a speech in Seattle. He defines it as an assertion of black pride and "the coming together of black people to fight for their liberation by any means necessary." -
Martin Luther King is assassinated
Martin Luther King is killed. He is 39 and is shot as he stood on the balcony outside his hotel room in Tennessee. Escaped convict and committed racist, James Earl Ray, is convicted of the crime.
