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In the landmark 1954 case Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, overturning the "separate but equal" doctrine established in Plessy v. Ferguson. -
Emmett Louis Till was a 14-year-old African American youth, who was abducted and lynched in Mississippi in 1955 after being accused of offending a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, in her family's grocery store. -
The Montgomery bus boycott was a political and social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama. It was a foundational event in the civil rights movement in the United States. -
The Greensboro sit-in was a civil rights protest that started in 1960, when young African American students staged a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and refused to leave after being denied service. -
The Freedom Rides were a series of protests organized by civil rights activists in 1961 to challenge segregation in interstate bus travel -
King's letter kindles the conscience, exhorting us to peaceful action. He challenges well-meaning citizens who advocate patience to look carefully at the pattern of racial injustice, oppression, pain and hurt that have gone unattended. -
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was held in Washington, D.C., on August 28, 1963. The purpose of the march was to advocate for the civil and economic rights of African Americans. -
The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing was a terrorist bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama on September 15, 1963. The bombing was committed by a white supremacist terrorist group. -
Amendment Twenty-four to the Constitution was ratified on January 23, 1964. It abolished and forbids the federal and state governments from imposing taxes on voters during federal elections. -
he Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a landmark civil rights and labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. -
The Selma to Montgomery marches were three protest marches, held in 1965, along the 54-mile highway from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital of Montgomery. -
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of federal legislation in the United States that prohibits racial discrimination in voting. -
In Loving v. Virginia, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down all state laws banning interracial marriage in 1967, ruling them unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment. The case, which involved Richard and Mildred Loving, who were arrested and convicted for marrying across racial lines in Virginia, established that the freedom to marry is a fundamental right protected by the Constitution. -
The Little Rock Nine were 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.