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14th Amendment
Guarantees all citizens 'equal protection of the laws'.
It enshrined equality, including for freed slaves. Although it was ignored by many US states, especially in the South, it provided the constitutional basis for successful civil rights challenges later on. -
Plessy v Ferguson
Established the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’. This established segregation as a legal practice that was not in violation of the 14th Amendment. Thus, it legally codified racism and empowered white supremacists. -
Executive Order 9981
Ends segregation in the army. -
Brown vs. Board of Education
The US Supreme Court decided a case that changed the course of American history. They ruled that racial segregation of school was unconstitutional -
Racist murder of Emmett Till (14 yr old)
In his funeral his father tried to show the world what racist murders had done to their son. -
The Montgomery Bus boycott
It leads to ruling that segregation on transport is unconstitutional.
Rosa Parks was an african american civil rights activist that denied giving her bus seat to a white passenger. Therefore, she was arrested and Martin Luther King, a young pastor, started a protest at Alabama, where Rosa Parks was arrested. After one year of protesting, the supreme court said that dividing the public transport seats between races was unconstitutional. -
The “Little Rock Nine”
They are blocked from integrating into Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Nine black students, where known as the little rock nine, they couldn’t integrate in their secondary school (central high school, Arkansas), because of his race. The president Dwight D. Eisenhower, finally sent federal troops to escort the students but they continued being harassed. Is an achievement of the civil rights (change), but the segregation continued as they continued being harassed. -
President Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 into law (protect voter rights)
The Civil Rights Act of 1957 was the first federal civil rights legislation passed by the United States Congress since the Civil Rights Act of 1875. The bill was passed by the 85th United States Congress and signed into law by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on September 9, 1957. Is an achievement of civil right saw allows federal prosecution of those who suppress another’s right to vote. -
Ruby Bridges, first student to integrate William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans.
Ruby Bridges is escorted by four armed federal marshals as she becomes the first student to integrate at the previously all-white William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans. Met with angry mobs shouting their disapproval and parents marched in to remove their children from the school as a protest to desegregation. It was an improvement of the civil rights because a black girl was included in a white school, but she wasn’t really integrated -
In the Greensboro Sit-In, four African American college students refuse to leave a “whites only” lunch counter without being served.
The protest spread to other cities and after months, facilities began to desegregate throughout the country. -
The all-white University of Michigan is ordered by the Supreme Court to admit black student, James Meredith.
James Meredith applied several times to this University without success, so with help of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People he reported the University and won the trial in September 1962. -
Washington D.C witnessed MLK’s most famous speech ‘I have a dream’
Due to the importance and the impact the speech received, the event might be considered a big change, however I would place it in between Change and Continuity, slightly closer to Continuity. These sorts of protests against racism and social injustice still happen today, meaning that not all rights have been given to the african-american community, and that despite the speech’s power, there still aren't equal jobs and freedom. -
A bomb at 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama kills four young black girls.
This event should be placed in the column of Equal Treatment under de Law. This event in history definitely demonstrated that there is a pñroblem with the justice system, however it has still not been resolved. Breonna Taylor, a black woman, was murdered earlier this year, and the people that killed her did not receive the punishment they deserve. Maybe this event will be the turning point for society. -
Freedom Summer campaign to register black votes.
They tried to register as many black votes as possible. -
President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act
Preventing employment discrimination due to race, color, sex, religion or national origin. -
Bloody Sunday
Around 600 people crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in an attempt to begin the Selma to Montgomery march. State troopers violently attacked the peaceful demonstrators in an attempt to stop the march for voting rights. -
President Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act of 1965
To prevent the use of literacy tests as a voting requirement.
It was a huge change because from this moment on, they were able to vote and this was a really big event for African Americans.
