-
Brown v. Board of Education
On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Ocurt declared the doctrine of “separate but equal” as unconstitutional. The campaign that helped convince the nine justices was conceived by Charles Hamilton Houston, then Dean of Howard Law School, and executed by Thurgood Marshall. Brown was a coordinated group of five lawsuits against school districts in Kansas, South Carolina, Delaware, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. -
Murder of Emmett Till
Fourteen year old boy from Chicago visiting Mississippi was accused of whistling at a white woman- Carolyn Bryant. Roy Bryant and JW Milan kidnapped, beat, shot, and killed. Emmett was thrown into a lake with a 75 pound weight. Maime Till, Emmett’s mother, had an open casket funeral. His killers were found non guilty even thoug they admitted to it. -
Rosa Parks & the Montgomery Bus Boycott
Rosa Parks refused to vacate a seat on a bus in favor of a white passenger in Montgomery, Alabama. Her defiance sparked a successful boycott of buses a few days late. This boycott was led by Martin Luther King Jr. -
Founding of Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) & Martin Luther King
The Southern Christian Leadeship Conference (SCLC) is an organization founded in 1957, and it successfully staged a 381-day boycott of the Montgomery Alabama’s segregated bus system. Martin Luther King, Jr., Bayard Rustin, Ralph Abernathy, Fred Shuttlesworth, and others, founded the organization to have a regional organizational that could more effectively coordinated civil rights protest activities in the South. The SCLC was founded in Atlanta, Georgia; most of their leaders were ministers. -
Little Rock Nine & Central High School
The first African American students to enter Little Rock’s Central High School came to be known as the “Little Rock Nine”. On September 25, 1957, following a plea from the mayor, President Dwight Eisenhower federalized the National Guard and sent troops to the scene. The nine teens were guarded by soldiers and they were able to begin regular class attendance at Central High. The Little Rock Nine were constantly harassed and threatened by the rest of the students at their school. -
Greensboro Sit-In
The Greensboro sit-in was a civil rights protest that started when young African American students staged a sit-in at a segregated lunch counter in North Carolina. They refus3 to leave because they were denied service. This movement spread throughout the South. Though several protesters were arrested, it forced establishments to change their segregation policies. -
Freedom Ride/ Freedom Riders
On May 14, 1961, a Freedom Riders bus was attacked in Anniston, Alabama. It was attacked again and burned six miles out of town. Riders from another bus were beaten by an angry white mob on the same day. Publications international attention to the Freedom Riders’ causes and the state of racial relations in the United States. -
March on Washington
On August 28, 1963, over 260,000 people from across the nation participated in the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. They gathered at the Lincoln Memorial. Over 3,000 members of the press covered this March. This is where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. -
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) & Freedom Summer
During Freedom Summer, African Americans from Mississippi and volunteers faced extreme violence. This project was designed to draw attention to oppression experienced in Mississippi by blacks who tried to exercise their constitutional rights. This created political momentum for the Voting Rights Act of 1965. -
Civil Rights Act
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. This act ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination. It’s considered one of the crowing achievements of the civil rights movement. It was signed in by Lyndon B. Johnson. -
Selma to Montgomery Marches (Bloody Sunday)
On March 7, 1965, in Selma, Alabama, activists protested the denial of voting rights to African Americans as well as the murder of Jimmie Lee Jackson. State troopers and county possemen attacked the marchers with billy clubs and tear gas after they passed the county line. Multiple were later hospitalized with serious injuries. -
Voting Rights Act
This act was signed into law on August 6, 1965, by President Lyndon Johnson. It completely outlawed discriminatory voting practices. This act had an immediate impact. In fact, by the end of the year, a quarter of a million new Black voters had been registered.