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Plessy v. Ferguson
Homer Plessy took a seat in the "Whites Only" car of a train and refused to move. He was arrested, tried and convicted in the District Court of New Orleans for breaking Louisiana's segregation law. Plessy appealed, claiming that he had been denied equal protection under the law. The Court ruled that separate-but-equal facilities for blacks and whites did not violate the Constitution. -
Brown v. Board of Education
School System in Topeka, Kansas, like all Southern elementary school systems, operated separate schools for "the two races". Oliver Brown protested that this was unfair to his eight-year-old daughter Linda. Although the Browns lived near a "white" school, Linda was forced to take a long bus ride to her "black" school across town. The Court ruled that segregated public schools were "inherently" unequal and therefore unconstitutional. -
The Montgomery Bus Boycott
Rosa Parks took a seat in the front row of the "colored" section of the Montgomery bus. As the bus filled up, the driver order Parks and 3 other African American passengers to empty the occupied row so that a white man could sit down without sitting by a black. She stood up and refused to move, then was arrested. Because of this the Montgomery Improvement Association was created and organized the boycott. African Americans filed a lawsuit and for 381 days refused to ride the buses in Montgomery. -
Sit-ins
The Congress of Racial Equality staged the first sit-ins, which African Americans protesters sat down at segregated lunch counters and refused to leave until they were served. In North Carolina's Ag. and Tech. college stayed a sit-in at a whites-only lunch counter. tv crews brought coverage of the protest into homes throughout the US. There was no denying the ugly face of racism. -
John F. Kennedy is elected President
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John F. Kennedy's assassination
Lyndon B. Johnson becomes president upon John F. Kennedy's assassination -
Lyndon B. Johnson is elected president
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Civil Rights Acts of 1964
Banned most discrimination in employment and in public accommodations.
Enlarged federal power to protect voting rights and speed up school desegregation.
Established Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to ensure fair treatment in employment. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
Eliminated voter literacy tests.
Enabled federal examiners to register voters -
Martin Luther King, Jr., is assassinated
