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Oct 1, 1562
James Meredith - First black student is admitted to the University of Mississippi
James Meredith attended Jackson State University for two years before applying to the University of Mississippi. His admission is withdrawn when an official at the all-white school discovers his race. In May 1961, he files a lawsuit, alleging discrimination. The case is taken to the Supreme Court, which rules that Meredith can enroll at the state school. His entrance to the school is initially blocked, and rioting erupts Sept. 20, 1962. Meredith finally enrolls Oct. 1. -
President Harry Truman issues Executive Order 9981 to end segregation in the Armed Services.
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Brown v. Board of Education'
The Supreme Court rules that segregation in public schools is illegal, effectively overturning the "separate but equal" doctrine. Schools are ordered to desegregate "with all deliberate speed." -
Emmett Till is beaten, shot and lynched
After allegedly whistling at a white woman in a Mississippi store days earlier, the 14-year-old black teenager is kidnapped and killed.
Eisenhower doesn't react -
Montgomery bus boycott
In refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man, activist Rosa Parks starts a 381-day bus boycott, led by Martin Luther King Jr., in Montgomery, Ala. The boycott ends in victory on Dec. 21, 1956, after the Supreme Court rules that segregation on buses is illegal. -
Little Rock Nine
Desegregation is met with resistance and violence when nine black students attempt to enter Central High School. Gov. Orval Faubus says "blood will run in the streets", so National Guardsmen are called to keep out the nine students on the first day of classes. Eventually, police are called to protect and escort the students, but the governor responds by closing Little Rock's public high schools for the 1958-59 academic year.
Eisenhower is forced to become involved. -
Sit-ins at lunch counters begin
Four black college students are refused service and asked to leave a segregated lunch counter at a Woolworth store in Greensboro, N.C., but they remain seated. Their passive resistance inspires a movement. Hundreds of students at college campuses across the South, and eventually farther north, begin organizing sit-ins. The Woolworth lunch counter is desegregated July 25, 1960. -
Freedom Riders protest segregation
Freedom Riders take interstate buses to the South to test integration regulations and protest segregation in bus stations. They face mobs, riots and beatings at such locations as Birmingham and Montgomery, Ala. That summer, civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner disappear in Philadelphia, Miss. Decades later, reputed Ku Klux Klan member Edgar Ray Killen is convicted on three counts of manslaughter; he is sentenced in 2005. -
In Birmingham, fire hoses are turned on SCLC demonstrators
Birmingham, Ala.'s public safety commissioner, Eugene "Bull" Connor, unleashes dogs and uses high-powered fire hoses against demonstrators from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Many nonviolent protesters were beaten in clashes with police.
Media coverage gets the attention of the whole country, including Kennedy. -
Medger Evers is killed
Medger Evers, field secretary for the NAACP, is assassinated in his driveway by Byron De La Beckwith, a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Evers had survived several previous assassination attempts. Beckwith is convicted of murder in 1994 before a racially diverse jury. (Two previous all-white, all-male juries had deadlocked.) -
Kennedy meets with civil rights leaders
President John F. Kennedy meets with civil rights leaders at the White House and asks them to call off the March on Washington, scheduled to take place in August. They are not dissuaded. -
March on Washington
About a quarter-million people from across the United States come to Washington 100 years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation to demand passage of civil rights legislation. The march begins at the Washington Monument and ends at the Lincoln Memorial, where Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his "I Have a Dream" speech. -
16th Street Baptist Church is bombed
The 16th Street Baptist Church (a meeting place for civil rights leaders in Birmingham, Ala.) is attacked by the Ku Klux Klan. Four girls are killed: Denise McNair, 11; Cynthia Wesley, 14; Carole Robertson, 14; and Adie Mae Collins, 14. In violence that erupts afterward, two people die in the streets. -
Kennedy is assassinated
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Freedom Summer
The Council of Federated Organizations and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee are among civil rights organizations seeking to dramatically increase voter registration among blacks in Mississippi during what will later be termed "Freedom Summer." -
24th Amendment is ratified
The amendment becomes part of the Constitution, prohibiting Congress and the states from imposing a poll tax or any other form of tax as a requisite to vote in federal elections. Poll taxes had previously been used in the South to prevent blacks from voting. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964 passes
The act outlaws discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. The legislation ends racial segregation in schools, the workplace and public places, as well as unequal application of voter registration requirements. The act is signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. -
MLK is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
Martin Luther King Jr., 35, becomes the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, for advocating for civil rights through nonviolent means. -
Jimmie Lee Jackson is killed
Jimmie Lee Jackson, a civil rights protester who had attempted four times to register to vote, is shot and killed by an Alabama state trooper during a small protest in Marion. -
Malcolm X is assassinated
The minister and activist associated with the Nation of Islam is fatally shot after delivering a speech in New York. -
Bloody Sunday'
Marchers protesting Jimmie Lee Jackson's death face tear gas from state and local police, and some are beaten. This is the first protest in a series of events known as the "Selma to Montgomery Marches," part of the larger voting rights movement. -
Voting Rights Act becomes law
After the act's passage, which prohibited discrimination in voter registration, black voter registration in the South increases by more than 50 percent. -
Watts riots
Riots erupt Aug. 11, 1965, in a heavily black section of Los Angeles after two white officers arrest a black driver suspected of being drunk. After five days of violence over 50 square miles, 34 people are dead, and nearly $40 million in property is destroyed. -
Black Panther Party forms
Founded in Oakland, Calif., by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, the party calls for the protection of blacks from police brutality. -
Loving v. Virginia'
The Supreme Court rules that the prohibition of interracial marriage is unconstitutional. -
Thurgood Marshall is nominated for the Supreme Court
He becomes the first African American tapped to be a justice. -
12th Street Riot
A police raid on an unlicensed Detroit bar erupts into one of the worst race riots in U.S. history, prompting President Lyndon B. Johnson to send in the military. Five days of violence lead to 43 deaths, 1,189 injured, 7,200 arrests and more than 2,000 buildings destroyed. -
Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated
King is shot on the balcony of a Memphis motel. His death prompts race riots in several cities across the country.