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Plessy v. Ferguson
A case in which the Court held that state-mandated segregation laws did not violate the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. -
The Tuskegee Airmen
a group of African American military pilots (fighter and bomber) and airmen who fought in World War II. -
The Integration of Major League Baseball
In 1945, when Rickey approached Jackie Robinson, baseball was being proposed as one of the first areas of American society to integrate. Not until 1948 did a presidential order desegregate the armed forces; the Supreme Court forbid segregated public schools in 1954. -
The Integration of the Armed Forces
On July 26, 1948, President Harry S. Truman signed this executive order banning segregation in the Armed Forces. -
The Supreme Court Decision of Sweatt v. Painter
The Supreme Court ruled that in states where public graduate and professional schools existed for white students but not for black students, black students must be admitted to the all-white institutions, and that the equal protection clause required Sweatt's admission to the University of Texas School of Law. -
The Supreme Court Decision of Brown v. Board of Education
The Supreme Court ruled that separating children in public schools on the basis of race was unconstitutional -
The Death of Emmett Till
Emmett Louis Till was a 14-year-old African American boy who was abducted, tortured, 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
The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a civil rights protest during which African Americans refused to ride city buses in Montgomery, Alabama. -
The Integration of Little Rock High School
The desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, gained national attention on September 3, 1957, when Governor Orval Faubus mobilized the Arkansas National Guard in an effort to prevent nine African American students from integrating the high school. -
The Civil Rights Act of 1957
The result was the Civil Rights Act of 1957, the first civil rights legislation since Reconstruction. The new act established the Civil Rights Section of the Justice Department and empowered federal prosecutors to obtain court injunctions against interference with the right to vote. -
The Greensboro Four Lunch Counter Sit-In
The four students sat down at the lunch counter at the Woolworth's in downtown Greensboro, where the official policy. -
The Freedom Rides by Freedom Riders of 1961
Freedom Riders were groups of white and African American civil rights activists who participated in Freedom Rides, bus trips through the American South in 1961 to protest segregated bus terminals. -
The Twenty-Fourth Amendment
Twenty-fourth Amendment, amendment (1964) to the Constitution of the United States that prohibited the federal and state governments from imposing poll taxes before a citizen could participate in a federal election. -
The Integration of the University of Mississippi
Riots erupted on the campus of the University of Mississippi in Oxford where locals, students, and committed segregationists had gathered to protest the enrollment of James Meredith, a black Air Force veteran attempting to integrate the all-white school. -
The Integration of the University of Alabama
President John F. Kennedy federalized National Guard troops and deployed them to the University of Alabama to force its desegregation. The next day, Governor Wallace yielded to the federal pressure, and two African American students—Vivian Malone and James A. Hood—successfully enrolled. -
The March on Washington & "I Have a Dream" Speech by MLK
A call for equality and freedom, it became one of the defining moments of the civil rights movement and one of the most iconic speeches in American history. -
The Assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas
Shortly after noon on November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated as he rode in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas, Texas. -
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 signed by President Johnson
Prohibited discrimination in public places, provided for the integration of schools and other public facilities, and made employment discrimination illegal. -
The Assassination of Malcolm X
Malcolm X was an American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a prominent figure during the civil rights movement. A spokesman for the Nation of Islam until 1964, he was a vocal advocate for Black empowerment and the promotion of Islam within the Black community. -
The Selma to Montgomery March: "Bloody Sunday"
On March 7, 1965, an estimated 525 to 600 civil rights marchers headed southeast out of Selma on U.S. Highway 80. The march was led by John Lewis of SNCC and the Reverend Hosea Williams of SCLC, followed by Bob Mants of SNCC and Albert Turner of SCLC. -
The Voting Rights Act of 1965
The Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote as guaranteed under the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. -
The Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee
Shortly after 6 p.m. on April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and mortally wounded as he stood on the second-floor balcony outside his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn. He was pronounced dead at 7:05 p.m. at St. -
The Voting Rights Act of 1968
The 1968 act expanded on previous acts and prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin, and since 1974, sex. Since 1988, the act protects people with disabilities and families with children.