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Supreme Court decision in which the Court ruled that racial segregation laws did not violate the U.S. Constitution as long as the facilities for each race were equal in quality, a doctrine that came to be known as "separate but equal -
The Tuskegee Airmen reflect the struggle of African Americans to achieve equal rights, not only through legal attacks on the system of segregation but also through the techniques of nonviolent direct action aimed at segregation in the military. -
Major League Baseball unofficially banned African-Americans from their ranks. That all changed when Jackie Robinson stepped onto the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers. -
President Harry S. Truman signed this executive order establishing the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, committing the government to integrate the segregated military. -
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 all-white institutions and that the equal protection clause required Sweatt's admission to the University of Texas School of Law. -
he Supreme Court ruled that separating children in public schools on the basis of race was unconstitutional. It signaled the end of legalized racial segregation in the schools of the United States, overruling the "separate but equal" principle set forth in the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson. -
Emmitt 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. i -
Sparked by the arrest of Rosa Parks the Montgomery bus boycott was a 13-month mass protest that ended with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that segregation on public buses is unconstitutional. -
The desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, gained national attention when Governor Orval Faubus mobilized the Arkansas National Guard in an effort to prevent nine African American students from integrating into the high school. -
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. -
Four friends sat down at a lunch counter in Greensboro. That may not sound like a legendary moment, but it was. The four people were African American, and they sat where African Americans weren't allowed to sit. They did this to take a stand against segregation. -
student activists from the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) launched the Freedom Rides to challenge segregation on interstate buses and bus terminals. -
President Johnson hoped for the ratification of the new amendment to ensure the right for anyone to vote which is the right to them in the Constitution. -
Meredith became the first African American student to be enrolled at the University of Mississippi, and attended his first class, in American Colonial History. His admission marked the first integration of a public educational facility in Mississippi. -
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. -
"I Have a Dream" is a public speech that was delivered by American civil rights activist and Baptist minister Martin Luther King Jr. during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963. In the speech, King called for civil and economic rights and an end to racism in the United States. -
President John F. Kennedy was assassinated as he rode in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas, Texas, by Lee Harvey Oswald -
prohibited discrimination in public places provided for the integration of schools and other public facilities and made employment discrimination illegal. It was the most sweeping civil rights legislation since Reconstruction -
American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a prominent figure during the civil rights movement. Malcolm X was gunned down by Thomas Hagan in New York City. -
Selma, Alabama, a 600-person civil rights demonstration ends in violence when marchers are attacked and beaten by white state troopers and sheriff's deputies -
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. -
Martin Luther King was shot dead while standing on a balcony outside his second-floor room at the Lorraine Motel by James Earl Ray in Memphis, Tennessee. News of King's assassination prompted major outbreaks of racial violence, resulting in more than 40 deaths nationwide and extensive property damage. -
President Lyndon Baines Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act, guaranteeing African Americans the right to vote. The bill made it illegal to impose restrictions on federal, state and local elections that were designed to deny the vote to Black people.