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The NAACP was founded on February 12, 1909, in New York City by an interracial group of activists—including W.E.B. Du Bois, Ida B. Wells, and Mary White Ovington—to combat racial injustice, disenfranchisement, and violence, such as the 1908 Springfield riot. It emerged from the Niagara Movement, aiming to secure 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendment rights
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The Tulsa race massacre was a two-day-long terrorist massacre perpetrated by white supremacists that took place in the Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States, between May 31 and June 1, 1921
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The Scottsboro Boys were nine Black teenagers falsely accused of raping two white women on a train in Alabama in 1931, becoming a landmark case for racial injustice. Despite weak evidence, they were quickly convicted and sentenced to death, but Supreme Court reversals based on lack of proper legal counsel and exclusion of Black jurors forced retrials, ultimately highlighting the injustice of the Jim Crow South.
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On April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson, age 28, becomes the first African American player in Major League Baseball's modern era when he steps onto Ebbets Field in Brooklyn to compete for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Robinson broke the color barrier in a sport that had been segregated for more than 50 years.
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Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483, is a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, even if the segregated facilities are equal in quality
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Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Black boy from Chicago, was brutally lynched in Mississippi on August 28, 1955, after allegedly flirting with a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, in a grocery store. Abducted, tortured, and shot by Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, his disfigured body was found in the Tallahatchie River. His mother’s demand for an open-casket funeral in Chicago showed the world his brutalized body, galvanizing the Civil Rights Movement.
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The Montgomery bus boycott was a political and social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama. It was a foundational event in the civil rights movement in the United States
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The Little Rock Nine were nine African American students who, on September 25, 1957, became the first to desegregate Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, following the landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling.
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On November 14, 1960, six-year-old Ruby Bridges became the first African American child to desegregate the all-white William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans. Escorted by U.S. Marshals amidst violent protests, she spent her first-grade year in a classroom of one, taught only by Barbara Henry
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The "Letter from Birmingham Jail", also known as the "Letter from Birmingham City Jail" and "The Negro Is Your Brother", is an open letter written on April 16, 1963, by Martin Luther King Jr
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The 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was a massive, peaceful protest on August 28, 1963, where over 250,000 people gathered to demand civil rights legislation, voting rights, and economic justice for African Americans. The event, highlighted by Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial, was crucial in passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
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The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on July 2, 1964. It is a landmark law that prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, outlawing segregation in public accommodations and employment, and strengthening voting rights
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February 21, 1965: In New York City, Malcolm X, a Black nationalist and religious leader, is assassinated while addressing his Organization of Afro-American Unity at the Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights. He was 39.
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The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on August 6, 1965, following passage by Congress. Aimed at overcoming legal barriers preventing African Americans from voting, the landmark legislation outlawed discriminatory practices like literacy tests and created federal oversight for registration in covered jurisdictions.
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The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense was founded in October 1966 in Oakland, California, by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. Created in response to police brutality, the organization aimed to protect Black neighborhoods, advocating for armed self-defense, socialism, and Black nationalism.
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On June 13, 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson nominated Thurgood Marshall as the first African American Supreme Court Justice. Confirmed by the Senate (69-11) on August 30, he was sworn in on October 2, 1967, serving 24 years as a staunch liberal voice for civil rights, individual liberties, and against the death penalty until 1991
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On April 4, 1968, at 6:01 p.m. CST, Martin Luther King Jr., an American civil rights activist, was fatally shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 7:05 p.m. at age 39
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