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In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, the Supreme Court rules unanimously against school segregation, overturning its 1896 decision in Plessy v. Ferguson.
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Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus to a white person, triggering a successful, year-long African American boycott of the bus system
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Musician Chuck Berry begins recording; his music will help shape rock-and-roll.
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The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the segregation of Montgomery, Ala., buses is unconstitutional
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The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., helps found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to work for full equality for African Americans.
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For the first time since Reconstruction, the federal government uses the military to uphold African Americans' civil rights, as soldiers escort nine African American students to desegregate a school in Little Rock, Arkansas. Daisy Bates, an NAACP leader, advised and assisted the students and eventually had a state holiday dedicated to her.
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Althea Gibson becomes the first African American tennis player to win a major title by winning both the women's singles and doubles championships at Wimbledon
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African American ballet dancer and choreographer Alvin Ailey founds the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, now world-renowned.
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Lorraine Hansberry's "Raisin in the Sun" is the first play by an African American woman to be produced on Broadway.
