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Emancipation Proclamation
Abolitionists during the civil war pressured President Lincoln to emancipate enslved African amricans. However, on September 22, 1862 with extreme pressure from the Republican senators to declare President Lincoln's position on slavery, he signed the preliminary version of the Emancipation Proclamation. This then officall declared freedom for slaves only in parts of the Confederacy not under the control of the Union Army. -
13th Amendment
The Amendment started with Radical Republicans. These Republicans wanted antislavery and were not willing to forgive the Confederates for allowing slavery. They wanted to take action and to do so they elected to Congress a Radical Republican. He then came out with the 13th Amendment. This Amendment states that there will be no slavery in the United States. -
14th Amendment
This amendment was written up rignt after the Civil Rights Act in 1868. This act was set to give rights to everyone to create equality. It stated that states can not deny rights and privileges to any U.S. citizen. This event was soon followed by 15th amendment which was similar to this one. -
15th Amendment
The 14th Amendment as well as the 15th Amendment were both forced with the Enforcement Act in 1870. The fight for this Amendment started when the Supreme Court in North Carolina upheld the right for free men in color to vote. This made many people upset and they wanted change. Thats where the 15th Amendment comes into play. This gave citizens the right to vote regardless of their color, race, or condition of former servitude. -
Plessy vs. Ferguson
A man named Homer Plessy, buys a first class train ticket but because he's one-eighth black, and "one drop of minority blood," he gets kicked off the train. Later, his case makes an impact that the saying "separate but equal" wasn't really equal at all. -
19th Amendment
The true reason for the 19th Amendment was due to the fact that women down in the south wanted the right to vote. Women previously had the right to vote but this Amendment was focused more on womens sufferage and how it can be changed for the better. This was origionally called the "Anthony Amendment" after the women that came up with the bill, Susan B. Anthony. This bill was passed in 1920 which then allowed women the right to vote. -
Smith vs. Allwright
This case confronted the issue of all white primaries in the state of Texas. Smith, an educated black man,and the NAACP brought the issue to the Supreme Court "holding that the Texas Democratic Party's racial restriction on voting in its primaries was in violation of the 15th Amendment. -
Executive Order 9981
President Harry S. Truman issued Executive Order 9981 with intent of "establishing the Presidents committee on equality of treatment and opprotunity in the armed forces." There were two purposes to this. One: to declare that it would be the policy of the US to provide equality of opprotunity for members of the armed forces without regard to skin color.. The other purpose was to establish a seven-member advisory committee to study and recommend ways A.F. could implement the segregation policy. -
Brown vs. Board
Brown vs. Board of education started with a 7 year old girl named Linda Brown in Topeka, Kansas. She lived miles away from her all black school but just right up the road from the white school. Her father insisted that couldn't she just attend the white school close to her house? From there the arguments started to try to over turn school segration. The final ruling was that the supreme court was against segregation in schools. -
Emmett Till Murder.
Emmett Till was murderer for "wolf-whistling" at a woman. Relatives and/or close ones of the woman were very much racist, and because of this apparent action that Till made, it caused him his life. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
Sparked by the arrest of Rosa Parks on December 1, 1955, the Montgomery Bus Boycott was a thirteen month mass protest that ended with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that segregation on public buses were unconstitutional. -
Greensboro & Nashville Sit Ins. Feb 13-May 10 1960
A series of non-violent protests which led to the woolworth's department store chain reversing it's policy of racial segregation. Greensboro sit ins were an instrumental action, leading to increased national sentiment at a crucial period in our countries history. Movement then spread to other southern cities including Nashville, Tennessee where the students of the movement had been trained for a sit in by civil rights activist James Lawson. -
Freedom Rides
Civil rights demonstrators demanded "Freedom Now!" and white segregationists wanted segregation forever. Then, Pres. Kennedy would have to decide to intervene or to not intervene. Busloads rolled out of Washington, DC on their way to New Orleans. They acted the opposite of how they were suppose to. Whites deliberately sat in the back, while blacks sat in the front. At each stop, African Americans entered "whites only" waiting rooms to test whether the facilities were integrated. -
March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
More than 200,000 demonstrators took part in the March on Washington for jobs and freedom in the nations capital. The March was successful in pressuring the administration of John F. Kennedy to initiate a strong federal civil rights bill in Congress. -
"Sunday School Bombing"
The bombing at 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, was one of the most horrific crimes during the civil rights movement. Four young girls were attending Sunday school, were killed when a bomb exploded at the church. The church was a center for civil rights meetings. Just a few days before, courts had ordered the desegregation of all Birmingham schools. -
Civil Rights Act: 1964
The Civil Rights was broken down into two parts. The first movement had protested the forced exclusion of blacks and whites in public places. The second part of the act forbid segregation in hotels, resturants, theaters, and sporting arenas that did business with interstate commerce. This meant that they were now allowed to not segregate in certian public events. -
Voting Acts 1965
This law was signed into law on August 6, 1965 by President Lyndon Johnson. It outlawed the discriminatory voting practices adopted by many southern states after the civil war. -
Civil Rights Act of 1957
This act ended discrimination in the work force against blacks. It was passed in the year of 1957. In 1960, it gave the attorney general power to sue in federal courts on African Americans.
