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Brown v. Board of Education
Linda Brown, a 3rd grader living in Topeka, Kansas, had to walk one mile through a railroad switchyard to get to school because the school down the street was segregated. Her father, Oliver Brown, tried to enroll her but the principal refused. So her father turned to the NAACP for help. They lost the court case in the U.S. District Court of Kansas, but appealed their case to the Supreme Court and their case was combined with other cases that challenged school segregation, and they eventually won -
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Civil Rights Movement
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The Murder of Emmett Till
14 year old Emmett Till was visiting family in Mississippi. After showing his friends a picture of a white girl back home he claimed to be his girlfriend, they bet him he wouldn't go inside and talk to the white lady in the store, but he went in bought some candy and said "bye baby" on his way out. A few days later the husband and brother-in-law kidnapped Emmett and killed him. Emmett's body was found in the Tallahatchie River 3 days later, they could only identify him by an initialed ring. -
Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks, a 42 year old seamstress, got on a Montgomery City bus to get home one night. She sat toward the middle, close to the white section. At one of the stops a white man got on, and the driver told the 4 blacks near the white section to move back so the white man could sit down, Rosa Parks refused to get up. That nights she was arrested for violating the "Jim Crow" laws, she appealed her case and helped bring in a new era of the Civil Rights Movement. -
Montgomery Bus System Desegregates
Starting offically on December 1, 1955 when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, the Montgomery Bus Boycott was a successfull protest going against segregation on the bus. It lasted 13 months long and ended on December 21, 1956. After a little disagreement in the Montgomery Improvement Association. 90% of the African Americans in Montgomery began walking or carpooling. All this lead to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that segregation on the bus was unconstitutional on December 21, 1956 -
Lunch Counter Sit In
4 African American teenagers sat down at a lunch counter at a North Carolina restaurant called Woolworth's. After asking politely they were rudely denied service. After awhile they were asked to leave but they wouldn't give up their seats. Their nonviolent resistance sparked a youth movement to challenge segregation. -
"A Letter from A Birmingham Jail"
In April 1963 tons of anit-segregation groups gathered in Birmingham for a series of sit-ins and pickets known as the Birmingham Campaign. On Good Friday MLK violated a court injuction and was arrested. While in jail he recieved a letter from some white clergymen saying they didn't understand his beliefs. MLK wrote back explaining his beliefs and asked them to understand and help. The Birmingham Letter is said to be the most influential document in the Civil Rights era. -
Eugene "Bull" Connor
After a month of peaceful protests by African Americans in Birmingham, firemen and policemen got violent. They brought in attacking police dogs and fire hoses strong enough to tear off skin. Eugene "Bul" Connor, Commissioner of Pulic safey, will forever live in infamy for resorting to this violence. -
Medgar Evers Assassinated
Mississippi native Medgar Evers worked as a traveling insurance salesman and it opened his eyes to the evils of segregation. This made him want to join the NAACP. Evers got involved in a lot of sit-ins and other protests him a target. On the morning of June 12,1963 a sniper hid in some honeysuckle bushes on the side of Ever's driveway. As Evers walked to his car the sniper shot him in the back. He died in front of his two small children. -
Birmingham Church Bombing
The Birmingham church on 16th street was a meeting place for Civil Rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., Fred Shutterworth, and Ralph Abernathy. At 10:22 am on September 15, 1963 a bomb went off under the stairs of the church killing 4 young girls and injuring 23 others. Eventually Robert Chambliss, member of KKK, was found guilty after withheld evidence from his first trial was discovered. Chambliss was sentenced to life in prison and died in an Alabama prison about 20 years later. -
24th Amendment outlaws poll tax
Even though the 15th Amendment gave African Americans the right to vote, most of them were very poor and couldn't afford the poll tax required to vote, this was on other way whites tried to keep African Americans from voting. But the 1964 ratification of the 24th Amedment outlawed the poll tax as a requirement to vote in federal elections. -
Works Cited- Alyssa Doot
Lisa Cozzens. "Brown v. Board of Education." June 29, 1998
Lisa Cozzens. "Murder of Emmett Till." June 29, 1998
Henry Ford Museum. "Rosa Parks Bus." 2002
Lisa Cozzens. "Montgomery Bus Boycott." June 29, 1998
Smithsonian. "Sitting for Justice: Woolworth's Counter."
S, Jonathan Bass. "Letter from Birmingham." Sept. 21, 2011
Jim Lehrer. "Pursuing the Past." 2012
Spartacus Educational Publishers. "About the 1963 Birmingham Church Bombing."
Brent Tarter. "Poll Tax." October 8, 2009 -
Works Cited- Natalie Stefchek
