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The U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the racist policy of segregation by legalizing “separate but equal” facilities for blacks and whites.
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President Harry Truman issues Executive Order 9981 to end segregation in the Armed Services.
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The U.S. Supreme Court unanimous decision that overturned the “separate but equal” doctrine in public schools.
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Emmett Till was murdered in Money, Mississippi.
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Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery City Bus and was arrested.
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The Montgomery Bus Boycott begins
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Sixty black pastors and civil rights leaders from several southern states—including Martin Luther King, Jr.—meet in Atlanta, Georgia to coordinate nonviolent protests against racial discrimination and segregation.
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The Little Rock 9 enter Central High School as federal troops oversee the situation sent by President Eisenhower
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Student activism grows on college campuses; sit-ins erupt. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) is organized.
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4 black college students sat at an all-white lunch counter and started a sit-in protest at a Woolworth’s store
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Freedom riders begin a bus ride through the South to protest segregation.
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In July 1962, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People held its annual convention in Atlanta.
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Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested in Birmingham protesting in the “most segregated city in America
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On May 16, 1963, a federal district court in Alabama ordered the University of Alabama to admit African American students Vivien Malone and James Hood during its summer session.
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Governor George C. Wallace stands in a doorway at the University of Alabama to block two black students from registering. The standoff continues until President John F. Kennedy sends the National Guard to the campus.
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More than 250,000 people, march on Washington to demand immediate passage of the civil rights bill
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A bomb at 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama kills four young girls and injures several other people prior to Sunday services. The bombing fuels angry protests.
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President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law outlawing literacy tests
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The Watts section of Los Angeles breaks out in riots. The riots last six days and leave 34 people dead, 1072 injured and 4000 arrested. Close to 1000 buildings were destroyed and nearly $40 million in damage was done.
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Black religious leader Malcolm X is assassinated during a rally by members of the Nation of Islam.
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A march from Selma to Montgomery to fight for voting rights begins
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President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the premier legislation for Civil Rights into law
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Huey Newton & Bobby Seale founded the “Black Power” political group known as the Black Panthers.
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On June 12, 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court declared the Virginia statutes prohibiting interracial marriage unconstitutional in the case Loving v. Virginia. The case was decided nine years after Richard Loving, a white man, and Mildred Jeter, a woman of mixed African American and Native American ancestry, had pleaded guilty to having violated Virginia state law prohibiting a white person and a “colored” person from leaving the state to be married and returning to live as man and wife.
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Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated by James Earl Ray in Memphis.
