civil rights movement

  • Creation of the NAACP

    Creation of the NAACP
    The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 by Moorfield Storey, Mary White Ovington and W. E. B. Du Bois.
  • Scottsboro Boys

    Scottsboro Boys
    The Scottsboro Boys were nine black teenagers accused in Alabama of raping two White American women on a train in 1931. The landmark set of legal cases from this incident dealt with racism and the right to a fair trial.
  • The Murder of Emmitt Till

    The Murder of Emmitt Till
    was an African-American teenager who was lynched in Mississippi at the age of 14 after reportedly flirting with a white woman.
  • Jackie Robinson Breaks the Color Barrier

    Jackie Robinson Breaks the Color Barrier
    Jackie Robinson becomes the first African-American in the major leagues when he plays his first game with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
  • Brown vs. Board of Education

    Brown vs. Board of Education
    Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483, was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional
  • Ruby Bridges desegregate elementary school

    Ruby Bridges desegregate elementary school
    Ruby Nell Bridges Hall (born September 8, 1954) is an American activist known for being the first black child to desegregate the all-white William Frantz Elementary School in Louisiana during the New Orleans school desegregation crisis in 1960. Contents.
  • Montgomery Bus Boycott

    Montgomery Bus Boycott
    The Montgomery bus boycott, a seminal event in the Civil Rights Movement, was a political and social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama.
  • The Little Rock 9

    The Little Rock 9
    In a key event of the American Civil Rights Movement, nine black students enrolled at formerly all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in September 1957, testing a landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional.
  • Letter from a Birmingham Jail

    Letter from a Birmingham Jail
    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. The letter defends the strategy of nonviolent resistance to racism.
  • Civil Rights Act of 1964

    Civil Rights Act of 1964
    The Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Pub.L. 88–352, 78 Stat. 241, enacted July 2, 1964) is a landmark piece of civil rights legislation in the United States that outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
  • Assassination of Malcolm X

    Assassination of Malcolm X
    Malcolm X is assassinated by rival Black Muslims, the Jackson Five have their TV debut, Steve Fossett completes the first solo hot air balloon trip around the world in This Day in History video. The date is February 21st. Malcolm X left the Nation of Islam and from then on he received death threats.
  • Creation of the Black Panthers

    Creation of the Black Panthers
    The Black Panther Party or BPP was a revolutionary black nationalist and socialist organization active in the United States from 1966 until 1982, with its only international chapter operating in Algeria from 1969 until 1972.
  • Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

    Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
    Martin Luther King, Jr., was an American clergyman and civil rights leader who was fatally shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on Thursday, April 4, 1968, at the age of 39.
  • Thurgood Marshall Named Supreme Court Justice

    Thurgood Marshall Named Supreme Court Justice
    Thurgood Marshall (July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993) was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, serving from October 1967 until October 1991. Marshall was the Court's 96th justice and its first African-American justice.
  • Election of Barak Obama

    Election of Barak Obama
    On November 4, 2008, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois was elected president of the United States over Senator John McCain of Arizona. Obama became the 44th president, and the first African American to be elected to that office. He was subsequently elected to a second term over former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.