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this is known as the Reconsturcton Amendment because "it forbids any state to deny any person "life, liberty or property, without due process of law."
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W.E.B. DuBois demands immediate racial equality and opposes all laws that treats blacks as different from others. Leads to creation of NAACP in 1909
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NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) successfully challenges state laws that restricted black voting registration
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Supreme Court reverses Plessy by stating that separate schools are by nature unequal. Schools are ordered to desegregate "with all deliberate speed"
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Rosa Parks ignites 381-day bus boycott organized by Martin Luther King, Jr. Parks refused to obey bus driver James F. Blake's order to give up her seat in the colored section to a white passenger, after the white section was filled. Parks was not the first person to resist bus segregation.
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After Little Rock school board votes to integrate schools, National Guard troops prevent black children from attending school. 1000 federal paratroopers are needed to escort black students and preserve peace. Arkansas Gov. Faubus responds by closing schools for 1958-59 school year
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10 men sat at a "whites only" counter in Rock Hill, South Carolina in a protest against segregation. They were arrested and nine ("The Friendship Nine") were sentenced to 30 days labor on a chain gang.
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Blacks and whites take buses to the South to protest bus station segregation. Many are greeted with riots and beatings
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More than 200,000 blacks and whites gather before Lincoln Memorial to hear speeches (including King's "I Have a Dream") and protest racial injustice
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4 black girls are killed by bomb planted in church
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Poll tax (which had been used to prevent blacks from voting) outlawed. Black voter registration increases and candidates begin to turn away from white supremacy views in attempt to attract black voters
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Overcoming Senate filibuster, Congress passes law forbidding racial discrimination in many areas of life, including hotels, voting, employment, and schools
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southern black voter registration grows by over 50% and black officials are elected to various positions. In Mississippi, black voter registration grew from 7% to 67%
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While supporting sanitation workers' strike which had been marred by violence in Memphis, King is shot by James Earl Ray. Riots result in 125 cities
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Following acquittal of officers who beat Rodney King, 600 buildings are torched and 50 people killed, and $1 billion in damage recorded
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